Of Flesh and Blood (59 page)

“Don’t want to stoop to his level.” She shrugged. “The truth is, from the start I suspected something wasn’t right in the data, but I chose to ignore it. I was so blinded with ambition. Andrew probably thought he was doing me a big favor.”

“He’s still a weasel,” Tyler muttered. He lowered the pages and fixed his gaze on her. “Jill, you sure you have to do this?”

“Yes.” Her tired face broke into a small smile. “I want to. Whatever happens from now on, I already feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.”

Tyler leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. She turned her head away and said, “Ty, my infection.”

“Has been treated.”

“But what if—”

He gently turned her face back to his and then kissed her more deeply on the lips. She didn’t resist. He laid his hand on the small of her back and pulled her closer. Their kisses grew moister as their tongues explored each other’s mouths. Her teeth dug teasingly into his lower lip. Tyler hoisted her off the ground. She flexed her hips, wrapped her legs around his waist, and straddled him.

He broke off the kiss for a moment. “This okay for the baby?”

“She’s a fighter, remember?” Jill nibbled at his ear. “Besides, I want to take care of
this
baby for a while.”

Upstairs, they made love on top of the bedcovers. Afterwards, they lay murmuring contentedly in each other’s arms. A rosy glow suffused Jill’s cheeks, but she struggled to keep her eyes open and soon nodded off. Tyler had trouble sleeping. Despite other pending issues, his thoughts kept returning to the Staffords. The case had left a sour taste that he could not wash away, even after Keisha’s more successful treatment.

Tyler looked over at Jill, who lay peacefully on her side. He respected his wife even more for taking a principled stand in her lab scandal, regardless of the personal cost. Her actions inspired him. He decided to take steps to ease his own conscience, despite his attorney’s advice against it. Once he had made up his mind, he soon drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Tyler awoke just before five
A.M
. and wandered downstairs to brew a pot of coffee. When he heard the thud of the morning paper hit the front door, he hurried out to pick it up. Inside, he leafed through the pages and saw that, for the fourth day in a row, there was still no mention of himself or the Stafford case. Denny Rymer had already turned his rancor to a judge in Olympia whom he considered overly lenient.

After downing two cups of coffee, Tyler tiptoed upstairs, showered, and changed. Heading out before Jill woke, he drove to the Alfredson. He reached Keisha’s room just before seven
A.M
. She was sitting up in bed, her sketchbook open in her hands. “Hi, Keisha,” he said.

“You think I’m ever gonna go home, Dr. M?” she asked without even looking up from her drawing.

“Sure,” Tyler said, thrown off by the blunt question. “I think you’ll be going in a few days. That’s the plan. Though you might have to come back and visit me now and then. Otherwise I’m going to miss you too much.”

Keisha sketched a few more lines and then flipped her book around to show him.

Tyler recognized the drawing by the wings and halo. “Pretty angel. What’s her name?”

“He’s a man angel, and I don’t know his name.” She shrugged. “But I dreamed about him.”

Tyler sat down on the edge of the bed. “What happened in your dream?”

“The angel came to my room and told me God wanted me to sing in His choir in this big church on top of a cloud.”

“He did?”

“Yup. I told him I didn’t want to go without my mommy or daddy.”

“Then what happened?”

“He said Mommy and Daddy would meet me there, but I might just have to wait a little for them.”

Tyler squeezed her leg through the light blanket covering her. “What did you say?”

“I said I wouldn’t go without my mommy,” she said matter-of-factly. “And if he tried to make me, I’d scream for the police.”

Tyler grinned. “Keisha, you don’t have to go anywhere.”

“Except I want to go home,” she said in a smaller voice. “That’s all.”

“We’ll get you there. I promise.”

Feeling a little melancholic but cautiously hopeful after reviewing the results from Keisha’s morning blood test, Tyler headed for the elevator.

Walking down the corridor, he slowed to admire the murals and donor plaques that lined the walls. His eyes focused on the plaque commemorating the new unit’s opening fifteen years before. “That no child need ever suffer,” the motto read at the bottom. Though the motto was not credited to anyone, Tyler knew the words and the spirit embodied his grandfather Maarten.

Steeling his resolve, he hurried out to his car. Driving toward the south end of Oakdale, he fished the sheet with the scrawled address out of his pocket. He turned onto a tree-lined street and, two in from the far end, found the sixties-style bungalow that mirrored the others on the block.

Tyler parked his hybrid out front and trudged up to the door. Several toy buckets and spades lay scattered on the lawn, which looked two or three weeks overdue for a mow. The flowers in the window box planter were dead and wilting. He could almost smell the air of neglect floating around the house. With a sweaty palm, he reached for the doorbell and rang it once. A long while passed. Tyler was reaching to ring the bell a second time when the door opened a crack.

“
Dr. McGrath?
” Laura Stafford gasped.

“Laura, may I come in?” he asked.

“You . . . you think you should?”

Tyler nodded.

“My daughter is still asleep, and Craig’s still in the bedroom.”

“I could come back another time.”

Laura hesitated a moment and then opened the door wider for him, and Tyler saw that she wore a pink bathrobe. He stepped inside and followed her toward the warmly decorated kitchen. The interior was far tidier than he had expected based on what he had seen outside. The smell of brewed coffee grew stronger with each step nearer the kitchen.

The combination of weight loss and tragedy had aged Laura years in the days since he had last seen her. She mustered a smile for him and offered coffee, but he politely declined.

After they sat down at the kitchen table, Tyler asked, “How are you doing?”

She looked down and cupped her mug with both hands. “It’s not that easy. Almost everything reminds me of him.”

“Of course,” he muttered. “How’s Craig?”

“You know Craig,” she said uncertainly. “He deals with stuff in his own way.”

Tyler turned at the sound of heavy footsteps on the linoleum floor behind him and rose from his chair.

In a pair of pajama bottoms and a stained gray T-shirt, Craig Stafford trod into the room. His black hair was as messy as the last time Tyler had seen him, and he had grown a full beard that made him look even scruffier. He stopped on the other side of the room and folded his arms across his chest. “He doesn’t know shit about me, Laura,” Craig said in a scratchy morning voice.

Stafford’s tone was neutral but Tyler tensed at the sight of him, feeling as though he had wandered into a bear’s den just as the adult male had returned. “Hello, Craig.”

Craig snorted. “Got to give you credit. Your family did a hell of a job on damage control. They shut up Denny Rymer pretty quick.”

Tyler frowned. “My family?”

“Your father silenced Rymer and his paper with the Alfredson’s legal machine.” He scratched his beard. “As if you didn’t already know.”

Tyler didn’t doubt Craig’s theory for a moment. It explained the sudden absence of publicity. “I didn’t know, Craig,” he said.

“ ’Course not,” he grunted. “But now you want me to drop our lawsuit, too, right?”

“That’s not why I came.”

Craig’s eyes narrowed. “Then what the fuck are you doing in my house?”

Tyler glanced at Laura, who stared back in worried silence, and then over to Craig. “I wanted you to know about Keisha.” The Staffords and the Berrys had bonded over their children who suffered from a similar cancer. Tyler had already asked for and received Maya’s permission to update Craig and Laura.

“How is she?” Laura’s voice cracked.

“We gave her Vintazomab, too,” Tyler said.

Laura stiffened at the mention of the drug. “How did she do?”

“It was rough at first. Very.” He paused, took a couple of breaths. “But she’s doing better now. And the results—though very preliminary—are promising.”

Laura relaxed in her chair. “Oh, thank God.”

“I’m relieved for that family. I really am.” Craig unfolded his arms and shook a finger angrily at Tyler. “But do you think that makes up in any way for what happened to Nate?”

“No,” Tyler said.

“Damn right!”

Tyler sighed. “Craig, I think about him every day.”

“
You
do?” he said. “What about us, huh?”

“I know it doesn’t begin to compare.”

“Not even close,” Craig snapped.

Tyler took a deep breath. Despite the hostility that hung thick in the air,
Tyler’s determination cemented. “You don’t want me here. I understand that. And my own attorney warned me that it would be a huge mistake to talk to you.”

“But?”

Tyler touched his chest. “For the rest of my life, I will regret how I handled Nate’s case at the end. I should have been much clearer with you about the risks of Vintazomab. I had no right to conceal that from you.”

Laura sniffled several times and then the tears began to pour from her eyes, but Craig only stared at Tyler with stony bitterness.

“I would give anything to go back in time and change what happened.” Tyler swallowed. “I know it probably doesn’t mean much, but all I can do is tell you how sorry I am.”

Craig studied the floor for a moment. When he looked up the anger had left his features but his expression was far from accepting. “You might be sorry, but we still never got to say good-bye to our son. All your apologies in the world won’t ever change that.”

Tyler stared back at Craig, at a loss for words.

“We both know we would have agreed,” Laura said in a voice no louder than a whisper.

Craig turned slowly to look at his wife. “Agreed to what, babe?”

“Nate was dying in front of our eyes,” she said in a stronger voice. “We would have agreed to any treatment no matter what the risks.”

“You don’t know that we—,” Craig started.

“I do!” she cried. “Dr. McGrath was trying to spare us from a brutal choice.” Her voice calmed. “Maybe he never should have, but that’s not the point. We would have tried anything. You know that. This is not his fault.”

The Staffords shared a long anguished stare that stirred Tyler to the brink of tears. Then Craig turned to look at Tyler. His eyes had reddened, but his face was blank. He nodded once. “Maybe . . . maybe Laura has a point.”

“So the Spanish flu caught up to Evan, too?” Lorna shook her head, feeling unexpected sorrow for the man.

“I doubt he was all that surprised, really,” Dot said. “Evan was positively
reckless
about precautions when it came to contact with his own daughter. Part of me wonders if—when he thought Liv was dying—he did not
mean
to infect himself.”

Lorna frowned. “Suicide by the Spanish flu?”

“Stranger things have happened, darling.”

“Liv recovered, though,” Lorna pointed out.

“Completely.” Dot nodded. “She went on to become the first female surgeon at the Alfredson. One of the first in the entire state.” She exhaled heavily. “She was a fireball, that one, but that’s another story altogether.”

“What ever happened to Junior and her?”

“He broke her heart, as men do.” Dot sighed. “As soon as Junior found out the truth, he broke it off with Liv. My dear old headstrong father wound up dating a Seattle socialite named Lillian Dennison. They were married within six months.” She laughed. “And
considerably
less than nine months later, I came along.”

“Did Liv ever find out that she and Junior were related?”

Dot shook her head. “My father had the decency never to tell her, and Liv—being Liv—landed on her feet. Though she would wait ten more years before marrying. And she never did have children.”

Lorna nodded. “What about Evan?” she asked.

Dot tilted her head and eyed Lorna quizzically for a moment. “You told me you read Naylor’s laughable, official milquetoast version of the hospital’s history. Surely you know what became of him?”

Lorna felt herself reddening. She had forgotten telling Dot that she had already read Naylor’s book. She thought back on other details from the book, wondering if she had played too ignorant with her great-aunt. “Yes, well, I read the . . . um, bland textbook version,” she blustered. “But as you pointed out, who knows how much, if any of it, is factual? Besides, I far prefer your account. You always add such a human element to the otherwise dry historical facts.”

“Of course,” Dot said with an accepting nod. “As it happens, in this case my version is not too much different from that horrid whitewash of a book. Although, there was
one
detail Naylor misinterpreted.. . .”

Nothing, not even death, would deter Evan or Marshall’s commitment to their shared dream. With his last breath, Evan beseeched his children, particularly his daughter, to perpetuate the legacy he had begun.