Part 31
Zander finished work and was taking his tennis racket back to the locker room. He felt a little tired. It was a strange feeling, as he was not used to it.
As he came to the door of the locker room, he saw Cameron standing there.
"What do you want?" he demanded angrily.
"I am simply checking up on you."
"What for?"
"Since you choose not to voluntarily communicate, they is really no remedy but to stalk you, correct?"
"Don't worry about it. Pretend I'm not your son. It's not as if you care."
Cameron followed him into the locker room.
"Get out!" Zander yelled. "Make sure I never see your face again!"
Cameron just stood there.
"Get the hell out!" Zander yelled. "Don't come near me again, don't check up on me."
"I'm your father, and - "
"No you're not!"
"I'm sure you wish that were so," Cameron replied, evenly. "But it's not."
Zander opened the locker door, threw the racket in, and slammed it shut. He looked at it - it was painted a blue color. It looked really odd. He stared at it for a moment, thinking it wasn't that great a color. It started to swim and be made up of several blues, a strange kaleidoscope of blue. He felt sick looking at it, and tried to turn and walk, but then everything went black.
Brenda sat in the waiting room on the intensive care unit, unable to move for the terror gripping her.
"I called David," she heard someone saying, looking up and seeing Donna sitting down next to her. "He'll take the next flight here, he says."
"Thanks," Brenda muttered. Donna put her arms around her, and Brenda's head dropped to Donna's shoulder.
"He's stable now," Monica said to Cameron. They both stood by the bed. "You don't have any family history of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or Long Q-T Syndrome?"
"None."
"Donna's family?"
"Nothing."
"No fainting spells before?"
"Not that I've ever heard of or seen."
"I told you about an earlier surgery I did for a gunshot wound – severe – during that surgery he threw a lot of PVCs. I commented on it. He claimed there was no heart disease in his family."
"He was right. I was never so surprised in my life."
"I don't think we should let this pass - do all the tests and treat him with a beta blocker if his EKG shows prolonged Q-T intervals."
"But if he were to go into this kind of fibrillation again - What if I hadn't been standing right there? And in a country club with a good first aid station with an automatic defibrillator?"
"That must have been frightening."
"Yes."
"He had just been playing tennis?"
"Must have been."
"No emotional upset?"
"Maybe," Cameron said. "That could be, too."
"Could be?"
"I was there. He was angry."
Feeling safer, perhaps, with Monica there, Cameron reached over and touched Zander's forehead, pushing his hair back out of it.
He pulled his hand back hastily. "That frightened me," he said, offhandedly, almost. "I always thought he was healthy as a horse."
Zander opened his eyes. He could see Brenda sleeping in a chair, her head at an uncomfortable-looking angle. He looked around and saw the hospital.
He wondered if he'd been beaten up again. He tried to remember. He could only remember the last tennis lesson.
He saw that he could push the button for the nurse. No stranger to hospital stays, he knew exactly what to do.
"Could you do something to move her head? She looks awfully uncomfortable."
"She wouldn't leave you," said the nurse.
The nurse moved Brenda's head up and shook her a little, "Wake up sleeping beauty," she said, kindly. "Prince Charming's awake."
Brenda looked up. She met his eyes with a shock. In a second she got up and went to him and threw her arms around him.
He hugged her, closing his eyes. Whatever had happened had scared her.
"It's OK," he said. "Did I do something to annoy Sonny again?"
She looked at him. "No, you did something far worse."
"I can't remember a thing."
"Cameron said you passed out and he had to use CPR on you."
"Why?" he looked around the room, as if there might be an answer on the walls.
"Something about irregular heartbeat."
"Weird. Now I remember. He was right there, stressing me out. Yeah, he's at fault," he smiled, but she still looked frightened.
"Don't do it again," she said.
"Not if I can help it! Maybe he brought me here out of abundance of caution. Probably no big deal."
"Sounds like a big deal to me. He was saying you could have died."
"He wishes. Well, if I ever do turn up a stiff, and he's the last one who's been seen near me, remember, he's guilty of the murder, OK?"
"Don't joke."
"OK, Brenda. It's OK."
She hugged him again. He held her head against his shoulder. "I can't live without you," she said.
David Hayward knocked on the door of Monica's office. "Zander Smith," he said, "I'm an emissary from the mother. She and Cam don't talk, especially not about their son."
Monica explained everything in cardiologist's terms. "I trust you to translate all that," she said. "For the mother. According to Cam there's no family history of any sudden cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death. Guess somebody has to be the first one."
"My father died of a sudden heart attack. Only in his thirties."
"Then you ought to have EKGs done on you!"
"I have! I would have anyway, of course. I don't have anything. I could be a carrier though."
"I hope not."
"In order that you make the right diagnosis on this case, there is something you may as well know now. And you can't talk to Cam about it, either."
Cameron took the chart and read through it. There was a minor gunshot wound on a Christmas Day, minor wounds here and there that were probably from fights – Monica Quartermaine had labeled it that way in some of the entries. She appeared to have taken care of him where she would not normally have been expected to.
He found the major surgery Monica had talked about, and saw the charts she had saved with the record of premature ventricular contractions. But he didn't think he would have done anything more either. Not on a regular patient. Just asked them about their family history and their own history of fainting spells.
More fights, more injuries. A severe beating of some kind. A paternity test.
Cameron figured it was no surprise Alexander had to get a paternity test out of that Carly woman, but then was surprised he had thought of it. It had been one idea of Cameron's that perhaps Alexander had been taken in. But the test showed he was the father of the child.
Alexander's life history. What a mess. But he just felt weary, now.
Yet another paternity test. Well, it figured that yet another woman had gotten Alexander into a tight spot. There was the DNA profile again. But the other party was not a baby.