Home Again

Angel rolled his eyes and struggled to sit up. The polka-dotted hospital gown gaped across his bandaged chest. The orange iodine looked like an angry burn against his pale throat. “You asshole doctors, you think you’re God, but you’re not. You’re just people with a few more years of college than a dental assistant. You have no right to play with my life.”

Allenford looked sympathetic. “It’s the grief and the meds that are making you act this way, Angel. Don’t worry about it, it’s completely normal. Of course you want to know about your donor—all recipients do—but the truth is, it’s not a good idea to cross those wires. The donor family is as entitled to privacy as you are.” He leaned down toward the bed, draped his arms atop the bedrail, and stared at Angel. “So don’t think about what you can’t change. Keep in mind that soon it will all be up to you. You can keep railing at the injustice of it all, or you can get on with what’s left of your life.”

“Yeah, so what if I die—it’s just a black mark on your surgical history. You’ll get over it.”

Allenford frowned. His voice fell to a whisper. “Do you believe that, Angel?”

Angel seemed to shrink before their eyes. He sank into the pillow and sighed heavily. “That’s the problem, Doc. I don’t seem to believe anything. You want me to stop ‘railing at the injustice of it all’ and get on with my life. How in the Christ am I supposed to do that? If the biopsy comes back bad, I could have ten minutes left. It’s pretty damned hard to plan for a life like that.”

“That’s not necessarily true, Angel and you know it. You could live a long time. There’s a man in California who’s going on eighteen years—”

“Don’t give me the stats again, or Nurse Ratchet will have to mop my puke off the floor. Believe me, nothing fills my heart like the knowledge that I can live a long, full life if I drink carrot juice and exercise.” He laughed bitterly. “I get a second chance at life—yee-haw. All I have to do is act like Richard Simmons.”

Allenford laughed quietly and straightened. “Richard Simmons is a new one. I’ll get back to you with the biopsy results. Think positive.”

Angel snorted. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Allenford gave Madelaine a pointed glance, then left the operating room. Angel opened his mouth to say something to Madelaine, but before he could speak, Dr. Marcus Sarandon came striding into the room.

Angel rolled his eyes. “Oh, good, another doctor. And this one looks like Malibu Ken.”

Marcus laughed out loud. His gaze cut to Madelaine, got her quick nod, then turned back to Angel. “Well, I suppose if there’s anyone who ought to recognize plastic, it would be a movie star.”

Angel gave the man a grudging smile. “Touché, Doc.”

Marcus held out his hand. “I’m Marcus Sarandon. I’m going to be … helping out Madelaine with your case.”

Angel frowned. “No way.”

Madelaine moved quickly toward the bed. “I’ll explain later. For now, just listen to Marcus. He’s a good guy.”

“So’s Clint Eastwood. That doesn’t mean I want him for my doctor.”

Marcus pulled a blue notebook out from beneath his arm. “This is your daily calendar—medicine dosages and times. Look it over and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to talk tomorrow.”

Marcus grinned. “The perfect patient. Good. I’ll talk and you listen.” He gave Angel another quick, flashing smile, then left the room.

Angel picked up the meds calendar and threw it across the room. It hit the blank wall and slid to the floor.

With a sigh, Madelaine retrieved it and placed it carefully on the foot of the bed. Then she pulled up a chair. “You’re acting like a spoiled child.”

“Shut up.”

She smiled. “Good comeback, Angel. What’s next—you going to stick your tongue out at me?”

“Don’t rule it out.”

“You’re making life hell for everyone on this floor.”

He gave her a bleak look. “What do you think it’s like for me? I lie here every day, getting poked and prodded and checked like I was a side of beef on a conveyor belt. And I keep dreaming….” His voice faded and he turned away from her. “Go away, Mad.”

She scooted closer. “What is it, Angel?”

He waited a few moments to answer. “I keep dreaming about Francis. The dreams all start differently, but end the same. We talk for a little while, and then he reaches over to me. I can feel my heart beating inside my chest like a bird trapped against a window. He whispers something—I can never remember what it is—then he takes hold of my hand and he disappears. And that’s not all. It’s like … he’s inside me. Yesterday I asked that fat charge nurse, Betty Boop or whatever her name is, to change the radio station. I asked her to put on something by the Beatles.” He sighed. “The Beatles, for Christ’s sake. Before the surgery, I didn’t listen to anything but hard rock—you know, the kind of music that makes you want to take your clothes off and snort busloads of cocaine. Now I want to listen to ‘Yesterday.’” He gazed up at her, and those eyes that always seemed so full of life looked dull and colorless. “I feel like I’m losing my frigging mind, Mad.”

She sat very still. Her own heartbeat fluttered in her chest. It was common for transplant patients to think they’d been invaded by the donor’s personality, but Angel didn’t know he had Francis’s heart. He shouldn’t be feeling these things; it wasn’t medically possible. “We have a wonderful psychiatrist on staff, Angel. She knows what you’re going through—it’s very normal—and she’d be happy to talk to you.”