A Surgeon's Christmas Baby, page 7
Her skin was so soft and warm against his. Surprising himself again, he turned his palm up and squeezed her own. They sat there for a moment, their eyes meeting, and it was as if everything and everyone in the coffee shop disappeared.
What was it about this woman that caused him to expose the most painful part of his life to her? There was just something about her calm and reassuring manner that made him want to open up to her. He’d felt this connection to Izzy once before when he’d let himself forget all about the pain and the guilt he’d carried around for the past four years. For one short night the guilt he felt for his wife’s death had lifted. Izzy had made him feel like a new man. A healed man. But in the light of the day, he’d discovered there was only more guilt to add to what he carried. Izzy deserved someone better than him. He’d found happiness with her for only a short moment, but that was all they could have.
He pulled his hand away and straightened in his chair. He had enough on his plate today without diving back into the past. He had to keep his mind on the job. Others depended on him and it was important that he didn’t let them down. He might have let his wife down by not being with her when she needed him, but that was something he couldn’t change. All he could do now was be there to make a difference in the life of his little patients. That was his mission now. That was all that really mattered. Not his past. Not his future. Just the children he could heal so they could go on to have a better life. It was their future that mattered.
“I’m not sure what happened with Elly’s parents. Maybe they were still in shock. It’s possible that they’d given up hope, even if they would never have admitted to it. And when the shock started to wear off, I think their fear of losing Elly might have sneaked in,” Izzy said, moving back in her own seat. Had she felt the same connection as he had?
Even after getting up in the early hours of the morning, she still looked beautiful with her dark hair pulled back in a tight knot on her head. And though she was a bit pale, her eyes were clear and her smile just as sunny as if she’d enjoyed a full night of sleep, though he knew she hadn’t. She was a very special woman. One who’d rushed from her bed when he’d asked for her help even though he should have been able to handle Elly’s parents by himself.
She deserved a man much better than him. A man who she could count on. One that would be there when she needed him. Instead, he was the one always counting on her for help.
“You sure you don’t want another cup of tea?” he asked, needing to steer the conversation back to a more comfortable one. “It’s going to be a long day today.”
“No, I’m fine,” she said, though she still studied her empty cup as if hoping it would magically refill itself.
“I don’t know how you can drink that stuff this time of morning. I always thought you were a coffee drinker.”
“What time are you expecting the team back with Elly’s new heart?” she asked, as she mournfully slid her empty cup away and reached for the bottle of water she’d also ordered.
“Organ Procurement is still working on it, but for now the donor retrieval is set for four this afternoon our time. The team should return just after five so we’ll start prepping around four thirty,” Ben said, relieved that she was willing to drop whatever it was they’d just shared. Now he needed to do the same. Besides, it had probably only been his imagination. She’d probably only meant to comfort him.
“Do you mind checking in on the parents today? They’re much more comfortable talking to you.” The surgery would go into the late evening and he was already thinking of ways to move his cases around so that he’d have the chance to catch a nap before he headed into Elly’s case.
“I’d already planned to. I have clinic today, but I’m not on call for admissions so I should have some free time. Keep me up–to-date on your OR time and I’ll come see them in the waiting room too.”
“Only if you promise that you won’t go back into the OR. The charge nurse told me you came in there during Janie’s surgery and he thought you were going to hit the floor.” While the nurse might have thought it was fun to watch one of the hospital’s doctors get squeamish, Ben did not. Not everyone was made for the intense environment of an operating room.
“There’s a reason I didn’t go into surgery,” Izzy said, standing. Did her smile seem to be a little less bright? Was that because of him? It seemed he was having a bad effect on everyone today.
“I do appreciate everything you did, Izzy. I’m sorry I called you though. I should have been able to handle those parents on my own.”
“It’s what I’m here for. It’s what all of us are here for. We all need each other. I certainly couldn’t do her surgery tonight. I need you to do that. And during your case, you’ll need anesthesia to do their job. Look at Dylan. He left his own practice during the holidays so that he could be here for Jiyan and his mother. Should he apologize for asking you for help?” The spark was back in Izzy’s eyes and he was glad to see it.
“Of course not. He came to me because that’s my job,” Ben said, standing as he and Izzy picked up their cups to dispose of them.
“They say it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a hospital full of team members to care for them. We’re all part of the same team. You just think you need to be the quarterback all the time but sometimes you need to hand the ball off to someone else.”
As they headed back to the hospital to start their day, he thought about what Izzy had said. How did someone hand a sick kid off to someone else to handle? How did they trust that someone else would do the right thing? He’d especially felt the need to be in control of his patients’ care after he’d lost Cara. Everything else in his life was totally out of his control, but he could make sure his patients were safe. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his coworkers. They were all great doctors. Was it possible that the chief of surgery had been right when he’d told the board that Ben had trust issues?
If so, why was it that he didn’t have those problems with Izzy? There didn’t seem to be anything that he couldn’t trust her with. He’d shared things with her that he’d never felt able to share with others. He instinctively knew that he could tell her anything and not be judged. At the same time, she wasn’t afraid of giving her own opinion or telling him when she thought he was wrong. She was honest with him, instead of tiptoeing around his feelings like everyone else.
Or was he the one tiptoeing around others? He’d been so raw when he’d come back after losing Cara, that he’d tried to disappear into his job hoping everyone would leave him alone to grieve. Maybe, he needed to be more like Izzy.
Or maybe he just needed to be the man he’d once dreamed of being.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHAT WAS THAT NOISE? It sounded like a bunch of high-pitched varmints had gotten into his operating room. And they were singing Christmas music. He held back a groan as one of the operating techs assisting him with his gown hummed along with the music. Every year at this time, no matter how much he complained, the operating staff insisted on changing the music streaming into the room to all the holiday hits. “Can someone please either change the channel or shoot those poor animals and put us all out of our misery?”
The circulating nurse went to the intercom and a few seconds later the sound of Kenny G’s saxophone filled the room. At least that was better than listening to a chipmunk sing about what he wanted for Christmas, though somehow he knew that Izzy would have enjoyed the chipmunks more.
He glanced behind the sterile blue drapes where tiny Elly lay sedated and intubated, almost unrecognizable due to the number of tubes and lines that were attached to her. He’d stopped by to see her parents before dressing out for surgery and had been disappointed not to see Izzy.
Not that he needed to see her. He had just hoped she would be there to help Elly’s parents.
A voice came over the intercom. “The team is here. They’re on their way to the room.”
Ben looked at the clock at the end of the room. The donor had been at a hospital located only one hour away. With travel to and from the hospitals, it was less than two hours since the heart had been harvested.
The circulating nurse began the necessary time out per protocol, calling out Elly’s full name and birth date while checking the child’s hospital ID along with the consent her parents had signed earlier in the day, then stated the procedure that they were about to perform. When everyone acknowledged that they had the correct patient and were consented for the correct surgery, they each took their places.
Ben looked at the anesthesiologist. Nodded. And then held out his hand for the scalpel he’d use to make his first incision. Once his operating assistant had placed it in his palm, he held it in his hand for a moment and took a deep breath. As the door opened and the circulating nurse accepted the plastic cooler that held Elly’s future heart, he glanced around the room making sure everyone was ready. Once satisfied that his team, though he’d never really thought of them as being his till now, was as prepared as possible, he let himself relax. He had to separate himself from the weight of knowing that this child’s life depended on him and instead concentrate all his talent on making this surgery successful.
“Okay, everyone. Let’s get started.” His hands steady, his breathing even, and his heart rate regular, he made his first incision.
Less than four hours later, he walked out into the waiting room to find Izzy sitting beside the anxious parents. He’d sent word out through the circulating nurse all through the procedure to update them, but he was glad that Izzy was there for them too.
“She’s really okay?” Elly’s mother asked as he took a seat next to them.
“She’s doing great. There were no problems getting her off the bypass machine and the donated heart responded perfectly to reperfusion. As soon as they get her settled into the intensive care unit, they’ll let you back to see her. We’ll keep her there for a couple days before she returns to the pediatric ward.”
Elly’s father’s phone buzzed with a message. “She’s arrived in the PICU and they’ll let us back in fifteen minutes.”
“Do you want me to walk you around there?” Izzy asked.
“Elly’s spent enough time there that I think I can find my way in my sleep,” Elly’s mother said.
“But this might be the last time she has to stay there,” her husband said, taking her hand and pulling her up into a hug. “We have our Elly back, Jenny.”
Ben watched as the two of them rushed out of the waiting room. “Well, those two sure look happy.”
“They’ll be praising your name for the rest of their lives,” Izzy said. “So everything went well?”
“Textbook perfect. The donor heart was in perfect condition,” Ben said.
“The donor?” Izzy asked, her eyes suddenly losing their sparkle.
“Vehicular accident,” he said, losing his own high spirits from the successful surgery with the thought of another child lost. And another family grieving from that loss. He was all too familiar with that type of pain.
“How old?”
“Just a few months older than Elly,” he murmured, thinking about his own son, as he always did in these situations.
“I hope the gift they’ve given to Elly and her family helps them,” Izzy said, her eyes damp with unshed tears.
“It helps some.” He remembered the letter he’d received from a transplant recipient assuring him that Cara’s donation had given a young man a new chance at life. “At the time you have to make the decision whether to donate or not, I think most people are still in shock. I know I was. But the knowledge that some part of Cara lives on, that she helped someone else, that just confirms that I made the right decision. The only decision that was right for me. It brings me some peace.”
“I’m glad,” Izzy said, as she wiped her eyes, then smiled at him. “You want to take a walk with me?”
Her question surprised him. It was late and she had to be tired. But he owed it to her to keep her company after the way he’d dragged her out of her home that morning. “Sure. Anywhere particular?”
“I just want a chance to see the tree at the commons. It’s late enough that it won’t be crowded and I’m off tomorrow so it seems like the perfect time. But if you’re too tired I’ll understand.”
“Just let me change and I’ll meet you in the doctors’ lounge,” he said. “Then we really need to have a talk about this obsession you have with trees. You might need counseling.”
“It’s not an obsession,” Izzy insisted.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Ben said before hurrying down the hall to change. He tried to ignore the fact that his steps were a little higher and his spirits a little lighter after speaking with Izzy. He had to remind himself that they were only working together so he could continue to practice here. Once Christmas was over and they’d managed to change the board’s mind about letting him go, things would return to how they’d been between them before.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Izzy and Ben walked outside where the rest of the city appeared to sleep. She hadn’t realized how late it was until she saw that the front entrance of the hospital had been shut down for the night with a sign posted saying visitor hours would resume at 7 a.m. She pulled her coat closer as the cold air stung her cheeks and ruffled through her hair.
“Okay. Out with it. What is it about a Christmas tree that would make you want to get out on a cold night like tonight?” Ben asked, adjusting his own coat.
“Like I told you, I never had a real tree when I was growing up. It wasn’t until I went to boarding school that I decorated my first actual tree. I guess that’s when I caught the Christmas tree decorating bug.”
“I knew it was an illness. Maybe we can find a cure,” Ben said. “I’ll see if they’re willing to donate some of the bake sale money to get you help.”
She nudged his side with her arm, liking the teasing. When he grunted and grabbed his side, she had to laugh.
“I’m not looking for a cure. I like Christmas, especially Christmas trees. And I refuse to let your negativity ruin that.” Once she’d been a lonely little girl dreaming of having her own tree to decorate with popcorn strings and cheap silver tinsel like the other kids in her classroom. Now she was a grown woman who could have as many trees as she wanted and decorate them any way she wanted to. No one was going to change that.
“I’m just joking. I’ve found the tree in my house almost painless,” Ben admitted. Then it happened. His lips turned up into a grin so charming that it transformed his whole face. Not that Ben wasn’t always good-looking, she had to agree with the nurse on the ward that Ben Murphy was hot. But now, with his full lips turned up in a smile that lit his blue eyes and his dark hair swept back by the cold breeze, he was hotter than hot. He was downright scorching.
But she’d been caught up in his spell once before and look what it had got her. She glanced down at an abdomen that would soon be expanding.
She looked away and saw the lights from the tree come into view. Maybe Ben was right. Maybe there was something wrong with a grown woman getting this excited to see a tree. And maybe she just didn’t care.
“Isn’t it magnificent?” she asked once they made it to the commons. “I read that this year’s tree is a forty-five-foot-tall white spruce.”
“It is big,” Ben said, his head tilted back. “My poor tree isn’t even the size of one of its limbs.”
Could it be that Ben was actually feeling sympathy for his little crooked tree? Maybe he wasn’t a lost cause after all. She sure hoped so. “This is the first time I’ve had a chance to see it. I planned to make it to the lighting this year, but as usual when I make plans I got called into work. You know how that is.”
The moment the words were out she knew she’d said the wrong thing. Everyone knew that Ben had been working the night his wife had been killed in a car accident. She’d always felt that it was not only his grief from losing his wife that had caused him to become so disconnected with the outside world, but also, in part, a misplaced guilt.
“I’m so sorry, Ben,” she said, knowing the apology could do nothing to ease the pain she’d just caused him. “I shouldn’t be complaining about something as trivial as missing a tree lighting.”
Ben didn’t look at her and her heart sank more as they headed back toward the hospital. She’d started to see a crack in that tough-as-iron armor he wore around himself and now she’d ruined everything.
“It’s okay. You didn’t say anything wrong. We all work too much,” he said, his voice sharp and brittle.
“Maybe,” she said, though the fact that they could make such a difference in a child’s life seemed to even the score.
But what about now that she would have her own child? Things were bound to change. Even if Ben wanted to be part of their lives, it would be a lot to get used to. She’d seen lots of other single moms—and dads—have a career and a family. If they could do it, couldn’t she?
“I saw Miguel today. He has me worried. He’s talking less and less every day,” she said, as her thoughts turned back to all the children that depended on her for their care. There had to be a way to help them while still providing all the time and love she could to her baby.
Maybe they should look into providing day care at the clinic for the staff.
“He has me worried too, though not just because of his not communicating. I think that has a lot to do with being away from his family. I talked with his mother earlier today and she’s also worried.”
“Did you discuss the possibility of a transplant? I completed the paperwork and sent it in this afternoon. I emailed you a copy.” She crossed her arms across her body. The temperature was falling and they still had another block to walk.
“Thanks, I appreciate that. I told Miguel’s mother that might be our only option. She’s willing to do whatever is needed to get her son well and back home with his family,” Ben said.
