The You I Never Knew Part 31

She moved restlessly in the bed. Brad awakened, squinting at the clock. "Hey, stranger."

"I didn't mean to wake you," she said.

"I sure wouldn't mind making love to you," he whispered.

She froze, her throat locking shut. Dear G.o.d.

"But we need to watch that incision." Brad's p.r.o.nouncement rescued her from having to answer. "Besides, I bet that's the last thing on your mind."

Had he always done that? Made up her mind for her? Idiot, she told herself. He was a stable, responsible man who knew her well. Most women would kill to have that.

He turned over, mumbling, "Go back to sleep, Mich.e.l.le."

Sleep. He was telling her to sleep when she needed him to listen. Really listen-to her fears and apprehensions about the surgery, her guilt and confusion about Sam. She sat up in bed, looped her arms around her drawn-up knees, moving gingerly to protect the incision. "Brad?"

A long-suffering sigh. "Yeah?"

"If something goes wrong with this surgery-"

"Hold on," he said, reaching over and snapping on the lamp. "We've discussed this. As a donor, your risk is completely within reasonable limits."

"Of course," she agreed. "But I thought you should know. If anything happens to me, I'm leaving Cody in the custody of Sam. I had the papers redrafted yesterday."

"Makes sense, since he's the kid's father. But it's a moot point. You're not in any danger. You'll be home before you know it, and all this will be behind you."

"No." She barely spoke above a whisper. "I don't think it's going to turn out like that."

"So do you want me to stay?" he asked.

She knew he'd wait through the surgery if she asked him to. But was that what she had been doing with Brad the past couple of years?

Making him stick around?

"No," she said. "Everything is going to be fine. You don't need to stay."

He was quiet for a long time. Then, with a small, curious smile on his lips, he got out of bed and slowly, deliberately got dressed.

She got up, feeling ill at ease. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Mich.e.l.le." His voice was quiet, firm. "I know what you're going to say."

It had been a long, strange week, she was an emotional wreck and a ball of anxiety, but she got it. She finally got it. They'd had a good run, she and Brad, three years of a relations.h.i.+p that went no deeper than the epidermis. And they didn't even have to discuss this. Just by watching his face, she could see that they had come to the same conclusion independently. But it was time to move on. He deserved more. She deserved more. Sam hadn't made her any promises yesterday, but she didn't need promises. She simply needed to be free.

"I feel like crying," she admitted.

"I hate when you cry."

"I know." A very slow smile formed on her lips. "That's why I never do it around you." She sat quietly on the bed while he finished packing and phoned to check on the early commuter flight to Seattle. A brief, awkward peck on the cheek, a wish for luck, and then he was gone.

After Brad left, she crossed to the gla.s.s doors that led out onto a second-story balcony. The heavy drapes were shut, but she could hear the sounds of the road outside, trucks' air brakes hissing, the sc.r.a.pe of snowplow and sander.

There was a table in front of the window, and on the table was a telephone. She could take it outside, sit in the cold predawn, and call Sam on the pretext of last-minute instructions about Cody.

She hated it that she wanted to call him.

Fighting the impulse, she stared at a narrow gap in the curtains. The sky was getting lighter. And something started to happen in her head. She couldn't look away from that s.p.a.ce. Almond-shaped, it framed nothing but the sky, yet her mind transformed what she was seeing. The slender gap in the drapes became a round, ripe, pregnant shape. Or an eye. Or a raindrop. Or the s.p.a.ce between two praying hands.

It was a s.p.a.ce that she suddenly wanted-needed-to fill.

On the table lay the flat folio box with the art supplies Natalie had brought from Seattle. Almost without thinking, Mich.e.l.le grabbed a pencil and began drawing in the half-light, her heart guiding her hand. Something inside her had come unstopped, and it gushed over the paper, and she filled page after page, her hand barely able to match the speed with which the images and emotions overtook her.

By the time the sun tinged the sky with a pink blush, she sat at the table with tears streaming down her cheeks. Maybe it was only for a moment, maybe it wouldn't last, but for the past hour she had glowed with an inner light she thought had burned out. She didn't know what had sparked the change; it was probably a combination of everything that was happening: being back in Montana, saying good-bye to Brad, facing the surgery, finding Sam again.

With shaking hands, she looked at what she had done. She had no judgment. Trash or treasure, she couldn't tell. But the work was hers. She knew where it came from, and it was a place more honest, more deep, than anything she had recognized in herself in more years than she could count.

She felt a certain quiet reverence as she gathered up the drawings and slipped them into the zipper compartment of her suitcase. And for the first time as she faced the surgery, she thought, I can do this. I can do this.

When the radio clicked on at precisely 6:00 A.M., she was ready.

As ready as anyone could be for an organ transplant.

The final preparations felt almost surreal. Forms being checked and double-checked. Signatures in triplicate. Meetings, IV drips, paper gowns and caps. Cody and Natalie hovering, chattering nervously. Mich.e.l.le looked in on her father and found him waiting with a patience and a stillness that broke her heart. When an orderly came to take her away to her private room, Gavin turned to her.

Neither of them said anything. Gavin put his hand on his heart. She did the same, afraid to speak, afraid she might cry. What do I do? she wondered. If she said her good-byes, did that mean she was afraid something would go wrong, that she'd never see him again? If she said nothing, what would they have to hang on to if something did go wrong?

In silence, with all the unsaid things screaming inside her, she walked away, following the orderly to her room.

She hovered wildly between acting like this was the most mundane of procedures and feeling convinced, as Natalie was, that it was a spiritual event. Natalie and Cody came in. Each bent to kiss her, to murmur "I love you," and to hear her whispered echo of the phrase. Cody looked pale, unable for once to cover his apprehension with att.i.tude. She hadn't said much about Brad-just that he'd taken the early flight to Seattle. Explanations would come later.

She was glad Cody was starting school. He needed the distraction. Rather than pacing the halls during the procedure, Natalie would be driving him back to Crystal City in time for first bell.

"It's going to be all right, Cody," she said from her hospital bed.

"What if it's not?" he asked, his voice breaking as it sometimes still did.

"You have to believe it'll be all right." Mich.e.l.le watched his face, loving him with all the fullness of her heart. "For months the doctors have been telling us that att.i.tude is everything. That includes your att.i.tude."

"You didn't answer my question. What if something goes wrong?"

"Nothing will-"

"Mom, cut it out."

She took his hand, noticing with mild surprise that he had calluses from working at Sam's. "All right. Yes, there is a risk that something could go wrong. But it is a tiny, calculated risk that's hardly worth considering when you think of how this is going to help my father live again."

"Why wasn't I tested?" he demanded suddenly, anger pus.h.i.+ng through his fear, redness rising in the pallor of his face.

"What?"

"When you started in on all these tests to find a donor, why wasn't I tested?"

"Right from the start, it looked as if I was the best match, Cody. There was no need."

"You didn't even bother testing me."

She was stunned. He actually resented her for overlooking him as a donor.

"Hey, sport." She forced herself to sound calm. "I did you a favor. How'd you like to be in my position right now?" She gestured at the thin, printed gown, the wheeled bed, the cold tile walls.

Natalie came hustling in. "We'd best get going, kiddo. School today."

"Aw, man," he said, genuine distress in his face. "Why can't I go back to Seattle with Aunt Natalie-"

"Hey," Natalie cut in, her voice uncharacteristically sharp. "We went over this last night. You're going to school today. You'll knock 'em dead."

"Yeah, right."

Mich.e.l.le's heart sank at the misery in his voice. She had never felt more helpless in her life. Cody had to go to a new school, and she was too out of it to be of any use at all.

He glared at her. "You should have tested me for the kidney."

"I love you for saying so, Cody. Remember that. I love you."

A pair of orderlies came in. "Time to go to pre-op," one of them said.

"One more kiss, for luck," she said to Cody.

He kissed her cheek and squeezed her hand, and she closed the sweetness of the moment into her heart. "I'll see you soon," she whispered.

" 'Bye, Mom." His eyes flooded with brightness, and then she lost sight of him as they wheeled her around a corner of the corridor.

"You got a nice kid, ma'am," an orderly said.

A gentle cottony calm, augmented by the sedative she was given, washed over her. Doing the sketches this morning had been cathartic, and the last moments with Cody had set a seal of serenity upon her. The orderly had called her kid "nice." What a concept.

They reached the pre-op area, and she was amazed to see a second gurney there.

"We've got to stop meeting like this." Gavin winked at her.

Reaching out, they could touch hands. "I didn't know I'd see you here, Daddy."

"Me neither."

Their respective anesthesiologists came in and chatted with them, telling them what to expect.

Then the oddest thing happened. The orderlies and the anesthesiologists left. Gavin and Mich.e.l.le found themselves alone for long, quiet minutes.

"They gave me a pre-op sedative," she said. "You?"

"I'm not sure. They've been prepping me all night." He rubbed his finger over hers. "So here we are, just the two of us."

"Here we are." She didn't know what to say. They'd had plenty of time to express their regrets, proclaim their commitment, acknowledge the love that lay at the center of everything. But had they said it? Had they?

Mich.e.l.le's mother had died during surgery. She tried to keep her mind from going there, but she couldn't help herself.

"Daddy?" The word came out on a high note, sounding juvenile, but she didn't care.

"Yeah, honey?"

"I'm scared."

She could feel him smile, could feel it somewhere in the region of her heart. He squeezed her hand. She had forgotten they were still touching.

"Me too, Mich.e.l.le. I'm scared, too."

"I don't think it's something we're going to get over, do you?"

"Not likely. But we'd better not let Temple hear us. He'd put the brakes on this whole thing."

"He was a pain in the a.s.s, wasn't he?"

"Yeah. Listen, I know I only showed up in your life every once in a while." He took his hand from hers and touched his chest. "But you've always been here, right here in my heart."

She wanted it to be true so badly that she held her breath.

"Mich.e.l.le?"

"What?"

"You're giving me my life back. I wish I could tell you what that means to me."

Emotion came in a warm rush, driving away the chill of the tiled pre-op. They lay side by side, helpless in their hope and love and fear. She swallowed hard and tried to keep from crying.

"Don't cry, sweetheart. I don't ever want to make you cry."

She felt it flowing, the smooth warm river of light that she had felt earlier, and she finally believed that maybe there was some merit in what Natalie had said about this bond, this invisible connection between father and daughter, between mother and son.

"I don't mind crying for you, Daddy."

"Everything's done, Mich.e.l.le. I fixed my life as best I can. I played my hand the best I know how. I don't know what more I can do."

The doors swished open. "Showtime, folks," someone said. "Ladies first."

Mich.e.l.le kept thinking she should say one more thing to her father, something hopeful and profound, but the only words that came out were, "See you around, Dad." Then they were both wheeled away, pa.s.sing the gla.s.s-enclosed scrub area where surgeons and nurses readied themselves like postulants in some strange cleansing rite.

The operating room looked smaller than she had pictured it in her mind. Too many doctor shows on TV. In the real world, operating rooms were chilly and crammed with monitoring equipment. Blue-green tile and stainless steel. Glare from the observation dome overhead-dear G.o.d, she thought, someone might be watching this?-and the transplant team a.s.sembled in a semicircle around her. Masked and capped, miner's headlamps strapped to their heads, plundering hands in skintight gloves. The nurse stood on a stool to tower over the rest.