By the time Rachel had exhausted her first wave of tears, and Jamie and Matt had recovered themselves as well, Sandy had arrived, and when he saw everyone drying their tears, the look of anxiety in his eyes morphed into one of naked fear. "No," Jamie hastened to assure him. "No, no, Mac's fine. Well, I mean, he's in surgery. We don't know anything yet. We're just..."
"Scared," Matt finished. "And worried. And in a kind of emotional freefall."
"Exactly," Jamie agreed.
The anxiety returned to Sandy's eyes, but he still visibly relaxed at Jamie's reassurance that Mac was still alive. He exhaled a deep breath, then said, "Thank God. Have you had any updates?"
"Not yet," Matt replied, rubbing his sweaty palms on his jeans to dry them yet again.
"I hate the circumstances, but I sure am glad to see you, Sandy," Jamie said. Sandy was one of his oldest friends, and Sandy had claimed Jamie as his brother long before Jamie had accepted that Sandy was indeed Mac's long-lost biological son and had embraced him as both brother and friend. Now Jamie crossed the room, and the brothers hugged. After hugging Jamie, Sandy came over and gave Matt a hug; Matt had been in preschool when Sandy and Blaine and their kids had moved to San Francisco, so they didn't really know each other very well, but that was about to change.
After letting go of Matt, Sandy regarded Rachel. "How are you holding up?" he asked before enveloping her in a big hug. Rachel accepted the hug, but couldn't stop the pangs of raw hurt that sliced into her heart like jagged knives when she realized that, now that he was nearing forty, Sandy's build had become more like Mac's than ever before. Although she knew Sandy meant to comfort her with his hug, all it really did was serve to remind Rachel that the arms she wanted around her were on an operating room table right now and unable to take away the fears that were trying to eat her alive.
"I just want him to be all right," Rachel said as she stepped back, out of Sandy's arms.
"That's what we all want," came another voice from the doorway. Four heads turned to look and four pairs of eyes widened with surprise when they saw the owner of the voice standing there, holding a cardboard tray laden with coffee and food: Rachel's sister Nancy McGowan.
Rachel blinked, confused. "Nancy?" she asked. "I tried to call you a while ago, but I got your machine."
"I was on my way here," Nancy replied, entering the waiting room, setting the tray on the table next to the stack of dog-eared, long-since-current magazines, and putting an arm around her sister's shoulders. "Mom called me the second she hung up from you." She glanced over at Jamie and Matt, who were standing a few feet away, where Sandy now joined them. "She had me on the phone before Jamie and Matt had even left the house. I was on the first flight out of Phoenix. Changed planes in Chicago, landed in Augusta" here Nancy glanced at her watch "forty-five minutes ago, checked in at the hotel down the street, got the food, spoke to the head nurse on duty, and here I am." Nancy then turned back to the tray, picked up a cup of coffee and a sweet roll, and handed them to Rachel. "Eat and drink, or we'll have two patients in here instead of one," she ordered.
Rachel cracked her first smile since dinner. "You sound like Mom," she said fondly.
"A few years ago, that would have made me mad," Nancy replied, "but now I take it as a compliment."
"That's how I meant it," Rachel said. "I ate dinner."
"Rachel, it's almost 3:00 in the morning. You had to have dinner at least six hours ago," Nancy pointed out. "You need to keep up your strength."
To pacify Nancy, Rachel took a bite of roll and followed it with a couple of swallows of coffee, but she didn't taste it. "You said you checked in with the head nurse?" she asked.
"Yes," Nancy said. "Mac is still in surgery, and everything is going well. Totally textbook."
"The nurse told you that?" Jamie asked, somewhat skeptically.
"Oh, come on, Doctor Frame," Nancy said, turning her gaze fully on her oldest nephew, who was fifteen years her senior, as she emphasized his title. "You know that the nurses in a hospital always know exactly what's going on, and ninety-five percent of the time they know before the doctors. I simply informed the head nurse that I'm Mackenzie Cory's sister-in-law, and a cardiac care nurse in Phoenix, and asked for an update. She was happy to be of help."
Jamie shook his head and smiled. "Good point, Nurse McGowan." He took four strides to cross the room and hug Nancy. She hugged him back.
When Nancy released Jamie, she hugged Sandy and then Matt. "There's plenty for everyone," she said, motioning to the tray of coffee, rolls, and sandwiches she had picked up at the nearby all-night diner. All of the men took coffee; Sandy picked up a roll as well, while Jamie took a peanut butter sandwich on white. Matt only took coffee and toyed with the cup after taking a couple of sips that he couldn't even taste.
Everyone fell silent now, absentmindedly sipping their coffee and, for those who were trying to eat, eating their sandwiches. They were all struggling as they waited for word on Mac, each lost in their own thoughts and worries, and the stress and fear and worry combined with the oppressive silence that kept dragging on and on finally got to Matt.
"I remember-" he began, then stopped.
"What?" Nancy asked encouragingly, with one eye on Rachel. Nancy knew her sister well enough to know that Rachel was barely hanging on by a thread right now. Rachel wasn't one given to major emotional outbursts, especially when those emotions were grief and fear. When Carl Hutchins had kidnapped the two of them, Rachel had been stoic throughout the ordeal, much more worried about Nancy than she'd been about herself. Even when Mac had arrived, and Carl had started shooting, Rachel was much more concerned for Mac and Nancy than she was for herself...and she was the one who ended up taking a bullet, which gave her amnesia for months afterward. It took a lot for Rachel to break down, and she tended to do it when she was by herself, only now she wasn't by herself, so she was holding everything inside, and that wasn't good for her.
Banishing the memories of that ordeal, Nancy focused on the present, on trying to give Rachel something to hold onto while they waited for word on Mac. "What do you remember, Matt?" she asked.
Matt shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I remember when Mitch came back from prison." He bit his lip, looking at Rachel, who was staring straight ahead, seemingly at nothing. He wasn't sure whether to go on, given the sensitive subject matter, but he had to do something to fill this unbearable silence, and it had been the first time he had truly realized the depth of Mac's love for him, and the depth of Mac's love for Rachel. "You and Mac argued about him a lot. He kept coming around to see me, and looking back now, I can see that he wanted you back too, Mom." Rachel said nothing, but Matt could tell by the subtle changes in her body language that she was listening. "I was in the hall outside your bedroom, and you two were yelling at each other. You didn't know I was out there. Mac was really upset. Fearful, I guess. But I was only twelve then and I didn't know everything yet. When it seemed like you'd gotten to a stopping place in your argument, I knocked on the door, and Mac barked at me to come in. I just wanted to make things better. I always hated it when the two of you argued. I still do," he admitted somewhat sheepishly. "I said that the problem was that Mac loved you, Mom, and Mitch used to love you. Remember?"
"I remember," Rachel said dully. She did too. She remembered that as one of way too many arguments she and Mac had had over Mitch Blake.
"And I was feeling guilty then, too, about wanting to get to know Mitch," Matt continued. Everyone was listening to him now. "Mac told me I had nothing to feel guilty about, and nothing to worry about, and that I was right about the problem. And you and Mac had been arguing over that picture Mitch took of you and me when I was a baby, remember, Mom? I asked to see it, and you gave it to me. I hardly had any hair at all because I was only a few months old. You said that you had an errand to run...you and Mac were going out that night, to some party or something, I forget where...and you hurried off to finish getting ready, and when we were alone, Mac told me that I was a terrific guy. I told him he's a terrific guy too.
"And then when I found out everything and I didn't take it well, I lashed out-"
"Because you are your mother's son," Rachel said, looking at Matt intently now.
"Yes, I am," Matt said proudly. "Mac...Dad," he amended, for it was what he had grown up calling Mac, and he had made up his mind in this moment that he would resume calling Mac, the man, the father, who raised him and loved him from the moment he was born "Dad," the second he saw him again. "Dad was the one who held my world together. He was the one that I finally broke down in front of, that I finally admitted to that I couldn't get through this on my own, and he asked if I would let the family help me. And that was when I finally began to heal."
"They broke the mold when they made Mackenzie Cory," Jamie said. "I remember when I was going through some serious growing pains, trying to figure out who I really was, my place in the world, my identity as an individual. I'd been through a lot of rough stuff," he glanced meaningfully at Sandy here, since Sandy and Rachel were the only ones who knew the whole story of those difficult months, and Sandy knew firsthand the burden of having Cecile for a wife, since Cecile had divorced Jamie and married Sandy, and Jamie didn't feel like going into all of that now. "At the end of it, I felt like I needed to get away from everybody and everything. I moved out of the house, I quit working at Cory Publishing, I cut myself off from everyone in the family. I told them what I was going to do before I did it, but I asked them not to come and see me or call me while I was figuring things out.
"The one person who disregarded that was Mac." Rachel looked at Jamie, surprised. She had never known this until now. No one had, except Jamie and Mac. "He came to see me, and he said that he understood what I was trying to do, but he was afraid, because of the mistakes that he had made, that he had lost me forever." Jamie got up then, from the arm of the chair he was perched on, and crossed the room, sitting down next to Rachel. He took both of her hands in his, and made her hold his gaze. "Mac told me that day that one of the happiest moments of his life was the day he married you for the first time, Mom."
The trace of a memory flitted across Rachel's mind then, Mac showing her an album of pictures of them together when she had amnesia, caused by one of Carl Hutchins' errant bullets. He had showed her their portrait, taken after their first wedding. She had laughed at herself, at the suit she wore to marry him in, but Mac earnestly insisted that she was beautiful, absolutely gorgeous...
"I'm sorry," Rachel said apologetically, and she did feel badly for hurting this man who had been nothing but kind and patient with her since she woke up, adamantly, sometimes even angrily, insisting that she didn't know him, didn't remember him, didn't remember loving him or marrying him or having children with him or being his wife for many years. "I know it's me, but I-I just don't remember any of it."
Having been on the receiving end of similar pronouncements for the past few months, Mac took this one in stride. "I'm sorry," he apologized now. "That was the happiest day in my life." He said it in a way that somehow managed to be both matter-of-fact and fervent at the same time, and Rachel knew that Mac meant this as an incontrovertible fact: the day they first married was the happiest day of his life.
She looked from Mac back to the portrait of the two of them, standing side by side, cheek to cheek, with beaming smiles, Mac, his arms around her waist, looking debonair in a navy blue suit and deep burgundy tie, herself in a white satin jacket and blouse, a burgundy sash matching Mac's tie around her waist, and a long black skirt, holding a small bouquet of daisies and blue bells, radiating a happiness, a peace, and a love that she loathed herself for not remembering feeling. "Look at her," Rachel said, though she was referring to herself. "She really loves him, doesn't she?"
"And he loves her," Mac replied, "more than his own life." Their eyes met again above the photo album, and Rachel saw the earnestness, the aching, the yearning for her to remember him and remember their love, to know it the way he knew it.
Jamie had seen Rachel retreat into a memory when he mentioned her and Mac's first wedding, and he gave her the time she needed to bask in that memory, which, in reality, wasn't even two minutes. When he had Rachel's attention again, he continued, "And he told me that one of the things that made him happy was knowing that in marrying you, he got to have me for a son. He told me he was so proud to become my father, and that I was a wonderful son, and always have been. He has never referred to me as his stepson, always his son."
"Me too," Matt realized aloud then.
Jamie looked at Sandy now. "Mac told me that day that he wouldn't deny he was ecstatic to find out that you were his biological son," he said. "But it wasn't about DNA. There were a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that on two separate occasions, with no regard for your own safety, you saved my life."
Sandy nodded, remembering himself. "You were the first friend I made when I came here," he said, "long before I had the courage to tell Mac who I really was, long before he figured it out for himself. And he talked about you all the time, before he knew who I was, and it was always 'my son Jamie.' You were writing back then, and when I first knew you, I actually thought you used 'Frame' as a pen name because of Cory Publishing. You felt like my brother long before you or Mac ever knew that you and I are brothers, Jamie. And you've been my best friend, other than Blaine, of course, right from the start. I saved you because I loved you as my brother and my best friend. You being Mac's son too was just serendipity."
"Dad has always loved all of us," Matt reflected, and Jamie noticed that Matt was referring to Mac as 'Dad' again, but said nothing. "DNA truly doesn't matter to him."
"That's what he said to me that day," Jamie said. "Sandy and Amanda...Iris...they're the children of his blood, but Matt, you and I are no less his children, because we are the children of his choice, the children of his heart."
Rachel swallowed hard. "That's true," she said. "That's very true. Matthew, the day you were born, Mac was there, waiting in the waiting room. He saw you in the nursery, and then he surprised me by coming to see me. He told me what a beautiful boy you were, and that he was in love with you already. And he told me that he wanted to be your father. I had tried to leave him, to let him go, to divorce him, and as hurt as he was over everything with Mitch, he wouldn't sign those papers. He wouldn't leave. He said that you were his son, and he wanted us to raise you together."
"And you did," Matt said, his voice cracking. He ducked his head and cleared his throat, trying to rein in his emotions.
All Rachel could think was that, yes, they did raise Matthew together, she and Mac...but only after a lot of pain and tears and Rachel being selfish and stubborn and downright stupid and hurting Mac deeply. Iris crossed her mind then, and Rachel knew how she must be suffering, waiting in Bay City for word. She hoped that someone was with Iris now, either her loyal, faithful maid Vivien, or Lucas, even with his shady side and his past with Felicia, because Iris didn't need to be alone right now. Iris must now be feeling what Rachel was: unfathomable regret for lost and wasted time, reckless behavior, and foolish decisions that inflicted deep pain and grief on a man who had only ever loved her and been good to her, even when she didn't deserve his love and his goodness.
Sandy was talking now, and Rachel tuned back in in time to hear him say, "I couldn't believe how nervous Dad was when we were getting dressed. After all, he'd been here before with you, Rachel. He was more nervous than I was! I had to help him with his cuff links, because his fingers were shaking so much that he couldn't fasten them on his own. So I asked him why he was so nervous, since this was your third wedding. He told me that this was the big wedding. Not only was this the biggest wedding you two had ever had, because it was just the two of you in New York for your first wedding, and it was a small family ceremony in the living room for your second wedding, but this was going to be the last wedding. 'Rachel and I are going to be together for the rest of our lives from now on,' he said firmly, 'and this is the wedding we've waited for, for so long and for so many reasons. Everything has to be right, it has to be perfect for Rachel.'"
"It was," Rachel said, fighting a wave of emotion. "It really was."
Seeing that Rachel was close to breaking again, and knowing that she wouldn't want to do that in front of everyone, Jamie said, "And let's not forget what led up to the big, perfect, last wedding: Mac pretending to be John Caldwell so he could be with you when you were recovering after the car accident that stole your eyesight."
"I don't remember that," Matt said with a frown.
"You were in preschool at the time," Jamie pointed out.
"Who is John Caldwell?" Matt asked.
"Mac," Jamie said. "Mom sent him away when he came to see her at the hospital. But he was determined to be with Mom, to be by her side while she was recovering from the accident, so he shaved off his mustache and hired a dialogue coach to teach him how to speak with a believable British accent and pretended to be a man named John Caldwell, because Mom would let John Caldwell come around. He did that for months."
Matt and Nancy, who was in junior high at the time and also not aware of Mac's elaborate charade in order to be in Rachel's life, were both visibly moved. "I remember Mac shaving off his mustache, and he came around a lot," Nancy said, "but I just thought Rachel came to her senses and stopped being so damned stubborn and prideful. I didn't know he went to those lengths."
Jamie and Sandy exchanged a look. "I knew," Sandy said, "but I wasn't really involved. Kinda had my hands full at the time with my own life. And Ada knew."
"Grandma knows all," Matt said sagely. "Jamie, you obviously knew?"
"Yeah," Jamie said with a nod. "And Vivien. She was working for Mom and Mac at the time since Iris was in Texas. But we were the only ones. And we pulled it off."
"Well, we were all rooting for Dad and Rachel to get back together," Sandy said. "How could we not? They belong together. They always have, and they always will."
Jamie burst out laughing then, startling all of the others, except Rachel, who was caught in the grip of the memories of that time, of how John Caldwell came into her life at the lowest point, when she wasn't even certain she would ever be able to see again...of her confusion, wondering if these feelings she was having for John Caldwell meant that she was actually getting over her love for Mac...and the day her sight returned and she discovered that John Caldwell and Mac Cory were one and the same man and that realization struck her so deeply that she trembled when she finally got Mac alone before she told him she could see again, as she realized, for the first time in all the years she had known and loved Mac, through two marriages and two divorces up to that point, just how much, how deeply, how selflessly Mac loved her...and how completely and irretrievably she loved him.
Rachel had missed the others asking Jamie why he was laughing. Jamie, looking as close to happy as he could under the circumstances, said, "I was just remembering the day Cecile found out that Mac was really John Caldwell."
"And you're laughing about that?" Sandy asked. "Knowing Cecile, she used that information in the worst possible way to hurt as many people as she could and cause as much trouble as she could." Though Cecile had once been a bone of contention between them, having both survived being married to her, and having both long since, and very happily, divorced her, Sandy and Jamie could talk about her all these years later, and they spoke about Cecile in the same way that war veterans reminisce about having survived harrowing combat missions together.
"She tried," Jamie said. "She came over to the house-"
"Unannounced, of course," Sandy interjected knowingly.
"Of course," Jamie agreed. "She was going to get Mac good by telling all to Mom...but when she tried to get around Vivien after Vivien refused to let her in the house, Vivien tackled her to the ground and sat on her. She had Cecile pinned to the foyer floor when I got there a few minutes later."
"Vivien tackled Cecile?" Sandy asked eagerly.
"Like 'Mean Joe' Greene in the Super Bowl," Jamie said.
Now Sandy laughed. "I wish I could have seen that," Sandy said.
"That's my favorite memory of Cecile," Jamie confided. "Trying to squirm out from under Vivien on the foyer floor while Vivien tried to make her eat the Oriental rug. It was beautiful. It was also, unfortunately, short-lived, because when I got there, Cecile was trying to beat Vivien unconscious with her purse. She wasn't doing a very good job of it, but she was making Vivien madder than she already was, so I pulled Vivien off of Cecile to save her, and then Vivien and I had our hands full trying to get Cecile out of there. I don't know where she ran off to, but she didn't find Mom and Mac. They were in the studio. Mom had been waiting for John Caldwell there. Vivien told me that Mom's sight had returned, and by the time Vivien and I got to the studio, Mom had seen Mac and knew he was really John Caldwell, but she hadn't told him yet that she could see. With her back to him, she put a finger to her lips to let us know not to say anything, then the phone rang and Vivien raced off to answer it, and I just stood there, watching as Mom put her arm through Mac's and went for a walk with John Caldwell."
"So you told Dad you could see, right, Mom?" Matt asked.
"Yes," Rachel said thickly as the memory of that moment assailed her so vividly, it was almost as if she was back in that moment, watching herself and Mac all those years ago by the pond on that beautiful spring morning...
"Rachel, you're trembling!" John Caldwell...really Mac Cory...said worriedly as he reluctantly removed his hands from her shaking shoulders after helping her to sit on the ground beside the pond.
"Yes, I suppose I am," she replied. He was still standing behind her, ready to catch her should she faint or fall backward, and palpably anxious that something might be wrong with her beyond her lost eyesight. "Sit," she said. "Sit beside me." She patted the ground next to her.
When Mac had sunk down beside her, Rachel turned and began moving her hand over his face, the way she had several times in the past several months, feeling him since she had been unable to see him...only now she could see him again, that mane of silver hair, his mustache long since shaven off and not regrown, his strong jaws, freshly shaven at this early hour, in his beloved oval-shaped face, and his lips, the same lips that had kissed every inch of her body thousands of times. And in that instant, she had to laugh at herself, for how could she have been so...well, so blind? How could she not have known, when she was touching John Caldwell's face, holding John Caldwell's hand, over all these months, that it was Mac's face she was touching, and Mac's hand she was holding?
But in the same instant, she knew why she hadn't believed John Caldwell was Mac: because she had sent Mac away that first night, only hours after waking up to total darkness and being told that her optic nerves had been damaged in the car accident, and she thought, when Mac didn't call, didn't come to see her, and went through her mother to spend time with Amanda and Matthew, that he had finally given up on her, written her off, let her go and gotten on with his life.
And when she changed her mind, after John Caldwell had come into her life, so kind and gentle and solicitous and encouraging; when the man she really wanted by her side was Mac, she mourned his loss and cursed her stupidity and stubbornness and pride, her own fatal flaws that made her send him away in the first place, and went about her therapy and her life and spending time with John Caldwell...missing Mac all the while, and not having the slightest idea that he was right by her side, where she most wanted and needed him to be, and where he most wanted and needed to be.
Dear, sweet, beloved Mac. For so long, Rachel had felt that she didn't deserve Mac, didn't deserve his love and devotion. God, her mother and Jamie, and all of Bay City knew that she had done and said some truly horrible, hateful, even spiteful things to him, designed to hurt him.
She came to a stunning realization now, sitting there beside Mac, her hand on his face: love was not about being deserving. She had come so far and changed so much from the spiteful, self-involved, manipulative troublemaker she had been when she was younger. She didn't know how to love anyone but her mother, her sister, and her son...and there were times that her mother Ada threw up her hands and declared that she had no idea what to do with Rachel...until Mac came into her life. Somehow he saw the best in her, and he loved her without limit, without conditions, despite the times she said and did things to hurt him as much as she knew how to hurt him. And having that kind of love in her life made her change for the better, because she loved Mac too, hopelessly, desperately, passionately, truly, irrevocably, in a way she had never known she was capable of loving anyone.
No, if love was about being deserving, she never would have deserved Mackenzie Cory and his unconditional, unwavering, eternal love. The kind of love that made him masquerade as someone else just to be near her after she lashed out at him for something that was not in any way his fault-her blindness-and forced him to leave her when it was the last thing either one of them truly wanted.
She didn't realize she was smiling until Mac, in his John Caldwell accent, asked her, "What are you smiling about?"
"Am I smiling?" she asked, staring straight ahead.
"Yes," he replied.
She felt her own smile now. "To tell you the truth, I don't know whether to laugh or cry," she said. "All I know is that it was very important to me that John Caldwell know about this as soon as possible."
"Know? Know what?" Mac as John Caldwell asked.
"You can drop the accent now, John," she said.
"My...my accent?" Mac asked, faltering for the first time in all the months of his masquerade. He ducked his head, and Rachel turned to face him now, placing her hand on his cheek.
"Look at me," she said. They were looking into each other's eyes now, her hand on his face, on his wonderful, beloved face, and she reveled in the knowledge that it was her Mac that she was touching now, her Mac's eyes she was looking into now. "Can't you see what's happened?"
They stared at each other for the space of a heartbeat...then another...and another...and another. Rachel dropped her hand from Mac's face, and his expression changed, from one of bewilderment to one of hope. "Oh, please," he whispered. Tears sprang to Mac's eyes; he had never been able to do anything but wear his heart on his sleeve where Rachel was concerned. "Rachel...You can see?" he asked in a half-whisper.
She had one hand on his shoulder and the hand she had dropped from his cheek rested against his chest in a loose fist. "Yes," she said, her smile growing wider.
"Oh, thank God!" Mac exulted, pulling into her arms in a firm embrace. Rachel threw her arms around his neck and closed her eyes, holding tightly to him as she savored the way it felt to know his arms were around her again. "Oh, Rachel." She gave a happy little laugh, and then Mac released the hug, letting his hands fall to her arms, as he rapidly fired questions at her: "When did it happen? I mean, how long? Did it come back gradually? What happened?"
"One question at a time!" Rachel exclaimed, still smiling.
"Well, I'm so excited!" Mac exclaimed. His face softened, the tears he had been keeping at bay coming to the surface again. "Oh, Rachel." He touched his forehead to her jaw for a few seconds, then sat up again. "I'm so happy for you!"
They were holding each other's hands now, facing each other again. "It came back gradually, just two hours ago," she explained. "I didn't know what was happening."'
"Is it completely back?" Mac asked.
"Yes, it's completely back," Rachel replied happily.
"How do you feel now?" Mac asked.
"I feel..." Rachel paused to consider for a second, then concluded, "I feel wonderful!"
"Who knows about it?" Then he hastily added, "Except me."
"Vivien, and I think she's probably told Jamie, and you. I haven't even had a chance to talk to Mom about it yet. She's home with the flu."
"Well, you've got to call her, Rachel!" Mac stood, pulling Rachel to her feet at the same time, still holding her hands.
"Yes, I know," she said.
Mac looked down at their joined hands, and then back up at Rachel, anxious again. "Rachel?" he asked cautiously. "You don't hate me for that impersonation? I mean, I was going to go away. You know, I was going to have Caldwell go away so you wouldn't realize what I've been up to, but I never..." He trailed off, and Rachel saw a tear fall from his right eye. "I never thought it was gonna happen like this." He was smiling and crying at the same time now. "Oh, Rachel!" Then he pulled her into his arms again, the need to hold her too great to be denied or ignored even one second longer, so grateful and relieved was he that the eyesight of the love of his life had returned, and that she didn't hate him for his deception.
Tears pricked Rachel's eyes too as she clung to Mac, the smile on her face close to becoming a permanent fixture now. She buried one hand in his hair and rested the other on the back of his neck. "It is wonderful, isn't it?" she asked emotionally, and they both knew she wasn't just talking about her eyesight returning, but about the two of them sharing this moment together, holding each other's hands, being back in each other's arms, both of them knowing now that they had gone through this ordeal together after all.
Then Rachel had leaned in and quickly kissed Mac, not letting the kiss linger as long as she wanted to, but letting it linger just long enough to feel the familiar zing she always felt whenever she and Mac kissed. "Well, that's the first time I've kissed you without you having a mustache!" she exclaimed.
Mac grinned that brilliant, boyish grin he always wore when he felt on top of the world. "Yeah, how 'bout that," he mused. "What do you think?"
She considered for a moment, taking a step back to get a good, head-to-toe look at Mac. "Well, I think it makes you look very young and very handsome," she declared. "And I love your hair." He had just had it trimmed that morning, and he wore it parted to the right. "But you don't look anything like that description Vivien gave me."
"Well, you know who Vivien was describing," Mac said.
"No. Who?" Rachel asked.
"President Reagan," Mac replied. "When you asked her what John Caldwell looked like-"
Rachel's burst of laughter interrupted him. "Oh no!" she exclaimed. "She was panicked."
"Yeah, until she saw a photo of Reagan on a magazine on the table, so she described him."
"Oh, that's a riot. You're much better-looking than he is." She smiled at him then.
"Well, thank you," Mac had replied as he put on his jacket.
Rachel couldn't stand it any longer. She couldn't do this. She couldn't sit here, powerless to do anything to help Mac, facing the possibility of losing him forever. She sprang to her feet and bolted from the waiting room.
"Mom!" Matt called frantically. He started to go after her, but Nancy stopped him.
"Let her go, Matt," Nancy said.
"I can't do that!" Matt exclaimed. "She looks like she's about to break into a million pieces."
"She needs a few minutes alone," Nancy said.
"Alone is the last thing she should be right now!" Matt insisted. He made to leave the waiting room again, to go looking for his mother, but this time Jamie stopped him, physically blocking his path.
"Nancy's right," Jamie said. "Mom breaking down in front of you and me earlier is proof of how close to the limit she is, because she doesn't do that. She never has. I think the only person in her life she's ever broken down in front of is Mac, and she can't do that right now."
"Mom always said that even when Rachel was a kid, she never wanted Mom to comfort her when she got hurt. She'd always go off somewhere alone to lick her wounds in private," Nancy added. "What she needs right now is Mac. But she can't be with him until he's out of surgery."
Sandy, who had been silent up to this point, joined the conversation then. "You're a cardiac nurse, right, Nancy?" At Nancy's nod, Sandy said, "What are Dad's chances of coming back from this?"
"A triple bypass is a fairly routine operation," Nancy said. "And up to now, Mac has been in excellent health. There's no reason to think he won't make a complete recovery, but it's going to take some time, and he's going to have to modify his diet and adopt an exercise routine."
"He'll do it," Matt said confidently. "He'll do whatever he needs to do to get better." He peered over Jamie's shoulder at the open door through which Rachel had fled just a moment ago. "Are you really sure none of us should go after Mom?"
"Did you like having people, even the people you loved, all over you when you first found out the truth about Mitch and the past with Mom and Mac and Janice Frame?" Jamie countered.
Matt reluctantly conceded his brother's point as he sat down again. Nancy rested a hand on Matt's shoulder briefly. "We'll give her a couple of minutes, and then I'll go and check on her. I'm pretty sure I know where she went."
Nancy's hunch, based on the fact that the sign pointing the way to the hospital chapel was on the wall outside the waiting room, was correct. Rachel burst into the chapel, which, thankfully, was deserted, and collapsed into the nearest pew, burying her face in her hands as violent sobs racked her entire body.
A million memories and a thousand fears swirled through Rachel. Though Mac was 25 years her senior, and he had been through medical crises before, most notably being poisoned by Janice Frame and the stroke he suffered a few years later, she had never thought about losing him. She was utterly and completely unprepared to face life without him. She would have to find a way to go on if...if the worst happened, though. Mac would expect it of her, and the children would need her, and the company would have to go on.
"No." Rachel didn't realize at first that she had voiced the word, in a trembling, tear-choked voice. She scrubbed at her face before falling to her knees and looking up at the huge cross hanging on the front wall of the chapel, over the altar. "I know this makes me selfish, but I don't care. Please don't take Mac from me. Not now. I'll never be ready to lose him, but it just can't end like this. Not here, not now. I want more time! We have so much more to do together. I need him, and I love him so very, very much." She started to cry again, down on her knees in the hospital chapel.
Undetected, Nancy watched and listened from outside the door, peeking through the crack that she made in the door when she pushed it slightly ajar.
"Please, God," Rachel begged, "don't take Mac from me. Don't take him away from me. Please. Please."
She continued beseeching the Almighty silently for she wasn't sure how long. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder, and lifted her head, looking to her side to find her sister standing there. "Rach?" Nancy said gently. "Dr. Camargo's waiting to talk to you."
"Mac's out of surgery?" Rachel asked anxiously, jumping to her feet.
"Yes," Nancy said.
Rachel shook off Nancy's shoulder and pushed past her, rushing back to the waiting room with Nancy hurrying after her.
When she reached the waiting room, Jamie, Matthew, and Sandy were all looking at her expectantly. Dr. Camargo looked tired but pleased. "Mrs. Cory," he said, "your husband came through the surgery beautifully. He's in recovery now, but he'll be moved to a private room in a little while, and you can see him then."
"Is he going to be all right?" Rachel asked fearfully.
"I have no reason to believe he won't make a complete recovery, barring any unforeseen complications," Dr. Camargo said.
Rachel's head was spinning, but now it was with joy. Mac had made it through surgery, and he was going to make a complete recovery!
"Thank you," Rachel said, gripping Dr. Camargo's outstretched hand tightly, then turning to hug Nancy, Jamie, Sandy, and Matthew each in turn, laughing and crying. "He's going to be all right. Mac's going to be all right."
"Dad would never leave you without one hell of a fight, Rachel," Sandy said seriously.
"I'll be by to talk to you and your husband both once he's awake and alert, sometime late tomorrow," Dr. Camargo said.
Rachel rubbed at her head, suddenly aware that her head was hurting, probably a combination of stress and hunger. "Where's that food you brought, Nancy?" she asked.
"That was two hours ago, Rachel," Nancy replied. "But we'll go and get you something else."
"'We'?" Matthew asked, since Nancy was looking at him.
"Yes," Nancy said. "We. The diner is just down the street. Rachel, you go and freshen up a bit while we're gone, huh?"
"All right," Rachel said.
"Sandy and I will wait here, Mom," Jamie said.
Nancy and Matt left for the diner, and Rachel, after splashing some water on her face in the ladies' room, found a pay phone and called Iris.
"Hello!" Iris barked the word anxiously, loudly, and fearfully.
Rachel cut right to the chase. "He's all right, Iris. Mac is all right. He came through the surgery beautifully and he's going to make a complete recovery."
"Oh, thank God!" Iris exclaimed before bursting into tears right there on the phone with Rachel. "I've been so scared...so worried...and I know some of it is for selfish reasons, but I honestly don't care. Daddy's really going to be all right!" she said through her tears.
"Yes, he is," Rachel said, feeling her own tears making another return.
"Have you seen him yet?" Iris asked.
"Not yet," Rachel said, "but soon. Listen, I have to call Mom."
"Of course, of course," Iris said.
"You're not alone tonight, are you, Iris?" Rachel asked.
"No," Iris replied. "Vivien's been with me the whole time, and Lucas came by a little while ago and he's still here. Vivien will be so relieved to hear the wonderful news." Iris paused. "Are you alone?"
"No, Jamie and Matthew are here, and Sandy, and my sister Nancy," Rachel replied.
"Good," Iris said. "Neither of us should be alone at a time like this. And Rachel?" She paused before continuing, "Thank you...for calling and letting me know about the heart attack, and for calling again now to let me know that Daddy's going to be all right. I know you can't tell him, but I really am sending him all of my love now. I'll keep things running smoothly at the complex, and I won't let him, or you, down again. I swear it on my life."
"I have faith in you, Iris," Rachel said, for she did have faith in Iris. After all these years, and everything they had been through, Rachel no longer viewed Iris as the enemy, and she did trust Iris to keep Cory Publishing on track in Mac's absence and Rachel's own absence, with Evan's help.
Iris, at a loss as to what to say to that, since, until this very evening, she had still viewed Rachel as the enemy, said, "I'd better let you go so that you can call Ada and then get in to be with Daddy."
"I'll keep you posted, Iris," Rachel promised before ringing off. Then she called Ada.
"Thank God!" Ada exclaimed. "I'll start researching diets for cardiac patients first thing in the morning. How are you holding up? Have you eaten?"
"Nancy and Matthew went to get me something now," Rachel replied.
"Oh good, Nancy got there safely," Ada said. "About Iris..."
"Iris already knows, Mom. I called her before anyone else got here." Rachel paused. "And there's something else you might as well know, but you absolutely cannot tell anyone, especially not Mac."
Ada knew what it was before Rachel said a word. "You asked Iris to come back to the company and keep things going while Mac's recovering and you're with him."
Rachel wasn't the least bit surprised that her mother guessed what it was. "Yes," she said.
"I agree, Mac can't know, not yet. But you made a good decision there. It isn't fair to ask Evan to do it alone, and Amanda doesn't have the business know-how. Jamie's a doctor, Sandy's settled in San Francisco, you're going to be with Mac every step of the way through his recovery, as you should, and Matthew hasn't even taken that mailroom job yet. Process of elimination says it has to be Iris. She's got a good head for business. Mac is going to have to find out eventually that she's running the company in his absence, though."
"Yes, eventually," Rachel said. "We'll deal with that when the time comes. Tonight I just want to be thankful that he's going to be all right, and sit with him as soon as they'll let me."
"Give Mac my love when he wakes up," Ada said, "and Amanda's and Allie's and Stevie's love too."
"I will," Rachel promised. "I love you, Mom."
"I love you too," Ada said. "Call me tomorrow when you get a minute."
"I will." Rachel returned to the waiting room then to find Nancy and Matthew waiting with fresh coffee and a ham and cheese sandwich for her. She ate, and at least now she could taste the food.
Then, at last, she was taken to see Mac. He had not yet regained consciousness, but Rachel took comfort in the beeping of the heart monitor. Mac looked better than he had before the operation, his face no longer pinched with pain, his complexion no longer pale.
She pulled the chair up to his bedside and, mindful of the tubes and wires crisscrossing his body, she carefully picked up his hand, threading her fingers through his. "I'm here, Mac," she said softly. "Right here, darling. You're going to be all right."
When Jamie and Matt peeked in the door thirty minutes later, they found Rachel sitting at Mac's bedside, bent at the waist, her head resting on the edge of the bed, her hand still in Mac's. Knowing what that would do to her back and neck, Jamie left Matt standing guard over their sleeping parents while he went out and made arrangements to get another bed moved into Mac's private room. When the bed was in place, Jamie carefully lowered one of the guardrails, wheeled the bed right up next to Mac's bed, and, with Matt's help, lifted Rachel into the bed. Her hand remained holding Mac's the entire time. Jamie and Matt both kissed first Rachel's forehead, and then Mac's forehead, and then left to meet Nancy and Sandy and head to the hotel across the street.
And the whole night through, Mac and Rachel slept, side by side in adjacent hospital beds, holding each other's hands.