The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(7)

Tommy Berber eyed Amanda balefully from the far end of the hall. He was a barrel-chested biker with a bandana skullcap and a bushy gray beard that hung in knotted vines. Mechanical beeps emanated from inside the chamber.

“Yeah, hi. Remember us?”

She held up a bag of clear liquid. “I’m here. I have it.”

Berber followed her into the treatment room, where his son Henry lounged in a plush recliner. The sweet and skinny twelve-year-old had already lost his left arm to osteosarcoma. Soon he’d lose his hair, his lunches, and any last semblance of a normal adolescence. But his long-term chances of survival were mercifully good. Out of all today’s patients, Henry was the luckiest of the unlucky.

Amanda shined him a sunny smile, then adjusted his chemo dispenser until it stopped beeping.

Henry grinned weakly. “Thanks. That was getting old.”

“Twenty minutes!” Berber yelled. “We’ve been waiting twenty minutes!”

Amanda nodded. “I know. I’m sorry. We’re short staffed today and our computers are down.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better about this place?”

“Dad . . .”

Amanda replaced the empty bag of doxorubicin with a fresh dose of cisplatin. She reprogrammed the machine, then tapped the plastic tube until the liquid started to drip.

“You’re going to feel a hot sensation,” she warned Henry.

“Right. I remember.”

She watched the liquid flow into his arm. “All right, my darling. You’re all set. Anything you need?”

“Yeah, a sedative. For Dad.”

“Oh, he’s just mad because you and I are eloping. We’re still on for that, right?”

Henry laughed. “Absolutely. Did you tell Dr. Ambridge yet?”

“Nah. I’ll call him from the road.”

The moment she left the room, she heard Berber’s heavy footsteps trail her down the hall. He had to wait for a shrieking emergency vehicle to pass the building before he could speak.

“That can’t happen again, nurse. You hear me?”

Amanda turned around to face him. “Mr. Berber—”

“I don’t want his chances going down just ’cause you people don’t have your shit together. You get him his doses on time. You understand?”

She understood all too well. In her two years as a cancer nurse, Amanda had seen every breed of desolate parent—the weepers, the shouters, the sputtering deniers. The tough dads were always the worst. They wore their helplessness like a coat of flames, scorching everything around them.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Berber. I’ll do better next time.”

“You’re just giving me lip service now.”

“I am,” she admitted. “Ask me why.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t fix computers and I can’t conjure nurses out of thin air. All I can do is apologize and remind you that your beautiful son has a seventy-eight percent chance of outliving the both of us. Being twenty minutes late with the cisplatin won’t affect those odds. Not one bit.”

“You don’t know that for—”

“Not one bit,” she repeated. “You understand me?”

Berber recoiled like she’d just sprouted horns. Amanda had seen that look countless times before on others. You can be a little intense, Derek had told her. You may not see it, but it’s there.

Soon the biker’s heavy brow unfurled. He vented a sigh. “Got any kids of your own?”

Amanda’s face remained impassive as a cold gust of grief blew through her. She once had a son for seventeen minutes. Those memories stayed locked in the cellar, along with her father’s last days and the incident on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

“No,” she said.

Berber eyed her golden cross necklace. “But you do have faith.”

“Yes.”

“How do you reconcile? How do you spend all day with sick, dying kids and then thank the God who lets it happen?”

Still fumbling in dark memories, Amanda lost hold of her usual response. I thank Him for the ones who live. I thank Him for the ones who have loving parents like you.

All she could do now was roll her shoulders in a feeble shrug. “I don’t know, Mr. Berber. I guess I’d rather live in a world where bad things happen for some reason than no reason.”

Her answer clearly didn’t comfort him. He scratched his hairy cheek and threw a tense glare over his shoulder.

“I should get back to him.”

“Okay.”

Amanda heard a high young giggle. She turned her gaze to the reception desk, where Derek charmed the fetching young office clerk with his witty repartee. The moment he caught Amanda’s gaze, his smile went flat. His eyes narrowed in a momentary flinch that filled her with unbearable dread and loathing.

Her fingers twitched in panic as the chorus in her head told her to run. Run. Run from the husband. Run from the house. Run from the sister and the sick little children. Don’t even pack. Just pick a direction. Run.

The overhead lights flickered. A second, then a third chemo dispenser began to beep. Another wave of emergency vehicles screamed their way down the street. Things were falling apart at record speed. To Amanda, this seemed a perfect time to go outside for a smoke.