Chapter Seventeen

Denise

I walk out of the room, and I now have Zack’s smell on my coat. I smell him everywhere. So now not only is he on my mind every second of the day, but he’s also all around me.

Mallory comes to see me at the nurses’ station. “I got all of Jack’s blood and packed it up. It will be going out today.”

I nod my head, and I’m about to say something when I hear commotion in the hallway. “We have a code blue!” I hear one of the nurses yell, and I get up and run down the hall, following the commotion to Evie’s room.

“She was fine this morning,” Janet says, quietly sobbing. “She said she was tired.”

I walk into the room; the machines beep like crazy as her heartbeat gets slower and slower. “Someone page Steve,” I say loudly.

I walk to her. “Hey, Evie,” I say loudly. “Can you hear me, sweetie?”

Nurses come in and start hooking her to the monitor in case she goes into full on cardiac arrest and we have to shock her. Steve comes rushing in. “What’s going on?”

“Her heart beat got under fifty,” I tell him, and he stands beside her.

“Evie, sweetie,” he whispers to her, and she turns her head. “You have to talk to me, okay?”

“I’m tired, Dr. Steve,” she says. “I just want to sleep.”

“I know you do, honey, but you just have to fight a bit more,” he says, and she just closes her eyes. We all look at the monitor to see if her heartbeat gets any lower.

Her beats start to slowly climb, and Steve and I look at each other and then at the nurses who just nod. We walk out to talk to Janet and see that she is sobbing in Shirley’s arms.

She looks at us when we walk out, shaking her head. “No.”

“She’s stable,” I tell her and then look at Shirley, who has her own tears in her eyes. I look at Jack’s room and see that Zack is lying down with Jack while he watches his iPad.

“You have to do something,” Janet says.

“We’ve done everything,” Steve says. “She didn’t respond to the last round of chemo.”

“There has to be something else,” she says, her voice going louder and louder. “There has to be.”

“I’ll see what else can be done,” Steve says, then looks down blinking, and I know he’s blinking away his own tears. They prepare you for the field in medical school, but what they don’t prepare you for is the heartbreaking losses. The times you lose your patient who you’ve not only cared for, but who put their lives in your hands and you failed them. No course can prepare you for that.

Each time I lose a patient, I feel the same hurt the families feel. No matter how much I prepare myself for the end, the result always leaves a permanent mark on my heart.

“I have to call my husband,” Janet says, walking away from Shirley.

“I don’t know how you do this,” Shirley says, and I look down, blinking away the tears that are fighting to come out. “You two really are heroes,” she says, turning around and going to Jack’s room.

“How the fuck is this going to be okay?” Steve asks, looking at me. “There is nothing to be done.”

“Did you speak with Melissa?” I ask him as we turn to walk toward the nurses’ station.

“I did,” he says. “but the family can’t afford five hundred K, and their insurance is stingy as fuck. They delayed treatment for a month while they investigated her case.”

“I’m going to check with the foundation and see if we can help cut costs there,” I tell him, and he just nods.

“They are going to review the chart and bury us in paperwork, and by the time it’s done, it will be too late.” He shakes his head. “A miracle,” he says, walking away from me now. “She needs a miracle.”

I nod my head, and I’m looking down when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I don’t have to turn around to know it’s him; my body knows. I almost feel my shoulder rising to bring his hand up to touch my face. Instead, I turn around. “Are you okay?”

I take a deep breath. “Not even close, but I’m going to have to be.”

“Is she okay?” he asks, and I just look down the hall where Janet paces in front of her daughter’s room on the phone, no doubt talking to her husband.

“I can’t tell you anything,” I tell him and then look down.

He nods his head. Janet comes to us, and Zack sees her. “He’s on his way,” she tells me of her husband. “We had to pull Brock out of his hockey tournament, but ...” she says, wringing the Kleenex in her hand. She turns to look at Zack. “She’s a year older than Jack, and she’s had cancer half her life.”

“Denise,” she says with all the hope in the world, “there has to be something you could do. Something we haven’t tried.”

My heart breaks for this mother, who is essentially asking me to save her daughter, and I wish I could. I wish I had all the answers, but I have to be honest with her. “I’ll look into something else, but, Janet,” I tell her, blinking away my own tears. “I don’t know if there is anything.”

She nods her head at me and then looks at Zack. “Maybe you can bring Jack for a visit. She was asking about him the other day.”

“Sure thing,” he says right away. “Why don’t you come and get us when she’s up?” She nods at him and then walks away.

“Are you on lunch?” he asks me, and I just look at him.

“It’s eleven,” I answer him, looking at my watch.

“So a coffee then?” he says, grabbing my hand and walking into Jack’s room to find him still sleeping.

“Mom, I’m taking Denise down for a coffee break. Would you like anything?”

“No, you two go ahead. I’ll call you if anything changes,” she says, smiling at us.

“Zack, I can’t just leave,” I tell him, and then he looks at me. “Okay, fine, let me just tell them I’m stepping out.”

I turn and walk back to the nurses’ station. “Is everything okay?” I ask them, and they all nod at me. “I’m going to grab a coffee. Do you guys want anything?”

Mallory looks over at Zack. “I wouldn’t mind that right there,” she says, winking at me. “Is he single?”

“He is,” I say, “but I don’t think your husband would like that one bit.”

I laugh at her.

“Buzzkill,” she says, laughing at me as I turn to walk back to Zack.

“There is a Starbucks around the corner,” I tell him, and he puts his hand out for me to lead the way. I walk to the elevator, and when we walk out, a couple of fans spot him and approach him for pictures. I wait for him while he does his thing, and when we walk into Starbucks, the barista sees me and greets me by name when we walk up to the counter.

“What can I get you, Denise?” she says, and I look at the menu. “Can I have a vanilla latte, no foam.”

“Sure,” she says, and I look at Zack as he waits for me to finish.

“What do you want?” I ask him, and he orders a regular coffee. He pays, and I just walk to the side to get the coffee.

“Why are you looking at me so weird?” I ask him, smiling.

“It’s just every single time I’ve been in Starbucks with someone, their order is usually ridiculous. It’s half this, shot of this, nonfat that.”

I bend my head laughing when the barista calls my name. “When it comes to food and whole milk, I have a YOLO attitude.”

“Good,” he says and grabs his own coffee. “Do you want to sit here or go somewhere else?”

“Whatever you want to do,” I tell him, and he leads me to a small table in the corner. I sit down, putting my coffee on the table and placing my hands in front of me.

When he sits down, he looks at me. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I tell him honestly. “Not even a bit.”

He shakes his head. “What are you doing for dinner?” he asks, and I look at him.

“Probably nothing,” I tell him, picking up my coffee and taking a sip.

“Come join us,” he tells me. “It’s Mom’s last night; she leaves tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to impose on her time with you guys,” I tell him, and he tilts his head.

“Do you ever think of yourself before everyone else?”

“Do you?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Match point,” he says with a smile, and for the rest of the time, we talk about his hockey schedule, which is mostly home games for the next week. I switch to nights starting tomorrow for the week.

“So when you do night shifts, what time do you start?” he asks when we get up and make our way back to the hospital.

“Eleven to seven,” I tell him. “Worst shift to have, but I get them once a month since we do a rotation.”

We walk back into the hospital and ride up the elevator all alone, and I stand on one side as he leans against the other side. “Tonight?” he asks me, and I have to get my heart to race at a normal pace.

“Zack,” I whisper, and I’m about to say something else—what I have no idea—but the door opens and more people come in, and then it’s finally our floor. We walk out together, his hand grazing mine.

“See you later,” he says to me, smirking and walking away from me while I look down at my hand and wonder if I imagined his touch.

I walk back to the nurses’ station, finding no one there. Steve walks in from the hallway. “You’re back,” he says. “Melissa called back. Evie is a good candidate.”

I put my fist together to cheer, but the look on his face shows me that he isn’t celebrating. “So what’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is that the insurance company totally shot it down. It’s still in the clinical trial phase, according to them, even if it’s FDA approved.”

“There is no way they can afford that,” I tell him, and he just nods his head.

“I’m going to check with the foundation,” I say. “We can’t just not give her the drug even if we don’t have the money to save her.” I shake my head and feel someone near me. I don’t have to look up because his smell surrounds me.

“Jack is going to visit Evie,” he says, and I turn to look at him, and his blue eyes are a bit darker now.

“Okay,” I tell him and watch him walk away.

“Are we going to have to discuss this?” Steve says, and I turn to look at him.

“What do you mean?” I ask him, and he raises his eyebrows at me. “Nothing to say,” I tell him and then look back down at the charts before he reads whatever is in my eyes.

I get my phone out and send an email to Karrie and Allison, asking for the fund details from our foundation. I follow up on a couple of patients who are in remission as they start their cancer-free lives. When I look up at the clock, it’s almost three o’clock.

“I just checked Jack again; he’s back to normal,” Mallory tells me. “He’s in with Evie.”

When I walk to Evie’s room, I find Shirley sitting with the kids as Zack and Janet sit talking to each other.

“Dr. Denise, we are watching Trolls,” Jack says while he sits next to Evie, who has an IV in her arm and a little hat on. “Evie doesn’t feel well, so we can’t move a lot,” Jack whispers.

“I promise not to move Evie,” I say. “Mallory told me that you are good to go home,” I tell Jack and then turn to Zack.

“That sounds great,” Zack says and then he looks at Jack. “Why don’t we let Evie have some time ...” He doesn’t finish because Evie sits up as a man comes in the door.

“Daddy,” she says, and he just walks to her and bends down to hold her in his arms as he quietly sobs. I watch them, stepping away from the bed, and feel a hand around my shoulder. I know it’s Zack. We watch Janet go to them, and the three of them hug, then her brother joins them. Shirley leans over and grabs Jack, bringing him to us.

“We should give them some privacy,” Zack says, and Shirley walks out. Jack and I follow, his arms still around me.

“What do you want to eat for dinner, Jack?” Shirley asks him, and he looks at her with a huge smile.

“SPAGHETTI!” he yells, and we all kind of groan.

Shirley puts him down on the bed, and Zack turns to me. “What time do you finish?”

“Now,” I tell him.

“Good, then you can come home with us,” Zack says and looks at Jack. “Denise is coming to our house for dinner.”

“Yeah,” Jack says, “it’s a party.” He giggles, and it fills my heart. I turn to look at Zack, who smiles also, and I know at this moment I’m more gone than even I knew.