Prayers for the Dying (Pam of Babylon Book Four) (30 page)

As Steve merged onto the Long Island Expressway, he started to think about the baby. She was so perfect, and her HIV status was negative. It was the best news. The doctors were amazed, but they assured Steve that a negative test in a baby was negative. She wouldn’t come down with it later. After she was born, they closed Marie’s abdominal wound and rather than sending her to recovery and putting those nurses through the trauma of taking care of a brain-dead patient, Marie was sent back up to her ICU room. The nurses in the unit had taken care of her since day one and wanted to support the family. The doctors gave them an hour with the new baby and then came in to talk to them about taking Marie off life support.

“You have been so wonderful to her,” Dr. Garpow said to Nelda and Steve, “and your care accomplished the goal of having an almost full-term baby. But now we need to set the focus back on Marie. She is tired. She’s clinically ready to go. The ventilator is keeping her alive,” he said, and then softly, “it will be a kindness to take the tube out. I don’t think she’ll last long.”

Steve had his head bowed and his arm around Nelda. Susan, Sharon, and Pam were standing around them, offering support, but no opinions. Even Nelda was keeping quiet and deferring to Steve. Secretly, she felt strongly about taking the tube out, but didn’t want to burden Steve with it if he felt differently.

“Take it out,” Steve said, as he began to weep. “But I’d like to be with her if I could.”

“You can all stay here with Marie,” Dr. Garpow said before he left to write the order,
Discontinue life support.

.

39

S
andra Benson got home early Friday. Tom was going to swing by to pick her up so she didn’t have to take the train back to Brooklyn. She decided to spend the weekend in Williamsburg at Tom’s apartment but had to go to her apartment first to pack a bag.

“Why don’t you leave some stuff here?” he asked. “Then if you feel like coming over for the weekend, you don’t have to make that trip all the way uptown.”

“I know I should, but I have a hang-up. I like all my stuff together,” she confessed.

Tom laughed at her. “I think I might have a loony girlfriend. But only in the best way possible.” They agreed that he’d pick her up on his way downtown; he had to be up in the Bronx in the late afternoon anyway.

She was waiting for him with her suitcase packed, standing on the sidewalk. She had confirmed her decision to move back in with Tom soon, to go to Brooklyn permanently, but was waiting to ask him first, in case he didn’t want her there. The time they’d spent living apart was fine, but she was ready to resume co-habitation. She missed him, and came to the realization that she was being silly, trying to prove a point that didn’t need to be made. They could work out their myriad problems together. Besides, she wanted to be in his bed permanently.

As he drove down the street in the patrol car, his heart quickened as it always did when he saw her, especially after a week-long absence. She smiled as he pulled up and pushed the door open for her.

“Hi,” she said. “Thank you so much.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and reached for her seatbelt.

“My pleasure. Before I forget, there’s something for you in the backseat. If you want to, get it before I take off and you can leave your belt off for a second.” He was smiling that smile that just made her crazy. She twisted in her seat and reached through the open window to the backseat. There was big Macy’s bag on the backseat and nothing else.

“The bag?” she asked. He nodded yes just as his radio went off. His presence was required downtown.

“Yes, pull it up front. Get your belt on, my dear,” he instructed. “We have to go for a ride.” He sped off from the curb once her belt was on safely. “I’ll drop you off at the coffee shop under the bridge, okay? It might be nothing, but it might be somethin’ and I don’t want you around if it is.” The adrenaline was pumping once he got the cruiser going, and she was hoping that he was going to put his lights on, too, but he said, no, that wasn’t necessary, yet. “Peek in the bag,” he said. He was clearly excited by his surprise, but distracted by having to go to a call.

She dug through layers of tissue paper until she found what was at the bottom of the bag, a sea-green Tiffany box.

“Oh no, oh no,” she said loudly. “Oh no! What’d you do, Tommy, what’d you do?” She pressed her hand against her chest. Her heart was beating like a wild drum, like it was trying to find its way out of her ribcage. “What’d you do?”

He laughed at her. “Knucklehead, open it up! Sheesh!” He stepped on it when there was clear space on the road, and when traffic blocked his way, he let the siren go for a second and put the lights on for less than a second. Drivers pulled over as far as they could to let him through, and then, seeing the woman in the front seat with him, wondered what was up. She slowly took the white ribbon off the box; this was going right into her treasure box. With shaking hands, she lifted the top of the box off. There was a smaller box, a maroon leather box, within the box. She took that out while Tom wove in and out of traffic. She set the bottom of the box down on her lap; that was going to be saved as well. Hands still shaking, she pried open the leather lid and there it was. An engagement ring that couldn’t have been bought on a cop’s salary. It was sacrifice, or debt, or trust fund.
It would have done Jack Smith proud
. And then, shocked that she had thought of such a thing, Sandra laughed and screamed a soft, cop car scream.

“Oh, Tom Adams!” she yelled again. He looked at her, smirking.

“Is it okay? I mean, do you like it?” he asked sheepishly.

“Like it! I love it! This is the last thing I expected today! The last! And it’s exactly what I would have picked out for myself!” She looked down at the ring again. “I am going to wait for you to put it on me, okay?”

He turned and smiled at her. “Okay, if it’ll make you happy.”

She took the box and closed the lid and with her hands wrapped around it, held it up to the center of her chest. She closed her eyes while Tom was occupied with traffic and sirens and lights. With her lips moving ever so slightly, she whispered,
Thank you, God. Thank you
.