The Unsung Hero

It would be a disaster for everybody involved but most especially Josh, who most certainly didn’t need that in his life on top of everything else. He couldn’t do it to him. But if he did turn out to be Josh’s father, he’d have no choice.

The endless merry-go-round of thoughts and emotions finally slowed as dawn broke and in those quiet minutes as a new day was born, Rick found a solution.

If his irresponsibility had created a child and fate had decreed that he could help him in some way, then of course he would do it. Josh didn’t have to know where the bone marrow was coming from. If he didn’t know that his biological father was involved, Rick wouldn’t have to try and be the person Josh would want his father to be. He wouldn’t have to hurt the kid by trying…and failing. It would be kinder all round, really.

Much kinder.

The attraction had been snuffed out. As cleanly as a lamp being switched off. There wasn’t even a flicker of it to be seen when Rick came to the ward the following morning.

He didn’t come into Josh’s room. Just gave Sarah a curt nod through the window and then waited for her to join him in the relative privacy of the corridor.

‘I’ve sorted the tests,’ he told her. ‘DNA, blood and tissue typing. You’ll have to wait for the results.’

‘Thank you.’

It was such an inadequate thing to say. She could see how huge this had been for him. Rick looked as though he hadn’t slept a wink. There were shadows under his eyes and more lines around them than she remembered. It really wasn’t fair that it only added to his appeal or that his appeal for her was still there when it had totally gone from his side of the equation.

She’d done her own share of thinking last night. Imagining Lucy with Rick. Feeling disturbingly…envious.

Just as well that Rick had shut off that static of sexual awareness. They could be colleagues now. A step up from total strangers but new enough to still have to earn trust. And that wasn’t going to be easy because Rick’s demeanour suggested she’d already had his trust and couldn’t have broken it more effectively.

Fair enough. She had tipped his life upside down. Taken away his carefree existence. Put a huge spoke in the entire wheel of his universe, probably.

‘Don’t go getting your hopes up too much,’ Rick warned.

‘I won’t.

But…’

‘But what?’

Amazing that his eyes could darken even further. They were like coals now. Remnants of a fire that had long since died out. Sarah had to look away.

‘Have…have you given any thought to the next step, if…if…?’

Oh, Lord. She couldn’t even say it out loud.

‘If I do turn out to be his father?’ Rick’s mouth curled but it couldn’t be considered any kind of smile. ‘Give me some credit, Sarah,’ he drawled. ‘I’m not stupid.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting you were.’ The putdown sparked something that felt like rebellion. Didn’t he know by now that she was more than prepared to fight for what was right?

‘If I’m his father and there’s enough of a match to make my bone marrow compatible, then of course I’ll be a donor.’

Sarah let out a breath she hadn’t noticed she’d been holding. This was precisely what she’d wanted to hear. So why was she left with this oddly unsatisfied sensation?

‘If—and it’s a mighty big if as far as I’m concerned,’ Rick continued, his voice low and intense. ‘If things do turn out that way and I’m a donor, then that’s the end of it.’

‘Sorry?’ Sarah wasn’t following.

‘I had no idea he existed,’ Rick said. ‘He’s nine years old. It’s a bit late to step into the role of being a father. So I don’t want Josh to be told. Is that clear?’

Sarah’s mouth opened but no words came out.

It was clear all right. But acceptable? That was something else entirely. If she called him on this, however, he might back off and he’d already agreed to being a potential donor. That was all that mattered right now, wasn’t it?

One step at a time.

It wasn’t the first time in their brief acquaintance that she’d had the impression Rick Wilson was a man used to getting what he wanted from life.

He had taken her silence for acquiescence.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad we understand each other.’

And with that, he turned and left. Mission accomplished.

That spark of rebellion flared. Any kind of fan could easily see it flame into anger but Sarah had her own mission to deal with.

Intravenous sedation had made Josh sleepy enough not to notice his bed being wheeled into the treatment room of the ward. Or even being rolled onto his stomach and having the skin around his lower spine swabbed with disinfectant and then covered with a sterile drape that had a square hole in its centre.

Sarah positioned herself close to his head and took a small hand in hers.

‘All set?’ Mike was gowned and gloved. He had a syringe full of local anaesthetic in his hand.

Sarah nodded. She focused on Josh’s face rather than watching the needle. She saw the crease on his forehead that let her know he was aware of his skin being pierced. The deeper frown and tiny whimper that told her the bone was now being frozen.

Despite the sedation and all the local anaesthetic, the next part of the procedure was painful. Not that Josh would remember any of it, thanks to the medication, but Sarah would. The sleepy groans and embryonic sobs brought tears to her own eyes and she ended up having to sniff audibly.

‘You OK, Sarah?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not much longer.’

‘That’s good.’

It was probably just as well that Rick had backed away from any involvement with Josh at the moment. If he was watching this, he’d know exactly what was in store for him if it came to donating bone marrow. There’d be more than one puncture site, too, because they’d need a couple of litres of his liquid marrow. Josh only needed a tiny amount to cover the slides a technician was ready to prepare at the nearby trolley.

Would Rick opt for a general anaesthetic? Hardly likely, given the small but significant risk. IV sedation like Josh had had? That also didn’t seem likely. He was a surgeon and having to abstain from making any important decisions or doing medical procedures might be a huge inconvenience. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if he opted to just tough it out with local and that thought was enough to make her shudder inwardly.

She couldn’t do it. Of course, it would be his choice but it was a lot to ask of anyone. Except that if it came to that, Rick wouldn’t be just anyone. He’d be Josh’s father. His dad. And it was a small thing to ask if it could save his son’s life.

Mike had finished aspirating the marrow. Now he needed to do the biopsy.

‘Almost done, short stuff,’ Sarah whispered. ‘You’re being a wee hero.’

As he always was. He was such a brave kid. As if it hadn’t been enough to lose his mum when he was only six and have to go and live with an aunt he hadn’t seen nearly enough of. She wished she’d been there more for him when he’d been little but Lucy had gone back to their small home town after their mother had died and it had been her older sister who’d pushed her to stay in big cities and keep taking her career to the next level. Not to make the same mistakes she’d made.

At least she hadn’t been a total stranger when tragedy had struck. Her love for Josh had been genuine but, even if she hadn’t loved him as her nephew, he would have captured her heart totally over the last year with his courage and resilience.

‘I’ll get better,’ he often reassured her. ‘Don’t worry, Sarah. One day I’ll be big and I’ll look after you.’

Sarah had to sniff again. A nurse passed her a tissue and Mike looked up to give her a sympathetic smile.

‘We’re all done. Looks like a good sample. Not too much cortex.’

‘Great.’

‘We’ll head on up for the MRI before the sedation wears off. I’ll give him some pain relief, too. He’ll be a bit sore when he wakes up.’

‘He’ll be OK,’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t think he’s ever really complained after one of these.’

Rick would be in even more pain after this procedure but he’d get over it soon enough and as far as he was concerned, that would be the end of his involvement. And…dammit, that really wasn’t acceptable, Sarah realised.

‘He’s an amazing kid,’ Mike was saying warmly as he pressed a gauze swab to the puncture site. ‘One out of the box.’

So true. And if Rick was Josh’s father, he needed to spend enough time with him to see what an incredible person his son was. Everyone who knew this child fell in love with him. Josh deserved to know that his own father was amongst that number.

If Rick thought he could make up for refusing to acknowledge his son merely by going through a medical procedure then he had another think coming his way, courtesy of her. This was what had been niggling at her ever since he’d walked off earlier. Where her anger was stemming from. He was dismissing Josh as a person without seeing how special he was. He should be proud to claim him.

And surely Josh had a right to know who his father was? But how could Sarah tell him if there was rejection in store?

One step at a time, she reminded herself, walking beside Josh’s bed on their journey to the radiology department for the MRI scan. She squeezed his hand, reassuring herself as much as the drowsy child. The next step couldn’t happen until the test results came through and that gave her plenty of time to think about exactly what that step should involve.

The thirteen-year-old boy lay, white and still on a bed in the intensive care unit. Flanked by monitors, IV tubing, medical staff and two distraught-looking parents.

The mother was crying again. The father put his arm around her. ‘He’s still alive,’ he said, his voice raw. ‘It’ll be OK, you’ll see. The doc knows what he’s doing. It’ll be OK.’

He looked down at his son but the glance was brief. The sight was still too horrific. The swathe of bandages around the head. Eyes so swollen you couldn’t see eyelashes even, and then there was the awful bruising and a split lip to cap it off. He must be virtually unrecognisable even to his closest family.

This was the kind of case Rick found particularly gruelling. A whole family torn apart because of a dreadful accident. Simon had been on his way home from school and had been knocked off his bicycle by a speeding delivery van. He had a badly fractured leg, supported by a slab of plaster and padded by pillows until the boy’s condition was stable enough for further surgery. It was much less of a concern than his head injury at this point in time. Right now, Simon was on a ventilator, unable to breathe on his own, and the surgery Rick had just performed held no guarantees for either survival or a good long-term outcome.

Simon’s parents were a mess. Shocked and terrified but desperate to be with their son. This had to be every parent’s worst nightmare and Rick had seen it all too often.

Was this why he’d never given serious thought to having a family of his own? He wasn’t totally averse to the notion like Jet was, but neither could he imagine embracing the concept as Max had done. He was somewhere between the two. The desire was there but still dormant. Weighed down, perhaps, by the legacy of his own childhood.

Along with the logistics of attaining the state of parenthood, the motivation to deal with the downsides of parenting had made it all too easy to shove the whole concept into the ‘too hard’ basket and leave it there. And if it stayed in there so long it was too late to do anything about it, the whole issue might just quietly go away and he’d be able to take comfort in the thought that he couldn’t have really wanted it badly enough in any case.

It was getting late by the time Rick left the ICU, but for a while he hung around the wards, reviewing his inpatients. He was reluctant to head home because it would mean a visit to his office to collect his keys.

Had it only been a few days ago when he’d been less than happy with the company of his mates and had wanted time alone to get his head sorted? Now, when he’d had enough of himself, there was no opportunity to obtain the kind of company he needed.

He’d assured Max that he would be absolutely fine. That Max couldn’t possibly postpone the week in Rarotonga that he and Ellie and Mattie had lined up for their honeymoon. He’d meant every word of it at the time, of course, but then he hadn’t known that Jet would receive a summons back to his elite army medical unit. A three-month stint that would see him involved in training exercises and deployment to any areas that might need the specialised skills of the unit. He’d left town yesterday, with his personal belongings in a backpack, his bike under cover in Rick’s garage and the satisfied gleam of impending adventure lighting his features.

Rick had no one to talk to.

About the rough day he’d had at work.

Or about the envelope that had landed in his in-box this afternoon, seconds before the call to the emergency department where Simon had been waiting.

He knew what was in that envelope.

The DNA results.

The slip of paper inside could be a passport to freedom but it could also be a life sentence.

Being a father might not be a choice he had the luxury of making. It might be about to blindside him and, despite thinking he had found a solution that would work for everybody involved, he still had no idea how he was going to react if he discovered he really was Josh’s father.

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