Changed by His Son's Smile (15 page)

She had to laugh at the way Drew held his arms stiffly at his sides like the true Superman, and at Chase’s silly comic-book commentary. How amazing that the child who had never liked water being poured over his head to rinse out shampoo now adored being completely underwater. He even liked to jump straight in from the side of the pool, as long as his daddy was there to catch him.

Chase was so good with him that she felt ashamed that she’d ever believed he’d be a distant dad. Yes, there would be physical distance while Chase worked overseas, but Drew would always know how much his daddy loved him, of that she no longer had any doubt.

A few other women sipping drinks by the pool barely concealed the way they eyed Chase, and who could blame them? With his handsome face and bronzed skin over all that muscle, he truly looked like the Greek god she’d teased him about being when they’d made love outside in the moonlight. And he could be...was...all hers.

She stood and walked to the side of the pool. “It’s four o’clock, you two. We need to be leaving pretty soon.”

“I not done saving Metroplis,” Drew said. “Mommy, watch me dive!”

“All right, Superman. Here we go again.” Chase grinned at Dani and readjusted his hands on a wriggling Drew before he dunked him beneath the water again.

The grin on Chase’s face suddenly died, replaced by a deep frown. He started wading toward the shallowest water, holding Drew up against his chest.

“I not done swimming, Daddy.”

“I know. I just want to check something.”

The odd expression on Chase’s face set off an alarm in Dani’s brain. Something was worrying him, and he wasn’t a man prone to worry.

Dani’s feet landed on the top step of the pool just as Chase stood Drew there. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Frowning, he began to palpate Drew’s abdomen, but the child leaped, trying to jump back into the pool. Chase moved his hands to grip Drew’s arms and brought his face close to their son’s. “Hold still, Superman. I want to see if you’ve got kryptonite in your belly.”

Drew’s eyes lit up at the idea. “Okay.”

Dani’s heart began to thud and her breath grew short. Why, exactly, she didn’t know, but something about the way Chase looked made her feel very, very uneasy. She stepped farther down into the pool next to him and leaned close to Chase, staring as he pressed his fingers gently but firmly into Drew’s abdomen and flank.

“What’s the matter, Chase?”

He turned to look at her, and his shaken expression, the starkness in his eyes closed her throat. His chest lifted as he sucked in a deep breath before turning back to Drew. “Superman, the kryptonite is going to make you unable to move. Why don’t you go up and sit in the chair to finish your smoothie. That’ll melt the kryptonite and you’ll be strong again.”

“Okay. I need to get strong!” Drew grinned and hurried up the steps to grab his drink and sit in the chair.

Dani grabbed Chase’s arm. “You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

He closed his eyes for a moment and scrubbed his hand across his face. When he looked down at her, his gaze was tortured. “There’s a large mass inside his belly. With its location and his age, my best guess would be nephroblastoma. Wilm’s tumor.”

“Oh, my God. No,” she whispered. Her heart stopped completely. “No. He couldn’t possibly have cancer.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

C
HASE
PLACED
THE
X-ray cartridge beneath Drew’s lower back and swiveled the C-arm of the machine over his mid-section, trying to stay calm and professional. The moment he’d touched that hard mass inside Drew’s little body he’d felt like someone had kicked in his chest and stopped his heart, and only the fact that he’d taken and developed X-rays hundreds of times enabled him to function at all.

“Okay, Superman? We’re going to take some pictures of that kryptonite in there.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

His son’s huge grin made Chase’s throat close. He didn’t know how the hell he could manage to keep acting like this was all a big game, but somehow he had to stay strong. Had to make sure he didn’t scare Drew by showing the gut-wrenching terror that made it hard to breathe.

“After we take the pictures, Mommy’s going to fix you your favorite dinner,” Dani said. Chase glanced at her as she held Drew’s hand and knew she couldn’t possibly be holding up any better than he was. The strain and fear on her face made her look suddenly older, and she stared at him in mute anguish.

The car ride back from the hotel had been quiet. Despite Drew falling asleep in his car seat, Chase and Dani hadn’t said much. What the hell was there to say? They didn’t know anything yet. Didn’t know if it was Wilm’s tumor or something else. Something non-malignant. Or something even worse than Wilm’s.

The shock of it had left both of them stunned and speechless. He hoped to God the X-ray would give them some idea what they were dealing with, but he had a bad feeling they wouldn’t know much more than they did now.

“That’s it, Superman.” Chase pulled out the cartridge and swung the C-arm away. He lifted Drew’s small body into his arms and held him tightly against him, closing his eyes for a moment and trying to slow his breathing. Calm his tripping heart.

He headed into the kitchen with the child. “Let’s get you something to eat. Your mom will fix your dinner while I get the pictures developed. It’ll be important for you to eat good food to build all your muscles.”

Drew snaked his arms around Chase’s neck. “I will, Daddy. I getting big muscles like you.”

Chase sat his son on a kitchen stool and ruffled his hair, somehow managing to force a smile. He turned to Dani, who was busying herself putting together Drew’s meal.

“I’ll ask Spud to sit with him while he’s eating,” he said to Dani. “Give me time to get the X-rays developed then come down to the clinic.”

She nodded without speaking, without even looking at him, and he headed off and spoke briefly with Spud. Desperately anxious to see what the X-rays showed, he dreaded what they might indicate.

He shoved the films up into the old light box hanging on the wall and peered at them. What he saw made him sway slightly on his feet, unable to catch his breath. It took a Herculean effort to stay upright instead of slumping down into a chair, and he was leaning his hand against the wall to support himself when Dani walked in.

“What do they look like?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“See the shadow?” He grasped her arm, tugged her closer to look at the films. “There’s a suggestion of a large mass in his left flank. Whatever it is, it’s big. I’m guessing at least a pound. From what I can see, though, it doesn’t look like it’s metastasized into the lungs.”

“Oh, God.” She stared at the films, and tears filled her eyes and spilled over. “Can you take it out?”

“If this was a kid who lived here, whose life was here, I’d do what I had to do.” If Dani hadn’t been so naive, so damned carefree, they wouldn’t be in this situation. “But who knows what the hell it is for sure? We don’t have CAT scans and MRIs and ultrasound. We can’t even do a biopsy unless we take him to Cotonou.”

“I think we should take him to Cotonou right away.”

“Are you crazy?” He stared at her and wondered if she was denying the reality staring them both in the face. “We have to make a plan, this second, to get him to the States for a complete diagnosis. Then surgery by someone who knows exactly what they’re doing. And chemo, which he’ll probably need.”

“Maybe it’s not malignant. Maybe it’s just a benign tumor.”

“Maybe. Are you willing to take that chance? Apparently you like taking chances, as you brought him here in the first place. But I’m not willing to take that chance, because you know as well as I do what these X-rays indicate. That it’s a pipe dream to hope it’s not Wilm’s or some other cancer.”

The dread and anger he’d been shoving down for hours welled up in his chest and burst out in words he knew he shouldn’t say. Words he couldn’t stop. “If you hadn’t brought him here, like I said all along you shouldn’t have, he could already be in a hospital in the States. But, no, he’s here in Africa. And it’s going to take days to make that happen.”

He jabbed his finger at the image of the mass inside their baby’s body. “And if it
is
Wilm’s, you also know how fast it grows. How it can metastasize practically overnight.”

Tortured-looking watery blue eyes stared at him. “Are you blaming me for this? I love him more than anything in the world.” A sob caught in her throat and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.

“That love should have told you to do everything in your power to keep him safe. But instead you brought a two-year-old to a developing country.”

“You
are
blaming me,” she said, anguish and disbelief choking her voice. “He obviously had this before we even left the States. Neither you or I could have protected him from something like this.”

“No.” He grabbed the films from the light box and shoved them in a folder. “But if you’d kept him where he belongs, Drew would be getting the necessary tests done right this minute. Getting treatment that could very well mean the difference between a good outcome and a bad one.” He slammed his hand against the cement wall, unable to control the fury that kept welling up in his chest, twisting with the icy fear lodged there. “Between life and death.”

Dani burst into tears and buried her face in her hands.

Damn it, he shouldn’t have yelled at her. But she also needed to hear it. Had to know he was right. Had to know she could never put Drew in a dangerous situation like this again.

He sucked in several breaths before trying to speak again. “What’s the best children’s hospital near where you live in the States?”

“I rented out my house, so we can’t stay there. We can choose any hospital anywhere and just stay at a hotel.”

“You’re the one who knows the best pediatric cancer hospitals in the U.S. Decide on one, make some calls, and I’ll get the plane tickets and other arrangements taken care of.”

“And I guess I need to call GPC. Try to get someone here to take my place.”

“Somebody needs to be available in the clinic until the new doc gets here and knows what he’s doing.” The thought of not being able to go with them immediately tore at Chase’s heart, but they couldn’t just leave the clinic empty. Who knew what desperate patient might walk through the door? “I’ll take your place here until I can leave.”

“You aren’t coming with us?”

The shock in her eyes added to the heavy weight in his chest, but there was no way around it. “You know the new doc isn’t coming for another week or so. I can’t leave the place with absolutely no one here. But I’ll come as soon as I can.”

Myriad emotions flitted through her eyes as she searched his face. He wasn’t sure what all he saw etched there, but sad and weary disillusionment seemed to shadow her eyes. She nodded and turned away.

“I’ll make some calls. Hopefully Drew and I will be out of here by tomorrow.”

* * *

At the Philadelphia children’s hospital, Dani sat alone in the harshly lit waiting room as her son underwent surgery to remove the huge tumor growing inside his small body. She’d kissed Drew as he’d sat in the rolling crib they used to take him to the OR, his little face smiling as though he was on a great adventure, and it had taken all her strength to smile back, to wave as if he was heading off to a play date.

The moment he’d disappeared from sight the tears had begun. Flowing from deep within her soul in what felt like an endless reservoir of dread. She thought of the poor mother bleeding to death whose life Chase had saved, and felt a little like that. That she just might slowly die if she lost her baby boy. Intellectually, she knew life would go on. But it would be forever altered.

She flipped through the battered magazines, but gave up on being able to read anything. So strange to be sitting out in this room with other parents and the siblings of patients instead of on the other side of the wall, involved in a patient’s care. Absently, she watched little ones play with the toys in the room, loud and giggling, munching on snacks from little plastic bags and reading stories with their parents, completely unaware of what their families were going through.

Of course, some of the surgeries going on that moment were fairly routine, with little risk. But others? Heart surgeries and brain surgeries.

Cancer treatments.

She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Never, in her worst nightmares, would she ever have thought Drew would have to go through something like this. She tried hard to remember that Wilm’s tumor, if that was what he had, was highly treatable. That over eighty-five percent of children survived it. Thrived, healthy and happy, the rest of their lives. And she prayed hard, over and over, that Drew would be one of them.

She shoved herself from the chair to grab a cup of coffee from the smiling, elderly volunteer pushing a cart with beverages and snacks. She moved slowly to the rain-spattered window, staring outside at the gray sky, and wondered if the sun was shining in Benin.

She’d forgiven Chase for being so angry with her. For somehow blaming her. He loved Drew nearly as much as she did, and she knew his outburst, his agitation had stemmed from the same shock and terror she’d felt. People did and said things under stress they normally wouldn’t.

She’d even forgiven him for not coming back to the States with them. Or maybe forgiven was the wrong word. Accepted, painfully, what she’d known all along but had buried beneath her love for him. Beneath her desire to believe they could have a future together, however complicated.

His work was his life. Who he was. Without it, he wouldn’t have an identity that he understood, and that identity took precedence over everything.

But, as bewildered as she felt, one thing became very clear. As she’d taken Drew to his first doctor’s appointments, to the first of so many tests, when she’d held his hand as he’d cried during the MRI, and as he’d been poked and pinched as his blood had been drawn, she’d known the life Chase proposed for them wasn’t enough.

For a short time, in his arms, through his kisses, she’d become convinced it was, and just thinking about those moments filled her with a deep longing. But through all the lonely hours since she’d brought Drew back to the States, she’d come to see that she deserved more.

She deserved a husband who would be with her every day. Through good times and bad times. In sickness and in health, as the marriage vows said. And that simply wasn’t possible with him living across the world most of every year.

She rested her forehead against the cold pane of glass. She loved Chase. Loved him so much it hurt. But many of the things she loved about him were the same things that drove him to do the work he did.

He couldn’t change who he was, and she couldn’t even really want him to, because he was like no one else she’d ever known. A man with so much to offer humankind but not enough to offer her.

* * *

“I know this cast feels even worse than the last one, but at least you don’t have to deal with that apparatus any more, right?”

Chase leaned over Apollo and checked the new cast he’d put on the boy, which extended over his whole leg now that the boy’s wound had healed enough to be covered. “Does it hurt?”

The boy shook his head and smiled. “The ‘be happy’ song makes it better.”

Don’t worry, be happy. Chase swallowed hard. That wasn’t even close to possible.

Apollo’s mother reached under the blankets she had stacked next to the bed and brought out a small fetish she’d most likely made herself, handing it to Chase. “I heard the pretty doctor’s son was sick and needed to go back to America,” she said. “I wish to give this to her and her son, asking for Sakpata’s healing.”

Her son. His son.

“Thank you. I’ll let her know.” Chase took the beaded and painted mud statue from the woman and tried to smile. If only such a thing could really help. But Drew’s health—his survival—would come down to modern medicine and a little luck.

Each time he’d treated small children in the clinic, their faces had blurred to look like Drew’s. His big brown eyes and his beautiful smile. And through every crisis, every surgery he hadn’t been able to take his mind off him for even a second. Wondering how he was doing. What he was going through. If he’d be okay.

Wondering how Dani was holding up through it all.

Chase moved on to the next patient, thinking about his last phone call with Dani. She’d given him the details of Drew’s tests, what they showed, what they planned to do. Her voice had sounded calm, her recitation to the point. She sounded okay, but he suspected it was an act. His frustration level at not being able to be there with them threatened to make it nearly impossible for him to focus on his work.

When the hell was the new doctor going to get here?

His cellphone rang and he pulled it from his pocket. His mother. Calling for at least the tenth time.

“I’m wondering if there’s any news.”

Her voice reflected the same tightly controlled foreboding he felt that had every nerve on alert. “No, Mom. She said she’d call after the tumor was removed. After they do a biopsy to confirm the diagnosis.”

“I still think you need to go be with them, Chase. I think you should book your flight.”

“I can’t do that yet.” Surely she knew he felt as frustrated and anxious as she did? But she also knew that if he left there wouldn’t be one damned person here to take care of an emergency. And the nurses would have to take care of the hospital patients alone, with a few in serious condition.