Found: His Family

She averted her gaze, staring out the window behind him. ‘It will be too late tonight so it’ll have to be tomorrow. He’s so tired all the time and the hospital keep pretty strict visiting hours.’

‘Even for parents?’

‘N-no, parents are welcome any time.’

Her slight hesitation had him on full alert. She was hiding something. Something else, and suddenly it hit him like an exploding volcano: swift, scorching, devastating, and burning an agonising trail right through his soul.

She didn’t want him to meet Toby.

If he had the test and wasn’t compatible, she wanted him to walk away. To leave as if nothing had changed, as if his son didn’t exist.

Well, he had news for her.

‘I know you don’t see me as father material but I’m here now and I’d like a chance to meet my son.’

The words fell out of his mouth in a rush, as if by saying them he couldn’t take them back. And right then, it hit him. He didn’t want to take them back, despite the fear he’d be lousy father material.

My son.

He still couldn’t comprehend the two words and had no idea how he really felt or what he’d say when he came face to face with Toby, but suddenly he was damn sure about one thing. He wanted a chance, a chance to meet his son.

Aimee nodded, her shoulders slumped in weary defeat as if she’d gone ten rounds with him and lost. ‘You ready to go to the hospital now? It’s not far.’

‘Let’s go.’ He tried to inject some life into his voice but it fell flat as he mulled over the truth he’d just learned and the implications for them all.

Aimee moved around the shop like an automaton, flicking off lights, pulling down blinds and setting the coolers for the cakes. His protective instincts urged him to help her but he didn’t move, sensing she needed to do the simple, repetitive actions as a way to buy time to steady her emotions.

If she was feeling half as punch-drunk as he was after their confrontation, she’d be an emotional wreck on the inside.

Besides, she didn’t need his help. She’d made it clear that she’d been doing fine on her own without him these last five years and it stuck in his craw, fuelling his latent resentment that she viewed him as some sort of stopgap measure.

‘Jed?’

He jumped, surprised by the quiver in her voice as she snuck up behind him.

‘Yeah?’

‘Thanks for doing this. For being here with me.’ Tears shimmered in her eyes as she looked up at him, as if beseeching him to understand. ‘For being here for Toby.’

He was angry, shaken, confused, yet when she finally gave into the tears that had been threatening he had no option but to envelop her in his arms, smooth her hair and make soft, soothing noises as his anger shifted slightly to be replaced by an emotion he didn’t want to acknowledge, an emotion that had fuelled his actions years earlier, an emotion that could only lead to more pain.

Guilt could be a terrible thing.

CHAPTER THREE

JED stared at the doctor’s lips, watching them move, hearing the words but having trouble processing them.

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

The diagnosis sounded so much worse coming from the uptight medic in a too-tight white coat, the word ‘leukaemia’ reverberating around Jed’s head till he wanted to run from the room, find a secluded corner and curl up in a tight ball with his hands over his ears.

He’d had a similar gut-wrenching reaction when the head juror had pronounced his father guilty, and later when the judge had sentenced him to ten years behind bars.

‘You sure about this?’

He met the doctor’s disapproving gaze that read ‘how dare you question me?’ straight on, praying this was a mistake, that the doc would clear his throat, apologise and send them on their way with a prescription for antibiotics.

However, he’d given up on prayers being answered around the time his dad had done his first stint in jail and he knew without a doubt that his current plea to God was just as futile.

The doctor shook his head, his fingers toying with a fancy gold pen as he reinforced the news that sent a chill down his spine.

‘I’m sorry. We ran extensive tests and they were conclusive. Toby’s loss of appetite, fatigue, frequent nose bleeds and bruising had me concerned when Aimee first brought him in and I had a fair idea what we’d find.’

‘I see,’ Jed said, not seeing in the slightest, questioning the injustice of a world where the bad guys usually won and a helpless little boy had to cope with an illness like this.

‘What’s the treatment?’ To his credit, his voice remained steady while his insides roiled in one huge, anxious mess.

The doctor continued to fiddle with his pen, rolling it over and over with his fingers, and he had the sudden urge to lean over and slam his hand on top of it.

‘There are several components to treatment,’ the doctor said, his cool detachment annoying him almost as much as his fiddling fingers. ‘Toby has a good prognosis as his white blood-cell count is less than thirty thousand, and with chemotherapy and radiation therapy his chances of remission are high.’

Chemotherapy…radiation therapy…remission…

The words echoed through his head, banging and crashing their way through the neurons and triggering a blinding headache that left him paralysed.

Toby didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserved this. He’d seen the suffering on TV and in the newspapers, seen kids with pale faces, bald heads and brave smiles. His heart had gone out to them and now the son he’d only just discovered would go through the same torture all in the name of survival.

‘Of course, a bone-marrow transplant gives the best hope for not having a relapse.’

‘Is a transplant always necessary?’ Jed asked, bracing himself for the next bombshell this cruel man dropped. Though in all fairness, it wasn’t the doc’s fault. He was here to help them, and from now on they’d be placing a lot of faith in his skills. If only he’d stop tapping that damn pen on the file in front of him!

‘Not always. Some people are cured after just chemical intervention. However, it’s best to consider all possibilities.’ The doctor tilted his head forward and stared at him over the top of his steel-rimmed spectacles as if willing him to comprehend what he was telling him.

Damn, this wasn’t fair. The diagnosis, the fact Aimee hadn’t told him about Toby before this, the chance to be a dad to Toby ripped from him before he could try, even if he sucked at it.

In the midst of his self-pity, it struck him. Aimee had already gone through this, had heard the diagnosis, the treatment, the chances. Alone.

She’d gone through this horrible experience by herself, and suddenly the guilt returned. Guilt at how he’d treated her, how he hadn’t been around, how he’d never known his son and might not have that chance now. He needed to get over it and move on, for all their sakes.

‘Tell Jed about the transplant,’ Aimee said, a hint of steel threaded through the softness of her voice, and his admiration for her skyrocketed.

The doctor nodded. ‘An allogenic bone-marrow transplant usually comes from a sibling donor, from a relative or even a compatible stranger. We harvest the bone marrow, which is the liquid centre of bone, from the donor and the recipient gets it in an IV over one to five hours.’

‘IV? Oh.’ Jed winced, hoping his son didn’t have his phobia for needles. ‘What does the harvesting procedure involve?’

Though he had a sneaking suspicion he knew. His high-school biology wasn’t that rusty and he remembered covering BMT—bone-marrow transplants—in an assignment.

The doctor’s pen tapping increased as if he didn’t have time for such mundane questions and Jed briefly envisioned ramming that pen in a few places a pen shouldn’t be.