Carly's Gift (36 page)

Carly had taken a walk through the park that morning. Although the daffodils were gone and the tulips waning, other flowers were coming up to take their places. Soon there would be a riot of color just outside Andrea's window, enticing her with beauty and renewed life.

It was funny the things that had given Carly pleasure since she'd arrived the night before—David sitting at Andrea's bedside reading her an article from the paper, Andrea's teasing delight over the single gray hair she'd found mixed in Carly's deep auburn, Victoria's willingness to let them have the evening alone.

And now, a private hospital room on the right side of the hall.

When Carly had naively suggested Andrea might like being in a room with someone her own age, the sister had told her it wasn't an option. Andrea was isolated to protect her from infection. Her visitors would be kept at a minimum for the same reason.

It seemed nothing would be simple or easy anymore where Andrea was concerned.

She glanced at the room number she was passing and realized Andrea's should be next. As she neared the door she heard voices inside and slowed to peek through the glass in the door before going inside. Her breath caught in happy surprise to see Jeffery sitting on the side of the bed, holding Andrea's hand. The love between them filled the room with its brilliance.

Carly stepped away from the door, not wanting to intrude on their moment. If it was possible for anyone to bring Andrea through what lay ahead with the sheer force of loving her, it would be Jeffery. She and David would be willing to trade their own lives for hers if given the opportunity, but they couldn't give Andrea the will to fight for herself the way Jeffery could.

Carly had lost track of how long she'd been standing outside Andrea's room when she saw David approaching.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

“Giving Andrea and Jeffery some time alone.”

He gave her a smile filled with irony. “I was sitting in the lounge by myself so that the two of you could be together.”

“When did you call him?”

“What makes you think it was me?”

“Who else?”

“Actually, it was Victoria who got him here. She went to Jeffery's parents last night to tell them what was going on. They drove to Oxford and picked him up this morning.”

“I don't understand. When I said something to Victoria about calling Jeffery she was horrified. What made her change her mind?”

“I don't know. She surprises even me sometimes.” He leaned against the wall. “Perhaps it was seeing the pain and fear you were feeling. Or maybe it was discovering how deeply she cares about Andrea herself.”

“I've decided to have the boys tested right away. Even if it turns out they aren't suitable donors for Andrea,” she said softly, “they might be for someone else.”

“What about your mom?”

“I'm sure she'll want to be tested, too.” A slow smile formed. “Something tells me no one in her family will be safe once she finds out genetics can play a role in HLA typing.”

“Too bad she doesn't know who Andrea's father is.” He turned and pinned her with a stare. “Or does she?”

Thirty-two

Carly stood by
the window in Andrea's room and stared at the garden in the park across the street. She felt something cool on her cheek and reached up to wipe it away, only then realizing she was crying.

A noise behind her drew her attention back to the bed. Even when Andrea was asleep now, she looked as if she were in pain. Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, Carly was watching her daughter die. The chemotherapy was killing her as surely as the leukemia, destroying the few remaining good cells in tandem with the bad. Her hair was less than half what it had been four weeks ago and strands of the little that remained stayed on her pillow every time she turned her head. She had lost more weight than Carly thought possible, reducing an already thin body to little more than skin and bone.

During the first week, each blood transfusion had brought its own special, unspoken and irrational fear. What if Andrea received tainted blood? That worry disappeared completely when Andrea became so sick she couldn't hold half a spoonful of her birthday cake in her stomach or talk without her gums bleeding. When they were told Andrea's leukemia had shifted to nonlymphocytic, which put her into a rare and particularly lethal subtype, biphenotypic. Carly would have traded anything in the future for just one more guaranteed year with her daughter.

Reason told her it wasn't the hours she spent in the room willing Andrea to live that kept her daughter's heart beating and infections at bay, it was Andrea's own spirit and the massive doses of antibiotics being pumped into her along with the poison. Still, just the thought of being more than fifteen minutes away nearly paralyzed Carly with fear.

Which was why she had put off returning to Baxter. And then with the new diagnosis, it became critical that they be prepared to transplant as quickly as Andrea reached remission. The possibility of a second remission, should the disease become active again, was highly unlikely. As of that morning, none of the data banks contacted had come up with a suitable donor, giving an urgency to the search Carly couldn't ignore any longer. She had to go home.

She'd come to say good-bye before leaving and to promise she would be back as soon as possible. Except that Andrea wouldn't wake up long enough to hear the words Carly had so carefully rehearsed.

The door opened, and David entered. “It's time to go,” he said softly. “Harold's downstairs waiting.”

How could she leave without saying anything to Andrea about where she was going and why she was leaving so abruptly? Finally, unwilling to wake her from the first real sleep she'd had in days, Carly touched the blanket and whispered, “I love you.”

David took Carly in his arms. “I'm sorry it had to come to this,” he said. “But I think you'll discover your fears, whatever they are, have been exaggerated in your mind.”

She didn't even attempt to correct him. There were only two people who could understand the far-reaching consequences of what she was about to do. David would find out how wrong he was soon enough.

Fifteen hours later, Carly was in Barbara's living room. “I prayed every day it wouldn't come to this,” she said, her gaze fixed on the floor. “If there were any other way . . .”

“I didn't tell you this before because I couldn't see any reason,” Barbara said, “but I've already approached your father's brothers and your grandparents about being tested. Actually, it was your uncle John I talked to, and let him talk to the others.”

“He must have been stunned to hear from you after all this time.” Carly lifted her head and stared at her mother. “What did he say?”

“Initially, that they'd have to think about it and get back to me.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Last week.”

“Then they might already have gone in?”

Barbara shook her head. “Yesterday, when you told me you were coming, I called him. He said his doctor had told him the chances that any of them being a match for Andrea were no better than we could find in the general population. They had all gotten together over dinner that night and talked about it and decided it wasn't worth going through the test. He was supposed to call me with the news, but just hadn't gotten around to it yet.”

“Didn't you tell him how easy it was? That there really isn't any risk?” Carly asked, already knowing the answer.

“I talked till I was blue in the face. You know what your father's family is like, Carly. Once they've made up their minds about something, God himself couldn't change it. Frank was the same way.”

Carly looked into her mother's eyes and saw that she knew what was coming. “We have to tell them.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, the weight of it taking the crispness out of her posture. “I just wish I believed it would make a difference—and that we knew for sure we aren't going to end up hurting Andrea more than we help her.”

“If we don't find a donor,” Carly said, “none of it will matter.”

The drive to Bill and Hallie Strong's dairy farm was through what Carly had always thought was the most beautiful country in Ohio. She had vivid memories of making the trip when she'd been a child, even then being aware that the countryside would be the only pleasant part of the journey.

The farm itself had been in the family for five generations, the business growing larger, the Strong impact in the region more powerful with each passing decade. For the past thirty years it was a given that those who expected to win political office in the region made their first stop at the Strong farm.

Carly's father, Frank, had been the youngest of five sons and the only one to move away from home—much to the anger and disappointment of his parents. After the two oldest boys were killed in the Korean War, Bill and Hallie Strong had become compulsively protective of their youngest.

They'd needed someone to blame for Frank's restlessness and Barbara had been an easy target. After doing everything they could to keep their son from marrying her and failing, they were wise enough to realize they would lose him permanently if they didn't make accommodations. Ten months after the wedding, Carly was born and, by producing a girl, Barbara lost even the modicum of acceptance the Strongs had afforded her. Her only redemption would have been to follow the error with a string of boys, but after three miscarriages, she'd stopped trying.

For the next twenty-one years Barbara and then Carly were tolerated, if not loved, in order for the Strongs to maintain contact with their son. The day he died, so did the relationship.

Although the Strong farm was less than two hours' drive from Baxter, Carly hadn't been there since the reception that followed her father's funeral. She'd wondered if she would remember the way, but needn't have bothered. A thirty-foot-high billboard advertising the farm and its products greeted her as she crossed the county line.

“I'm still surprised Hallie agreed to see us,” Barbara said as they turned off the main road and onto the farm property. “That woman took a dislike to me the day your father introduced us. She blamed me for every cold he ever had—even said it was my fault he had allergies. If I'd fed him properly and kept the house cleaner, he wouldn't have been susceptible to pollen and germs.”

Carly had heard the stories before, but not for years. Wally's love and understanding had helped Barbara come to terms with the hell Frank Strong had put her through. Eventually she'd managed to put that time behind her.

“Once Hallie even insisted it was because of me Frank became a policeman, completely ignoring the fact, of course, that I met him when he stopped me for running a red light.”

“If she only knew,” Carly said.

“There would be hell to pay,” Barbara agreed.

Carly pulled in next to a white truck with the farm logo on the side and shut off the engine. She sat behind the wheel, closed her eyes, and summoned a picture of Andrea to bring what she was doing back in focus again. A second later, she turned to Barbara. “I wouldn't put you through this if there were any other way.”

“It's no use pretending this is any easier on you,” Barbara said. “I know better.”

They walked up to the front door side by side, not noticing the imposing figure standing behind the screen until they were on the porch.

“I told your mother you were wasting your time coming here,” Hallie Strong said to Carly, ignoring Barbara.

Carly stared at the shadowy figure behind the screen and was overcome with a sinking feeling that guilt or duty would not be the way to win her grandmother's cooperation. “Maybe so, Grandmother, but when your child is dying, you do whatever has to be done.”

With a show of reluctance, Hallie opened the door to them. “I don't have much time,” she said. “My program comes on the television in fifteen minutes.” After a quick assessing glance at her granddaughter, Hallie turned on her heel and headed down a long hallway. “No sense opening the parlor for fifteen minutes,” she said, her voice raised to be sure the insult could be heard.

Barbara and Carly exchanged looks before falling in behind Hallie. She took them to a small office and indicated they were to sit in the twin straight-back chairs pushed up against the far wall. When she was settled behind the desk facing them, she took a pencil out of the drawer and tapped its eraser rhythmically against her thumb. “I'm waiting,” she said.

Carly opened her purse, took out several folded sheets of paper, and placed them on the desk. “I knew you wouldn't believe what I've come here to tell you without proof.”

Hallie hesitated before reaching for the papers. After several seconds she laid them back down. Without explanation, they were meaningless. “I assume this is leading to something?”