Chapter Forty
Zach took his physical the next morning and passed it. Joe Martin subsequently scheduled his bone marrow harvesting procedure for the following afternoon, the same day Miranda's first chemotherapy session, to condition her for receipt of the transplant, was to begin. If all went well with the latter, the actual transplant was scheduled to occur two days later, after Miranda's last chemo treatment. Everything was on a tight, exacting schedule with only the narrowest of margins for stress, fatigue, or any outside duties.
"If Joe was really smart he'd just build a hotel next to the hospital," Kendall moaned, hanging over the rail of the gurney in Zach's pre-op cubicle. In the past two days Greenlee had finally cracked from the strain, coming down with some sort of stomach virus forcing her to stay away from the hospital. Ryan had stayed home with her. Kendall and Zach had doubled up their hours by Miranda's bedside, spending time at home only to shower and change and steal a few hours' sleep "I wish…no, never mind, it doesn't matter what I wish."
"Tell me anyway. Distract me," Zach said, adding, "My ass is about to be what amounts to punched full of holes, you know." Even lying on a gurney waiting to be moved into an operating room, wearing a hospital gown and with an IV line already taped to his hand ready for the anesthetic to be administered, his vitality and spirits seemed unflagging.
Kendall shuddered. "That's not funny."
"It wasn't meant to be. Merely realistic," he pointed out.
"I hate this, Zach!" she declared suddenly. "I know there's no other way and I know we're lucky you're such a good match, but I'm so sick and tired of having to feel grateful for things everybody else can just take for granted."
Zach looked at her. " Kendall, just go with the 'we're lucky' part again."
"Saying it once is all I can manage."
"Be glad for that then. I am, Kendall. Very glad." After functioning on far too little sleep, Zach's voice was gravelly but its deepness only enhanced the sincerity of his words.
"I still hate that you have to go through this and I hate that Miranda has to go through what she's going through," Kendall said rebelliously. "God, more than anything I wish none of this was happening—which just goes to show you how much influence I have over anything, huh?"
"You're doing wonders for me," Zach said rather dryly.
She paused. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm so tired I don't know what the hell I'm saying."
"Then go home, Kendall," he suggested promptly.
"Zach! Have I gotten so bad you're trying to get rid of me?" she asked in a small voice.
"I was told I'll be in recovery for several hours following this. No reason for you to stick around. Go home and get some rest."
"Oh, please, you know me better than that. I am not leaving!" Kendall protested strenuously again. "If something happened to you or Miranda while I was gone…."
Reasonably, Zach said, "Do you think Miranda and I wouldn't be looked after if you weren't here to see to it?"
"Exactly. Miranda is already our star patient and Mr. Slater just put himself in the running," Kendall spun around to see Joe Martin standing behind her wearing an encouraging smile to go with his words. "What we're expecting is a very successful outcome and I just came by to wish you the best, Mr. Slater."
"Thank you, Dr. Martin."
"Joe, will you be in the operating room with Zach?"
"No, but he'll be in good hands with Dr. Rowan performing the procedure. I overhead Mr. Slater's suggestion that you go home, Kendall, and I must say I concur. Unless you work here, there's no reason to log as many hours as you've been lately."
"But Joe, I haven't had much choice. You know Greenlee's been sick so I—"
The doctor continued, "Greenlee must be feeling better because I saw her up in the pediatric ICU a little while ago. Of course, she's not allowed in with Miranda, but neither would you be right now, Kendall."
"Two against one, Kendall," Zach said.
"Well, gee, don't both of you just throw me out at once," she said a little resentfully.
Glancing at his watch before leaving, Joe said, "I can't stay. One more minute, Kendall, and then follow me out, eh? The orderlies will be here presently for Mr. Slater and we like our operations to begin on time."
Kendall gazed down at Zach again. Absurdly, and all things that had occurred between them recently considered, she suddenly felt ridiculously tongue-tied. What, after all, did you say to a man who was saving your niece's life?—who was his niece, too, of course, the same niece you'd once virtually accused him of trying to destroy—the same man now about to sacrifice some of his life substance for her?—proving yet again how spectacularly flawed, to say the least, your judgment frequently was.
What if that wasn't even really what tied your tongue in its biggest knot, though? What if the biggest, most impenetrable knot formed when you looked into the eyes of that man and thought you saw something there that made you wonder how long you could possibly last, after all the losses you'd already suffered, if anything happened to him too? But when there was such a short circuit from your brain to your mouth, maybe it was best for the words to just stay trapped in your throat because how could you possibly trust them to convey to what they were supposed to without needlessly complicating the relationship you already had, that seemed to be working the way it was, with the man lying before you?
"Zach, if anything happens to you in there I'll kill you," Kendall murmured fiercely, unable to keep her voice from sounding choked. "I will positively, absolutely fucking kill you, so promise me you won't let anything go wrong. Promise."
Zach gazed back into her eyes, so close to his face, his voice softened to a rasp when he said, " Kendall. I didn't know you cared."
"Oh, you jerk." She was almost blubbering, feeling like a pathetic helpless fool. "You great—big—insufferable—jerk—"
"Ready to roll?" A bored-looking young orderly came up behind her, cutting off her shaky diatribe.
"Not yet," Zach said. Drawing Kendall's face down to his with the one hand he had available, he whispered warmly, "One for the road," before kissing her briefly.
It couldn't be much of a kiss, and then she had to stand back while they took him away, feeling worse than ever once he was gone and hating it. Now what? She was well and truly at loose ends for awhile, but Kendall was sure of one thing; she might respect his opinion but she didn't mean she took orders from Zach, and she wasn't about to leave the hospital during any of the hours that would elapse before he came out of surgery and recovery. In the meantime she decided to return to the pediatric floor to see what she could find out about Miranda. Outside the surgical waiting area she was actually glad, if surprised, to run into Greenlee. "What are you doing here?" Kendall asked.
"I was actually looking for you, Kendall. Has Zach gone under the knife yet?"
"Geez, Greenlee, I don't think I'd put it quite like that, but he's about to. They just took him into surgery."
"Good, then you have some time to talk?" Greenlee both looked and sounded quite serious.
"Time is about all I do have for a change, at the moment anyway. Say, do you know what's up with Miranda?" Kendall asked anxiously. "That's where I was headed next. I know the chemo was supposed to take several hours so I didn't expect it to be finished yet, but…."
"It's not. And they won't let me in. So I thought I'd find you instead and we could get a bite to eat in the cafeteria while we wait."
"Where's Ryan?" Kendall felt compelled to ask. "You know, your shadow. Do I have to sit across the table from his smiling face too?"
"Oh, I left Ryan at the pediatric ICU." Greenlee patted her waist. "He'll page me if need be. This little confab will be just us girls, Kendall. It's been too long since we've hung out together, don't you think?"
"Wait a minute, Greenlee. Did you just change the channel from the show I was watching during the commercial?" Kendall was beginning to feel even more discombobulated. "I mean, since when do you and I do lunch together anymore? Even more to the point, haven't you just been sick but now you want to eat in the cafeteria? What are you, a masochist? You'll have a frigging relapse."
"No, I only—I mean, I'll just have a cup of tea or something. I really just want to sit and talk if that's okay with you, Kendall, and it's more comfortable there than in the waiting room."
Kendall shrugged. "Oh, well, why not? As I said I do have time to kill, and even your company beats my own right now. Plus I am kind of hungry and you've got the beeper, so…might as well. Lead on."
A short time later the girls sat across from each other at a booth. Kendall picked at the remains of a wilted salad remaining from the earlier lunch rush, while Greenlee sipped a cup of tea and nibbled on some pre-packaged shortbread cookies. After claiming to want to talk, Greenlee seemed quiet to the point Kendall found herself prodding her.
"So did you actually have something to talk about, Greenlee? Or are we just going to sit here and look at each other? Because that'll sure help pass the time."
"Oh—sorry, Kendall—I was just thinking about something. Listen, we've never really had a chance to talk about you and Zach. You've never really said what made you change your mind about him practically overnight."
"I'm not going to talk about Zach with you, Greenlee," Kendall replied stiffly.
Greenlee stared at her thoughtfully. "Oh, come on, Kendall, this is me. And I'm curious. You would be too, if you were me, especially if I spent all my time hating on the guy and then turned around and flashed a rock that would put Mrs. Donald Trump's to shame."
"You stopped being you, Greenlee, when you and Ryan turned into a baby-snatching gang. That means the chances of me confiding in you about anything least of all Zach are zip," Kendall retorted. "And that reminds me—if we talk about Miranda it also will get ugly, so maybe we'd better just go back upstairs now."
Greenlee started to extend a hand, then seemed to think better of it and withdrew. "No, wait, Kendall. Tell me about Zach. Remember, I never hated him the way you and Ryan did, so I'd really like to know what you see in him now. Beyond the obvious, that is."
"The obvious?" Kendall repeated mulishly. "Maybe Zach sees something in me, did you ever think of that, Greenlee?"
Raising her eyebrows, Greenlee replied, "From everything I ever saw of you and Zach whenever you were together, until—what was it now? Just last week?—he thought you were just as big a royal a pain in the ass as you thought he was. If not bigger. So you tell me, Kendall."
"Things can change very quickly, Greenlee. Shouldn't you know that already? Look at you and Ryan, true love overnight as the violins played and the cymbals crashed. And no, I'm not bitter. I'm grateful you wound up with Ryan and I wound up with Zach."
"But Ethan came in between Ryan and Zach," Greenlee began, "and I thought you and he—"
"Ethan is dead," Kendall said uncompromisingly. "Not only dead as in his ashes are rattling around in a tin can, but dead as in 'dead to me.' I was over Ethan before I got engaged to Zach. That is all you need to know."
Greenlee made a show of shivering. "Cold, Kendall. Very cold. Okay, not to speak ill of the dead but I always thought you deserved better than Ethan. He was still a boy and you deserved a man. But you know what they say—like father, like son, so I can't help being curious why you think his father is an improvement."
Kendall traced one of the boomerang patterns printed on the Formica surface of the table. "Yeah, well, Zach is no more like Ethan than I'm like my father. The rest is none of your business anymore."
"It could be my business more than you realize, Kendall. I said I was curious. I didn't say my curiosity was just idle," Greenlee said rather mysteriously.
"That's good, because I've already had my fill of idle curiosity, thank you very much. So before you join the rest of the Pine Valley chorus and start singing what you think Erica's reaction would be…I have just three more words to say: Don't. Go. There." Kendall's voice trailed off.
"I'm really not challenging you to defend you and Zach," Greenlee insisted. "If you honestly want to marry the guy, Kendall—well, I'm sure there are some big compensations and I don't just mean that Rock of Gibraltar-sized diamond, but don't expect me not to be able to figure out as well as you that by marrying Zach you marry Miranda's uncle Zach."
Frowning, Kendall said, "I told you not to bring up Miranda, Greenlee. In fact, maybe we shouldn't be talking like this at all, since we'll be sitting on opposite sides of a courtroom before long."
Greenlee sighed. " Kendall…you know, I was thinking…maybe that won't be necessary after all. Also, maybe, just maybe, if there's any chance you did hook up with Zach to put something over on me—and I'm not saying you did—well, maybe you don't need to stay hooked up."
"And just why not, Greenlee?" Kendall demanded. "Are you trying to say you have such a shut-and-dried case for getting custody of Miranda away from me that I shouldn't even bother trying to fight you? Because I don't think—"
"No, Kendall, that's not what I'm saying at all and if you'll just shut up and let me finish I'll explain. I was trying to sound you out and I guess I didn't do a very good job of it, to see where you stand with Zach and everything, and to see if you still…well, if you still want custody of Miranda and I guess you do and that's good because I—I…." Greenlee chose that moment to hesitate.
Almost lunging across the table at her, Kendall gasped, "What the hell are you getting at, Greenlee?"
A beatific expression relaxed Greenlee's already appealing features into an almost self-consciously Madonna-like mask of serenity. "I—no, I mean we, that is, Ryan and I— Kendall, we're pregnant!" Greenlee leaned across the table. "We're going to have a baby of our own. Isn't that wonderful, Kendall?"
"What?" Kendall asked in shock. "Greenlee, you're pregnant?"
"Yes," the other girl beamed ecstatically. "And I've learned that taking care of little ones is very satisfying but it's also very labor-intensive so I don't just think I'll be able to devote enough attention to a toddler like Miranda, especially with all the follow-up care she's going to need, once I have a newborn of our own."
There was nothing Kendall could do but stare at her for a few moments. If that isn't quintessential Greenlee, she thought cynically,despite the genuine joy radiating from the expectant mother. Out with the old—in with the new. Now she's got one of her own on the way—it's bye, bye, cousin Miranda, Auntie Kendall can have you after all.
Brightly, Greenlee asked, "Aren't you going to congratulate me, Kendall? I just found out two days ago and I've been bursting to tell you! I was afraid you'd figure it out from my morning sickness."
Swallowing hard, Kendall said, "It's the funniest thing, Greenlee, but with everything else we have going on, the thought never even crossed my mind. But of course…congratulations." And I don't care if that sounds grudging, after all she's put me though.
"I know, but that makes this the absolute best time for this to happen! A new baby," Greenlee said softly. She patted her ridiculously flat abdomen proudly. "If it's a boy it's Jackson Ryan and if it's a girl it's Bianca Erica."
"Damn you, Greenlee. Damn you to hell. You always make me cry," Kendall found herself sniffing.
"Hey, you're going to have to watch your language from now on," Greenlee scolded.