Read A Heart for Robbie Online
Authors: J.P. Barnaby
Tags: #Romance - Gay, #Romance - Contemporary, #Fiction - Medical, #dreamspinner press
argued, his eyes flashing.
Julian’s socked feet slid a little on the hardwood floor as he stood.
Sitting with an imaginary guy and trying to piece himself back together
wouldn’t get everything done that he needed to do before Robbie’s
surgery tomorrow.
“Hey, who are you calling imaginary?” Liam asked before he slid
back into the place in Julian’s mind where he lived.
Julian went into his office, pulled his iPad from its charger, and left
it on the small table next to his living room chair on his way to the
kitchen. After putting on a pot of water for pasta, he thawed a container of sauce he had frozen the week before. His mind raced even in his
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exhaustion as he stood at the stove, and it seemed that he would never be able to shut it off.
Julian drained the finished pasta, plated it, and added the sauce. He
walked past his wine rack, poured a glass of milk instead, and took it into the dining room, where his mail sat waiting. The three bills went into one pile, and he tossed the seven ads into the throwaway pile without another glance. Finally, when he couldn’t put it off anymore, he focused on his
food. He wasn’t hungry, but the rumble in his stomach reminded him that
he had to eat and keep his strength up. Robbie needed him.
Julian rinsed his dishes, started the dishwasher, fell back into his
living room chair, and picked up his iPad. He groaned aloud at the three hundred and seventeen new e-mails. He deleted one immediately, to bring
the number to three sixteen. After scanning it quickly, he deleted all of the posts from various e-mail groups to which he belonged. Normally, he
thrived on the interaction with his fellow authors, but right then, he just didn’t want to deal with it. Ordering his inbox by name, he looked for e-mails he needed to deal with now, those from his agent, his editor, or his publisher. He found two e-mails from his agent, one wishing him luck and one asking how he was doing with his new family addition. Going through
the list, he found more e-mails congratulating him on the birth of his son.
It hurt, to be honest, and Julian just couldn’t force himself to e-mail them back and explain the awful truth.
His head hurt.
His heart hurt.
He just wanted to sleep.
Julian packed four days’ worth of clothes, took two sleeping pills,
set his phone right next to the bed, and succumbed to the drug-induced
sleep. He would take the laptop and get some work done the next day.
Right then, he wanted it all to stop.
THE COMPUTER screen blurred in front of Julian’s eyes as he stared at it in the hospital waiting room less than twelve hours later. He tried to
decide if he should make some kind of blog post about Robbie or simply
announce his son’s birth. Fans were kind of stalkerish with his personal information. It seemed like a lie to hide the truth, as if he was ashamed of his son, but in reality he just couldn’t deal with all of the well-wishers. To 34
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keep telling the story, the prognosis, again and again—he couldn’t deal
with that. Instead, Julian Holmes, best-selling gay novelist, announced the birth of his son and sent one e-mail to his agent explaining the entire story.
He didn’t want to do that, but an explanation had to be given for his lack of future progress on the next book. Writing was the last thing on his mind as he waited to hear about the outcome of his baby boy’s surgery. So that he didn’t completely lose his mind, he wrote a few blog posts so that
Robbie would be able to read them when he was old enough.
“Julian,” his mother prompted, and he looked away from the screen
at the family and friends assembled with him in the waiting room. His
parents, their pastor, his Aunt Marie, and her daughter, Karen, all sat
around him like a fortress, waiting with him for the battle to start. “I’m going to get some coffee. Would you like anything?”
The doctors had told him the surgery would take the better part of
three hours, and so far, only one incredibly slow hour had passed. He’d
counted the seconds over and over until he couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Actually, Mom, I think I’ll go with you,” he announced, much to
everyone’s surprise. He was going stir crazy in this little room with its bubbling fish tank, its babbling television, and its gum-popping teenager who belonged to another family waiting in the room. He just needed to get out.
“I have my cell. Call me if you need anything,” Julian told his father
and followed his mother out of the room.
The walk to the hospital cafeteria wasn’t long enough, the coffee
wasn’t hot enough, and the trip wasn’t distracting enough. They passed
thirteen directional signs, which he found ominous. His phone stayed
silent as Julian and his mother drank bitter lukewarm coffee and talked
about everything except the hell that Robbie was going through in the
operating room. The doctors had given a bored yet complete rundown of
their surgical plan for Robbie in excruciating detail. By the time they were finished, Julian’s chest ached for his son.
“It’s been about two hours. Do you want to go back upstairs? We
can stay down here awhile, if you need to,” Linda asked as she kept
trembling hands wrapped around her coffee cup.
Julian nodded, and they wordlessly got up together to throw away
their garbage. On the way back to the waiting room, they stopped off at
the gift shop, trying desperately to kill time with something other than A Heart for Robbie
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speculation as to what Robbie endured upstairs. When Julian thought
about them slicing his son’s side with a scalpel, he felt the pain as if it were physical, as if it were his body they ripped open. He roamed
aimlessly through the small shop, passing candy he couldn’t stomach and
magazines that wouldn’t distract him. Clothes, religious trinkets… even
flowers were useless. He saw a small end cap of stuffed animals as he
walked around a display of wind chimes. Before Julian could tell himself that they wouldn’t let Robbie have one, he found a small bear in a hospital gown with a bandage on his tiny brown head. It reminded Julian of the IV
they had put in the right side of Robbie’s scalp and the bandage that
covered the needle. It was such a sweet-looking thing, he couldn’t resist the impulse, so be bought it.
Three hours and forty-two minutes from the time they took Robbie
into surgery, a nurse appeared in the doorway of the waiting room. Marie nudged Julian, who sat absently stroking the fur of his son’s new bear. He looked at the small woman in her nondescript surgical scrubs and couldn’t get a read on her expression. However, he was sure if Robbie hadn’t
survived, they would have sent a doctor to tell him.
“Mr. Holmes?” she asked, though she looked straight at him.
“How is he?” Julian asked, standing up and holding the bear tightly
in one hand.
“He came through surgery very well and is in recovery. I came down
to let you know that the doctor will be by in a while, and you should be able to see your son in the ICU in about an hour.” She smiled at him, and he felt relief drain the very last bit of his energy.
Julian thanked her before falling heavily back into his chair. Bowed
forward, he held his head in his hands, as if the stress of the day were a sandbag around his neck.
“Honey, he’s gotten over the first hurdle,” his mother said as she
tried to rub the tension from between his shoulder blades.
“Yes, but how many more hurdles will he have to clear?”
Later that evening, after everyone else had gone home and Julian sat
looking at the small injured bear that now adorned Robbie’s crib, his heart ached with his decision to let these doctors carve out his son’s heart. He’d told them when they came to give him the result of the surgery. They had him sign yet more forms, starting the process, and scheduled a meeting
with their transplant team. They had no time to waste, once things were set 36
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in motion. Robbie would need to be right at the top of the list in order to get one of the very few hearts to come through their network.
THE SLOW beeping of heart monitors and the occasional swish of nursing
shoes against the tile were the only sounds in the early morning as he sat in the chair next to Robbie’s crib. Almost draconian in design, the chair offered little in the way of padding, but it allowed him to be close to his son. It just wasn’t the best for sleeping. Everyone else had gone home, telling Julian to do the same, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t leave Robbie so soon after surgery.
Instead, he took out his notebook and a pen. He’d spent so much
time alone lately that he found solace in losing himself in one of his
books. The one he’d started just before Robbie’s birth hadn’t gone
anywhere yet. He was still in the planning stages, but he could count on Liam and Clay to tell their story. They told the story, and he took
dictation. That’s always how it worked. He’d gotten through three books
that way. His characters were more than just fictional manifestations of his own insecurities, hopes, and fears; they were friends.
“Come on, old man, get it up. The pen, I mean, we’ve been stir crazy
here,” a voice murmured against the back of his mind.
Liam. Liam had been with him since the beginning, and his was the
voice Julian always heard first. Julian had poured everything he ever
wanted to be into the courageous, popular, and brilliant lead character, Liam Black.
“You’re not the one who’s supposed to be talking to me. This one
is about Clay,” Julian thought at Liam, not willing to actually talk to his imaginary friend aloud. Hearing voices was never good. It was the last
thing the transplant team needed to know about him. He could see Liam
looking down into the crib of the preemie across the aisle, a little girl with wisps of blonde hair and a cherubic face visible behind her
ventilator tubes.
“Yeah, well, he’ll be along. How’s the kid?”
Julian paused and glanced over to where Robbie lay sleeping in his
crib. A lump formed in his throat as he outlined what the doctors had told him. Thinking about each devastating word just made the pain more real.
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When he finished, Liam walked through one of the nurses who had
stopped to check on Robbie, and knelt in front of Julian.
“He’s going to be okay, Julian. You take great care of us. You’ll take
even better care of him.”
“Dude, he killed off Amber,” Clay’s voice said from behind him.
“Well, yeah, but Amber was a dumbass. Who goes down a tunnel
toward the monster all alone? He didn’t kill her, she killed herself.”
“Yeah, I guess.” The voice quieted for a moment.
Julian glanced again at the notebook in his hands, wondering if
they’d come to work or just console him. He didn’t care either way. The
ICU, much like his living room at night the last few years, felt cold and lonely.
“As long as neither of us become red shirts on the away team
expedition he’s written, we’re all good,” Liam said, with a small measure of hope peeking around the edges of his words.
“Of course I’m not going to kill either of you. It’s a YA novel. I’d
never write again.”
“Well, it’s good to know you have your priorities,” Clay snorted.
“And it’s not that you like us or anything.”
“Okay, let’s throw some ideas around and try to distract Julian for a
bit. You know how he likes a good circle jerk.” Liam snickered, and Julian blushed, even though no one else in the room could hear the conversation going on in his head.
“I totally think you should make Eve a guy,” Clay said suddenly.
“Just to fuck with Liam. Make him a guy who likes to dress up like a girl.”
“Dude!” Liam said, just as Julian put his head down into his hands
and started to laugh.
His shoulders shook, and tears streamed into his cupped fingers. The
emotional devastation of the last few days manifested itself in a giggle fit so profound, he didn’t know if he’d recover. After a few minutes, as his silent laughter began to subside, a hand fell on his shoulder. Julian looked up, and his tearful gaze met that of Brenda, the night nurse in charge of Robbie’s care for the next few hours.
“Uh-oh,” Clay whispered, and Julian had to work not to look at
where he stood next to Robbie’s bed. Julian could just make out the sleek lines of his Black Varen T-shirt.
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“Julian, are you okay?” the nurse asked as she bent forward to be eye
level with him. She pushed a lock of chunky brown hair back off her face and smiled sadly.
“Oh, uhm…,” Julian said, wiping a hand across his face.
“It all got to be too much,” Liam whispered fiercely.
“It… it just caught up with me. I’m okay,” he told her quietly. “I
think I’m going to hit the vending machine, maybe stretch my legs a bit.”
“I know that it has to be overwhelming for you. No one here is going
to judge you for getting emotional. It’s okay to cry.”
“I appreciate that.” Julian stood up and set his notebook and pen in
the vacated chair. Clay led the way, stepping to the side when they
reached the door so Julian could open it. Then he and Liam followed him
out into the hallway before anyone said another word. The halls were
devoid of visitors, with a minimum amount of hospital staff. It was quiet.
Julian liked quiet.
He opted for Cheetos and a Diet Pepsi. It wasn’t the most nutritious
snack, and considering he hadn’t been to the gym in weeks, probably not
his best choice, but he wanted the cheese-dusted, carb-filled comfort. Food and drink weren’t allowed in the ICU, so they went into the nearby lounge and sat in three chairs already pulled together and abandoned by a family desperate for closeness. The other twelve chairs sat empty. Why did this hospital hate even numbers of chairs?