Home Again

Madelaine chuckled and waited for Allenford to get to business.

“We’ve got a new transplant patient.”

Madelaine never tired of hearing those words. Suddenly she wasn’t exhausted or depressed at all, she was itching to hear more. “Really?”

“Don’t look so excited. He’s a bad risk. Former drug user, world-class partier and woman chaser—if the media is to be believed—and he definitely has a bad attitude.”

“Oh.” Madelaine edged back in her seat and studied the man who had taught her most of what she currently knew about heart transplants. Allenford was one of the top doctors in his field, driven, ambitious, and gifted. If Chris said the patient was a bad risk, he knew what he was talking about.

“The situation is critical.”

“Stats?”

“Thirty-four-year-old male. HIV-negative and cancer-free. End-stage cardiomyopathy. I ran routine bloods yesterday and everything looks good.” Chris leaned forward, slid the thin manila folder across the desk. “But as I’ve said, he’s got a bad attitude. One of those rich, famous Hollywood types who thinks the world owes him something.”

Madelaine had had this discussion with Chris before. As always, Chris looked to the success rate of the hospital and the long-term viability of a candidate’s chances before allocating the very precious resource of a heart. Madelaine didn’t envy Chris the enormous responsibility of his job. Every time he chose someone to receive a heart, there were other patients who would most likely die because of that choice. One lived, one died; it was as simple as that. They couldn’t afford to put a new heart in someone who wouldn’t take care of it.

“I’ll talk to him, Chris,” she said.

He looked up at her, and in a single glance, they communicated perfectly. They both knew that she had just stepped in, shouldered some of his burden. I’ll tell you if he should have this chance.

It was a choice no human being should ever have to make about another person, yet they did it every day.

“We’re protecting his anonymity at all costs. Got him checked in under an alias. So tell your staff—I’ll have their jobs if his identity or prognosis is leaked to the press.”

“Understood.”

“I’ll contact the team and get them up to speed. Hilda will need to run the rest of the tests and get him educated quickly.” He gave her a swift, meaningful look. “If this one doesn’t get a heart in record time, he’s in big trouble.”

She nodded in understanding. “You want to meet for coffee this afternoon to discuss the particulars?”

“Sure. Four o’clock unless something blows up.”

“Good.” Smiling at him, Madelaine flipped open the folder on her desk and looked at her patient’s name. Angelo Dominick DeMarco.

She slapped the folder closed, but not quickly enough. Memories surged to the front of her mind, so powerful, it was as if he were standing in front of her. She remembered Angel’s loud, cackling laugh and the slight swagger of his walk, the way he drove his hand through his long, brownish-black hair. But most of all she remembered his eyes, malachite green, sunk beneath dark, slashing black brows that made him look dangerous. Until he smiled.

Even all these years later, she remembered the power of that smile. It was like the cliché —sunlight bursting through the clouds.

Francis. She thought of him suddenly, and knew that this would break his heart. His baby brother was sick … maybe dying … God, how would she tell him?

“Madelaine?” Chris’s voice broke in.

She looked across the desk at him, trying to find the words, but all she had were memories, images, and a stark, sudden fear. “I can’t take this patient, Chris.”

“What?”

“Angel is Father Francis’s brother.”

“Ah. Your priest. Do you know Angelo?”

It took Madelaine a second to collect herself. “Yes. No. Not really.” She shrugged. “I knew him a long time ago. When we were kids.”

Chris’s eyes narrowed. “When you were kids, huh? Have you kept in contact with him?”

“No.”

“Hate him?”