Home Again

  Chris dipped some cotton in the iodine solution and swabbed a spot at Angel’s throat.

  Angel flinched at the touch and squeezed his eyes shut.

  Madelaine could see how afraid he was, and she tightened her grip on his hand. She wanted to tell him that everything would be okay, but she was a doctor, and she knew—as he did—that this procedure was too important to sluff off on generalities. It would alert them if his body was rejecting Francis’s heart.

  “I need more Valium,” he muttered, opening his eyes to look at her.

  She tried to smile. “We’ve already given you more than your fair share.”

  Half his mouth lifted in a sloppy grin. “I never was good at sharing my drugs. I have a high tolerance—I need more.”

  She heard the raw edge to his voice and wished she could calm him.

  He lay there, his head twisted sharply to the side. The portion of his neck that was painted orange throbbed with a thick blue vein. Allenford injected a local anesthetic just below Angel’s Adam’s apple. When the anesthesia took effect, he inserted a needle into the jugular vein and eased the bioptome down, down, down toward Angel’s heart.

  All four heads turned toward the television monitor at the foot of the bed. Angel’s heart appeared on the screen as a pumping, writhing shadow. Allenford nicked off a tiny piece of heart muscle—no bigger than a pinhead—and removed the bioptome.

  “That’s all, folks,” he said, smiling as he placed the specimens in a container and bandaged the small incision. He peeled off the white rubber gloves and tossed them in the garbage, then stood up. “We should have the results in a few hours.”

  The surgical nurse wrapped everything up and left the room.

  Allenford picked up his charts and began studying the notations. “Anything on your mind, Angel?”

  Angel turned to stare up at the surgeon. “Yeah, since you asked. Mad here won’t tell me anything about my donor.” He said the last word as if it tasted bitter on his tongue.

  Chris’s gaze darted to her face for a second, and Madelaine felt her cheeks grow hot. Then he looked back at Angel. “There’s a strict protocol for these things, Angel. We have found in our years of practice that the transition proceeds much better if confidentiality is maintained.”

  Angel rolled his eyes and struggled to sit up. The polka-dotted hospital gown gaped across his bandaged chest. The orange iodine looked like an angry burn against his pale throat. “You asshole doctors, you think you’re God, but you’re not. You’re just people with a few more years of college than a dental assistant. You have no right to play with my life.”

  Allenford looked sympathetic. “It’s the grief and the meds that are making you act this way, Angel. Don’t worry about it, it’s completely normal. Of course you want to know about your donor—all recipients do—but the truth is, it’s not a good idea to cross those wires. The donor family is as entitled to privacy as you are.” He leaned down toward the bed, draped his arms atop the bedrail, and stared at Angel. “So don’t think about what you can’t change. Keep in mind that soon it will all be up to you. You can keep railing at the injustice of it all, or you can get on with what’s left of your life.”

  “Yeah, so what if I die—it’s just a black mark on your surgical history. You’ll get over it.”

  Allenford frowned. His voice fell to a whisper. “Do you believe that, Angel?”

  Angel seemed to shrink before their eyes. He sank into the pillow and sighed heavily. “That’s the problem, Doc. I don’t seem to believe anything. You want me to stop ‘railing at the injustice of it all’ and get on with my life. How in the Christ am I supposed to do that? If the biopsy comes back bad, I could have ten minutes left. It’s pretty damned hard to plan for a life like that.”

  “That’s not necessarily true, Angel and you know it. You could live a long time. There’s a man in California who’s going on eighteen years—”

  “Don’t give me the stats again, or Nurse Ratchet will have to mop my puke off the floor. Believe me, nothing fills my heart like the knowledge that I can live a long, full life if I drink carrot juice and exercise.” He laughed bitterly. “I get a second chance at life—yee-haw. All I have to do is act like Richard Simmons.”

  Allenford laughed quietly and straightened. “Richard Simmons is a new one. I’ll get back to you with the biopsy results. Think positive.”

  Angel snorted. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Allenford gave Madelaine a pointed glance, then left the operating room. Angel opened his mouth to say something to Madelaine, but before he could speak, Dr. Marcus Sarandon came striding into the room.

  Angel rolled his eyes. “Oh, good, another doctor. And this one looks like Malibu Ken.”

  Marcus laughed out loud. His gaze cut to Madelaine, got her quick nod, then turned back to Angel. “Well, I suppose if there’s anyone who ought to recognize plastic, it would be a movie star.”

  Angel gave the man a grudging smile. “Touché, Doc.”

  Marcus held out his hand. “I’m Marcus Sarandon. I’m going to be … helping out Madelaine with your case.”

  Angel frowned. “No way.”

  Madelaine moved quickly toward the bed. “I’ll explain later. For now, just listen to Marcus. He’s a good guy.”

  “So’s Clint Eastwood. That doesn’t mean I want him for my doctor.”

  Marcus pulled a blue notebook out from beneath his arm. “This is your daily calendar—medicine dosages and times. Look it over and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to talk tomorrow.”

  Marcus grinned. “The perfect patient. Good. I’ll talk and you listen.” He gave Angel another quick, flashing smile, then left the room.

  Angel picked up the meds calendar and threw it across the room. It hit the blank wall and slid to the floor.

  With a sigh, Madelaine retrieved it and placed it carefully on the foot of the bed. Then she pulled up a chair. “You’re acting like a spoiled child.”

  “Shut up.”

  She smiled. “Good comeback, Angel. What’s next—you going to stick your tongue out at me?”

  “Don’t rule it out.”

  “You’re making life hell for everyone on this floor.”

  He gave her a bleak look. “What do you think it’s like for me? I lie here every day, getting poked and prodded and checked like I was a side of beef on a conveyor belt. And I keep dreaming….” His voice faded and he turned away from her. “Go away, Mad.”

  She scooted closer. “What is it, Angel?”

  He waited a few moments to answer. “I keep dreaming about Francis. The dreams all start differently, but end the same. We talk for a little while, and then he reaches over to me. I can feel my heart beating inside my chest like a bird trapped against a window. He whispers something—I can never remember what it is—then he takes hold of my hand and he disappears. And that’s not all. It’s like … he’s inside me. Yesterday I asked that fat charge nurse, Betty Boop or whatever her name is, to change the radio station. I asked her to put on something by the Beatles.” He sighed. “The Beatles, for Christ’s sake. Before the surgery, I didn’t listen to anything but hard rock—you know, the kind of music that makes you want to take your clothes off and snort busloads of cocaine. Now I want to listen to ‘Yesterday.’” He gazed up at her, and those eyes that always seemed so full of life looked dull and colorless. “I feel like I’m losing my frigging mind, Mad.”

  She sat very still. Her own heartbeat fluttered in her chest. It was common for transplant patients to think they’d been invaded by the donor’s personality, but Angel didn’t know he had Francis’s heart. He shouldn’t be feeling these things; it wasn’t medically possible. “We have a wonderful psychiatrist on staff, Angel. She knows what you’re going through—it’s very normal—and she’d be happy to talk to you.”

  “That’s what I need, another doctor. Oh, and you haven’t heard the best part. Last night I asked for a glass of milk.”

  She co
uldn’t think of what to say. “Nonfat milk is good for you.”

  “If you’re going to spout physician-babble like some sort of medical communist, you can get the hell out. I’m trying to talk to you, Mad. I’m tryin’ to tell you …” He released a heavy sigh and shoved a hand through his tangled hair. “Never mind.”

  She scooted closer. “What?”

  He looked up at her, and the sadness in his eyes almost broke her heart. “You doctors keep offering me ‘life’ as if it were a plum role in a Spielberg flick, but it’s not my life, Mad. This heart’s like a shoe that doesn’t fit right. It never lets me forget that I wasn’t born with it. Maybe if Francis were alive, or I had someone to talk to, someone who could take my hand and help lead me somewhere … I don’t know. I feel like a freak.”

  She reached out and took his hand, squeezing gently. “I’m here for you, Angel.”

  He tried to smile. “No offense, Mad, but you’re like a mirage I can see but can’t touch. Sometimes I think I dreamed our time together. That crazy, head-over-heels boy couldn’t have been me. Now, the kid that roared out of town on a brand-new Harley, that kid was me.”

  She stared down at him, seeing the pain and loneliness that haunted his green eyes. She cared for him so much in that moment that the feeling was almost an ache in her chest. He was hurting now, for himself and for the brother he lost. She knew how it felt to lose someone suddenly. All you had left was faith, and if you didn’t have that, the emptiness could swallow you whole.

  And Angel had never truly believed in anything, least of all himself.

  “A dream, you forget over time.” She leaned toward him. “Have you forgotten me, Angel?”

  The second she asked the loaded question, she saw the answer in his eyes, the flash of longing, the fear of responding. “No,” he answered quietly.

  “I know I’m not Francis. I know I’m not family, but I’m here for you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Promise?” he asked in a harsh voice.

  Madelaine nodded. “That’s why I can’t be your cardiologist anymore. I’m going to let Marcus Sarandon take over from here. He’s an excellent physician. I’ll still be around for you whenever you want … as your friend.”

  He frowned. “I don’t understand….”

  “I’m too emotionally involved.” She swallowed hard and said quietly, “I care about you too much.”

  He was silent for a long minute, studying her, then he said, “I don’t deserve you, Mad.”

  She gave him a quick, teasing smile. “You never did.”

  “Yeah, just ask Fr—”

  “Francis,” she finished, and her smile faded. Silence settled heavily between them.

  “He loved you,” Angel told her, watching her steadily as he spoke.

  For a moment the grief was so strong, she couldn’t speak. Finally she nodded. “He loved you, too.”

  “I miss him. It’s strange … after all those years apart, I always knew he was just a phone call away. I hardly ever thought about him, and when I did, I laughed and had another drink and told myself I’d call in the morning. Course, I never did. And now he’s gone, and sometimes I miss him so much….”

  Madelaine couldn’t help herself. She went to him then. Placing her hands on his cheeks, she stared down at his handsome face, staring deep, deep into his eyes.

  Francis, she thought. Are you there? You’d better be there….

  She had to take a chance on him—on all of them. It was time.

  “He’s not your only family, you know,” she said quietly.

  Angel frowned up at her. She knew the moment he understood what she was saying—his frown lifted and a cold, stark fear widened his eyes. He shook his head. “Don’t you do it, Mad,” he said, still shaking his head. “Don’t put that on me.”

  Madelaine didn’t look away. For the first time in her life, she felt strong and in control, and God, it felt good. She gave him a slow, steady smile. “Her name is Lina.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Angel shifted uncomfortably and punched his pillow into a little ball, then shoved it behind his head. Above him, the television spewed commercial jingles.

  He reached for the remote control and flipped through the channels. One of those tabloid pseudo-news programs splashed his picture across the screen. The picture switched immediately to Angel’s cleaning lady from Las Vegas—wearing more makeup than Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire. She was babbling about how Angel never dusted behind his bed and sometimes forgot to leave a check for her services. Then the bleach-blond reporter returned to the scene, offering a plastic smile as she said, “It is believed that Angel DeMarco is currently in a hospital somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. There’s been no confirmation of his illness but the word AIDS has been whispered at more than one Hollywood party in recent days. Sources close to the bad-boy star say—”

  In a burst of irritation, he jabbed the Off button and threw the remote control across the room. It hit the wall with a satisfying clatter and crashed to the linoleum floor.

  He crossed his arms and sighed heavily.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday. No matter how hard he tried to push Madelaine’s words away, they kept coming back, turning up again and again as he lay in this lonely room.

  Her name is Lina.

  Finally he gave up and lay back down. Wishboning his arms behind his head, he stared up at the white acoustical tile ceiling.

  A daughter.

  He tried to imagine what it would be like, having a kid. He’d never spent much time thinking about that sort of thing. In fact, the only time he ever thought about children was just before sex—it was the thing that made him reach for the rubbers in his pocket.

  He wanted to push the whole discussion aside as irrelevant and ridiculous. And he was certain that before the surgery, he could have done just that. He could have met Madelaine at a concert or a movie premiere, heard about the amazingly wonderful child she’d given birth to sixteen years ago, and felt nothing. Less than nothing.

  He would have offered her a straight shot of tequila and drunk a toast to the kid he’d fathered. But that would have been the extent of it. After he drank the tequila, he’d have exited stage right.

  But he was beginning to understand that running didn’t always get you anywhere, that sometimes you ended up right where you’d started.

  He didn’t think of himself as immortal anymore. How could he with the stranger’s heart pulsing in his chest and the bright red Frankenstein scar in his flesh? Every time he got a shot or took a pill, he was reminded that he was alive by the grace of God—and the gift of a stranger. It was the sort of thing that made a man think about his life—even if he didn’t want to.

  Even before the surgery, he’d been tired of running and getting nowhere, tired of parties with women he couldn’t remember and friends who disappeared when the cameras turned off. But he didn’t know how to do anything else.

  He’d never created a life for himself, not a real, honest-to-God life. He had an existence—a condominium in a high-rise tower in Las Vegas, friends who came and went as easily as film roles, cars that he drove for a year and then traded in, a job that kept him rolling in money and working less than four months a year.

  What had he done the rest of the time? He could hardly remember now. When he thought back on his life, all he got were random images of parties and hangovers.

  He wanted to remember the early days, when he’d been a serious actor who went on one grueling audition after another, playing Shakespeare in the Park. But that was the history he had devised—the fiction he’d given to the press as they created the persona of Angel DeMarco from snippets of reality and piles of fantasy.

  The sad truth was, he didn’t know anything about acting. He’d been hired for his looks on his first audition—an audition he’d attended on a dare. Val’s mother had told a producer that her son was an agent, and voila! Val was an agent. And when Val became an agent, it was only seconds until Angel be
came an actor.

  Maybe getting that first job wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been a bit player and found a calling, but he was the star and the movie grossed over $150 million. After that, they would have let him play Othello if he’d wanted to. A star was born.

  He frowned, wondering why he hadn’t worked harder to learn his craft. Why hadn’t he taken the spark of talent the critics saw and honed it into something special?

  He couldn’t remember the whys; even the whens and hows were beginning to blur for him. Everything about his life before the heart attack was beginning to feel like an ephemeral memory that belonged to someone else.

  And yet he remembered things like the carnival in crystal clarity.

  A dream, you forget, Angel. Have you forgotten me?

  He had. Until he woke up in that damned hospital in Oregon, he had practically forgotten Madelaine; their time together had faded to a hazy memory of first love, tucked like all high school memories into the tattered scrapbook of the soul. But now it felt real, so real he could touch it. Maybe the only real thing in his life.

  She wanted him to be a father to their daughter. It was the only thing she’d ever asked of him.

  She needs you, Madelaine had said.

  God help him, he didn’t know what to do. In some small pocket of his soul, he wanted to reach out to this daughter who looked so much like him. He wanted to take hold of her and bring her into his life, and know he’d done something right in this world before he died.

  But he was afraid. What kind of father could he be? He was an alcoholic who’d just stopped drinking and a drug addict who’d quit using. He could drop dead of another man’s heart failure any second.

  Hardly the best role model for a confused sixteen-year-old girl.

  There was no doubt that he would let her down. No doubt at all.

  Depressed by his own inadequacy, he reached toward the bedside table and flicked on the radio Madelaine had given him. Heavy-metal music blared out at him, and he winced. Without thinking, he spun the dial until the rich melody of “Phantom of the Opera” spilled through the tiny speakers.