Keep Me in Your Heart (12 page)

His lips pressed into a thin line of stubbornness. She reached out and took his hand. “Make peace with your father. Don’t turn this suit into a contest of wills. Because if you do, no matter how it turns out, no matter what a judge rules, both you and your father will be losers.”

On Friday Jeremy dressed with care. He didn’t want to go to the meeting looking or feeling like a kid. When he walked into the living room of the apartment, Jake looked up from his seat on the sofa. “Not bad, Jeremy. Is that my silk dress shirt?”

Jeremy grinned sheepishly. “And your silk tie. Your stuff goes pretty good with my blue suit, don’t you agree?”

Jake grinned back. “No contest. Don’t get it messed up.”

“Not to worry. I promised Jessica I’d try to bury the hatchet.”

“Just don’t bury it in your father.”

Jeremy groaned at Jake’s bad joke. It wasn’t going to be easy to face his father, especially after their day in court two weeks before.

He had a stomach full of butterflies as he and Jake drove to the campus. Jeremy glanced at his watch and thought about Jessica. She’d be almost through with her dialysis treatment by now. In his mind’s eye he saw the treatment center, the rows of recliners, the small dialysis machines, the many patients. He felt a pang of regret. More than anything, he’d wanted to change things for her, to free her from the machine and make her life better. All he’d succeeded in doing was to bring more tension into her life.

Jake interrupted his thoughts. “It’s best to take your cue from your father. If he wants to be belligerent and antagonistic, get out of the room. I’ll step in and tell him that our next stop is federal court. Fran is writing a new brief as we speak.”

“Good. I still don’t want to give up.”

“Just don’t go into the room with any preconceived ideas,” Jake counseled. “Anything can happen, Jeremy. Anything.”

Jessica left the dialysis unit feeling better than she had in weeks. It was early September, and she thought back to the previous Labor Day. Her parents had taken two rooms at an oceanfront hotel in Virginia Beach, and they’d had a wonderful time. Jeremy had driven down, and together they’d swum in the cool Atlantic water, walked the beach at night hand in hand, and danced at a small bistro that catered to the teen crowd.

She smiled at the memory. Even though she’d been experiencing some signs of kidney failure, she’d ignored them and had had one of the best times of her life.
Who knew?
she asked herself. What a difference a year made!

She slid behind the wheel of the car and turned on the air-conditioning to cool the steamy interior. This whole summer had slipped past, and Jessica had few good memories. Enviously she thought about her friends who’d gone to the beach in Florida. Maybe next summer, if she was still on dialysis, she could locate a dialysis center near the shore and take her treatments
and
spend time at the beach.

On a whim, she checked the car’s glove compartment
and found a map of Virginia. Eagerly she traced a line with her finger from Washington to Virginia Beach. It was expressway all the way. And according to the legend at the top of the map, it was only two hundred miles to Virginia Beach.

Suddenly she was seized with an intense longing to see the ocean, smell the salt air, walk barefoot in the rolling surf. She looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was just barely noon. She’d been going for dialysis early on Fridays during the summer in order to have a long weekend. So why not take advantage of it? If she left now, she could make it to the beach in three hours. She could visit the ocean, eat dinner on the pier, watch the moon rise and still be home before eleven.

Jessica felt a tingle of excitement.
Why not?
Her parents weren’t scheduled to be home until six tonight. She could call them from the pier and tell them what she was doing. No way could she call before she left; they’d be adamant that she not make the trip. If she waited until later, there’d be nothing they could say except “Come home now!”

If only Jeremy could go with her … but
he was about to meet with his father. She grinned and, feeling like a child playing hooky, eased the car into traffic and drove toward the expressway and Virginia Beach. She headed toward the ocean and a few precious hours of freedom.

“H
ow are you, son?”

Jeremy stood awkwardly in the small conference room, looking at his father’s lined face, unsure whether he should shake his hand. Frank Travino looked tired and thinner than he had when Jeremy had moved out.

“I’m doing fine,” Jeremy answered, then crossed to the oval conference table and took a seat. “How’s Mom?”

His father sat across from him. “Physically, she’s fine, but emotionally …” His voice trailed off.

Jeremy gritted his teeth, not wanting to rise to the bait. “This has been hard on all of us
emotionally,” he said. “I never intended to hurt anybody—especially Mom.”

“She—um—she wanted me to tell you that she misses you and to ask you to please come home.”

“I don’t think I can do that yet.”

“I want you to come home too. We both miss you.”

Jeremy knew the admission wasn’t easy for his father, but he also knew he couldn’t give in to emotional blackmail. “Jessica still needs my kidney,” he said quietly.

“You lost in court.”

“I lost in
one
court. There are others.”

“Yes, your attorney told me you will appeal.”

Jeremy nodded, not wanting to reveal any more information than necessary. He knew enough to let Jake handle any legal discussion of the case.

“You’ll lose again,” his father said matter-of-factly.

Jeremy felt his anger rising. “If I do, I’ll try again.”

“The process can take a long time.”

He was telling Jeremy much the same thing Jessica had. But coming from her, it hadn’t sounded so threatening.

“Is that what you’re hoping? That the process will take so long that Jessica will die?”

“Of course not—”

“Or that her doctors will find another donor?” he added, interrupting his father.

“Would that bother you? Would it matter if she ended up with another person’s kidney?”

“Why should it matter? Just so long as she’s okay.”

His father drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Because then you couldn’t be the hero.”

Shocked, Jeremy bolted to his feet. “Is that what you think I’m trying to be? A hero? Let me explain it to you one more time—in case you don’t remember.” He felt hot. “Jessica doesn’t tolerate dialysis very well. She needs a transplant. No one in her family can be a donor. She’s not a candidate for a cadaver kidney. I was willing to be a noncompatible donor, but wonder of wonders, the tests showed me to be a good match. Therefore, she has less of a chance of rejecting my kidney. Which means that she
can return to a more normal life. Go to college. Get a job. Maybe even grow old.”

His father rose too. “Calm down. I didn’t come here to fight with you. Can’t you sit down and listen to what I came to say?”

Jeremy didn’t want to calm down. He wanted to get out of the room and slam the door behind him. But he kept hearing Jessica’s voice telling him to
make peace
. And Jake’s plea to hear his father out and avoid litigation if possible. But if he gave in now, it would be as if he were a little kid heeding Dad’s decree. Still standing, he asked, “So why did you come?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“You saw me in Judge Monsanto’s office.”

“And you never even spoke to me.” His father sounded wounded.

“I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t very well have congratulated you on winning, now could I?” He shook his head in disgust. “That’s all you ever care about anyway—winning. It’s the most important thing. The
only
thing.”

“No!” his father said sharply. “This isn’t about winning.” Jeremy saw that tears had
sprung to his father’s eyes. He waited while his father reined in his emotions. “It’s about losing, Jeremy. It’s about losing you.”

Slowly Jeremy sat down.

His father continued, “I’ve already lost one son. I can’t lose another.”

“Tom,” Jeremy whispered.

“He was alive. Then in an instant he was dead. Nothing in all my years of living prepared me for that. I only know I can’t go through it again.”

“I’m not going to die, Dad.”

“I know it’s an irrational fear,” his father said, raking his hand through his hair. “I know that thousands of people undergo surgery every day and come out just fine. I know that in my head. But in my heart—” He shook his head. “I can’t stand to think about you dying on the table. Or suffering irreversible damage. Of you ending up like Tom. And if any of those things happened, I would be responsible because I agreed to let you do it. In short, it would be
my
fault if something bad happened to you.”

Stunned by the fervor in his father’s voice, astounded by the scenario his fears had written,
Jeremy found it difficult to respond. Finally he said, “I’m not Tom.”

“That’s what the psychiatrist at the hospital told me.”

“You spoke to her? When? Why?”

His father rubbed his eyes and let out his breath. “I stormed into her office after you passed all the hospital tests. I went to fight with her, to castigate her for saying a sixteen-year-old boy was competent to make the decision to give away an organ.”

“That’s what her report said,” Jeremy declared. He barely recalled that part of the testing process.

“I didn’t think a woman who’d seen you for a couple of hours could know you as well as your own parents. I called her names, I yelled and told her she was a puppet of the hospital, doing their bidding because they wanted to perform another transplant.”

“You didn’t!” Jeremy cried, appalled.

His father shrugged. “I told her you’d lost a brother—how could you be rational? You know what she said?”

Jeremy shook his head, fascinated by the story.

“She said, ‘Mr. Travino, Jeremy’s dealt amazingly well with his brother’s death. I suspect that’s because he’s talked about it so much with Jessica and traveled through so many aspects of the grieving process. You, sir, however, haven’t even begun to deal with it.’ ”

Jeremy’s jaw dropped.
His father?
He was always so much in control. He was brilliant, tenacious, unflappable. And yet
he
hadn’t fully dealt with Tom’s death?

“Is it true? How about Mom?”

“I’m afraid she isn’t coping with it either. And that’s my fault too. I never let her talk about it to me. And I never even guessed how badly she needed to. You brought it all to a head when you packed your bags and walked out.”

“But I never meant to hurt you or Mom. I just wanted to help Jessica. I didn’t know how else to do it.”

For the first time, his father offered a wry smile. “You’re too much like me, Jeremy. You even used my own ploy from my college days against me by getting law students to defend you. You settled on a course of action, and you
took it. Do you know how hard it’s been for me to have to sit back and let other forces control my life? Emancipation …” He shook his head. “That took guts. I’ve been torn between wanting to be proud of you and wanting to choke you.”

“You wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say and we were running out of time. We still are,” Jeremy added.

His father laced his fingers together and stared at Jeremy across the table. Jeremy held his gaze without flinching. At last his father said, “Your mother and I will sign the consent form. We don’t want to lose you, son, and if we don’t say yes, you’ll hate us. Please be part of our family. We need you.”

Jeremy leaped to his feet again. “Dad, you’ll really sign?”

“Only if you promise not to die on us.”

A slow smile spread across Jeremy’s face. “You got it.”

“So let’s call in your attorney and break the news that he’s out of work.”

Jeremy hurried to the door and yanked it open. A startled Jake, who’d been sitting on a
chair near the door, jumped to his feet. “We’re dropping the suit!” Jeremy exclaimed. “My parents are going to allow me to donate.”

Jake stepped into the room and regarded Jeremy’s father cautiously. “Is that true, sir?”

“It’s true.”

Jake’s face broke into a grin. “I think that’s great news.” He held out his hand, and Frank Travino took it.

“Can I ask you on what grounds you were planning to appeal?” Frank asked. “Just for the record.”

“Constitutional grounds.”

“Federal court?” Jeremy’s father asked, sounding surprised.

“You know—what rights a minor has over his own body,” Jake said. “It’s a constitutional issue.”

“I guess you could plead that,” Frank said, looking impressed.

“It was Jeremy’s idea.”

Frank turned and looked Jeremy full in the face. In his eyes Jeremy could have sworn that he saw astonishment. And pride.