Of Flesh and Blood (45 page)

“
Please
, Nikki.”

She could tell from his expression that he wasn’t going to relent. “Okay. Just a quick one though,” she said, dreading the thought of trying to hold a serious conversation while she felt like crawling out of her own skin.

With the dinner rush still hours away, the cafeteria was quiet. Nikki grabbed an empty table in the corner and waited impatiently for Tyler to return.

Tyler came back with two mugs in hand. Nikki decided to preempt questions about her appearance. She ran her arm across her forehead, where the sweat had begun to bead again, and said, “I didn’t have a chance to work out in days. So I just ran the set of stairs at the hospital a couple times for a little cardio.” She forced a smile. “I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Sure,” he said distractedly. “Nikki, about yesterday—”

She wrung her moist palms together. “No big deal. You caught me at a bad time.”

“I owe you an apology. I was . . . um . . . out of line.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She reached for her mug and raised it to her lips,
but the scent of the java intensified her queasiness. She only pretended to sip it.

“I just jumped to conclusions. I had no right to.”

Nikki didn’t reply. Instead, she fought back the nausea and struggled to control her wriggling. Her urge to escape the cafeteria verged on claustrophobia.

“Not just for yesterday. I’m sorry for everything.” His lips broke into a small, self-conscious grin. “The stops and starts. The mixed signals. And especially . . . um . . . what happened that night at O’Doole’s.”

She put her coffee down. “I get it, Tyler. But I was there, too, remember? I’m not a child. I played my part.” She wiped her brow again. “We got swept up in the music and the drink. Happens to people all the time. At least, we—well, you, anyway—did stop in time. I’m not angry. I was just . . . embarrassed, is all.”

“Still, it was a crappy way to treat you. You deserve better. A hell of a lot better.”

“Thanks.” She glanced at her watch again. “Tyler, I really have to—”

He reached out a hand but stopped short of touching her. “More than just how much I respect you, I like you. A lot. Too much, probably.” He stared at her intently. “You’re the best friend I have in this place.”

A lump formed in her throat. “I feel the same way.”

“I want to be . . . available for you. This isn’t about yesterday. I had no business. Forget that conversation even happened. I just want you to know that if you want to talk . . . or if you need a shoulder . . . whatever. I’m your guy.” His smile widened. “I’m sorry I ever messed with that.”

More than his words, Nikki was deeply touched by the sincerity that burned in his blue eyes. Without stopping to consider the implications, she blurted out, “Tyler, you were right, yesterday.”

“I was?”

“About my pupils.”

“Oh,” he said, and nodded gravely. “For how long, Nikki?”

She looked down and shrugged. “The past week or so,” she said softly.

“Any particular . . . reason?”

She pushed her damp hair back with both hands. “Not really. My back was bugging me again. Ibuprofen wasn’t helping.” She shook her head. “I was a fool for hanging on to that last bottle of hydromorphone.”

“Why did you?” he asked gently.

“My first day of sobriety—the last time around, anyway—started the day I filled that prescription,” she said. “In a weird way, the bottle marked a milestone for me. Like a little trophy for what I’d overcome.”

“I get it,” he said unconvincingly.

“Bullshit. Even I don’t believe that line anymore,” Nikki muttered with a snort of laughter. “In the last three years I’d been tempted so many times to crack that bottle. Hanging on to it was really just a sign of weakness. It guaranteed my failure.”

“Now what?”

She held out her arms, palms facing down, to show him the coarse tremor in her hands. “I haven’t had a pill since last night.”

“I thought you looked a little . . . on edge.”

“So did your sister.”

“Erin?”

“I just bumped into her outside.” She thumbed at the window. “The poor woman must think I’m out of my freaking mind.”

“I doubt that.” He cocked his head. “Nikki, do you need something to help take the edge off? A few Valium or whatever?”

She hesitated but could not bring herself to mention the pills weighing in her pocket. “I have to do this cold turkey,” she said. “I’ve done it before, Tyler.”

“You want some company for a while?”

Viewing his kind face made her heart ache. He was such a decent guy.
If only our circumstances were different
. . . .

“You know what, Tyler? I really don’t think I would be good company right now.” She sighed a chuckle. “Kind of like Joseph Stalin, but more paranoid and less tolerant.”

He laughed. “I’ve seen worse.”

Nikki rose from her seat. “I need to do this alone. Really.”

Without arguing, he nodded.

“But thank you,” she said as she turned to leave.

“Nikki?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him.

He tapped his temple. “You’re going to be okay.”

With a quick smile, she hurried for the exit. She walked out of the building
and started for the parking garage but stopped after a few steps and turned back. She entered the children’s hospital and mounted the stairs up toward the SFU. She stopped at the nursing station and pretended to read through some charts while she waited for another nurse to clear out of the medication room. Then, with a quick glance over either shoulder, she skulked inside the room and closed the door behind her.

She walked over to the narcotic log where she had recorded the stolen dose of hydromorphone as given. She stared at the criminal entry for a long moment. Then she picked up the attached red pen and crossed it out. She wrote “returned” above the words and signed her initials.

She fished in her pocket and pulled out the small packet. Unlocking one of the narcotics drawers with her personal code on the keypad, she placed the contents back inside a bottle and then closed the drawer.

Despite the throb in her back, her shaking limbs, and the ravenous longing for one more pill, the little step brought her a glimmer of hope.

Tyler was eager to get home to his wife. Whether it was related to her pregnancy or not, he felt closer to Jill than he had in recent memory. With her newfound fragility and sudden need for support, he felt as though she had let him back into her heart for the first time in ages. Clearing the air with Nikki had helped untangle his emotions, too.

Despite the colorful bouquet of lilies at risk of wilting in the passenger seat of his car, Tyler couldn’t get home to Jill any time soon. He had to stay at the children’s hospital into the evening waiting for Keisha’s prefilled doses of Vintazomab to be sent up from the pharmacy.

At 7:45, his phone rang. “Hello, Dr. McGrath,” a young man said with somber professionalism. “I’m Devon Sinclair, the on-call pharmacist for chemotherapy meds.”

“Yes, Devon. Any word on that Vintazomab?”

“That’s the issue.” Sinclair cleared his throat nervously. “You see after the, er, incident with the last Vintazomab patient, we sent most of the medication back to the supplier.”

“I ordered it yesterday, Devon,” Tyler said evenly.

“I realize that, Dr. McGrath,” Sinclair said. “We were expecting to have more supply couriered to us this morning. It hasn’t arrived yet. And as per policy, we do not dispense chemotherapeutic drugs after eight
P.M
. So even if it were—”

“Will you get it in by tomorrow?” Tyler cut him off impatiently.

“I hope so.”

“So do my patient and her family, Devon.”

Frustrated with the bureaucracy, he slammed the receiver into the cradle. But he couldn’t deny his relief at having avoided the medication for at least
one more day. He still dreaded the thought of walking Keisha through the same procedure that had proved fatal for Nate.

When he broke the news to the Berry family, Jonah was accepting while Keisha acted indifferent. Only Maya seemed to struggle with the word of the delay.

Tyler didn’t reach home until 8:35, leaving him only a few minutes to catch up with Jill before he had to head out again. Liesbeth had phoned shortly before he left work requesting that he come over at nine o’clock. Though Tyler desperately wanted to spend the evening with his wife, he felt obliged to go and more than a little curious to know why his grandmother needed to see him so urgently.

Jill’s car was already parked in the driveway, but she didn’t answer when Tyler called her name from the entryway of their house. He bounded upstairs, bouquet in hand, hoping to surprise her in the bedroom, but she was nowhere to be seen. Mystified, he hurried back down to the main floor. Passing by the basement steps, he noticed the lights on downstairs.

“Jill?” he called. “Are you down there?”

No reply.

He raced down to investigate. Stopping in front of the door to the spare bedroom, Tyler heard the sound of water running from within. He tried the door handle, but it was locked.

What the hell?

He knocked on the door. “Jill?”

She didn’t reply.

He heard a distant retching noise followed by the flush of a toilet. Concerned, he pounded harder. “Jill, are you in there?” he shouted.

After several seconds, she said, “Yeah. I was just . . . um . . . sleeping.”

“Why in the spare room?”

“My stomach is so bad,” she said. “I needed to be near the washroom. I didn’t want to disturb you. Or make a mess of our room.”

The spare room did have a small attached bathroom not far from the bed, but the explanation still struck Tyler as hollow. “What’s with the locked door?” he asked.

“I didn’t want you to walk in on me. Could have been a nasty surprise for us both.” Her voice was louder as she neared the door, but it still sounded throaty and rough. And she had yet to unlock the door.

“You won’t surprise me now,” he said warily. “Can you please let me in?”

“I’m a mess,” she said. “Worse than that girl from
The Exorcist
, you know? I really don’t think anyone—including you—should see me right now.”

Concerned, Tyler jiggled the handle of the door. Still locked. “Stop fooling around, Jill!”

The knob finally clicked and the door opened a crack. Inside, the spare room was lit only by a bedside lamp. Tyler could barely make out Jill’s features through the small opening.

“Ty, I know you’re worried, but I’m okay. I’ve got water and juice down here. I just need a couple hours to myself. I know this will pass.”

Firmly, but gently, Tyler pushed the door open wider. “Think of me as an overprotective first-time dad-to-be,” he said.

Jill leapt a few steps back from him. He tried to approach her but she shot out a palm to stop him. “No closer. I haven’t been anywhere near a toothbrush since this started.”

Tyler’s hand fell to his side along with the bouquet he was holding. Even though the light was dim, he could see Jill better. She had not exaggerated. Her skin held a gray-greenish hue. Her bloodshot eyes were encircled by puffy folds. She still had flecks of regurgitated food at the corners of her cracked lips.

“Jill, you’re sick.”

She swallowed. “Bad morning sickness. That’s all.”

Despite the five or six feet separating them, the harsh scent of vomit wafted to him. “I need to get you to the hospital,” he said.

She laughed weakly. “Now you really are being a neurotic dad-to-be. It’s morning sickness. Comes with the territory. No need for flashing lights or ERs.”

“Plenty of women require intravenous rehydration during the first trimester. You know that. It’s safer for the fetus to have a well-hydrated mom.”

“I’m not at that point yet. I’m keeping some fluid down.” She waved her hand to indicate the half-empty bottles of juice and water lined up on the nightstand. “Besides, I don’t want to expose myself and the baby to what-ever’s floating around the ER.”

“Jill, you look pretty . . .”

She fluffed her hair and pretended to misinterpret his unfinished comment.
“Aw, too sweet. I don’t even have my makeup on.” She pointed to his hand holding the flowers. “For me?”

Tyler raised them to her.

“Thank you, Ty. They’re gorgeous!” Her cheeks suddenly puffed up as she visibly fought back nausea. She breathed through her nose for several moments until her mouth relaxed. “Will you put them in a vase for me?”

“Jill, we really should go to the hospital.”

“Give me a few more hours. If I can’t keep the fluids down, then I’ll go in for an IV. I swear.”

Though dubious, Tyler saw the determination in her stance and realized it was futile to try to force her.

“I am so dog tired from this pregnancy and morning sickness. What I really need is a little more sleep.” Moving like an old woman, she hobbled back to the bed and sat down stiffly. She hoisted her legs up onto the bed, crawled under the sheets, and then covered herself up to her neck with the gray comforter.

“Go put the flowers in a vase for me, please, Ty.”

“All right.” He shrugged. “Liesbeth asked me to come over to her place tonight. She said it was important.”

“That doesn’t sound like your grandmother.”

Tyler nodded absently. “I know.”

“Is she unwell?”

“She didn’t sound it.”

“You better go.”

Tyler shook his head. “I don’t want to leave you alone like this.”

“I’m okay.” A smile crossed her puffy face. “You’d help me by going. I need some peace and quiet. Honest.”

Tyler stood his ground. “I can see her tomorrow.”

“Liesbeth wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important. You know that.”

“Yeah . . .”

Jill reached for the cordless phone receiver beside the lamp and laid it by her pillow. “Keep your phone on. I’ll call if I get worse. I promise.”

Tyler hesitated.

Jill shooed him weakly with her fingers. “Please, Ty, just give me a few hours. Okay?”

Defeated, he turned for the door. “I’m going to call you in an hour. If
you don’t pick up, it won’t be me pounding on the door . . . it’ll be firemen with axes and the Jaws of Life.”