Out of the Shadows (19 page)

“He skipped another meal?” Patrice frowned. “That’s not like Dad at all.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Molly said matter-of-factly. “He’s come down with bugs before, and always manages to fight ’em off.” She winked. “I don’t see any reason to believe this time will be any different.”

Except that this time, the fever had lasted for days instead of hours. And this time, Gus’s weakness showed in his eyes. “You’re probably right,” she said. “Maybe there’s something to that positive thinking stuff.”

“We’ll find out soon, won’t we.”

Before Patrice had a chance to comment on Molly’s dull tone and worried expression, the woman hurried into her jacket. “Well, gotta run if I don’t want to be late—Channel thirteen says traffic is snarled up everywhere.”

“Drive safely, Molly.”

“Will do.” One hand on the back doorknob, she hesitated. “Have a good night, kiddo. And don’t worry too much about Gus. He’s a tough old bird.”

She nodded. “I know.” But she didn’t mean a word of it.

An idea popped into her head and she grabbed the phone and dialed Wade’s extension, thinking to leave a message telling him she hoped everything was okay.

“Wade Cameron’s office.”

“H-hello?” she stammered.

“Adam Thorne, here. Can I help you?”

“Adam, hi. It’s Patrice. I was just calling to leave a message for Wade.”

“He had an emergency.”

“Yes, he called, left word with my dad’s nurse. I just wanted to let him know it’d be okay if he dropped by late. I could reheat the spaghetti for him….”

“Lucky guy,” Adam said. “But I wouldn’t count on it. He lost a patient this afternoon and—”

“Oh, Adam. That’s terrible! I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, it is.”

A moment of silence punctuated his admission.

“Last I heard, he was on his way to break the news to the kid’s mother.”

“No. Not Emily Kirkpatrick!”

“’Fraid so.”

Poor Wade. It was obvious to anyone with eyes that he’d grown quite fond of that little girl. Surely his heart was breaking over this. If only she could go to him, offer a word of comfort.

“You want me to leave him a message?”

She hesitated, uncertain what to say at a moment like this. “If you see him, will you tell him my thoughts and prayers are with him, and that if he needs to talk….”

“I’m sure he knows that already, but I’ll tell him, anyway.”

“Thanks.”

“No. Thank
you.
”

“Thank me? For what?”

“You’re the best thing to happen to Wade in a long, long time, Patrice. He might not know it yet, but he’s been waiting for you his whole life.”

Stunned speechless, Patrice swallowed. “He’s…he’s a good man.”

“You can say that again. Trouble is, I don’t think
he
knows that yet.” Chuckling softly, Adam added, “But I have a feeling you’re going to teach him everything he doesn’t know about himself.”

Confused, Patrice remained silent.

“Took Kasey to wake me up,” he explained. “Before
she came into my world, I was more mixed up and lost than Wade is.”

Adam had all but said she was the woman for Wade! And he’d known Wade most of his life. Patrice held her breath and prayed for the right words to respond.

“Tell you what,” Adam said. “I’ll hunt him down before I head on home, pass your message on in person. Okay?”

“Okay.” She was more than a little surprised she could speak past the lump in her throat.

“See you soon.”

“Yes, soon,” she said as Adam hung up.

Slumping onto the seat of a kitchen chair, Patrice folded her hands on the tabletop. She could only imagine how Wade must be feeling now, after having lost little Emily. A little powerless, she decided, and maybe a whole lot sad.

She closed her eyes.
Lord Jesus,
she prayed,
be with him now and give him strength. Find a way to prove to him how valuable, how needed and necessary he is in so many lives.

She thought of Gus, upstairs watching the news, weakened by God only knows what. Somehow, she believed that whatever was ailing her father, Wade would find a way to fix it.

“He’s so important to so many people,” she added, “especially me.”

W
ade heard footsteps and glanced up enough to see the toes of a pair of wing tips planted on the floor in front of him. “Didn’t you hear…nobody’s wearing wing tips these days.”

There was a grating chuckle, and then a voice said, “How’d you know it was me?”

“I’d recognize those size elevens anywhere.” He heaved a deep sigh. “What’re you doing here?”

When Adam didn’t answer, Wade looked up, into his friend’s face. “So,” he said, “it’s all over the hospital, is it?”

“What, that you lost a patient?”

He stared at the floor again and said through his teeth, “That I fell apart. Blubbered like a weak-kneed—” He balled his hands into fists and punched his knees. “I think maybe I’m in the wrong business, bud.”

“Why? Because you get a little attached sometimes?” Adam pulled up another chair, sat down beside Wade and placed a hand on his shoulder. “This thing they talk about out there,” he said, using his chin as a pointer to
indicate the world that existed outside the hospital, “it’s malarkey. Especially for docs like you and me.”

Wade knew exactly what Adam was talking about. Day after day, doctors made life-and-death decisions on behalf of their patients. In the wrong hands, that kind of control could easily be abused. Too often, it was, and medical professionals, from GPs to proctologists, wielded their power like a weapon, doled out advice as if their words had been handed down by Moses himself. Not surprising, then, that laypeople and other hospital personnel dubbed the high-and-mighty attitude the God Complex. Adam was right. He and Wade had never succumbed to the know-it-all mind-set because, simply, they cared too much.

“Depending on your viewpoint,” Wade said, “that’s not necessarily a good thing.”

“That’s baloney.” Standing, he waved Wade to his feet. “Come on back to the office with me. I have something for you.”

A souvenir from the islands, no doubt, that Kasey had talked Adam into buying while on their honeymoon. Didn’t matter what she’d brought home from some quaint little shop; the gift hadn’t been bought that could ease what Wade was feeling now.

But he got to his feet and fell into step beside his longtime friend. “You talk to Kasey about that dinner invitation?” he said, trying to sound jovial.

“Matter of fact, I did. Went home a while ago, and she sent me back.”

Wade met Adam’s eyes. “Why?”

But Adam only smiled. “You’ll see.”

He’d hated guessing games, even when he was a kid. And Adam, knowing it, persisted on playing them. “It’s for your own good,” he’d say, jabbing his shoulder, “to
toughen your resistance!” So Wade went along, pretending the gift that waited was worth trudging all the way back to his office for.

They walked the rest of the way in companionable quiet. It was one of the things he liked best about Adam—that he didn’t feel the need to fill every silence with the sound of his own voice. That said a lot about their friendship, Wade thought—the fact Adam had the confidence to say nothing when there was nothing to say.

“Sit down,” his friend said when finally they reached their shared offices. He moved a stack of files from the chair in front of his desk. “Take a load off.”

Wade flopped onto the chair seat and propped the heel of one shoe on the corner of Adam’s desk. “So what’s Kasey gonna cook…when I come to dinner, that is?”

For a moment, Adam looked puzzled, and then he smiled. “Oh. Dinner. Well, I imagine she’ll fix whatever you like, as usual.” Laughing quietly, he added, “I’d be jealous of you—if I didn’t know she already got the best-looking of the two of us.”

Wade grinned as his partner sat behind his desk. But the grin vanished when Adam sat Wade’s mother’s Bible atop a teetering stack of mail. “Remember when your mom gave this to me?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

As if he could have forgotten! The night she died, Wade’s mom had asked Adam to come to her hospital room, and when he got there, she’d booted Wade and his sister Anna out, saying she needed a moment alone with her “adopted” son. It wasn’t until months later that Adam admitted that night—and that gift—had been a major turning point in his life.

“You need this more than I do, pal,” Adam said now, sliding the book closer to Wade and sending several en
velopes fluttering to the floor. “Something tells me your mom would want
you
to have it back.” He held up a hand to forestall Wade’s protest. “At least, for a while….”

Eyes locked on the worn gold script, Wade felt a tremor pass through him as he reached for the book. It had been one of his mom’s prized possessions, so it surprised him when, hours before her passing, she’d asked his permission to give it to Adam. “He’s going through a bad time,” she’d said, her weak voice filled with sympathy. “You don’t mind, do you?” He couldn’t have refused her anything, especially at a time like that. Besides, what did he need with her Bible when he’d never believed a word printed on its flimsy gilt-edged pages?

The heft of it surprised him, considering it was barely bigger than a paperback novel. The smooth black-leather cover, like each tissue-thin page, was turned up at the corners, proof it had been read many, many times. Wade opened to the first page, where in his mother’s fanciful, feminine script, the names of her loved ones filled the boxes that made up the Cameron family tree. She’d drawn two hearts, like leaves clinging to the tree. In one, Anna’s husband’s name; the other said “Adam.”

“I remember something she told me once,” he said, cracking the quiet that had settled between them. “We couldn’t have been more than twelve at the time.”

Wade couldn’t tear his eyes from the book.

“I asked her why she kept it in the living room, smack in the middle of the coffee table, when
my
mom probably had no idea where our family Bible was.”

Wade looked up in time to see a tear form in the corner of Adam’s eye.

He quickly knuckled it away. “She said, ‘When
things look darkest, God’s word brings me light, and I feel like I’m stepping out of the shadows.”’

With the Good Book balanced on one palm, Wade ran the fingertips of the other across the cover, trying to ignore the knot that had formed in his throat. “Yeah, that sounds like something Mom would’ve said.”

“She was one of the finest human beings I ever had the pleasure of knowing.”

“She was one great lady, all right,” Wade agreed.

“Ever think maybe you oughta pay a little more attention to what made her that way?”

He met Adam’s eyes, watched as his friend nodded at the Bible. “Any questions you have, m’friend, you’ll find in the pages of that book. I’ve been where you are now, don’t forget, so I know what I’m talking about.”

True enough. Adam had wasted a lot of years beating himself up, blaming himself for what had happened that night at the cemetery. As for Wade, it had been only too easy to believe what the newspapers had said: that the engineer was already in the middle of a major heart attack when the boys’ pumpkin-headed dummy hit the railroad tracks. Still, despite his highfalutin excuses, there was no denying why he’d chosen cardiology as his life’s profession.

Could he have spared himself some of life’s miseries if he hadn’t hardened his heart to God’s word?
Too late now,
he told himself.

And on the heels of the thought, he could almost hear his mother’s voice:
“It’s never too late, Wade m’boy.”

He heaved a sigh and put the Bible back on Adam’s desk. “Thanks, buddy,” he said, staring at it, “for the trip down memory lane. It’s been a long time since I thought about—”

“You’re not leaving here without that book.”

Adam’s no-nonsense tone made Wade look up. “But Mom wanted you to have it.”

“So we’re in agreement—it’s mine to do with as I please?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Then I repeat—you’re not leaving here without that book.”

Frowning, he picked it up again, tucked the spine into the junction where his palm met his fingers. For a reason he couldn’t explain, it fit. Fit as if it had been made for his hands alone.

But he didn’t believe in God, except as an unmerciful, power-wielding Being who seemed to delight in slapping sparrows from the sky. What did he need with His word?

His mother’s advice to Adam echoed in Wade’s mind:
When things look darkest, God’s word brings me light, and I feel like I’m stepping out of the shadows.
Well, he supposed, it couldn’t hurt to bring the Book home….

“Oh, by the way, Patrice called while you were out,” Adam said, standing.

“I left a message with her father’s nurse that I couldn’t make dinner tonight.”

“Idiot.”

“What?”

“As I live and breathe, your bullheadedness never ceases to amaze me. How’d you graduate in the top one percent of our class?”

He didn’t have to put up with that, not even from the man who’d been his closest friend for as long as he could remember. “Adam….”

“She’s nuts about you.”

He knew that. At least, he thought he did. Which made them even, because he was nuts about her, too.

“She told me to tell you there’d be a plate of spaghetti waiting, if you felt like eating when you left here.”

Yeah, that sounded like something Patrice would say. Wade could almost picture her, arranging meatballs neatly beside the noodles, covering the dish with plastic wrap, then peeking at the clock every ten minutes and wondering—

“She’s worried about you.”

His head snapped up at that. “Why? I can take care of myself.”

Adam stared him down.

“She doesn’t need to worry,” he said quietly.

“Why don’t you tell
her
that?”

“Because if I go over there, I’ll have to tell her about her dad’s condition.” He drove a hand through his hair, then stuffed his hand into his pocket. “I need to get home, get my head straight first. Otherwise, I’ll just botch it.”

On his way to the door, Adam stopped, laid a hand on Wade’s shoulder. “Do yourself a favor and open that Book when you get home.” He gave the shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “Trust me, your self-pitying thoughts will disappear like that.” He snapped his fingers.

Self-pitying? Funny, he hadn’t seen his behavior that way until Adam pointed it out.

“I’m going home to my newly pregnant wife. See you in the a.m.?”

“Yeah.” He ran a fingertip along the Bible’s spine. “In the a.m.”

Alone in Adam’s office, Wade let the Good Book open to an undetermined page. “‘Through faith we understand,”’ he read from Hebrews 11:3.

There wasn’t much he understood these days.

Just as he had suspected, Wade found Emily’s mother in the chapel, head bowed, on her knees. She’d been there ever since he’d broken the news to her earlier. “Mrs. Kirkpatrick,” he said softly, “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

Turning, she smiled through her tears. “Dr. Cameron,” she said, getting to her feet.

Gesturing to a pew near the back, Wade invited her to sit.

Taking her hand in his, Wade said, “Once again, I want to say how sorry I am. The team worked for over an hour, but—”

“I know. Of course I know. Everyone here at Ellicott has been so wonderful.” A trembly smile tweaked the corners of her mouth. “We’ve spent so much time here, Emmi and I, that we came to think of you all as family.”

She nodded quickly, so quickly that a tear flew from her face and splashed on the back of Wade’s hand. He watched as it slowly slid from his thumb, where it was quickly absorbed by the smooth fabric of his trousers.

“Yes, I’m sure everyone did everything possible for her.” After rummaging in her purse for a second, she withdrew a wrinkled tissue. Dabbing her eyes, she exhaled a pent-up sigh and, staring straight ahead, said in a wavering voice, “I knew it was coming. I could see it in her eyes. Today, especially….” She sniffed. “I just didn’t want to believe it would happen quite this soon.”

Should he put an arm around her? Pat her hand?
Go with your gut,
he told himself.
It’s always worked in the past.

Turning on the seat, he held out his arms. It surprised him a bit, the way she melted against him when he wrapped her in a comforting embrace.

“She’s with the angels, now.” Her voice, muffled by the lapel of his jacket, wavered. “No more pain, no more suffering, no more operations, no more hospi—”

And then the sobs overtook her, shaking her so hard that they shook Wade, too. He held her tighter, telling her without words that she wasn’t alone, hoping to show her that someone cared. “She was a trouper, that girl of yours,” he managed to choke out. “She touched a lot of lives, a lot of hearts. I have a feeling she’ll be remembered by everyone who knew her for a very long time.”

Yes, he’d made similar speeches before, but something was different this time. Oh, he’d shed tears; he’d have to be inhuman not to experience some of the loss his patients’ families felt. But cry?
Sob?
No, that had never happened before.

You’re some piece of work, Cameron,
he chided. Twice in the same afternoon, he’d fallen apart, broken down.
Get a grip,
he thought,
be strong, for Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s sake, at least.

She sat up, leaned against the backrest and exhaled heavily. “Thank you, Dr. Cameron.”

For what?

“It’s consoling to know you genuinely cared, cared enough about Emily to shed a tear at her passing.” She gave him a weak smile, and lifting her chin a notch, cleared her throat. “When you first told me about Emily, I was too overwhelmed to ask. But now I need to know. Tell me,” she said, meeting his eyes, “were you with her when it happened? It’d be so nice, knowing that someone who cared this much was with her at the end.”

He considered telling her the truth, that he was scrubbing up for surgery—for an operation that wouldn’t have saved Emily life, anyway. But one look into her
mother’s red-rimmed, bleary eyes made him say, “She wasn’t in any pain.” He hoped this half truth would be enough to convince her that her baby hadn’t spent her last moments on earth in the arms of strangers. “She simply fell quietly to asleep and didn’t wake up.”