Chapter Thirty-Six

Friday morning, Trapper stood at the window looking out as Ernie told him about the past week. "Maybe I should come back later. You seem a little preoccupied."

He grimaced and waved her back down in her chair as he sat down in his desk chair. "I heard every word you said. It's just that there's nothing I can do about any of it."

Standing, Ernie replied, "Unfortunately, there's not much any of us can do. She has to handle it in her own way. She's coming in today. Why don't you talk to her?"

"Hm? I'll do that." When Ernie left, he got back up and looked out his window. Leah was just arriving.

Leah walked through the front door of the hospital and looked at her watch. Her appointment with Dr. Sandler wasn't for another half hour, so she went to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee. There, sitting at the same table as before, she saw Mike Jones, but this time, instead of hanging his head, he was reading a newspaper and actually drinking his coffee. "Hello," she said, standing next to the table.

"Hello," he answered with a smile. "Would you like to sit down?"

"Thank you," she said as she took a seat. "You look better."

"My son…he's off the ventilator, and he's awake. Well, some of the time. He's still on pain medication."

"And what does his doctor say?"

"He says it appears that Marcus will make a full recovery…except, of course, he can't grow back his kidney, but he says people go on with one kidney all the time." His mood saddened. "Marcus hasn't chosen to believe him."

She looked at her watch again. "I have an appointment in a little while, but I'd like to see Marcus, if you don't mind. Maybe I can offer some words of encouragement. Kids tend to listen to anyone…everyone… other than their parents."

When Mike and Leah walked into Marcus' room, he was looking toward the window. "Marcus," called his father. The child didn't respond. "There's someone here to see you." Marcus turned his head toward the door, looked at Leah, and then dropped his eyes.

"Hi, Marcus. My name is Leah." She waited, but his demeanor didn't change. "What's got you so down? Your dad tells me you're on your way to being all better. You have getting out of this hospital to look forward to."

"It doesn't make a difference if I can't do the things I used to," he mumbled.

"Ah, I see. You know what I did last weekend? I went deep sea fishing."

"Something I'll never be able to do."

"Really? Why do you think that?"

"Because I only have one kidney. And my lung is weak. I can't do those kinds of things anymore. "

Walking to the other side of the bed and standing between Marcus and the window, she crooked her finger at Mike, beckoning him closer to the other side of the bed. She leaned over to look Marcus in the eye. "I'm going to let you both in on a little secret." Turning her back to them, she raised her shirt and showed them the scar across one side of her back. "This is a lot like what your incision will look like when it's healed."

Marcus looked up to her face, and blinked, then looked back at her scar before he looked over at his father. "You mean they took your kidney, too?"

"That's not all they took. She turned around and unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse, revealing the tops of the vertical scars on her chest. "They took my heart, too, and gave me someone else's."

Trapper had just entered Marcus' CICU room, but hearing a familiar voice, he stopped just on the other side of the curtain.

"And that's not all. I broke my hip, and my collar bone, my arm, and a couple of ribs, and those injured my lung which collapsed…several times before they could keep it inflated," she said, running her finger over the bandages around his torso and smiling. "And I went deep sea fishing last weekend. And I might just go hike up a mountain this weekend. Or go ride a bike on the beach. That is, if my doctor releases me. "You see, I had open heart surgery just a little while before the bus accident."

Marcus' mouth was wide open and his father was grinning ear to ear. "Really? You aren't lying, are you?" Marcus asked with a smile.

That was Trapper's cue to step in. "She's not lying," he said, grinning. "Every word she said is true, except maybe what she's going to do this weekend," he said with narrowed eyes on her. "Dr. Gates hasn't released her yet."

"The point," said Leah, "is that you need to start taking getting better seriously because you still have a lot of basketball games ahead of you. Okay?"

"Okay!" he said excitedly.

"Now, I have an appointment, so I have to go. But don't you be giving Dr. McIntyre any trouble. I'll find out if you do," she said, pointing at him.

Mike stepped around the curtain with her while Trapper stayed to examine Marcus. "Leah, I don't even know your last name. But thank you. I haven't seen him smile since he woke up."

"You're a lucky man, Mike. Take care of him." She smiled and left for her appointment.

Still smiling, Mike shook his head and watched her go before he stepped back around the glass, where Dr. McIntyre had just finished looking at Marcus' abdominal incision. "The redness has faded, but I want to keep some antibiotic ointment on it just to be sure. I'm leaving instructions for the nurses to get you out of that bed and into a wheelchair so you can move yourself to your new room. You, young man," he said, ruffling Marcus' hair, "are being paroled from maximum security." Looking up at his father, he added, "Mike, I'll stop by after he's settled just to make sure he doesn't jar anything in his new wheels."

"Thank you, Dr. McIntyre," Mike said, grinning. "And would you thank Leah for us?"

"I'm sure you'll have a chance to thank her yourself. If I know her, she'll be looking in on you," he answered, smiling down at Marcus.

Leah thought it odd that she had to wait in Dr. Sandler's waiting room for her appointment. She expected to see someone come out before she went in, but when he opened the door, inviting her in, no one left. She stepped inside and stopped as Dr. Sandler closed the door behind her. She hadn't expected anyone else to be in the office.

The man stood and approached her with his hand extended. "Leah, it's so good to see you again. You're looking well."

She knew her hand felt limp in his hand, but at the moment it didn't matter. "Albert. It has been awhile." She felt numb. It was as if the whole nightmare had suddenly come back with a blinding force. When Dr. Sandler realized she was swaying, he took her arms and guided her to a chair.

Taking the seat next to her, he asked, "Are you alright?"

"I don't know yet."

"In one of our earlier sessions, you expressed some anger toward John; that it appeared he had made arrangements to ensure that if something happened to both of you, you were to be saved if a choice had to be made. You mentioned John's attorney. I asked Mr. Shaeffer if he could meet with us to discuss that."

"Leah, I'm sorry it's taken me this long to get here, but if I can help, I'm happy to."

She covered her mouth with her hand. "Talk about a blindside…Dr. Sandler, I don't know if I can…"

"Dr. Sandler shared your thoughts with me about John's will and the decisions that were made. Let me explain what happened, and then if you have questions, I'll answer them as best I can. There was nothing specific in John's will about survival of a tragedy like yours. In fact, John's will was pretty standard and straight-forward. Upon his death, you inherited everything. The will also set up a trust that would pay all legal and accounting fees in regard to the properties and investments for the rest of your life and would pass the same down to the children."

"Then where did this business about giving me John's heart come from?" she said angrily.

"Leah, John and I were friends for many years; even before you were married. We'd discussed at length what he wanted for you and the children if something happened to him many times. When the children were brought in, they were already gone. There was nothing I could do for them. And when they brought John in, the first thing they asked me was if he had signed a donor card. They did that because he was already brain dead. I couldn't do anything for him. But you, Leah, you were still alive even though you were in bad shape. They had to resuscitate you in the helicopter on the way to the hospital, and then while they were trying to stabilize you, they had to do it again. Once they finally got you stabilized, you went to the operating room and died on the table, and somehow, they were able to get your heart started again. They told me your heart wouldn't survive another defibrillation, and that's when all the fighting for John's heart started.

The people who handled organ donations acted prematurely and had already found a match for John's heart from the waiting list. They had contacted that person's doctor, who in turn, contacted the proposed recipient. They were stopped for awhile when I refused to sign the forms, and when they decided they didn't need my permission because John had signed a donor card, I went to court to halt the transfer because you needed a heart. By some twist of fate, John was a match for you, and you got it. The hospital's legal team had already determined that you had first right to his heart, so they went ahead with the transplant. There were several lawsuits after that, but they ended quickly."

"Why would you think I'd want to go on without them?" she asked, looking at him with tear-filled eyes.

"John had always told me that you kept him young. You were always so happy; so full of life. I had always told John that if something like this happened, I'd do what I could. At the time, I thought it was the right thing to do; the best thing to do. John would have wanted you to go on, but he never imagined that something might happen to the children at the same time."

Standing, Leah walked to David's window and looked out for several minutes before she turned around. Even though her face was wet with tears, she smiled. "I know that time wasn't the easiest time for you, Albert. You did the best you could under the circumstances. Thank you."

Leah and Albert shared a warm embrace before he left. "Call me if you need anything," he said. "Anything at all."

When the door closed, Dr. Sandler stood and put his hands in his pockets. "We have a few more minutes. Do you want to talk about the house?"

She snorted. "You were right. I called an auction house that will take inventory, give me a list and then put everything in storage here in San Francisco. I brought a few things home, some of which I have no idea what I'm going to do with. But the house will be empty so I can sell it."

"Are you sure that's what you want to do with it?"

"Yes," she said definitively.