The Perfect Marriage(53)

At the graveside ceremony, Haley had stood next to Reid. A little too closely, Jessica thought, but then again, perhaps those two deserved each other.

“Jessica!” Haley called out.

Jessica stiffened. “Hello, Haley.”

Haley stopped a foot before her, the distance from which someone else might have leaned in for a hug, or at least extended their hand. Neither woman did either.

“I know that this isn’t the time or place,” Haley said, “but I don’t know when I’m going to see you again.”

Jessica had intended to be friendly, but already she couldn’t spend another second looking at this woman. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this, Haley.”

Jessica turned away but made it only a single step before Haley’s hand on her elbow pulled her back.

“Make time for it, Jessica. I know who killed James.”





PART FOUR





17

So much for the procedure being akin to giving blood, with the doctors doing all the hard work. After the transplant, Owen felt like death warmed over. Not even that warm, in fact.

Eight days had passed since James had been laid to rest. During that time everything had followed just the way Dr. Cammerman had said: myeloablation was completed, Owen rested for two days, and then the transplant. As each day passed, Owen could feel his mother’s shift from the all-consuming grief she’d experienced at the loss of her husband to an equally overwhelming fear of losing her son. The look in her eye before the surgery told Owen that his mother simply would not survive losing him too.

He must have been wheeled from surgery to a hospital room, because when he woke up, that’s where he was. His room had a single window, and from the bed he could see a patch of sky. It looked to be a clear winter day. The kind he usually liked.

Dr. Cammerman was still wearing hospital scrubs when he entered. He looked first at Owen’s chart, then at him.

“How are you feeling, Owen?”

“I’ve been better.”

“The procedure went very well,” the doctor answered as if he hadn’t heard Owen’s response to his first question. “Now we’re at the stage where we monitor you. You’re going to feel weak for a few days. That’s to be expected. My advice to you is that you try not to overdo it. Staying in bed is just fine. If you want to get up, don’t walk very far.”

“I feel kind of like I’m going to throw up.”

“Some nausea is also to be expected. That doesn’t concern me.”

Owen was pleased that Dr. Cammerman was copacetic with him throwing up all over himself. “I also feel a little dizzy.”

“Again, that’s perfectly normal. Do you have any questions?”

“No.”

“In that case, I’ll see you tomorrow, Owen.”

Before the surgery, Dr. Cammerman told him that some people feel a sense of rebirth after a stem cell transplant. “It’s like you’re a brand-new person,” he’d said.

Owen had desperately wanted to believe that after the surgery, something fundamental in him would change. But now, having emerged from the operation, he felt no different.



Jessica sat in the family and friends area at Memorial Sloan Kettering, hanging by a string. A thin, fraying one at that.

Her mantra was baby steps. First, she had to get through James’s funeral. She had barely done that when Haley dropped her bombshell, knocking Jessica for a second loop. She’d had little choice but to cast aside Haley’s claim, however. She needed to be there for her son.

Wayne sat beside her now. Yesterday, he had undergone the donor procedure, and now he sported an ice pack on his pelvis.

“Are you in much pain?” she asked.

“Not too bad,” he said.

The last time they’d been together in a hospital waiting room was for Owen’s first chemo session, four years earlier. Jessica still remembered that day too vividly for her liking. The way she’d gripped Wayne’s hand, using every bit of her energy to not shed a tear in front of her thirteen-year-old son.

When Jessica was pregnant, she and Wayne often talked about the future their baby would enjoy. How the world would change in his lifetime and the kinds of opportunities that would be available to him. The one thing they never discussed, never even considered, was that he’d be sick. Or that before he even graduated from high school, they’d wish for nothing more than survival for their child.

“This is the worst part,” Wayne said.

Jessica smiled at his effort to be positive. “They’re all the worst parts.”

Doctor Cammerman came out at a little past three. At first, he was stone-faced, but as he got closer to them, a small smile crept to his lips. It was enough for Jessica to exhale deeply for the first time that day.

“The transplant is complete, and Owen is doing great,” he said. “He’s going to rest for another hour. Then you can visit him. Remember, the protocol has to be strictly followed, for Owen’s safety. Masks and gloves.”

It was nearly two hours before a nurse finally entered the waiting room. She told Jessica and Wayne that they were able to see their son.

The nurse didn’t take them through the door where Owen and Dr. Cammerman had exited the waiting room but instead led them to the elevator and then down several floors. Once they were on the third floor, they followed her through a maze of hallways until she pushed open a door with a sign that read RECOVERY.