Home Again
Chris studied the inert organ, then lowered it deep into Angel’s chest.
It took almost an hour and a half to secure the new heart in place. Finally Chris looked over to the perfusionist monitoring the bypass machine. “Okay, let’s warm him up.”
Chris placed the final sutures in the pulmonary artery, and rich, warm blood began pouring into the heart, feeding it, warming it.
He glanced up suddenly, made eye contact with Madelaine. A single thought leapt between them: This is it.
Everyone in the room seemed to draw in a sudden, anticipatory breath. Madelaine stepped closer, until she was almost touching the table. She peered past the blue-green-clad bodies on either side of her, staring at the hole in Angel’s chest, at the mass of pinkish tissue that lay there, motionless.
Beat, she pleaded silently. Don’t make it all for nothing….
The big old wall clock ticked past a minute, then another.
“Increase Isuprel,” Allenford said evenly. “Go to four mics.”
“Come on,” Madelaine whispered, her hands curling into fists at her sides. Come on, Francis.
“You want the defibrillator?” someone said.
“Hush,” Chris said.
The room fell utterly silent, all eyes trained on the new heart. After what felt like hours, it quivered.
Madelaine felt her own heart lurch in expectation.
“Come on,” Chris urged the organ. “Come on.”
Inside Angel’s chest, Francis’s heart jumped. Once, twice, three times, then it began a slow, steady thumping.
“Houston, we have a heartbeat,” Chris said.
“Heart rate’s going up,” someone said. “Fifty-four. Sixty-three…”
A cheer went through the room. Madelaine tried to join in, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even smile. Her whole body was trembling and her eyes were stinging. She felt as if the spirit of God were inside her, filling her to overflowing, making her know—know—that what had just happened in this room was a miracle.
God had taken a life, and then He’d given one back.
She watched, mesmerized, as the healthy heart kept up its slow, rhythmic dance. Grinning, crying, she covered her masked mouth with her hands and looked up at the ceiling, as if, in that magical instant, she could see God.
Love him, Maddy-girl. She jumped at the sound and spun around, half expecting to see Francis standing beside her.
But there was no one there at all.
Chapter Seventeen
Lina couldn’t stand being in the house. Everywhere she looked, there were memories of Francis.
She stood on the porch, staring out at the first pink strands of dawn that crept along the shadowy street. Her lungs ached from the cigarettes she’d smoked, and her eyes stung from crying. She felt rubbery and hollow and sad…. Oh, God, how could there be such sadness?
She bit her lower lip and felt the burning glaze her eyes again. Turning, she saw the porch swing—the one he’d given them for Christmas last year—and suddenly she was crying again.
Come back, Francis. I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m so sorry….
In some dim part of her mind, she heard the whine of a car engine. Dully she looked up and saw her mother’s car pull into the driveway. She walked to the edge of the railing and stood there.
Mom killed the engine and got out of the car. The whack of the Volvo’s door shutting seemed obscenely loud in the predawn quiet. She was halfway up the walkway when she saw Lina standing on the shadowy porch.
Mom climbed the creaking steps and stopped, leaning against the wisteria-entwined white railing. Her gaze flicked over the ashtray on the floor, on the butts that were strewn everywhere. But when she looked at Lina, she didn’t say a word.