A Heart for Robbie (26 page)

nurse’s face.

“Mr. Holmes, you can come in now. Dr. Martinez would like for you

to try to calm Robbie because the crying isn’t good for him.” He wanted to yell at her that he already knew that, and he could have been in there

twenty minutes earlier if she hadn’t thrown him out, but Robbie was the

priority.

“Hey, buddy,” Julian said as he came in through the curtain. Robbie

lay on the emergency room bed in just a diaper, screaming through the

mask over his face. Julian walked past the medical personnel around the

bed and picked Robbie up.

“I know, Robbie. I know you’re scared, but it’s okay. Daddy’s here

now.” Julian’s voice took on a singsong quality as he spoke to his son,

trying to get him to stop crying. “It’s okay, buddy, Daddy’s here,” he

repeated over and over as he stroked Robbie’s back.

“Julian, we need to run more tests, but it looks like Robbie has

started to go into heart failure,” Dr. Martinez said. “We knew this was

coming. If the chest X-ray confirms the fluid we expect around his heart, 150

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we’ll start him on a diuretic and a new heart medication, try to keep things strong until we can find him a heart.”

“Is that realistic? I mean, it’s been four months. He… he doesn’t

have much time left. They said he would be lucky to make it to his first birthday.”

“I verified with Dr. Dane that he is at the top of the list, Julian.

That’s the very best place he can be.”

“So, what happens now?”

“We’re going to admit him for a day or two for observation, make

sure the meds are doing what they should.” The sadness in her voice

balanced on the edge of hope. It wouldn’t be too much longer before she

tipped the other way, giving him less and less to hold onto. “They’re

securing him a bed in the pediatric ICU, and you’ll have to wait in the

waiting room while they transfer him and get him settled, but I’ve left

instructions that you are going to stay with Robbie. They’ll bring in one of the super comfy chairs for you.” She tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her warm hazelnut eyes. Her eyes didn’t crinkle around the edges as they once had when they talked.

She put a hand on his shoulder and then walked around the curtain.

He held Robbie close, stroking his hair and his back, trying more to soothe himself than the boy who rested comfortably in his arms. God, he wanted

Simon, but he didn’t dare risk it. They’d successfully kept their

relationship a secret for the last two months. In a few more months, it

wouldn’t matter either way. Robbie would have his new heart, or he

wouldn’t. A sob escaped him before he could stop it.

Two nurses came in about half an hour later, after Robbie fell asleep,

and said they were ready to take him up to the ICU. Julian laid him gently in the little incubator-looking rolling cart they planned to take him in. He considered telling them he’d just carry Robbie up, but they looked rather insistent, and he didn’t want to get thrown out. Nothing was more

important right then than keeping Robbie calm and safe. Besides, it would give him a chance to call Simon and his parents.

God, he didn’t want to say it aloud.

He didn’t want to tell them that it was the beginning of the end.

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Chapter 15

SIMON SAT at his desk on the first floor of the hospital, but his heart and his mind were on the fourth, where Robbie lay in ICU and Julian sat

beside him. He could come up with a viable excuse to go up there but

hadn’t worked up the balls to take the chance. They’d been incredibly

lucky for the last couple of months, but he didn’t want to risk losing his job when things were finally starting to come together in his life. He and Rachel were friends on Facebook and talking at least once or twice a

week, even if they were just commenting on each other’s statuses, and his mother hadn’t tried to set him up on another date.

The relationship with Julian was going better than he could have

hoped. He’d planned to tell Julian he was in love with him Saturday night when they made love, only they never got that far. He’d never seen

anyone taken away by ambulance before. Ambulances were a daily part of

his life at the hospital; he heard them go past on their way to the

ambulance bay on the other side of the building, but he’d never seen it in action. He’d never watched, helpless, as the people he loved disappeared through its doors.

Then he got the call from Julian. Robbie’s heart had started to fail.

Without a transplant, the little boy who had nestled his way into Simon’s heart would die, and the man he loved would never recover. He couldn’t

stand sitting there at his desk, day after day, being unable to help.

Morning stretched into afternoon, and Simon forced himself not to

take his lunch upstairs in the ICU. It took every bit of effort he possessed, but he remained at his desk with the premade sandwich he’d picked up at

Starbucks on his way from the train station. He’d almost driven that

morning so he could take Julian and Robbie home if Robbie were

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released, but first that didn’t look likely, and second Julian made him

promise not to.

So there he sat, with his mind on everything but the letter of medical

necessity on the screen in front of his face.

A text made the phone in his pocket buzz. Grateful for the

distraction, Simon slid it out and read the display.

He looks so helpless.

In the lonely, private confines of his office, Simon put his head down

on the desk. People continued to move up and down the hall on the other

side of his door, but for him, time seemed to stop. He hated the sadness in just those four little words. Simon could feel the heartache as acutely as if it were his own.

Another buzz, another text.

I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me, and he can’t breathe,

and he wants Daddy to make it better. And I can’t.

Simon stood up, grabbing a few blank forms from his desk as an

afterthought. He opened the office door, and his skin prickled. His tie

strangled him from inside the collar of his shirt. He didn’t see anyone as he entered the hallway, so he turned and walked swiftly for the elevators.

“Headed out?”

He turned to see Betty, one of their entry clerks, coming out of the

file room across from his office. Her cheery smile nearly made Simon

smile, except for the pain and fear in his heart clawing its way up his

chest. She hugged a few files close to her bosom, and he thought about

telling her the toner would rub off on her pristine white shirt, but he didn’t.

Instead, he waved the papers in his hand.

“Just going up to have Mr. Cooper sign these before he’s discharged,”

Simon invented wildly, pulling a name of one his recent admissions from

the back of his mind.

“Oh, well, I’ll see you later.” She looked disappointed, and Simon

couldn’t even fathom a guess as to why. Or for that matter, why she’d

been flushed. Maybe the files she had to pull were deep in one of the

bottom of the drawers. If he knew anything about women, anything at all, his mother probably would have succeeded in marrying him off to one

already.

The elevator at the end of the hall crept down from the fifth floor,

and he stood to the side, waiting for it, though he’d left his patience back in his office. It stopped on four and again on three, and he considered

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taking the stairs when it dinged and a woman stepped out. She held the

door open for a much older woman with a walker and oxygen tank. As he

scooted past them and into the car, he wondered if the woman shouldn’t be in a wheelchair. Unfortunately, as he hit the button for four, he noticed the younger woman glaring at him and realized he’d asked the question aloud.

The papers rustled as his hands swung back and forth on the ride up.

He watched the numbers change, not fast enough for him, until finally, he got to the floor with pediatric ICU. He didn’t venture onto the medical

floors often, mostly to get something signed by a patient or a patient’s family. The other administrators would call and have the person come to

the lobby, but Simon didn’t mind the extra walk. And of course, the

current visit had nothing to do with getting papers signed.

A nurse came up to him as he stood at the door to the ICU. She

checked the name badge dangling from his lanyard and then saw the

papers in his hands.

“Mr. Phelps, can I help you?”

“Hi, I just need Mr. Holmes for a moment to have him sign an

insurance form. Can I trouble you to get him for me?”

Her eyes narrowed, as if that business could wait until the man’s son

was out of danger. The irritation showed clearly on her face. She turned without a word and went through the door and into the main area of ICU.

He waited, unsure if she would reappear with Julian, but eventually, he

came back with her. Simon’s heart broke at the disheveled, broken

appearance of the man he loved. Julian’s eyes were dull and tired, his hair sticking out at odd angles. There were deep creases in the T-shirt and jeans he wore, and his five o’clock shadow looked more like ten or eleven

o’clock.

“She said you have some papers for me to sign,” Julian said, and

Simon could hear the edges of desperation around his words.

“Yes, Mr. Holmes. Let’s go over to the conference room down the

hall,” Simon offered, holding up a hand in the direction of one of the

patient conference rooms at the end of the hall. Julian led the way, and Simon followed, pulling the door to when they entered the cramped room

filled with one too many large floral arrangements and two uncomfortable couches.

Julian launched himself at Simon before either of them could say a

word, and Simon opened his arms, catching Julian as he fell into them,

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shaking. Simon put a hand to the back of Julian’s head, cradling him,

unable to think of any other way to comfort him. Julian nuzzled against his neck, as if he wanted to crawl inside Simon and never come out again.

“He’s holding his own for right now, but without a heart, they said

he’ll be dead inside six months,” Julian whispered against his cheek. “I can’t do it. I can’t watch him die.”

“He’s not going to die. We’re going to make this work. He’ll get a

heart. He’s at the very top of the transplant list. It’s going to be okay.”

“I want to believe that. I do, but I don’t think I have any hope left in me. It hurts so badly to watch him struggle.”

“I know it does. It hurts me to watch you both struggle.”

Julian turned his head, and his lips caught Simon’s in a slow kiss of

affection and appreciation. When they broke apart, he left his forehead

against Simon’s, just touching, their arms still about each other’s waists.

A throat cleared behind Julian, and Simon looked up into the eyes of

Dr. Dane.

Simon jerked back, but he could think of no way to explain their

proximity, no way to erase the look of shock and revulsion on his boss’s face. Julian moved away, his hands up, and Dane just looked between

them.

“Dr. Dane, Robbie’s condition is deteriorating. Simon came up to

have me sign some papers, and he comforted me.”

“I think we’re a little past that now,” Dane said quietly. “Lying about

your relationship is only going to make things worse.” He stood calmly in the doorway with several people behind him Simon didn’t recognize.

Turning, he spoke to someone and the group moved off, but Dane

remained where he stood, his arms at his sides, watching Julian and

Simon.

“Dr. Dane, we didn’t intend to initiate a relationship with Robbie under the care of St. Mary’s. I realize that violates my employee agreement, and I’ll take full responsibility for that,” Simon said, stalling Julian’s protest with a hand on his arm.

“I appreciate your candor, Simon, but I’m afraid there is a bigger

issue at stake. With the inappropriate relationship, I will have no choice but to remove Robert Holmes from the transplant list until it can be

determined if there are any improprieties in his insurance paperwork.

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Being in a relationship with a patient’s father is not only against your employee agreement but also a conflict of interest.”

“No, oh my God! You can’t take Robbie off the transplant list. He

will die. Don’t punish Robbie for our mistake, Dr. Dane. Don’t let my son die. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that our relationship is considered a conflict of interest. I didn’t know it would be construed that way. Please. I was just…