Reclaiming Lily (28 page)

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Sunday.

She turned from the window and smoothed her dress, the only thing, besides pj’s and her robe, she’d worn since the miscarriage. This was the Sabbath, God’s day, Andrew’s day. It had always been so. It had to be so. At this moment, God and Andrew were holed up in the study, nailing down their sermon bullet points.

Would she be able to sit through it without falling apart?

She rested her elbows on Formica, let the weathered wood cabinet support her shaky frame. “God, get me through this. May I be Andrew’s helpmate. He’s sure been here for me. Get me over—” She bit her lip against the venom that roiled up, just thinking about that baby and why He would gift such a miracle, then snatch it away.

“Mom?” Joy stood before her, eyes wide, hands clasped.

Gloria winced when her hip banged the counter edge. Joy could read her with a glance. How could she allow such thoughts with Joy in the house? “Can I get you breakfast?” She sweetened her voice, just as she’d sweetened that cold coffee with spoonfuls of sugar. “How about oatmeal? There’s a cinnamon roll—”

“Mom, I’ll grab something.” Joy pulled Gloria into a hug and the smell of bubble gum.

Gloria gazed at Joy, who wore a simple cotton blouse and a skirt patterned with zebras. Her hair had been pulled to the side and pinned with an ivory clip.

Gloria smiled. Joy, her Joy, looked like a million dollars.

Money. Shoplifting. A tremble began, deep in Gloria. “You look wonderful, Joy. Um, I’ve not seen that outfit before, have I?”

Joy’s eyes narrowed, but there was no malice in them.

Talk about a change.

“No worries, Mom. Dad dropped me at the thrift store after school. He gave me an advance against my job.”

Relieved, Gloria leaned back. While she’d recuperated in a Harris hospital room, Joy had visited the gift shop . . . and the business office. “They already called you?”

“Uh-huh. I start right away. Only fifteen hours a week. But it’s a start.”

“That’s why you’re all dressed up. At least you don’t have to wear scrubs.”

“Actually, I do. I got those too.” Joy wrinkled her nose. “It’s kinda gross, wearing used work clothes. But it’s all I can afford, at least for now.”

“We could help you out. . . .”

“No, Mom.” Joy’s hands performed their dance. “It’s something I have to do on my own. Like go to church with you today.”

Tears sprung into Gloria’s eyes. Joy hadn’t set foot in church since . . . had it been two years? She tried to remember what had incited Joy’s last exodus, but it jumbled into incidents of snubbing and sanctimony and legalism. “Joy,” she finally managed to say past the expansion of her heart into her throat, “you don’t know what this means to me.”

“I think I do.” Suddenly Gloria was staring into a gaze like Kai’s. Level. Steady. Compassionate.
Just what I need.

“So get your Bible, Mom. I’ll tell Dad we’ll meet him there.”

By the light of a red Boston sunrise, Kai sat at her desk and pored over preliminary findings of a daring clinical trial. Which MRA patients might benefit? She thumbed back a page, searched for the inclusion criteria. Mrs. Connally. Mr. Devries. Near the end, barring a miracle. Words blurred as she searched for contact information and scribbled it on a pad.

Kai continued to read. Sunbeams blazed swaths across her gray carpet. The faint notes of birdsong penetrated closed windows. Hope despite so much despair. Kai rubbed her eyes. It was barely six a.m., and she’d zipped through files, plotted out her Monday. Amazing how a desk could be cleared when there was no David to occupy her time.

She shoved away a pang of sorrow and scribbled a plan of attack for Joy. By Wednesday, precious Fourth Daughter would be ushered into MRA with the fanfare they’d accorded that civil rights leader/patient . . . who had passed away last fall.

PKD.

Again.

Kai clenched the pen and stared at dust motes floating, helpless against the whims of physics. Here one minute, gone the next.

What every human faced, sooner or later.

“Kai?” Dr. Duncan, the forty-five-year-old founder of MRA, stuck his head into her office. “You’re here bright and early.”

Wearily, Kai rose. “Yes, with the birds.” She affected cheeriness for her boss. “Good morning, Doctor.”

Gaunt even in scrubs, with the hollowed-cheek look of a long-distance runner, Dr. Duncan waved her back into her seat. “What’s it gonna take for you to call me Paul?”

Kai ducked her head to hide what surely were blazing cheeks. This man had hired her over a rumored pool of five hundred applicants. Imagine, such a legend, choosing a nearly penniless Chinese woman over the world’s best young doctors . . . then asking her to call him Paul! “I do not think it will happen, Doctor.”

Dr. Duncan slapped a file folder against his leg. “One a’ these days, we’ll loosen you up, Kai. Hope I’m around to see it.”

She smiled. “I hope you are around too.”

Another guffaw informed her that she had said something funny. It happened constantly with her American friends. Though Kai was puzzled, she delighted in lightening their hearts, especially healers like this man, burdened with issues of life and death.

Dr. Duncan handed her a folder. “Here’s the agenda. Sorry I didn’t get it to you Friday. I had a ‘take a look-see’ that took . . . till midnight.” A grin showed he didn’t mind. Imagine, MRA’s senior partner, still on weekend rotation, helping colleagues. An idea pricked. She tried to set it aside, but it wouldn’t be dismissed. “Our meeting is at eight, correct?” This must be done carefully. One step at a time, as David always said.

“No, Kai. 8:05. If you don’t behave, I’ll tell Janine.” They chuckled at the office manager’s techniques to keep them punctual by scheduling meetings at odd times . . . like 8:05. MRA’s efficiency soothed Kai’s frazzled edges. She, Chang Kai, belonged to a practice where every hire oozed passion . . . or was told to clean out his desk.

“I am not keeping you from work?”

Dr. Duncan put his hands on his hips. “Whaddya want, Kai? Spit it out!”

Kai was tempted to dig at her hands, as Gloria did when “put on the spot”—another American phrase she’d conquered. “There is a personal matter I wish to discuss.”

Did his dark eyes widen? Surely he wished at this moment to flee what could be news of a tawdry affair, plagiarism, scandal. Something she would never inflict on this hallowed institution. She could not blame Dr. Duncan. He did not know her heart. “Yes, Kai. Of course.” He pulled close the chair where her patients normally sat. Now her desk—and ethnicity, culture, experience, gender—separated them. Kai again fought Gloria’s strange habit of punishing her hands.
Am I making a mistake by confiding in him?

Dr. Duncan leaned back. “What is it, Kai?” Deep-set eyes crinkled, as if preparing to hear the worst. Not surprising, in their profession. She hoped to pleasantly surprise him.

“It is my sister.”

“Your sister? I thought she was in China.”

Kai looked out the window. The sky had been painted blue and spoke of hope. The blossoms of magnolia trees, planted in neat rows, braved the brisk spring breeze. She could trust this man with Joy. She must.

“I have three sisters. Two live in China. Years ago, our youngest sister was placed in an orphanage. She was adopted by Americans. Just two weeks ago we were reunited down in Texas.”

“Congratulations” came out in a guarded way. Of course Dr. Duncan would dissect each word, for he did not yet know what she would ask of him.

“Yes, it was a Joy.” She smiled at what David called a play on words, then cleared her throat when Dr. Duncan did not so much as blink. “But there are complications.”

Skin stretched across that grizzled face, again preparing for the worst. She would not let him worry an instant longer.

“PKD runs in our family. She has displayed symptoms.”

Dr. Duncan groaned. It was surely a groan for the millions afflicted—dear Mrs. Rodriguez, who could no longer leave her bed; precious little Sarah, whose body had rejected her donor kidney. It was condolence for the patients whose files bulged their cabinets. It was the doctor’s response to a killer until a weapon was found to obliterate PKD from every people group, from every country. Until then, they would fight. Yes, they would fight. Though the numbers, perhaps the early hour, was numbing her brain, she straightened to refocus on Joy. “I will meet my sister and her parents Wednesday at Logan.”

“What time?”

“Midafternoon.”

With his jaw tightened, his nose sharp and beaklike, his eyes unblinking and bright, Dr. Duncan resembled a bird of prey.
A formidable ally . . . if he is on my side.

“I’ll clear my schedule, Kai. Three o’clock will be fine.”

“You mean you would consider . . .” Of course she heard his answer; exactly what she had wanted. Still, his acceding to her wishes so quickly sucked the air from her lungs.

“I would like to see her.” He rose. Jabbed hands into his lab coat pockets. “Have the Texas folks fax her records. Everything from vitals to when she said her first word.”

Kai grinned. “Aye-aye.”

“In the meantime, call Ruth at the transplant unit. Tell her your sister . . . What’s her name?”

“Joy. Joy Powell.”

“Hmmm. Joy. I like that.” Dr. Duncan moved toward the door. “Ask Ruth for an appointment. She’s gonna balk since we don’t have her work-up, but get Joy on the list. In the system.” The threshold frame was gripped with Dr. Duncan’s powerful hand. “When I call in, they’ll have a name.” His eyes narrowed. “Make it for Friday. That’s pushing it, but who knows? Maybe we’ll get a miracle.”

Kai grabbed the word from the air, glad to make reacquaintance, then bowed low. “It is a miracle. I am privileged to have you do my sister’s work-up.”

Their senior partner chuckled. “Cut it out, Kai. That isn’t the miracle. The miracle is we had a conversation about something besides work.” He grimaced. “Kinda.”

Wide-mouthed and clueless, Kai stared at her boss as he ambled down the hall. So he wished to speak to her about something besides work? Whatever could that mean? Shaking her head, she returned to her desk.

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” laughed Deanne, a single mother who’d waitressed through nursing school and brought humor and efficiency to MRA. Of a stellar nursing staff, Deanne, who now stood by Kai’s desk, was Kai’s favorite.

Kai set down her Red Delicious.

“Sure you don’t want to join us?” Deanne handed Kai the requested file. “Monday’s half-price pizza, not that you rich doctors care. We’re talking Little Italy . . .”

Unlike her colleagues, Kai had resisted a love affair with cheese and doughy crust and in the past saved time for David by skipping lunch. That might change, but not today. “Ah, pizza.” She encouraged Deanne with a smile. “Eat a slice for me.”

“No problem there.” With her robust figure, Deanne likely ate many extra slices. “Ya need anything else?”

“No, but thank you.” Kai waved Deanne out the door and waited until all but a skeleton staff jabbered their way to lunch before she grabbed the file and opened it.

Transplant Donor Procedures
.

Kai had no need to study the thick document, having updated it for her practice six months ago. She punched in the phone number at the top of the page.

“Transplant Unit. Ten South.”

“This is Kai from MRA. May I speak to Jeanette, please?”

“Just one moment.”

Kai was put on hold, with jazz music to settle her nerves. They needed settling.

“Jeanette speaking.”

“Hello, Jeanette. This is Kai, Dr. Duncan’s associate at MRA.”

“Yes.” The rushed Boston dialect braked. A pleasant tone took hold. “He left a message. Said to expect your call.”

Kai opened and closed her mouth. So many times since she had stepped off that United Airlines jet, America had rolled out a red carpet. Unexpected kindness still took away her breath. To think that a man of Dr. Duncan’s repute would make a call for her!

“How can I help you, Doctor?” An edge whittled away congeniality. After all, this was Boston. Monday. A busy hospital.

Kai picked up her pen . . . and vowed to adopt the Boston style. “Did Dr. Duncan explain our predicament?”