Sarah and the Single Dad
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Deanne Anders
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CHAPTER ONE
SARAH HENDERSON STUDIED the computer chart in front of her. She didn’t like the way ten-year-old Lindsey’s lab work was trending. With the child already in heart failure, what had started out as a cold had quickly turned into a respiratory infection. Now even with intravenous antibiotic treatment she seemed to be deteriorating daily.
“There you are,” the deep voice of Dr. Benton boomed behind her.
Startled, she turned to see the older man standing next to another taller and much younger one wearing a hospital-issue white jacket.
“Sarah, I’d like you to meet Dr. David Wright. He’s starting his fellowship here with our cardiothoracic surgery group this week.”
Standing, Sarah held out her hand. As the new MD shook it she looked up into a striking pair of eyes that were an unusual blend of light green and gray, and an attack of déjà vu hit her as she took in the dark brown hair and the square chin that accompanied them. She was certain that she’d seen the face before, but where?
“Are you okay?” a warm, concerned voice asked. A voice she could swear she had heard before. Was it her imagination or had she met or seen this man before?
Sarah shook off the trace of an old memory that seemed just out of reach. Realizing she still held the new doctor’s hand, she loosened her grip and withdrew her hand, then looked back into questioning eyes. Could she have made any more of a bad impression? The man had to think she was crazy. And maybe she was.
“I’m sorry,” she said, as she tried to get her mind back on track, “I’m at least one cup of coffee behind my usual schedule this morning. It’s nice to meet you Dr. Wright.”
“Sarah’s one of our nurse practitioners. I swear we wouldn’t get anything done if we didn’t have her. If you have any questions or needs, she’ll be able to help you,” said Dr. Benton. The gray-haired man looked down to his watch. “I hate to leave you, David, but I’ve got a budget meeting to get to.”
With a heart that was beating way too fast, Sarah started for the door, anxious to excuse herself as well. Why was this man affecting her this way? Yes, he was a nice-looking man, but she met nice-looking men all the time and none of them had ever made her feel as if her heart was going to come out of her chest. No, it wasn’t his good looks that were upsetting her, but there was something about the man that was ringing all her warning bells.
“I’ve got a great idea,” Dr. Benton said, “how about you show Dr. Wright around for the rest of the morning, Sarah?”
Sarah stopped. She should have seen this coming as soon as Dr. Benton had begun giving his excuses. The chief of the department was good at volunteering her time and there was no way she could get out of this without appearing rude. Besides, if Dr. Benton followed his normal course when he had an intern or new fellowship participant, she would be helping with a lot of Dr. Wright’s day-to-day orientation. She pivoted and turned back toward the two men and forced a friendly smile on her face. Her working relationship with all the staff was important and if she was going to be spending a lot of time with the new doctor she didn’t want to mess this one up, no matter how he made her feel.
“Of course,” Sarah said. “I’m rounding right now, but I’d be glad to take you along with me.”
“That would be great,” the younger doctor said as his face lit up with a smile that was too bright for Sarah to comprehend at this time of the morning.
Sarah waited for him to catch up with her, and then started down the hallway toward the PCIC unit.
“Are you from Houston, Dr. Wright?” she asked as she gave him a sideways glance, looking for anything that would help her remember where she might have seen him before. Maybe she was wrong. But still, there was something inside her that recognized this man.
“Please, call me David,” he said. “No, I’m from Alabama, though I did my residency just east of here, in Beaumont.”
“What was your residency in?” she asked. Maybe she’d seen him at one of the many state conferences she had attended.
“It was in pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, but they didn’t have a transplant program there so—” he held his arms up in the air, then shrugged “—here I am.”
“Our pediatric transplant center is one of the best in the country as I’m sure you know. It’s always nice to see new doctors interested in the specialty,” she said.
“Believe me, I’m very well aware of what a wonderful program you have here. I feel very lucky to have been given this opportunity with Dr. Benton. The residency in pediatric cardiac was great, but my main interest now is in transplantation. It’s where I think I can make a real difference,” he said. A shadow passed over his face, reminding her of a man from the past that she had never been able to forget. But then he blinked and the pain she had seen was gone.
She was being ridiculous continuing on this path. He couldn’t be the man from the waiting room that day so long ago. David was much younger than the man she remembered.
But still...for just a second those haunted eyes—the color of fresh green pastures shrouded in the thick gray mist of early morning—had reminded her of a time she didn’t want to remember. Not here. Not now.
“Well, we’re glad to have you,” Sarah said politely. She couldn’t keep playing this game of detective. If she had met David somewhere she would eventually remember where. Till then she needed to concentrate on her job of helping him get acquainted with everything.
She stopped at the closed doors to the unit and swiped her badge, then waited for the doors to open.
They entered the unit and she headed straight to the nurses’ station where only the unit coordinator was in attendance.
“Betsy, this is Dr. Wright. He’s starting a fellowship with Dr. Benton and I’m going to be showing him around the unit today.”
“Hello, Dr. Wright,” Betsy greeted David, quickly taking the time to explain to him where the charts and miscellaneous equipment was kept in the unit.
Sarah picked up the chart with the records that had come along with a baby girl that had been transferred there during the night, turning to David once Betsy had finished.
“I want to start with a new patient we had flown in during the night. She was diagnosed at three days old with hypoplastic left heart syndrome after she became cyanotic. We have the results of the echocardiogram that was performed. It looks like the IV medications are working for now, but I want to see her first and have a talk with her parents,” Sarah said as David joined her on her rounds through the unit.
“I’m glad they caught it this early. I’ve seen cases where it’s only been diagnosed after the infant is critical and unstable,” David said as they stopped at the door of a room where a young mother stood over a sleeping infant.
As they entered the room she saw a young man asleep on a cot that had been brought into the room as well, leaving her in no doubt that it had been a long night for this young family.
“Ms. Lawrence?” she asked as she held out her hand to the young woman. Her eyes were red and damp and Sarah’s heart broke for the woman. She would never be able to forget the helplessness you felt as a mother unable to make your child whole again.
“My name is Sarah and I’m a nurse practitioner with the thoracic-cardio group, and this is Dr. Wright.”
She watched as David shook the woman’s hand and then led her to a group of chairs in the room.
“Shall we sit down?” he asked the young woman who looked close to collapsing.
“Let me wake my husband,” the young mother said. “And please call me Maggie.”
The young mother bent over and whispered into her husband’s ear. When the couple joined them, Sarah began going over the tests that had been done on their daughter so far. Though she was sure the doctors had reviewed everything with them before their daughter had been transferred, Sarah knew that it was easy in these situations for parents to be overwhelmed with too much information. It was better to repeat the information they needed than to assume they had been informed.
“So, the IV medications that they’ve started Breanna on are working?” John, the young father, asked, looking hopefully across the room where his newborn daughter lay.
“For now, but it’s only a temporary fix. Breanna still needs surgery and there will be more surgeries necessary later,” David said.
As David went on to explain the procedures that were needed and the many surgeries that would be necessary, Sarah found herself impressed with how understanding and patient he seemed to be with the parents’ questions and concerns.
Before they left the room, Sarah listened to the baby’s heart and lungs, noting that even with the medications that were keeping the ductus open, the infant’s color was still a sickly gray. She pulled out her phone and texted the cardiologist on call with her concerns, then used the computer at the bedside to order the tests that would be needed before they took the infant to surgery.
“I’m sorry. I haven’t been officially assigned to the case, I shouldn’t have taken over like that. I get a little carried away sometimes. It’s just...” said David. “It’s better that they know what they’re up against from the beginning so that they can prepare themselves.”
“We have a great team here and we stress the importance of making sure all our parents understand what is going on with their child, but sometimes they’re in such denial that it just takes time for them to come to terms with their child’s condition,” she said. Sarah understood his frustration only too well. She remembered being on the other side of those conversations when her mind had been unable to wrap itself around what she was being told by the medical staff.
She forced the thoughts of those days away, and mentally shut the door to where she kept the memories of a life she’d had before locked away. There was only one place where she felt safe to take those memories out and it certainly wasn’t here at the hospital. She’d always been very careful to keep her work life separate from the personal memories she had of this place.
“There’s nothing that can prepare them for how their life is going to change. Right now it looks like they have a strong marriage. We can only hope that it will be up to the test that having a critically ill child brings,” David said as they headed toward the next room.
Was that a hint of bitterness that Sarah heard? There was a story there, she was sure. Glancing over at David, she tried to catch a glimpse of the man she had seen earlier, the man with the haunted eyes. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who had something she kept hidden away.
They made their way through the critical care unit and then continued down the acute pediatric cardiac floor, looking in on patients recovering from surgery and those who had been brought in for assessments for surgery or for placement on the transplant waiting list. They stopped at the room of a teenage boy, Jason, who had been brought in after collapsing on the baseball field at his high school a couple of days ago.
Sarah had tried to get the boy to talk to her on her last two visits, but he’d answered her with only one word responses then focused on his phone when she had tried to start a conversation with him.
“Jason’s scheduled tomorrow to have a defibrillator implanted, but he’s refused to agree to the procedure,” she told David as they stopped outside the room.
“I know it would be best to have his agreement, but the fact is that he’s a minor so we only need his parents’ consent,” David said.
“Well, yes, but that’s not the point. He’s the one who’s going to be living with this for the rest of his life.” A point she had made to Dr. Benton the day before.
“Do you mind if I see him alone?” David asked as he moved toward the room. “I’ll leave the door open so that you can hear.”
“Give it your best shot,” she said. “He’s certainly not responding to me or Dr. Benton.”
David rapped his knuckles on the door and entered leaving the door partially open as he had promised.
“Hey, Jason, my name is Dr. Wright.”
Sarah wasn’t surprised when she heard the boy answer with a grunt and the sound of the boy’s computer keys continuing to click. So far it was teenager one. Dr. Wright zero.
“Today’s my first day here on the unit and I wanted to introduce myself,” said David.
Another grunt came from the room now making it teenager two, Dr. Wright still zero, but she had to give it to David, he wasn’t giving up.
“I’m a thoracic surgeon here to study transplantation,” David said.
“I don’t need a transplant,” Jason said with an exaggerated sigh.
Sarah couldn’t help but be impressed. That was more than she had been able to get out of the kid in the last two days. Still, from Jason’s uninterested tone, she’d have to consider the point a tie.
“No, you don’t,” David said, his voice still patient. “Nice computer. The graphics are amazing.”
“Yeah, they are. It’s the best one I’ve ever had,” Jason said. “You play any games?”
Sarah listened as David and Jason discussed computers and various aspects of computer gaming versus something called console games. After a couple minutes of computer terminology that she didn’t understand, she heard David ask to see the teenager’s computer.
“There are a couple videos I want to show you. It will explain a lot of what the doctors have been talking about as far as how they’re going to fix your heart,” David said.
As David explained the procedures alongside what they seemed to be reviewing on the computer, Sarah was amazed at the way the teenager was opening up with him. She would have to look into the videos available on the internet that could be used to educate their older patients.
“Is there anything on there that will tell me if I will be able to play baseball again?” Jason asked, and Sarah’s heart sank. That was the real issue. His parents had explained to her that he had been playing baseball since he was able to hold a bat and it wasn’t something that the boy would be able to give up on easily.
“There are actually some studies they’ve done in relation to athletes and defibrillators, but as of now they are recommending that anyone with a defibrillator doesn’t play most competitive sports,” David said. She could hear the regret in his voice and hoped that Jason could hear it too. David understood the loss the boy was feeling at knowing that he was going to have to give up his favorite sport. “There are other sports that you can participate in though.”
“But not baseball,” Jason said, his voice so low now that Sarah could barely hear him.
A few minutes later David walked out of the room. Sarah had heard him promise Jason that he would be around early the next morning to see him before he was taken to surgery and it seemed that the boy was finally going to accept that the surgery was necessary.
“That was hard,” David said as he joined Sarah in the hall.
“I know, but you did get him to agree to the surgery and you were honest with him,” Sarah said as they headed to see the last patient of the morning. “What did you play?”
“Basketball,” he said. “I had great dreams of making it big in the NBA.”
“What happened?” she asked as she knocked on the door of the next patient.
“I reached five-eleven and stopped growing,” he said, smiling as he turned his full attention to the little girl they found lying in the bed surrounded by stuffed animals.
Sarah looked down at the little blond girl whose breathing seemed even more labored today than it had the day before. As with a lot of pediatric heart patients, Lindsey was small for her ten years. The little girl looked up at her and smiled, those baby blue eyes hitting Sarah right in the heart. The two of them had been on such a long journey together over the past two and a half years as they had waited for a heart to become available. Lindsey been moved up recently on the waiting list so it was just a matter of waiting for a match with a donor heart. Only now Lindsey had been exposed to a respiratory virus that was making her heart work even harder.
She looked around the room and found the child alone as was often the case. Lindsey’s mother, Hannah, was very young, and a single mom without any support, and had to work long hours to provide for her and Lindsey. But Lindsey was very sick right now and her mother needed to be there. Sarah would touch base with Hannah and give her an update so that she understood exactly how critical Lindsey’s condition could become. Hannah had fought beside her daughter for so long, Sarah knew the young mother wouldn’t give up now.
As David walked over to the bed to introduce himself to the little girl, Sarah joined the nurse who was charting on the computer at Lindsey’s bedside.
“Has Pulmonary been in today?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, Dr. Lorten wants to do a bronchoscopy, but I haven’t been able to get Hannah to give us consent,” the nurse said.
“I’ll call her,” Sarah said. Then crouching down on the floor next to Lindsey’s bed, she asked, “How are you feeling, kiddo?” She pushed the child’s blond curls off her forehead and was relieved to feel it cool. No fever. At least that was a good sign.
“I’m not going to make it to see the horses this week, am I?” Lindsey asked.
“Horses?” asked David. He’d pulled a chair up beside Lindsey’s bed while Sarah had been talking with Kim.
Lindsey turned her blue eyes toward him and for the first time in the last week she saw the little girl’s eyes come alive.
“Oh, yes,” Lindsey said. “Sarah has lots of pretty horses. I’ve seen pictures of them all. Maple is my favorite. Sarah let me name her myself when she first got her.”
“And Maple will be waiting to see you as soon as you get better,” Sarah said as she squeezed the little girl’s hand in hers. “I’ll tell you what—when I get home I’ll take a picture of Maple for you and I’ll bring it in tomorrow.”
“I have to see this horse with a name like Maple,” David said as he gave Lindsey a smile. The little girl’s face turned pink and Sarah knew it wasn’t from a fever. It looked like Lindsey might have her first crush, which was so sweet to see that Sarah couldn’t help but smile up at the man who had made her special little girl happy when she was so sick.
She listened as Lindsey explained the therapy program Sarah ran at her father-in-law’s ranch teaching young cardiac patients from the community how to ride. Or if their medical condition wouldn’t allow them to participate in the riding lessons they could interact with the special therapy horses kept on the ranch. Sarah was proud of The Henderson Memorial horse therapy program that she had founded. Working with the children at the ranch wasn’t only good for them, it had also been good for her.
“That sounds like a lot of fun,” David said to the little girl.
“You can go too. Lots of times the doctors volunteer to help. Can he go, Sarah?” asked Lindsey.
“Of course he can come,” Sarah answered. “And as soon as you get better, I’ll take you out there to see Maple.”
“I don’t have any experience with horses, but I definitely know someone who would be interested in seeing them,” David said as he gave Sarah a questioning look.
“We’d be happy to have them. We run the program on the second Saturday of the month and all the staff is welcome,” Sarah said. A smile lit David’s face and she couldn’t help wondering who this someone was. A wife? She looked down at his left hand and saw that he wasn’t wearing a ring. Maybe a girlfriend? It wouldn’t be surprising that a man like David had someone special in his life.
As they left the room Sarah texted Hannah and asked her to call as soon as she had a minute. She didn’t want to scare the girl’s mother but she did need to get consent from Hannah and tell her that Lindsey’s condition was getting worse. Hannah needed to know.
“How long has she been waiting?” David asked as they headed back to the doctor’s workroom.
“Five years. She’s been in and out, though mostly in, of here for the last two and a half years,” Sarah said.
“Family issues?” David asked.
“Hannah’s young and a single parent. I know this had been hard on her and I worry about her. She’s been through a lot with Lindsey. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty when Lindsey was born. When Lindsey gets a heart transplant—” she refused to consider that there was the possibility that the little girl wouldn’t get a donor heart “—it’s going to be a lot more responsibility.”
“I hope for that child’s sake that her mother is up for the job, but an overabundance of toys and the lack of a parent present is a sign... Let’s just say I’ve had some experience as far as missing-in-action parents. It’s a lot harder to be the parent at the bedside than the one that sends the prettiest packages.” Again the hint of bitterness she heard in David’s voice surprised her.
“Hannah’s not like that. It will be a lot for her to handle, but she’ll do it,” Sarah asserted.
“About your ranch,” David started as they turned back toward the nursing station.
“David? David Wright? Is that you?” Melody, one of the older staff nurses said as she jumped up from her seat and came around the desk to the two of them. “It is you. How’s Davey doing? I’ve thought about him so much over the last few years.”
“Mel! I didn’t know if you still worked here or not. I meant to ask Dr. Benton, but I haven’t had a chance,” David said as he beamed down at the gray-haired nurse. “Davey’s great. I’ll have to bring him up to see you one day when I’m off.”
Sarah watched as the nurse turned around and announced to the other staff members that were looking curiously at the three of them, “David was here with his son, was it three years ago now?”
Sarah’s heart stuttered then sped up to a dangerous rate as she waited for David’s answer. Had she been wrong to dismiss that feeling of familiarity? Was this truly the man she’d seen over three years ago in the waiting room?
“Davey’s ‘new heart birthday’ was three years in January,” she heard David say.
That was all the confirmation she needed. It was him she remembered seeing.
The shock sent her spinning backward toward another time. A time when her perfect life had ended, only it hadn’t. Life hadn’t been that kind. Instead it had been heartbreaking and life shattering, made only bearable because of the man standing in front of her now.
Suddenly she was back in that waiting room, running from the terrible news the doctors had just given her and hiding from a family that would be as devastated as she was at the news that her little boy’s brain had lost the ability to function. How could she face them with this news? Then she had seen the dark-haired man hunched over in his seat appearing to bear a burden just as heavy as her own. Immediately she had felt a connection to him, a compassion that only someone who was traveling the same path as she could feel.
But was David really that man? The man she had seen that night in the waiting room, the one who had broken down when the organ transplant case manager had told him that they might have a heart for his son, the one that she had wondered about for the last three years, the one who may have been given back his son because of the gift of her own son’s heart?
It had to be more than just a coincidence that this man’s son had been given a heart in this hospital around the same time of her son’s accident. Around the same time that she had chosen to donate her own son’s organs. A decision she’d made because of that man in the waiting room.
It had been David’s eyes that had first sparked her memories of him, but now she could see that there was more. While he certainly looked much younger than the defeated man she had seen back then, the build and dark hair matched what she remembered of that night.
Sarah forced herself to stand there while the rest of the staff excitedly asked him questions concerning his son and his recovery. While the staff knew that she had lost her husband and son due to a car accident, Houston General was a big facility. She had been working on the adult surgical floor at the time of the accident and since her transfer to the pediatric cardiology service she had never discussed the donation of her own little boy’s organs with the staff here. It was too personal and still too painful.
And what did she do now? What was she supposed to say to a man who had helped make the hardest decision in her life? How was she supposed to work next to David and never mention that time in her life when just looking at him brought back such difficult memories for her?
There had been days she had wished she had died in the car crash along with Kolton and Cody, but then she would think of that young father who’d been so desperate for a heart for his son.
Later, when she realized she wanted to do more to help families like that young man’s, it had taken only one trip through the pediatric cardiac unit for her to know this was where she was needed, where she could help the critical children that waited for a new life with their families. She’d finished her nurse practitioner program and found a place in Dr. Benton’s practice. And now the man who had influenced her life so much was here on her unit.
And what about his son, Davey? She’d always imagined that it had been her son who had saved the son of the man in the waiting room. Knowing that David’s son had received a heart transplant back then made the possibility feel only more real. Now she had been given an opportunity to find out if she had been right all along.
As the rest of the staff started to disburse back to their patients, she pulled herself into the present only to find that some of the younger nurses were giving the new doctor more than just a friendly smile. Not that she could blame them for their interest. Dr. David Wright was a very good-looking man with his dark brown hair curling around his face, those striking eyes, and a smile full of laughter as he talked to Mel.
But there was more to the man than his looks. She had immediately recognized that when she had first seen him. He had a strong, competent look to him that had quickly put the patients and their families at ease. And she remembered the way he had dealt with the news that there might be a last hope for his son. The anguish in his face had matched hers as she’d mourned the loss of hope for her own. He’d openly shed tears at the news that his son might be getting a new heart and still the man hadn’t appeared weak.
Mentally shaking herself, she forced herself to put the old memories behind her again. It was not going to be easy to keep those memories away with David here, but she had to remember that it was the here and now that was important. Her past life was over, and she had patients that relied on her now. These were the children she was responsible for now. Later, when she could be alone, she’d take the time to deal with all of this and what it could mean for her.
She watched as Dr. Benton walked down the hall toward them and then as he and David walked away together. She had so many questions that she was desperate to find a way to ask, to tell him to wait so that she could ask the one question that was circling around and around in her head. It was a question that at some point she would have to ask, but it would have to wait.
Is the heart of my little boy, my Cody, beating in your son’s chest?
