“Not the least bit ideal,” replied David, shaking his head. “Any chance you can stay in Phoenix longer? I’m sure that Jack - er, I mean the family would be more than willing to pay for a few more days in the hotel.”
“No!” protested Scarlett. “I don’t want to stay here even an hour longer than I have to. Look, if I’m still in that much pain next Friday I can stay with some friends in Berkeley. My boss and her boyfriend. They have a little place that’s only one story, and she’s already asked me to stay with them afterwards.”
“All right. That should be okay. I’m trying to stay optimistic here, that the residual soreness won’t be too bad. Ah, here’s Lydia.”
David tried very, very hard not to chuckle when he noticed the way Scarlett contorted her face into a grimace, shutting her eyes tightly and clenching her jaw as Lydia swapped her inner elbow with alcohol. It was almost comical to witness such a tough talking, otherwise fearless young woman react to the sight of a needle. He was more convinced than ever that the stabbing incident was not the first time she’d been the victim of violence, or wound up in a hospital.
“There. Not so awful, was it?” he asked lightly, as Lydia finished the blood draw and Scarlett slowly opened her eyes.
She scowled. “If you say so. Can I go now?”
“Yes, we’re all done. I’ll leave you to get dressed. Don’t forget, though, that if you need to ask me anything to text me anytime. My contact info will be included on the paperwork Lydia will give you on the way out. Otherwise, I’ll see you bright and early Monday morning. And, Scarlett?”
“Yeah?”
He gently gave her shoulder another little squeeze. “This is an amazing thing you’re doing, you know. Saving another person’s life. And there is no doubt in my mind that my patient wouldn’t be alive much longer without your bone marrow. So thank you, Scarlett. I’m guessing this can’t be easy for you. For a lot of reasons.”
She shrugged, clearly ill at ease with his praise. “Sure. Whatever. Guess I’m glad to help. Except for the part about the needles and the pain.”
He chuckled. “It’ll be fine. You’re a tough cookie, I can tell.”
David paused at the doorway of the exam room as Scarlett slid off the table. “Out of curiosity, have you ever looked into getting plastic surgery? On the, um, scar, that is.”
She looked at him in scornful disbelief. “You’re joking, right? I did tell you that I was poor, didn’t I? Which means my health insurance is bare bones. I’m not even sure it pays for cold medicine, much less plastic surgery.”
“I thought maybe in the months after it happened you would have considered plastic surgery,” explained David. “When you were still in high school. I’m guessing if you were in foster care at the time that the state would have covered all of your medical expenses.”
“Probably. In fact, one of my foster mothers was a nurse and she might have brought the idea up once or twice. But - no.” She shuddered again. “It was just too soon, you know? I couldn’t willingly go back to a hospital. And now - well, I’ve learned to live with it. It’s no big deal.”
It was on the tip of David’s tongue to blurt out that Neil Brockmeyer could certainly afford the sort of plastic surgery his daughter would need to erase most if not all of that scar. But since Lydia was still in the room - and especially since it wasn’t any of his business - he kept his mouth shut.
“I understand,” he replied softly. “I’ll head out now, Scarlett. It was a pleasure to meet you. Try to get as much rest as you can the next couple of days, and I’ll see you on Monday. And thanks again.”
As he closed the door and headed down the hall towards his office, David wished with all his might that someone could do as much for Scarlett as she was so unselfishly prepared to do to save the half-sister she’d never even met. Because in his opinion, her need might be even greater than Hannah’s.
Chapter Eleven
“Here you go, Mom. And Laura, this one’s for you. You’re sure neither of you want anything to eat?”
Candace and Laura both shuddered at the same time, looking more alike than ever, thought Jackson. However, while Candace devoted herself to looking as youthful as possible, spending untold hours getting her hair colored, having all manner of facial treatments, watching her weight like a hawk, and employing multiple other methods to keep looking decades younger than her real age, the same couldn’t be said for her daughter over the last couple of years. The stress of dealing with Hannah’s illness - not to mention her own lengthy list of ailments, whether real or imagined - had definitely taken a toll on Laura. She was alarmingly thin, her impeccably tailored clothes hanging loosely on her frame, and her cheekbones had become increasingly sunken in. Her eyes looked haunted, with dark circles that no amount of makeup could hide, her complexion pale and washed out. Jackson was far from an expert on the subject, but it didn’t look as though his older sister even bothered to put makeup on most days. Her dyed blonde air looked thin and wispy, and her roots were really starting to show.
“I’m such a nervous wreck there’s no possible way I could eat a thing,” declared Candace. “I have no idea how your father and Neil can summon up an appetite for lunch. How long will they be gone anyway?”
Jackson shrugged as he took a seat in the waiting room just outside of the ICU area where Hannah had been cooped up for almost two weeks. “Probably an hour or so. They were going to drive somewhere close by, said the food in the hospital cafeteria was revolting. It wasn’t all that bad, actually, though I just had a sandwich. Kind of hard to mess up a turkey sandwich.”
Candace smiled, giving her youngest child a pat on the arm. “You never were a fussy eater, though. Not like your brothers and sister.”
Laura took a sip of the black coffee that had pretty much been all she’d consumed today as far as Jackson knew. “I’ll eat when I know that everything went okay with the bone marrow donation,” she murmured, her voice hoarse with the tears she’d been shedding almost nonstop for days now. “What exactly is taking them so long anyway? I thought David said they received the bone marrow this morning.”
Jackson didn’t bother to correct his sister about the fact that the donated bone marrow hadn’t been flown into the hospital from the donor’s location. That had actually been an option discussed between the four of them - himself, Scarlett, Neil, and David - for Scarlett to donate the bone marrow at a hospital in the Bay Area and then for it to be transported here to Phoenix. But David had vastly preferred for the donation to be done on site, so that there was less delay in getting it to Hannah. The doctor hadn’t stated the obvious - that every single hour counted at this point given Hannah’s rapidly deteriorating condition. David had also expressed a preference to do the bone marrow harvest personally, wanting to be certain that every tiny step along the way was done by the book.
Right now, in fact, Jackson knew that David was supervising some sort of filtration process where any fat or bone particles were removed from the donated marrow. Once that was complete, the precious marrow would be whisked up to Hannah’s room and the infusion would begin. David had patiently explained all of this to the family several times over the past few days, but evidently his sister either hadn’t paid attention or, more likely, was simply too stressed out and exhausted to think rationally.