Beneath His Darkness (Healing Hearts #3)

Beneath His Darkness

Copyright © 2015 Renee Dyer

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This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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To my siblings—Tony, Jeff, Desiree, and Scott—although we wanted to beat the crap out of each other

many times over the years, we’ve also been there for each other through the tough times.

There’s nothing more important than family and I’m grateful everyday for

the laughs, good times, and knowing you’ll always be here for me.

Chapter One

Grant—Sixteen Years Old

“Mrs. Andrews, we have your son’s test results.  We asked you to come down here without Mr. Andrews because we thought there may have been an error in the testing and we didn’t want to upset him unnecessarily.”

“There is no error.”

I watch as my mother cuts the doctor off.  She clasps her hands in her lap as she looks at the floor, her face pale, a tear slipping down her cheek.

“I don’t understand, Mrs. Andrews.  You don’t even know what it is we’re going to tell you.”

My mom looks up and the sadness in her face scares me.  The entire time my dad has been sick, a sadness has overwhelmed her, but this is different.  She looks like her world has crumbled around her.  Like all the sunshine has been sucked out of her life.  What the hell is going on?

“I know exactly what you’re going to tell me,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

The doctor looks at her, his face a mask of confusion.  I want to tell him I’m also confused.  They’re talking, but no one is saying what has happened and it has something to do with my bloodwork.  I wish someone would tell me what the hell is going on.  I just want to know whether I’m a match.  Can I save my dad’s life?

The silent battle between my mom and the doctor continues.  He shuffles the papers in his hands while she stares him down.  It’s more than I can take.

“Will someone please tell me what is going on?  Am I a match?  Can I save my dad?”

My mom flinches at my words, as if I physically hurt her.  This only adds to my confusion.  She shakes her head, another tear rolling down her cheek.  What does she know that she isn’t saying?

“Go out in the hall while I talk to the doctor, Grant.”  She’s trying to be forceful.  I can hear it in her tone.  But she lacks conviction.

“I’m sorry, Mom.  But I’m not going anywhere until I know what my blood tests say.”

Fear.
  It’s the only word I can use to describe the look that crosses her face. My blood runs cold seeing it.  Why is my mom afraid of what my lab results are?  And why did she say she already knows?

I stop looking at her.  She’s distracting me from getting the answers I desperately need.  I wipe my sweaty palms onto my pants and blow out a breath through my lips.  Planting my feet firmly against the floor, an attempt to still the shaking in my legs, I look directly at the doctor.  It’s only now that I notice just how gleamingly white his lab coat is.  It must take a lot of bleach to keep it so clean.  How stupid the thought is at a time like this, but hospitals are always so sterile.  I’m done with sterile.

Things are about to get messy, I can feel it.  And I always trust my gut.

“Grant, please.”  Again, her voice is barely above a whisper.

I wish I could give her what she wants, but this involves me and saving my dad’s life—the man who has been my best friend since I was a little boy.  He coached my little league team.  He taught me how to ride a bike.  He never missed any big moment in my life.  Now, he needs something from me and I damn well need to know if I can give it to him.

I’m not waiting in the hall.  I want to know what is on those papers—good or bad.

“Dr. Laskey, please tell me what my results are.  Am I a match for my dad?”

I don’t look at my mother, but I hear her sniffling.  Whatever she already knows is tearing her apart.

I’m not a match.

“Grant, I’m sorry, but you’re not a match.  But, what’s more concerning is that…” he stops and looks at my mother before looking back to me.  I look at her, too.  Tears are flowing down her cheeks.  She is no longer looking at the doctor; she doesn’t appear to be looking at anything.  She seems lost within herself.

“What’s concerning, Dr. Laskey?”  More fear runs through me.  Is there something wrong with me?  Does my mom know I have a medical condition that she never told me about?  Why wouldn’t she tell me?  My mind swirls with possibilities.

“It’s more than just not being a match, Grant.  There are no DNA markers relating you to your father at all.”

My head snaps back to the doctor and my spine stiffens.  What the hell does that mean?  No DNA markers?  I’m his son.  The tests have to be wrong.

“Th-the tests…they h-have to be wrong.  I’m his son.  Tell him, Mom.  Tell him the tests are wrong.  Redo the tests.  Maybe I can save my dad after all.”  I can hear my voice rising, hear the panic and shrillness to my tone, but I can’t stop it.  And my mom’s crying only adds to the feelings of alarm ringing through my body.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I can’t,” she says between sobs.

“What do you mean you can’t?”  I need her to tell me this is all a bad dream.  I need my mom to comfort me like she always has, but she’s sitting here telling me that these tests speak the truth.

“You aren’t his son, Grant.  I’m so sorry.”

My world goes into a free fall as her words roll through my head. 
You aren’t his son.
  It can’t be true.  I have dark hair like him.  I have brown eyes like him.  My skin is golden like his, too.  I’m close to his height.  She can’t mean what she’s saying.  He has to be my dad.

He’s my best friend.

I look at her, at the tears flowing down her face, and I know she means the words she spoke.  I just can’t understand why she said them.  “Mom,” I croak out, “please tell me this is a mistake.”  I’m begging her with all that I am to stop the pain that has taken over my heart.

She tries to reach for my hands, but I pull them back.  I can’t have her touching me right now.  I may shatter into a million pieces on this all too clean carpet.  They may never be able to vacuum all the pieces of me.  The pain in her eyes slays me, but I can’t give in.  I just need her to say it isn’t true.

“I’m sorry, Grant.  I should have told you and your father…” she says, choking on the word ‘father’,  “I should have told you both sooner.  I never should have let you go through the testing, but you don’t have to be blood relation to be a match.  I was hoping you would still be a match.  I was hoping with all my heart because I knew, with how much you love him, you would save him.”

I’m listening to her, but I can’t believe the words coming out of her mouth.  She just decimated my entire existence, tore me completely apart, yet she sits here trying to justify it.

In place of my pain, I feel a rage building.  A rage so strong, I’m afraid I’ll strike her and my da… the man who raised me, taught me never to strike a woman.  Without saying a word, I stand up and walk out of the room.  I hear her screaming my name, hear the panic in her voice, but I don’t know whether she’s afraid I’ll tell the secret she’s kept for so long or afraid she’s lost me.  Honestly, I don’t care.  At this moment, I’ve lost all respect for my mother.

I don’t know that I even love her anymore.

Chapter Two

Grant—Sixteen Years Old

I walk down the corridor, trying not to think about what I’m here to do.  My feet barely lift with each step I take, like there’s lead in my sneakers.  People walk by me, but I’m not really aware of them.  I couldn’t tell you the color of their clothes, their hair, whether they’re doctors or nurses, or here to see loved ones like I am.  My reason for being here has all my attention.

Yesterday, Dr. Laskey told Mom it was time to say our goodbyes.  When she came home and told me, I wasn’t sure why she had even bothered.  He hasn’t spoken more than a few words to me since finding out I’m not his.  The few words he has said made it clear he detests me.  The sight of me makes his suffering worse.  Dying is hard enough, but having to see me, to be reminded the last sixteen years of his life were a lie, disgusts him.

Still, I find myself inching down the hospital corridor, feeling sick to my stomach.  The only thing I focus on is how bland it is.  The white tile floors.  The tan walls.  The flower pictures that I’m sure are supposed to be considered some kind of pick me up for the people walking by.  To me, it all blends in.  Nothing here comforts or brings me peace.

They’re all just more reminders of why I hate being here.

This place is sterile and bland—two things I’ve come to loathe.

After I say my goodbye today, I swear I’m going to roll down a hill somewhere.  Find a nice, green hill.  Someplace where there’s color all around and I can get filthy.  Where I don’t have to worry about bringing germs back to him
.
 Maybe I’ll just lock myself in my room with a couple bags of Doritos and a six-pack of Coke.  I can get just as dirty wiping that cheesy deliciousness all over my pants and t-shirt while I immerse myself in some serious video game time.  I just need some time for me and I need not to feel guilty that he won’t have these simple pleasures anymore.  I need to remember what it feels like to be a teenager.

The smile I have on my face from thinking of finger aches, chomping chips, and caffeine highs, drops as I realize I’m outside his door.  Room 128 looms before me.  I stand there, hand on the knob, trying to muster the will to open it and walk through, but fear has me lodged in place.  Fear of him rejecting me again and us never finding a happy balance before he passes on.