Home Again

Angel wanted to rip the IV needle from his arm, but he couldn’t lift his hand. The lights overhead bled together and became the sun.

Panic pressed down on him, made his ragged heartbeat speedup.

“Whoa, Mr. Jones,” Dr. Arche said in his ear, “calm down, fella, calm down. Go with the flow.”

Angel’s eyes fluttered shut. He forced them open again, tried to focus on the hot, hot sun.

Something was different. Noise, he realized groggily.

And then she was there, peering over him, filling his world like a Madonna. “Angel? Can you hear me?”

“Mad…” He sighed with relief, wanting—aching—to feel her hand in his; it wasn’t enough to know she was touching him, he wanted to feel it. One last time. He wanted to rip that damned mask from her face and see her smile again. There was so much to say, so much, and the drugs were taking it all away from him. “Loved … you…”

She stroked his cheek, and it felt good, so good, he felt tears sting his eyes. He fought his way through the layers of fog that separated them.

She gave him a smile—he could see it above the mask, the way it crinkled her eyes. He remembered that smile, had always remembered it. Christ, so beautiful…

“Francis,” he wheezed. “Sorry … tell him … loved him… too.”

Suddenly he saw Francis standing beside her, smiling that cockeyed smile of his, whispering that it was okay, that it had always been okay….

But Angel knew it wasn’t real.

Tears glazed Madelaine’s eyes, and he wanted to say, Don’t cry for me, but he couldn’t speak.

His eyelids fluttered again. He heard Dr. Arche’s lilting voice, talking, talking, talking …

Then he was out.

Madelaine stood off to the side, watching the surgery.

Surgeons and residents and nurses were clustered around the table, working on Angel, poking, prodding, tubing, monitoring every breath he took, every pulse of blood through his heart and veins. He was intubated and catheterized and his body had been washed again with iodine, then he’d been redraped in sterile sheets. His hair was covered by a blue paper cap, and tiny strips of white adhesive tape kept his eyelids shut. The only part of his naked body that was exposed was a narrow strip of chest and upper abdomen, an orange belt of skin covered in taut, clear plastic and surrounded by blue-green sheets. A dehumanizing patch of color that seemed light years away from Angel’s ready smile or swaggering personality or towering temper.

The patient.

Madelaine tried to think of him that way, tried to be cold and distant and professional. But when Chris reached for the scalpel, touched its razor-sharp point to the skin at the base of Angel’s throat, she flinched.

Instinctively she closed her eyes, and when she did, she found herself traveling back in time to another place. A Ferris wheel at a tawdry little carnival, a rocking ride with the boy of her dreams. She felt his arm slip around her, slide down the bare skin of her arm. I love you, Mad.

She heard the whining buzz of an electric saw and kept her eyes shut. She didn’t want to see them cut open his chest, see his blood spill over the sterile little patch of green, splash on the linoleum floor.

“Chest spreader,” Allenford barked.

Madelaine winced and tried to keep thinking about the carnival. That had been their last time together as lovers, and what a magical time it had been. Stars everywhere, the smell of popcorn, the faraway squeal of people on the midway. She remembered the earrings he’d won for her, the solemn way they’d buried the gaudy jewelry as a reminder of their love.

She thought of Francis, gentle, loving Francis, and the gift he was giving to his brother, the miracle that was unfolding just a few feet away.

“Get the bypass ready.”

Madelaine opened her eyes. Reluctant to move and yet unable to remain where she was, she took a few steps toward the table. She saw instantly where they were in the operation—Angel’s chest was a red, gaping hole in the surgical fabric. Cannulas had been inserted and sutured in the heart, and they were busily connecting Angel to the heart-lung bypass machine.

Everyone drew in a sharp breath as the bypass machine was started. The squat machine started whirring and pounding and pumping. A technician monitored the machine’s function and said, “Everything looks good, Dr. Allenford.”

“Okay,” Chris said, reaching for his instruments, “let’s go.”

Madelaine moved toward the table, her gaze riveted on the surgery. She inched forward, mesmerized, watching Chris’s bloody, gloved hands work. He removed Angel’s damaged heart and handed it, still beating, to the pathologist, who put it in a metal bowl and disappeared.

Then Chris reached over and lifted Francis’s heart in his capable hands. It looked so ordinary, she thought, a pale pink lump that had once held Francis’s soul.