know this is hard, but don’t borrow any more grief than you already have. There’s no way you could have known that Heather wasn’t with her parents. Or that she was pregnant. Her own mother didn’t know.”
“That doesn’t absolve me, and you know it. But I’ll tell you one thing, Rachel—I’m going to get to the bottom of this. And I’m going to make sure Heath is taken care of. In every way.”
“Heath?”
“After his mom,” Guy said, rocking the baby gently. “He needs to get better. I have to figure out exactly what’s going on here and fix it.”
“Then let me help.”
His chair stopped. “How?”
“I’ll go to the lab and I’ll go over the reports with a finetooth comb. Let me call Tim Burns…get him in here.”
“He’s on vacation.”
Rachel knew the neonatologist was away, but she also knew that he was only in Palm Springs, and that if he understood the situation, he’d get back here, pronto. She also knew the specialists on staff were perfectly capable of handling preemies and all the problems that went with them, but Burns was the best. And he was Guy’s friend. “Let me worry about that.” She stood up, put the rocker back. “I’ll page you as—”
The baby’s heart monitor went off that second, and even though every instinct she had was to rush in to see what was wrong and what she could do, she stepped back as the team swarmed around Guy and the incubator.
After a few moments, she realized Heath had gone into arrhythmia, and the medical staff had to do some pretty fancy footwork to stabilize him. Which they did, thank God. Now it was a matter of keeping him stabilized, and that’s something she could help with.
Guy was standing at the foot of the incubator, his skin paler than she’d ever seen it before. She touched his arm. “I’ll call,” Rachel said softly.
He barely acknowledged her.
She wished she could do more. Say something, be someone who could ease his torment. But she couldn’t.
GUY WENT TO HIS OFFICE and sat down, his head still muzzy with so many thoughts. Heath was stable for the moment, but the information Rachel had gotten from the lab strongly indicated that the boy had a genetic problem, perhaps Noonan’s syndrome, though more tests had to be run.
The thing was, he knew for a fact that there was no indication of Noonan’s in Walter’s or Tammy’s background. So if that was the final diagnosis, the disorder had to have been transmitted through the father.
Noonan’s. It was a relatively common birth defect, and Guy had seen his share of cases. Some severe, some blessedly mild. From Heath’s current physical symptoms, the slight webbing on his neck, his low-set ears, it didn’t appear that he had severe Noonan’s, but there were still heart tests, the karyotype analysis and the genetic tests for mutation in the PTPN11 gene. What no one knew yet was if the boy would be developmentally challenged, which happened in about a fourth of the cases.
Nothing was more important than finding Heath’s father and getting his medical history. If the same genetic testing could be done on the father, Heath’s chances for survival would be greatly enhanced, but Guy didn’t have a clue where to begin.
Rachel was checking into Heather’s belongings, and he’d put in four calls to Walter. Guy wanted to kill the son of a bitch for not calling him back.
He wanted coffee, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to get up and get it. He didn’t like asking Connie, but today would have to be the exception to the rule. Leaning over his desk, hardly looking at the paperwork he couldn’t deal with yet, he buzzed his secretary.
“Yes, Doctor?”
“I hate to ask, but could you make me a pot of coffee?”
Connie chuckled. “It’s already made, just five minutes ago. So you just sit right there, and I’ll bring you a cup.”
Guy smiled. “Thank you.”
“No sweat.”
He sat back in his chair, knowing full well why there was a fresh pot of coffee made. Everyone in the hospital, including Connie, knew about Heather. About Heath. And they would all be solicitous and pitying and it would be a nightmare on top of a nightmare for Guy.
Putting his hand on the back of his neck, he rubbed the tense muscles as Connie entered his office, tapping first, as she always did. She looked bright and sunny today, her dress a brilliant red that made her café au lait skin appear smooth and vibrant, belying her fifty-plus years. She’d been with Guy for the past three years, and their relationship was one of businesslike companionability. He appreciated the fact that he never had to ask for anything twice. Connie was proud of her work, and it showed.
Today, however, her concern wasn’t about hospital matters, but him, and he could see it in her eyes, the way her smile was filled with concern. “How are you?” she asked.
“As well as could be expected.”
She nodded, then disappeared into his call room. It held only a bed, a locker, a small radio and of course, his coffee supplies. When Connie reappeared, she held a steaming mug, which she put in front of him.
“Thank you.”
“Hold on,” she said, then she hurried out of the office, leaving the door slightly ajar.
It wasn’t but a moment till she was back, this time with a plate. “I made some spiced pumpkin bread last night before we lost power. Luckily, it baked all the way through. I know it’s one of your favorites.”
He couldn’t tell her that the thought of food made his stomach turn. “Thanks, Connie.”
“And I don’t care if you’re not hungry. You eat a piece. You need to be at your best for that little boy.”
“So it’s all over the hospital, is it?”
“Of course.” She sat down across from his desk, in one of the two brown leather wing chairs. “Which means what it means. What I want to know is how I can help.”
Guy sipped some coffee. It was perfect, just as he’d expected. “There’s nothing to be done, except your usual excellence. It might be a little tougher in the next few days because of the storm. I’ll need an updated schedule of the staff. Has everyone checked in?”
“Yes, sir. Only Williams still can’t get in. But he thinks he’ll be cleared out by tonight.”
He nodded, thinking about his team. They were good. In fact, it was the best E.R. in the state, as far as he was concerned. Recently they’d handled things even metropolitan hospitals never saw. He thought of his brother, Alec, and how brilliant he’d been during the virus outbreak last summer. Then there had been the weather anomalies, the fires. It had been the most hectic year Courage Bay had known, and Guy’s E.R. had done more than anyone could have expected. “I may have to leave town for a few days,” he said, “so we’ll need a working plan for a week without me.”
“Of course,” Connie said.
“The baby isn’t out of the woods, not by a long shot. I want—” He stopped, startled at the direction of his thoughts, at the depth of his emotions. “I want to spend as much time as I can with him, until he is.”
Connie tilted her head a bit to the right. “You’re family. It’s only natural.”
But it wasn’t natural. It was nothing like Guy. Why he cared so much, why Heath’s condition meant so much to him was a puzzle that shook him. He’d had other family members in trouble before. His own mother, for God’s sake. He’d been there for her, as much as he could be after the car accident that had killed his father and eventually taken her life, but he’d never felt this much at sea.
It was unprecedented and the stupid thing was, Heath