Marriage By Necessity. Marisa Carroll

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      His parents had shown up at the hospital about an hour after Sarah’s surgery had started. “I know I promised Sarah we’d watch look after Matty,” Arlene told him with the stubborn look on her face that all of her children had learned at an early age not to argue with. “He’ll do fine with Joann and the boys. You need us more than he does right now.” They hadn’t left his side for a moment since.

      “Only six o’clock and it’s dark already,” Arlene sighed.

      “It’ll be dark even earlier when daylight savings time ends.” Tom straightened from his slouched position and stretched his arms over his head. He was a couple of inches taller than Nate, although they favored each other in looks.

      Arlene dropped the magazine and stood up, walking to the door and looking out into the hallway. “How much longer do you think it will be?”

      Nate shrugged. “Six to eight hours. That’s what the surgeon said.”

      “And the surgery started at noon?”

      “Yes,” he answered patiently. It was the third time she’d asked.

      He and Sarah had arrived at the pre-op suite right at six. But from then on nothing had gone as planned. The doctor was in surgery, an emergency, an apologetic nurse had informed them. Sarah’s operation had been moved back on the schedule. There was a room they could wait in, she’d explained, while Sarah filled out forms. She knew what Sarah was facing and she did her best to put them at ease.

      Later another nurse had taken Sarah away to undress and change into a hospital gown, leaving him to cool his heels in the windowless cubbyhole of a room. He stared at the gauges and tubing affixed to the wall above the empty space where Sarah’s bed would be. Oxygen, blood pressure cuff, monitors that he couldn’t read. He switched his gaze to the TV and pretended to watch the early morning weather report. A few minutes later they brought Sarah in. She looked small and lost in the high bed with its stark white sheets and pillowcase. She wore a worn-looking white surgical gown and her hair was hidden beneath a paper cap.

      “They didn’t shave my head if that’s what you’re wondering,” she said with a ghost of the smile that still had the power to make his heart beat harder. “The incision will be here.” She touched the back of her neck.

      The nurse started an IV and gave Sarah the first of her pre-op medication. A few minutes later she seemed to doze off. Nate stared at the TV and the clock, not paying attention to the one and wondering if the other was broken since the hands didn’t seem to move. Nurses came and went with more medication for the IV. Sarah woke up and turned her head to look at him. “I forgot to tell you,” she said, swallowing against the dryness in her mouth. They’d probably given her atropine to do that. Nate knew more about pre-op medications than he wanted to. “Matty wants to be Shrek for Halloween. He’s excited about it. Do you think you can find a costume for him?”

      Nate stood up and walked over to the high bed. He leaned both hands on the rails the nurse had put up when she started the IV. “I’ll make sure he has a Shrek costume,” he promised.

      The answer seemed to please her. A faint smile curved her mouth and her words took on a dreamy tone. “Spoken like a true father. See, I told you you’d be good at the daddy thing. Thank you, Nate. For everything.”

      He’d reached down to take her hand in his at the same moment the surgeon appeared in the doorway. She was young, with chocolate-colored skin, a serious demeanor, and an excellent reputation in her field. “It’s time to go,” she’d said.

      Sarah’s fingers tightened around his. “Try to learn to love him, Nate. That’s all I ask.”

      His last words to her were spoken directly from his heart. “I won’t have to try at all.”

      “Someone’s coming.” Arlene’s voice broke into his thoughts. She took a couple of steps backward into the waiting room and turned to face him. “Is Sarah’s doctor a very pretty, young black woman?”

      “Yes. Dr. Jamison.” He curled his hands around the back of one of the brown tweed chairs so his parents couldn’t see them tremble.

      Tom rose, too, as the neurosurgeon entered the room. She was wearing rose-colored scrubs and green surgical booties, her short, dark hair still covered by a white paper cap like the one they’d put on Sarah. She carried a clipboard and a large envelope in her hands, looking down at her notes as she walked. Nate searched her face for signs of the bad news he was certain she’d come to deliver. She looked up and saw them watching her, and smiled.

      Not the polite curve of her generous mouth that Nate had seen earlier, but a real smile that reached her eyes and banished the weariness from her face. “I’ve got good news,” she said. Nate had been preparing himself for the worst, and if he hadn’t been watching her so closely he would have thought he’d heard her wrong. “The surgery was a complete success. Sarah is going to be just fine.”

      “A miracle,”Arlene whispered, and sat down in her chair with a thump, as though her legs would no longer support her. Nate felt weak in the knees himself.

      “Well, not exactly a miracle, but very close to one.” Dr. Jamison pulled a sheet of X rays out of the envelope and snapped them into the light box on the wall by the door. “These are your wife’s pre-op scans.” She pointed to a spidery web of lines curled over and around the vertebrae of Sarah’s neck and then indicated the second X ray, where there were no more lines. “The growth was advancing very rapidly. Another few millimeters, and it would have been too late.” She stared at the scans for a moment with a satisfied smile, then snapped off the light. “But we don’t have to go there anymore. It was touch and go for awhile, but I think I can safely assure you the chance of a recurrence is less than five percent over the next—” her smile grew a little wider “—fifty years or so.”

      Nate felt as if a bomb had at last gone off in his face. Blood roared in his ears and for a minute he forgot to breathe. She was going to be all right. And she was his wife again. How were they going to deal with that? Automatically, he held out his hand. “Thank you for everything, Doctor.”

      “I’m so pleased to be able to give you such a good prognosis. I don’t have to tell you I didn’t think the outcome would be so favorable.” She glanced down at Arlene, who was staring up at her. “Maybe your mother is right. Maybe there was a little bit of a miracle worked in the mix.”

      “A miracle,” Arlene repeated, turning her eyes to Nate.

      “Sarah should make a complete recovery over the next couple of months, Mr. Fowler. She’ll need some therapy for the nerve damage to her arm and leg, but I believe it’s completely reversible. The therapy will all be out-patient, of course. Barring any unforeseen complications you can take her home in seventy-two hours.”

      “IS THERE ANYTHING I can get for you?”

      “No, thank you.” At the last moment the constriction of the brace around her neck reminded her not to try and shake her head. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. Matty—?”

      “He’s with Tessa, remember.”

      “Oh, yes, of course. I…I forgot.” She missed Matty terribly. She’d never been away from him this long before, although in reality it had only been four days. Ninety-six hours that had changed her world.

      “It’s normal. The anesthetic, the pain medication. Your brain won’t СКАЧАТЬ