Mother's Promise Read online

  “It’ll do you both good to be settled in one place, to know that at least for now, that’s home,” Hester assured her. “And wait until he meets Sally Shepherd. I know she’s a girl but that kid is a guy’s girl if ever I met one.”

  “She seems very nice,” Rachel agreed, remembering the effervescent girl they had shared ice cream cake with the evening before. “I didn’t want to pry last night, but what kind of cancer does she have?”

  “Acute myelogenous leukemia—AML for short.”

  “We studied that in nursing school, but I thought it affected mostly older people.”

  “That’s right. Less than 10 percent are children. Go figure how a healthy active kid like Sally ends up getting it.”

  “She’s such a lovely child. So that form of leukemia is really fast growing?”

  “Ja. It’s pretty aggressive.”

  “When did Sally have her transplant?”

  Hester nodded. “Last February. Neither Sharon nor Malcolm was a match and of course, she has no siblings so they had to wait for a donor.”

  “They must have considered using her own blood cells?”

  Hester nodded. “The medical team thought it was too risky in her case.”

  Rachel was well aware that using the patient’s own blood increased the risk of a relapse since that blood could still carry some of the abnormal cells. “But an unrelated donor match is also risky.”

  “True, but with a lower risk of relapse down the road. The reality is that there are downsides to both options.”

  The two of them were silent for a moment as they continued to watch the rain.

  “Will you listen to us—talking shop like we used to when we were in nursing school?” Hester said, shaking her head at the memory.

  Rachel smiled, but she couldn’t seem to get Sally Shepherd out of her mind. “She seems to be doing well now,” she ventured.

  “Remarkably well.” Hester started folding clothes from an overflowing basket of laundry. “Can you imagine? One day your child is healthy and whole, and the next …” She held on to one of John’s shirts, clutching it to her as she stared off into space imagining the impossible.

  “She was very sick, then?” Rachel asked.

  “Ja.”

  Rachel thought about Ben and the way he and Sally had laughed together when they shared the ice cream cake. It had been clear that they adored each other. She remembered the watchful way that he studied Sally as the girl gobbled down a large piece of ice cream cake and quizzed Rachel about Justin. She had thought that she understood his concern for his niece. How often over these long months had she watched Justin as he struggled with coming to terms with his father’s death? Ben wanting to make sure Sally was truly better was very similar to how Rachel felt whenever she was forced to face the fact that James was gone and there was nothing she could do to change that—for her son or herself.

  “Mom? John says it’s time,” Justin called out to her from the porch. “Bring my backpack, okay?” His voice quavered, and Rachel wasn’t sure whether or not that was the result of excitement or nerves or more likely a combination of the two.

  “Coming,” she called as she picked up her rain slicker and Justin’s backpack. She hooked an arm through the straps of the nylon satchel that Hester had bought for her. She’d insisted that Rachel would need something for transporting books and papers for her certification studies from work to class to home and back again. She stepped outside she covered herself as well as Justin with the rain slicker as they ran down the steps to John’s truck.

  “It’s all going to be fine,” she told her son as he waited for her to slide in next to John before climbing in beside her and wordlessly closing the door.

  Chapter 7

  Ben was on his way to Sarasota Memorial Hospital when he heard the ambulances behind him. He pulled to one side of the road to let them weave their way through traffic and across a busy four-lane road. There were two of them—one following less than a minute behind the other. If Ben had to guess he would assume car accident. He just hoped no one was seriously injured and that whatever had happened didn’t involve kids on their way to their first day of school.

  He was starting his last two weeks at this hospital before moving permanently to Gulf Coast. Selfishly he thought about how difficult it would be for him to leave behind a juvenile patient that he might be able to treat in the short term but not follow up on once he left Memorial for good. And then for one horrible instant as he eased his way back into the flow of traffic, he pictured Sally lying in the back of one of those ambulances.

  As hard as it had been for Sharon and Malcolm to come to terms with the idea that their only child had contracted a form of cancer rare in children her age, it had been impossible for Ben to wrap his head around the prospect that he might not be able to find the medical professionals and science it would take to save her life. He was a doctor and dedicated to healing. Failure was simply not an option.

  “Lighten up,” Sally had demanded after they had gotten the news that her first round of therapy had not eradicated the disease. “We’re only in the bottom of the first inning here,” she’d announced with a great deal more certainty than either he or her parents had been able to muster. That was when they had first begun to consider the possibility of a bone marrow transplant.

  Sharon and Malcolm had been tested and proved not to be a match, and then everyone in their extended families had been tested with the same results. Understanding that they needed a stranger to be a match for Sally and that finding that perfect stranger could take months, they had launched the search.

  Ben’s pager buzzed as he pulled into a space reserved for physicians and staff, jarring him back to the present and the reality of the day ahead of him. He glanced at the screen and saw the number for the ER. “And so it begins,” he whispered aloud as he dashed through the pouring rain to the hospital’s side entrance.

  As the morning developed he learned that his concern for the occupants of the ambulances had not been misplaced. A teenage girl on her way to pick up her friend for the first day of school had lost control of the car and struck the other student. Both girls as well as the boy riding with the driver had been brought to the ER.

  The girl that had been struck was on her way to surgery so Ben went to check on the other two teens. He was surprised that the nurse indicated a room where a Mennonite couple dressed in traditional garb hovered near the patient. But before he could skim through the chart and enter the room, he was accosted by a man he recognized as a member of the hospital’s board of trustees.

  “Dr. Booker!”

  “Hello, Mr. Kline,” Ben replied, glancing into the exam room the man had just left. In an instant he grasped the situation. “Your son was the third victim in this accident?” he asked. He looked at his notes again and saw that of the two, the girl was the more seriously injured. “If you’ll give me a moment to check on—”

  Kline’s eager smile faded. “My son is in pain,” he announced, as if this proclamation should be enough for the entire staff to come running.

  Ben saw that the hospitalist was already with the Kline boy. “I’ll be there as soon as I’ve tended to the girl.”

  “Given the fortune I have donated to this institution over the years,” Kline said through gritted teeth as he took hold of Ben’s arm, “I think I have a right to—”

  “—the same quality of care as every other patient we treat here,” Ben replied quietly. He met the man’s glare directly. “Dr. Thompson is with your son and your wife. I will be with you as soon as I can.”

  “Thompson is not our son’s physician. You are.”

  “Dr. Thompson is an excellent physician.” He looked pointedly at Kline’s fingers that were still grasping his sleeve. “Sir, we’re wasting time here.”

  The businessman released him and turned back to the room where his son could be heard anxiously asking the hospitalist if he would be able to play in that week’s football game.

  Ben t
urned his attention to the nurse at his side who was quickly filling him in on the girl’s injuries. “It’s her state of mind that seems to be the worst of it. She just lies there oblivious to everything and everyone around her.”

  “Well, let’s get her lip stitched up and order a psych evaluation. She was the driver?”

  The nurse nodded. “The girl in surgery is her cousin.”

  Ben nodded. “See if there’s a bed available in case we want to keep her overnight for observation.” He entered the exam room, and the parents glanced up at him with relief. “Hello, Sadie. I’m Dr. Booker. I need to take a look at you and ask you some questions. Would that be all right?”

  The girl was sitting on the edge of a chair, her arms locked around her body as if she wore a straitjacket. She had no reaction to his presence as she stared at the wall and rocked slowly back and forth.

  Ben took his time pulling on a pair of protective gloves and then walked around the bed to examine her lip. “That’s going to need some stitches.” The girl was sixteen, but he decided to try addressing her as if she were far younger. Either it would further calm her or it would make her annoyed enough to rouse her from her catatonic state. “I could use my special pink thread—or purple.”

  No response. The nurse was right. Her state of mind was far more worrisome than the split lip. He tried again as he gently checked for evidence of further injury.

  “How about it, Sadie?” he asked, watching her face for any sign of pain as he performed his examination. “What’s your favorite color? I’m partial to blue myself—or green. My mom used to say that’s because I’m the outdoors type—I like nature—water, trees….” Gradually Sadie’s arms and legs started to relax.

  As Ben continued his work he addressed his comments to the parents. “I’m going to suggest that Sadie be admitted at least overnight. Right now she’s showing all the classic signs of shock, but I’d like to make certain there’s nothing else going on.”

  “The officer …,” the father began, lowering his voice and glancing toward the corridor where a police officer was standing at the nurses’ station.

  “I’d like to get some X-rays—not that I suspect anything, but since she’s not really responding to touch or perhaps pain, we want to be sure. And we should probably consider a psych consultation.”

  Both parents nodded. Ben clipped the thread with a small scissors and then pulled off his gloves. He offered the man a handshake while the nurse assured them that someone would be along soon to transport Sadie to radiology. Not knowing what he could possibly say that might bring this stoic couple a measure of reassurance, Ben simply nodded to the woman and left.

  By the time he finished treating Sadie Keller, the Klines had arranged to have their son seen by another doctor—a specialist in sports medicine. They did not even glance at Ben as he passed, for which he was grateful. He stopped at the nurses’ station and signed orders for X-rays and a bed for Sadie as well as the psych evaluation, then he headed off to make his rounds.

  The rain was still coming down with no sign of letting up. Ben decided to grab a salad to go from the hospital café before heading to his office in the physicians building across the skywalk where according to his schedule he would have a waiting room filled with patients. On his way out of the hospital he passed by the family waiting room. There he was surprised to see Hester Steiner hovering near a woman with flaming red curls. The woman was sobbing uncontrollably. Hester’s husband, John, had his arm around a man who looked as distraught as the woman sounded. Sitting to either side of the woman were the parents of the girl he’d treated that morning.

  Ben’s heart went out to all three families, including the Klines.

  Growing up in his father’s house, any sign of emotion had been viewed as weakness. Ben was expected to accept everything that happened as God’s will—not to be questioned. And he had quickly learned to bury his feelings and focus all of his energy on achievement—the one thing his father seemed to value. He had excelled in his studies and on the athletic field. He had been elected president of his high school’s student council, and eventually he had been accepted into three of the nation’s top premed programs. And his father took credit for all of it even as he preached humility on Sundays.

  Ben had never understood his father. The man who stood in the pulpit Sunday after Sunday did not mesh with the man who sat at the head of the table in the house where Ben and Sharon had grown up. Somehow Sharon had never struggled with the duality that Ben found so utterly confusing.

  Once he became a doctor, Ben had dedicated his life to one purpose—making sure he put his medical skills to work to heal every child that came to him if he could. But once Sally was diagnosed, Ben had found that he was suddenly engaged in a raging tug-of-war between his emotions and his determination not to allow himself to feel—anything.

  All afternoon as he attended to his appointments the memory of those Mennonite parents and then the news that the child had died stayed with him. After he finished his last office appointment for the day, he went back to the hospital to check on Sadie Keller. Her father was sitting by her bed, and a boy a year or so younger than Sadie was curled into a chair, sleeping.

  Ben checked the notes left by the psychologist.

  “She’ll be taken into custody as soon as we discharge her,” the nurse on duty told him. “These kids today,” she added, shaking her head, “they assume nothing like this can happen to them.”

  The same way Sharon and Malcolm could never imagine that a child as healthy and lively as Sally might be struck down by leukemia, Ben thought. “Let’s try to keep her through tomorrow night,” he said.

  He did not miss the look of skepticism the nurse gave him. The chances that the hospital brass might let the girl stay beyond one night were slim to none, but right then Ben felt he had to bank on slim. If this were Gulf Coast Medical Center he could speak directly to Darcy, but here at Memorial it was common knowledge that he was leaving. Those in charge would hardly be inclined to stretch the rules for him.

  On his way home to his condo overlooking Sarasota Bay, Ben suddenly decided to prescribe something for himself—a strong dose of family. His sister’s home cooking, his brother-in-law’s wry take on the news of the day and most of all, Sally’s sunny smile.

  Justin’s first day of school was a nightmare. The place was an endless maze of hallways lined with lockers and classroom doors that all looked alike to him. At the end of a long assembly where all the students crowded into a large auditorium and paid little attention to the principal as he laid out his plans for the coming year, a jangling bell announced that Justin had less than three minutes to find his locker and get to his class.

  So much noise and confusion. The hallways were filled with kids, all talking and laughing and all seeming to be pushing their way toward him. He felt like a fish trying to swim upstream. He saw kids looking at him and in spite of trying not to stand out, he was sure that they knew that he was different from them. They all seemed to know each other, and they all had cell phones that they stared at even as they wove their way through the crowded halls bumping into anyone in their way without so much as glancing up.

  Justin found his locker and fumbled with the combination lock.

  “Need some help?”

  He looked up and saw a chubby-faced girl wearing a pink baseball cap. She was opening the locker next to his.

  “No,” he mumbled and turned his attention back to the dial.

  “The key is to make sure you go a little past the second number before you go back to the third one,” the girl said. She was busy storing a bunch of stuff from her backpack. “Are you in Mr. Mortimer’s class?”

  “Yeah.” The lock finally gave, and Justin hurried to hang up the slicker his mom had insisted he take. The minute John had driven off with his mom after dropping him off, Justin had stuffed the slicker into the backpack that was still stiff with newness. He slammed his locker door the way he’d seen a guy do down the way and spun the dia
l on the lock. Without another glance at the girl, he headed for class.

  “Hey,” the girl said, catching up to him. “Mortimer’s room is this way.”

  “I know,” he lied. “I’ll be there, okay?” His voice was practically a growl but at the moment, he would do anything to break this girl’s connection. He was all too aware that every move he made in the first few hours would set the way others would look at him for weeks to come. That was the way it was with kids, and the last thing he needed was to be tagged as a guy who hung out with girls. She seemed nice enough, but she was a girl and well, he was pretty sure it would not be a good idea to be seen with her until he could figure out the way things worked around here.

  “Well, all righty then,” she huffed. “Just trying to help.”

  Justin kept walking away from her, his head down as he plowed his way through a group of kids.

  “Well, will you look who’s back? Yo, Fat Sally!” The boy he’d seen slamming his locker yelled, and the two boys standing near him snickered.

  From behind him he heard the girl shout, “Shows what you know about anything, Derek Piper. Maybe if you opened a book once in a while …”

  The boys around the large muscular guy grinned, and one of them punched him in the arm. But Justin saw the boy roughly shrug him off as he started down the hall after the girl, his eyes ablaze. Then he spotted Justin and paused. “Hey newbie,” he said with a grin.

  Justin froze and tried to come up with something to say. “Hey,” he finally managed as Derek and his friends passed him.

  He breathed a sigh of relief, but then Derek turned around and stared at him. “You coming or not?”

  And all of a sudden Justin found himself part of a quartet of boys headed for Mr. Mortimer’s classroom where the boy called Derek slumped into a seat in the back row and continued to glare at the girl wearing the baseball cap. She ignored him until their teacher decided to rearrange students, and Justin found himself seated across from Derek Piper and just in front of the girl.