Once Written, Twice Shy (The Broken Men Chronicles) (16 page)

Wednesday came around quick.

Alissa wasn’t able to come along with us but I had
voiced my understanding that her new job needed her and that I would keep her
updated on the day’s progress as it went on.  With a few tears and a supportive
smile from her, I sent her off at eight thirty.

We arrived at the hospital half an hour early.  I
asked Julie if she had any idea how the hell we’d managed to get a donor so
quickly and one who knew about our case at that.  She confessed that she hadn’t
even spoken to her parents, friends or other family members about our
appointment when her phone had rung with the great news.

Doctor Messing came in with a smile on his face.  “How’s
everyone doing this morning?”

“Pretty great,” I said and shook his hand.  “I
still can’t wrap my head around it.”  I shook my head in amazement.

“I can imagine.  Hell, I don’t think we’ve had this
quick of a turnaround by using the stem cell database to be honest with you,” he
said.  “You truly have an angel looking out for that son of yours.”

“That we do,” I said and smiled at Jasper who was
busy playing with a few of his toy cars in his hospital bed.  He hadn’t come
back home after his bout with pneumonia.  Doctor Messing thought it prudent to
keep him in a more sterile environment so complications were less likely
whenever the time arose for his marrow transplant.  The man had stated that the
sooner we were able to go through with the procedure, the greater the
likelihood for success.  I wasn’t about to mess with that.

“I do have one question for the lot of you before
we get to the business at hand,” Messing said.  “Normally we try and keep
things confidential until the procedure is finalized and the necessary
paperwork is filed but the donor has requested to meet with the recipient and
his family beforehand.”

“What should we do?” Julie asked me.

“It’s a little unorthodox and not exactly protocol
and I understand if you would rather wait until after the procedure is done but
I figured I’d put it out there since it came as a personal request from the
donor and in this case, I’ve chosen to bend the rules if you’re interested,” he
said.

“I think I’d be okay with that,” I said and Julie
nodded her assent.  “Jasper,” my boy looked up at me, “would you like to meet
your hero now instead of later?”

“You mean the one that’ll make me all better?” he asked.

“That’s right,” I said.  He nodded with vigour and
I looked at Julie who nodded her approval.  “Let’s do this,” I said as I turned
to look at Messing.

The man escorted us down a maze of halls and
stopped outside the door to the room we were meant to walk through.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Let’s do this,” Jasper copied my earlier statement
and Julie, Todd and I nodded.

“I’ll let them know that you’ve agreed,” he said
and left us to wait in the hall.

After a few minutes, he came back out and gestured
for us to go ahead.

Hand-in-hand, Julie, Jasper and I walked on as a
family unit with Todd and Messing bringing up the rear.  I first saw the linen
covered feet as the curtain was half-drawn.  The smell of disinfectant
assaulted my nostrils and the low and steady beeping emanating from a heart
monitor was going strong.  I could hear the rhythmic ticking of an IV drip and
my feet continued their progress.

“Hi.”  I was met with as I peered around the
curtain and was greeted with the warmest smile.

Everything began to spin.

***

I no longer knew up from down as my knees
threatened to give out from under me.  My eyes registered one thing, my head
another and before long, so did my heart.  I felt fear, shame, pride, elation
amongst many other reeling emotions.

“
You
,” Julie said, “it’s
you
?”

I registered the anger in her voice.  My ex was
livid and if smoke could physiologically manifest itself from her ears she’d be
a dead ringer as a steam train.  Myself, I was confused as all get out.

“Julie, I can explain everything,” the patient in
the bed said.

“Allie!” Jasper said far more enthusiastic than
his mother clearly felt and took a running leap toward the hospital bed only to
be stopped by Julie.

“Alissa,” I managed. 
She said she had to head
in to work.  I saw her dressed and ready with my own two eyes.  I saw her off
with a kiss…her tears…what is she doing lying in that hospital bed?
  As I
pondered, a short answer formulated itself.  I knew why.

“Pax…Jasper…Julie?” Alissa said and her eyes
stayed locked on Julie’s face.  I turned to look at what Alissa was being faced
with seeing as Julie had yet to say anything and from experience, silence was
about as bad as her coming to blows with my ex’s words.  “Let me explain.”

Julie kept hold of Jasper’s shoulders and tapped
her foot.  “Please,” Julie said, impatient and clearly vexed.

My gaze trained itself on Alissa who had wires and
tubes dangling from her left arm.  She was prepped and ready to go.  Before
long, it was going to be Jasper’s turn; speaking of which, the little monster
had managed to free himself from his mother, climbed up onto the bed and now
sat on Alissa’s lap.

“I thought Daddy said we were meeting my hero,”
Jasper said.  “Are you sick too?”

“No little man, I’m not sick,” she said and gave
him her best smile which never reached her eyes.  The uneasiness to her voice
told me she was nervous. “I hope you’re okay with me helping you get better.” 
The boy nodded.

“Explain,” Julie said, “
now!
”  I saw my son
jump at the venomous anger in his mother’s tone and I didn’t appreciate it one
bit.

Before I risked stocking the fire, Todd beat me to
the punch with better results than I probably would have yielded.  “Julie,” he said,
“calm down and give her a chance to do just that.”  Alissa nodded her appreciation
and looked at me quickly before finally settling her gaze on the fiery
resistance in the room.

“I honestly thought that you’d be thrilled,” she said.
 “I never once expected for you to be mad…disappointed, sure…envious, maybe.”

“I’m not mad.  I’m fucking furious,” Julie said.

Jasper gasped.  “Mommy,” he said, “that’s a bad
word.”

Julie didn’t bother to react to Jasper’s scolding. 
In fact, I was shocked that she had forgotten that he was even in the room and
had paid him no never mind despite that he was still perched on Allie’s lap. 
One look at the intensity in the woman’s face told me that she was trapped
between this surprise of sorts and her raging pregnancy hormones.

“I’m sorry,” she said to my ex-wife.

“How?” I asked, “I mean, when did you get tested?” 
And then I began to clue in.  There had only been one moment where she could
have done this without us knowing.  Messing’s secretary had mentioned that
someone had specifically stated that their sample was for Jasper’s case.  “You
never left your phone behind that day, did you?” I asked.

She shook her head.  “No.”

Alissa had gone through the motions of explaining
that after we had found out about Julie’s and my test results, she had feigned
leaving her cellphone behind.  It turns out that she had run in to make an
appointment to get tested and was lucky enough to bump into Doctor Messing
before he had left for his rounds.

“He didn’t want to run the blood-work because he
thought that I was in all of this too deep already,” she said.

“I was adamant that she speak with you both
beforehand,” Doctor Messing said and came up from behind, “and for good
reason.”  The man looked at my ex-wife.

“But I persisted and I told him that if there were
issues, we could all deal with them after we got this going for Jasper…if I was
a match that is,” she said.  I watched as she eyed Julie with sternness and tilted
her chin up with pride and that stubbornness of hers I had grown to love in all
of our time together.  “I realize that this is a shock to you all but I figured
that if there was the slightest chance, that you two as parents should take
it.”

“She’s right,” Doctor Messing said and looked between
Julie and me.  “There’s no way of knowing when another matching donor could
come around and Alissa is one of the best matches I’ve seen in my history of
donor and recipient matching.  You need to take this chance while it’s
available.  You know that the chemo hasn’t been working as well as it should
and platelet therapy can only help so much and he’ll need more of that after
the transplant-”

“You just like to steal the show, don’t you?” Julie
accused more than asked.  “You waltz in here and-”

“Julie!  You have to calm down, honey,” Todd said
and took hold of arm as the woman attempted to move toward Alissa.  “This isn’t
the end of the world.  I find what she’s doing incredibly valiant.”

“It’s not about bravery or valour,” Alissa said
and reached out to Julie who with reluctance, Todd released and by some unseen
force, Julie moved forward but never gave the woman her hand, “it’s about
what’s right for this boy of yours.”  Alissa paused to smile at Jasper.  “He’s
your world and I know that and I know what it is to love him, Julie.  Let me do
this for you.  I can’t bear thinking that you could lose him over the simple
fact that we have our differences.  Do it for Jasper.”

After a moment of silence which felt like an eternity,
Julie gave in and reached her hand out to cover the top of Alissa’s.  Without
another word the woman picked Jasper up from my girlfriend’s lap and nodded. 
With that unspoken acknowledgement, Julie made to exit the room with our son in
her arms and Todd following them out of the room.

She paused at the door.  “Good luck,” she said
before she disappeared altogether.

“I’ll give you two a minute,” Doctor Messing said
and bowed out.

I teetered on my feet as I studied her from head
to her covered toes.  She looked nervous, worried, relieved.  What made me feel
a slight semblance of comfort was that she also looked strong, proud, and
determined.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” I said. “Is
that why you were crying the other day when I walked in on you thanking someone
on the phone?”

She nodded.  “Yes.  I’m sor-” she said but I
rushed to her side and cradling her neck in my hand, I kissed her with such
desperation that even a glutton would still be hungry after over-eating.

I pulled my lips from hers and leaned our
foreheads against each other’s.

“Are you okay with this?” she asked and I could
tell that she was forcing back her emotions.  “I know it’s not the greatest.  I
know that I probably should have gone about it-”

I shook my head and pecked her.  “You’re crazy for
doing this all on your own, you know that?”  I kissed her again, keeping her
face between the palms of my hands.  “I wish you would have told me, gorgeous. 
Did you think about how the hell you were going to get home after all of this?”

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders.  “Not
really,” she said.

“You’re hopeless.  For what it’s worth, I’m not
happy you chose to do this alone but I love you all the more for it, baby, and
now that I know, I’m not leaving your side.”

“I’m not hopeless,” she said and nuzzled my nose,
“anything but.  I’m saving a life.”

“And you’ll never know how much that means to me,
to any of us,” I said.  “I love you so much, you crazy woman.”

“You know I do too.”

Doctor Messing came in and asked Alissa if she was
ready to go.  With a quick kiss to her hand, I let the two porters wheel her away,
promising that I’d be there when she woke up.

“Jasper is being prepped as we speak if you’d like
to see him before we take him away,” he said.

“I would,” I said, “and Doc?”

“Yes?”

“You make sure those two come back to me.”  I
swallowed the ball of emotion in my throat.  “They’re both my world.”

“Got it,” the man said and put a hand on my
shoulder as if a father would his son.  The irony was that we were both about
the same age.  “They’ll be fine.  You’ll see Alissa within the hour.  Jasper
however, will take a little while longer.”

“How much longer?”

“We’ll be running his blood again to make sure
everything is still a go despite the fact that we did it less than a week ago. 
From there, we’ll take Alissa’s marrow and synthesize it into the serum we need
and make the transfer,” he said.  “Jasper’s procedure will be nearly three
hours from the beginning of Alissa’s aspiration, the synthesising, and
transplantation.  Basically, he’ll be out for about an hour if that.”

I must have had a look of horror strewn on my face
because Messing chuckled and patted me on the back as he urged me forward and
out of Alissa’s room.

“Don’t worry,” Messing said again.  “It sounds
worse than what it is.  It’ll reflect more on Alissa than Jasper, believe it or
not.”

“Why’s that?”

“Transplants are typically harder on live donors
because they lose something they’re body is still using.  She’ll be sore,
particularly in her hips and lower back.  She might be a little extra tired as
well.  Her soreness will most likely last several days but it can be around for
up to a few weeks after the procedure,” the doctor said.  “We’ll be keeping
Jasper in here for the unforeseeable future but depending on how well Alissa
fairs with the anesthesia, she should be fine to go home tonight provided that
she keeps off her feet as much as possible for the remainder of the day and has
someone to look after her, help her exercise her legs and such from tomorrow on.”

“Alissa, you’re crazy,” I mumbled under my breath,
dragging my hands through my hair.

Doctor Messing chuckled.  “Not crazy but honestly
the most determined woman I’ve ever met.”

“She is that.  Thank you, Doc,” I shook his hand
and realized that we had walked all the way down the hall to what was Jasper’s
room without my being aware.