New Beginnings (2 page)

Cesar walked out with them. “I really appreciate you all coming by.”

“It’s the least we could do,” Anabelle said.

“I know you’ve buoyed her spirits. That woman has taught me a lot lately. How to be strong. And how to have faith in the Lord’s will and His power to heal.”

James clamped his hand on Cesar’s shoulder. “You let us know if she needs anything. Anything at all.”

He nodded. “I will. Thanks again.”

As James helped his wife into the car, he realized that in less than forty-eight hours, they’d know the results of the surgery.

For Elena and all of her friends, it would be a long, prayer-filled wait.

T
HE DAY OF ELENA’S SURGERY, ANABELLE ARRIVED
early at the hospital. Going directly to the surgical waiting area, she claimed a chair next to Cesar, who was dressed in a warm sweater and jeans. Furrows of worry creased his forehead.

“You’re here alone?” she asked.

He looked up as though he hadn’t realized she’d arrived. “Rafael wanted to come with us this morning. But he had to take Izzy to school and had a ton of paperwork to do for the police academy. He’ll pick Izzy up too. I promised I’d call him when I heard anything.”

“Then I’m all the more pleased that I can sit with you while you wait,” Anabelle said, glad that she had taken the morning off.

“You don’t have to do that, Anabelle. In fact there’s nothing anyone can do at this point.”

She placed her arm across his shoulders. “I can keep you company, and I can pray with you.”

Cesar’s lips hitched into a half smile. “I’ve sure been doing that a lot.”

“It helps, doesn’t it?” She’d certainly prayed hard when Kirstie had been injured in a dreadful bicycle accident years ago. Prayer and faith had kept her sane.

“I had to get Elena here at five thirty this morning. I don’t think either of us slept last night.”

“That’s understandable. The anticipation is always the worst part.” The waiting area was nearly full, husbands and wives, children and parents all frozen in time while the minute hand on the big clock on the wall barely moved.

“What will I do if she has—” His voice broke.

“
Shh
, she’ll be fine. And if she does have cancer, we’ll help her cope with that too.”

Candace arrived still wearing her coat. She crouched down in front of Cesar and took his hand in hers. “Have you heard anything yet?”

Cesar shook his head, his eyes bleak. “I’m not even sure they’ve started the surgery yet.”

“It should go fast once they get started,” Anabelle said. Fast, assuming the biopsy came back negative. Sometimes getting the test results took an extraordinary amount of time.

Candace stood. “I just wanted you to know I’m thinking of you both and praying.”

“Thanks, Candace. She’s lucky to have friends like you two.”

She squeezed his hand, rose, and kissed him on the forehead. “She’s a special lady.”

James was the next to stop by. Then, by ones and twos, other members of the hospital staff showed up, shaking Cesar’s hand, giving him an encouraging slap on the back. The Hope Haven Hospital family surrounded him with their support and, through him, held Elena in their hearts.

Meanwhile, the clock ticked resolutely forward. Minutes turned into hours while Anabelle sat with Cesar and prayed.

Finally, too impatient to sit still any longer, Anabelle stood. “I’m going to find out what’s taking so long. You stay here—”

Cesar’s worry lines deepened. “Do you think there’s something wrong?”

“I have no idea. But I’m going to find out.” She marched past the waiting room receptionist and into the surgical domain. Patients in recovery were being tended off to one side in curtained cubicles. Although she couldn’t storm into the middle of a surgery, she spotted one of the rotating nurses and waved her over.

“Karen, is there a problem with Elena’s surgery? It seems like it’s taking a long time.”

The young nurse glanced over her shoulder toward the surgical room and then gnawed on her lower lip. “The first biopsy was inconclusive. Dr. Drew is preparing more tissue for review.”

Anabelle’s heart sank. Inconclusive didn’t mean cancer. It might mean the technician had spoiled the sample. Or the tissue had not been prepared properly. But it wasn’t the result Elena would hope for.

“How long do you think it will be?”

Karen shook her head. “I have no clue. I think the doctor is determined to get an answer one way or the other. He doesn’t want to leave Elena in limbo and having to take treatments because of a faulty report.”

Neither did Anabelle. But waiting for the outcome would strain her already frayed patience. Cesar’s even more so.

All morning, James kept checking the nurses’ station to see if there had been any word about Elena. Surgery didn’t usually result in a worsening of a patient’s condition. That didn’t mean it couldn’t happen.

So he kept on praying and checking on his own patients.

On the way to work that morning, James had been delayed by an accident blocking traffic. Flashing blue and red emergency lights had cut through the predawn darkness, police and fire rescue paramedics in control of the situation. Two civilian vehicles sat in the center of an intersection, the front ends accordioned from the force of the impact. The icy roads of early December in north-central Illinois had extracted another toll on the hapless drivers.

The two victims of the accident James had seen had been moved into the General Medical/Surgical Unit and assigned to James. One had a few broken ribs and a broken ankle; the other had sustained a head injury and a broken jaw. All things considered, they were both fortunate. From the look of their cars, they could have been much worse off.

He checked his watch again. Why was Elena’s surgery taking so long?

Cesar stood when Anabelle returned to the waiting room.

“What did you find out?” he asked.

Trying not to reveal her concern, she told him about the inconclusive report.

He scowled at her. “What does that mean? Exactly.”

She took his arm, urging him to sit down again. “It means we have to wait a little longer than usual. When they are confident of the results of the biopsy, they’ll let us know.”

“And it could mean whatever is on her ovary is cancerous.”

“It could,” she told him honestly. “But it could also be a benign cyst, which is what we’re all hoping for.”

He speared his fingers through his closely cropped hair. “This waiting is killing me.”

Empathy for Cesar’s situation filled Anabelle’s chest. In a case like this, it was almost better to be the patient rather than a loved one who waited to hear the news. At least the patient was unaware of all the trauma that was going on around her.

“Would you like to go downstairs to the chapel?” she asked.

He hesitated. “That could be good, but…I want to be here when they call me in to see her.”

“I’ll tell the receptionist to page me when there’s news, and I’ll go with you to the chapel.” Fortunately, Anabelle had no meetings to attend today and her staff knew how to find her if she was needed.

He pushed himself to his feet again. “Anything beats sitting here thinking about the worst possible case.”

The small chapel on the first floor offered a quiet place to meditate and pray. On an overcast day like today, little sunlight slipped in through the stained-glass window above the altar. A water feature, a stream bubbling over rocks, made a subdued burbling sound that soothed troubled visitors.

Anabelle and Cesar sat on one of the oak pews.

“When I was a kid, I used to camp around Lake Michigan,” Cesar said. “I remember a stream that made that sound. If the mosquitoes weren’t too bad, I’d put my bedroll down right by the little meandering creek. The sound would put me right to sleep.”

Anabelle was touched that Cesar had chosen to open up to her, even in this small way. “It must have been very pretty.”

“Yeah, it was. We took Rafael there once. He started jumping on an old rotten log. What he didn’t know was that a nest of bees had taken up residence inside that old log.” He smiled at the memory. “Poor kid. I’ve never seen him run so fast. Those bees chased him right into the lake.”

“Was he badly stung?”

“Only a few stings. But I thought Elena was going to take off my head and stuff it in the log with those bees.” Tears suddenly rose in his eyes. With a deep, wracking sob, he leaned forward on the back of the pew in front of him and cried. His shoulders shook. He gasped for air.

Fighting her own tears, Anabelle touched his back.
Please Lord, help this man to trust in Your goodness and mercy. Help Elena with whatever she must face and heal her. Amen
.

E
LENA FLOATED IN A CLOUD OF ANESTHESIA. NO
pain. Aware of the recovery room nurse fussing around her. Putting a warm sheet over her. Making her want to nuzzle down deeper into the drug-induced sleep.

“You can wake up now, Elena.”

Elena tried to speak. It came out more like a mumble.

“There you go, hon. Time to rise and shine. Dr. Drew will be in soon to talk to you and your husband.”

Elena’s eyes blinked open.

Cesar.

He had been so worried about her. So she’d had to be brave. Strong. Even when she’d been scared about what the doctors would find.

She turned her head and licked her dry lips. Her throat hurt. She’d had a breathing tube.

A plastic cup with a straw appeared in the nurse’s hand. “Take a little sip. It will wash away that bad taste in your mouth.”

Awkwardly, her lips not working well together, she closed her mouth over the straw and sucked. The cool liquid slid down her throat, soothing it. Her focus became a little sharper.

“Where’s…my husband?” Her voice sounded hoarse.

“I’ll bring him back here in just a few minutes.”

The blood pressure cuff tightened around Elena’s arm. She twisted her head to read the monitor. The lines were fuzzy. Gibberish. The overhead lights made her squint. Funny how the postsurgical recovery process was so different from a patient’s perspective than that of a nurse. She’d have to remember that.

Still floating, she closed her eyes. She’d made it safely through the surgery. That hadn’t worried her. She had lots of faith in Dr. Drew.

It’s what he might find that had her and Cesar both on edge.

“
Querida
. Sweetheart, you’re all right now. The surgery’s over. You’re going to be fine.”

She opened her eyes to the sound of Cesar’s husky voice and the brush of his kiss to her lips. She smiled. His eyes were dark with concern and the hint of tears.

She lifted her hand to touch his familiar cheek, rough with morning whiskers. He hadn’t shaved before bringing her to the hospital. How many hours ago had that been? “I’m fine.”

He covered her hand with his. “I’ve been praying for you. As hard as I could.”

“I’m glad.”

Cesar had lost his faith in the Lord when his mother passed away years ago. Elena’s health crisis had begun to bring him back to God. Recently he’d even begun attending church with her. She hoped, no matter what happened to her, that Cesar would cling to his faith this time.

“Have you seen the doctor?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“I’m here now.” Dr. Drew slipped past the curtains that separated Elena from the other patients. He glanced briefly at the monitor, then stood beside her gurney opposite Cesar. “How’re you doing, Elena? You awake now?”

A flutter of anxiety circled through her empty stomach. “Mostly, I think.”

“Good. Good.” Although he often looked stern, his gray eyes twinkled with excitement. A surgical cap still covered his silver hair, and he wore a set of green scrubs. “The laparotomy surgery went just as we expected. No surprises at all. That oversize cyst on your ovary was giving you all that trouble. It’s gone, and you’re all stitched up again. Neatly stitched, I should add. A few months and you won’t be able to tell that you’ve had surgery.”

Cesar gave Elena’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

“What about the lab work?” That was her biggest concern. What the lab would find.

A broad smile crinkled the corners of Dr. Drew’s eyes. “We had a few glitches with that, which slowed things down a bit. The lab sectioned the ovarian cyst I removed while you were on the table. There’s absolutely no sign of cancer. None at all.”

Elena didn’t hear a single word after that. She suspected Cesar didn’t either. She heard him sob just before he leaned down to kiss her. Wrapping her arm around his neck she held on to her husband and felt her own tears mix with his, trickling down her cheeks.

Thank You, Lord. Thank You for Cesar and Dr. Drew and all the nurses and staff at Hope Haven who have helped me. Thank You for letting me stay here on earth with this man whom I adore
.

After checking on the head-injury patient a second time and switching IVs on his pneumonia case, James stepped out into the hallway. He spotted Cesar striding toward him. From the look on his face and the relaxed swing of his arms, the news was good.

James met him halfway.

“She’s fine,” Cesar said, all smiles. “No cancer.”

James’s sense of relief soared. “Thank God!”

“I’ll say amen to that. I was afraid—” He waved off the thought. “Anyway, she’ll be in recovery for a while, and I’ll be taking her home by late afternoon. The doctor says she’ll be back on her feet in no time.”

“Knowing Elena, I’m sure she’ll be on her feet and just as feisty as ever before you know it.”

“Yeah.” His grin was so wide, it looked like it might split Cesar’s face. “Tell Anabelle and Candace for me, will you?”

“You got it.”

“Thanks, buddy. She really appreciated all of you being there for her. And your prayers.”

“She would have done the same for us. That’s what friends are for.” Smiling to himself, James watched Cesar walk down the hallway. He looked as though he wasn’t even touching the ground. A cloud of joy surrounded and buoyed him.

James experienced the same buoyant release. He jumped up and clicked his heels together and then nearly fell over the computer.