Chapter 27 – Daphne
27
DAPHNE
A woman in scrubs and a white coat knocked on the door as she entered the room. “Hi, I’m Dr. Allegrini,” she said. “Based on Mr. Fox’s symptoms and physical exam, I suspect he has appendicitis. I’m going to order a CT scan of his abdomen to check.”
“What happens if that is what he has?” I asked.
“He’ll likely need to have it surgically removed.”
“This can’t be happening,” I muttered and ran my hands through my hair.
“Let’s say he does need to have surgery,” Ink said calmly. “What kind of timeline are we looking at?”
“I can’t really give you a timeline. It will depend on the availability of the surgeon. The surgery itself doesn’t take long, but he has to go through pre-op and then recovery. It’s possible they’ll want to keep him overnight before allowing him to go home.”
“Oh, no. What are we going to do?” I asked Ink.
“Is there a problem?” Dr. Allegrini asked.
“We’re having a baby, and he’s going to miss it,” I said and couldn’t stop the tears that spilled from my eyes.
Ink handed me a wad of hospital paper towels. “Sit down and get it together, woman.” Then he turned to Dr. Allegrini. “These two are adopting a baby, and the birth mother went into labor a few hours ago. We flew in from out of town for the birth. So, there are two problems. One is that he’s likely going to miss the birth, but the bigger problem is that we’re from out of town. If he has surgery and is released today, we don’t have anywhere to take him. I’m sure Jacob would fly back to pick him up, but would he be able to fly so soon after surgery? It’s a helicopter, if that matters. Jacob landed on the roof when he dropped us off, so I assume that’s where he’d pick him up.”
“Hold on,” Dr. Allegrini said. “You’re from the group that just landed on the roof?”
“Yes,” Ink confirmed. “Like I said, we’re from out of town and our friend flew us here for the birth of their child. We thought he was just nervous about the baby, but that was clearly not the case when he almost collapsed upstairs. But back to my main question. Will he be able to fly after surgery? I’ll need to make sure something in the Marks’ fleet is available and touch base with Jacob so he can coordinate landing.”
“There isn’t much I can do about the timing of surgery and the birth of the baby, but I think we can arrange for him to have a room here in the hospital until the baby is ready to go home. Would that work better for everyone?”
“Oh, that would be perfect,” Ink said.
“Great. I’m going to call and have him moved to the front of the line for his CT. I’ll also see if we can tentatively reserve a place for him on the surgery schedule. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do what I can to move things along so hopefully he’ll be out of surgery and in a room when his child is born.”
“Thank you so much,” Ink said sincerely. “I completely understand if it’s not possible, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask. Our hospital at home doesn’t let the babies leave the labor and delivery floor for safety reasons. If that’s the case here, would it be possible for him to have a room on the labor and delivery floor so he can see his baby? The birth mother doesn’t want to see the baby after delivery, and I know he doesn’t want the baby to be in the nursery all alone.”
“Given your special circumstances, I don’t think that will be a problem, as long as they have rooms available,” she said.
“Thank you so much,” he said.
“You’re welcome. I’ll see what I can do and check on you soon.”
“Oh, you’re good,” I said once she was gone.
Ink grinned like a little boy who’d just gotten away with something. “I’ve seen Keegan and Gabby do that so many times, and I’ve always wanted to try it. I can’t believe how easy it was.”
“Wait,” I said. “You weren’t just smooth-talking her?”
Ink laughed. “No. For one thing, she’s wearing a wedding ring. That’s not my style.”
“Well?” I asked impatiently. “What did you do?”
“I casually let her know we were flown here by our friend Jacob Marks,” he said.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “The only thing I got from that is that Shaker’s name is Jacob.”
“Shaker is rich as fuck. And his mom’s even richer. She’s also on several hospital boards and donates a lot of money to hospitals in Kentucky and Tennessee. That’s how he gets to land his personal helicopter on helipads at hospitals. Since he was able to land at this one, somebody here knows who his family is. And I guarantee that word trickled down through the grapevine that the Marks have friends or family in this facility.”
“They’re that rich?” I asked.
Ink chuckled. “When Byte was shot, they wouldn’t let Gabby back to see him because they were still working on him. She told Shaker to call his mom and have her buy the hospital so they would have to let her see Byte. And she was serious. So, yeah, they’re that rich.”
“They won’t mind that you used their name?” I asked.
“Not at all. And if Dr. Allegrini runs into any problems getting Dice a room, Shaker’s mom will happily take care of it. She’s a very kind woman, but she gets the job done.”
A few minutes later, someone came to take Dice for his CT scan. He was still so out of it I don’t think he had a clue what was going on.
He’d only been gone for a few minutes when Badger knocked on the door. “Our phones don’t get great reception upstairs, so I thought I’d come down to check on things. How is he?”
“They just took him for a scan. They think he has appendicitis,” I said. “How’s Tawny?”
“She’s refusing to have visitors, so they’ll only tell us she’s doing okay,” he said. “Dice is the only one who can get information.”
“Not necessarily,” Ink said. “I’ve been with him when he’s called to check on her before. He tells them who he is and gives them a numerical passcode. If we can get the number from him, I’ll call and pretend to be him.”
“Sounds good,” Badger said. “Do you guys need anything?”
“I think we’re okay right now,” I said and explained our tentative plan.
“All right. I’m going to head back upstairs. If I haven’t heard from you in the next hour or so, I’ll come back down to check in.”
When they brought Dice back to the room, he was a little more alert, but he looked awful. Ink was barely able to get the passcode from him before he started throwing up again.
“The money,” he groaned once the vomiting stopped.
“What?” I asked.
“The money. Byte. Transfer,” he said.
“I’ll take care of it,” Ink said knowingly.
“Knock, knock,” Dr. Allegrini said and entered the room. “How are we doing in here?”
“He just finished throwing up again, and he seems to be in a lot of pain,” I told her.
“The CT scan showed a very angry appendix, which will need to be removed. Since he’ll be going to surgery soon, I don’t want to give him another round of pain and nausea medicine, but I’ll see if we can give him a small dose of something to help. The surgeon will be in to talk to you soon.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’m going to step outside and call Byte,” Ink said.
“Can I ask why?”
“If the baby is born while he’s incapacitated, he needs Byte to transfer the money to Tawny. I think he’s worried about how she’ll react if the money isn’t there immediately after delivery.”
“Gotcha.”
“I’m also going to see if I can get an update on her.”
While Ink was gone, I wet a washcloth and tried to wipe off Dice’s face. It didn’t do much for him, but it made me feel like I was doing something other than sitting there helplessly watching him suffer.
Ink returned several minutes later. “The money situation is taken care of,” he told Dice. Dice groaned and mumbled something we couldn’t understand, but we both took that as his acknowledgment. “As for Tawny and the baby, they are both doing fine. They said she is only dilated to four centimeters. Apparently, she has to get to ten, so they think it will be a while, unless they run into complications.”
Once again, Dice groaned and mumbled something unintelligible.
“It’s okay, man. We’ve got this under control. You just worry about getting better,” Ink said.
It wasn’t long before the surgeon came in to talk to us, and then they took him to surgery. Thankfully, they let us wait in the room he would be spending the next few days in, which was on the labor and delivery floor, making communication with the other part of our group much easier.
“A lot has happened for it to not even be ten o’clock in the morning yet,” I said as I dropped into a chair.
“You can say that again,” Ink said. “I’m exhausted, and I’m not having surgery or a baby.”
“Have you guys had anything to eat?” Badger asked. “I can run down to the cafeteria and get something for you.”
“No, we haven’t eaten, but I think my dad’s here, and he probably brought breakfast.”
“I didn’t know your dad was coming,” Ink said.
“Neither did I.”
“Here they are!” Uncle Buck shouted. “Good gravy, we’ve been all over this hospital looking for you.”
My dad appeared a few moments later with a bag of breakfast sandwiches and several coffees.
“What are y’all doing here?” I asked.
“My grandbaby is being born, and my future son-in-law is having emergency surgery. Where else would I be?”
“Is that community food?” Ink asked and pointed to the bag of food.
Dad chuckled and tossed the bag to him. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” Ink said. “I’m starving.”
“You’re always hungry,” I said.
“Yes, but this is different. I need to feed my stress.”
I suddenly realized that Ink was worried; he’d just been doing a damn good job of hiding it.
“He’s going to be okay,” I said.
“I know,” Ink said around a mouthful of food. “This biscuit said so.”
“You better get one before he eats them all,” Uncle Buck said.
I didn’t feel hungry, but I knew I should eat something while I had a chance. We had a long day ahead of us.
When Dice was out of surgery, I went down to the recovery area to stay with him until he was ready to go to his room upstairs. Even in his groggy state, he looked much better than he did before the surgery.
“Did you find it?” he asked with his eyes closed.
“Did I find what?”
Ink jumped up and rushed over. “No, she didn’t. Now, be quiet and go back to sleep.”
“What are y’all talking about?” I asked.
“The box,” Dice said. “In my pocket. Get it.”
“You’re wearing a gown. You don’t have pockets,” I told him.
“Not talking to you.”
“Later, man,” Ink said.
“No. Now.”
Ink sighed and started digging through the bag with Dice’s clothes and shoes. “Okay, I have the box. Now what?”
“You gotta do it.”
“Oh, hell no,” Ink said.
“I can’t,” Dice said.
Ink grumbled something that I couldn’t make out. “You’re doing the talking.”
“Deal,” Dice said, still with his eyes closed.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Ink said.
“Ready,” Dice said.
I watched in absolute shock as Ink produced a black velvet box and sank to one knee in front of me while Dice said, “Marry me.”
“Yes,” I said and covered my mouth with both hands to keep my excitement contained.
Dice snored in response.
“I knew that was going to happen,” Ink said and handed me the box while he got to his feet.
“You’re not going to put the ring on my finger?” I teased.
Ink snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Not funny.”
“Oh, but it is,” Macy laughed and wiggled her phone. “And I got it all on video!”
“He was going to ask you tonight,” Ink said. “He had a whole thing planned, but then Tawny went into labor. Honestly, I thought that’s what was wrong with him this morning.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wanted to ask you before the baby got here,” he explained. “And I guess he did, but not in the way he wanted. But that’s what he gets for waiting until the last minute.”
“Do you think he’ll remember any of that?” I asked.
“He better,” Ink said. “I earned serious friend points.”
As it turned out, he did not remember and profusely apologized.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “You may not remember it, but I do, and we have a video.”
“There’s a video?” he asked.
“Show him,” Ink said. “I want credit for being the best fucking friend ever.”
We watched the video numerous times, with Dice laughing and groaning in pain each time.
“Is it time for another update on Tawny?” Macy asked.
“What do you mean?” Dice asked. “I can get an update whenever I want.”
“About that,” Ink said. “I’ve been pretending to be you to get updates while you were incapacitated, so we’re going to have to keep up that charade until the nurses change shifts.”
“You what?”
“The first time I called for an update, but once we were up here, it seemed silly to call, and I had your cut with your name on it. Apparently, they don’t know that Grady Fox and Dice are the same person,” Ink explained. “Regardless, we’ve been trying to limit the number of times we asked for updates.”
Dice shook his head at his friend and sighed. “Fine. Go get us an update.”
“Be right back.”
Ink burst back into the room moments later. “She’s at nine centimeters,” he said excitedly. “Not much longer.”
Macy snorted. “Maybe. Maybe not. It could still be a few hours before all is said and done.”
“This feels like the longest day ever,” I said.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Macy said solemnly.
I turned to her and lowered my voice. “I can’t imagine how hard this is for you.”
“It’s not easy, but I spent the last few months dealing with my emotions and working on acceptance. While it breaks my heart that I can’t be there with her and help her through this, that is her choice. I can, however, be there for the newest addition to our family.”
“Do you think she’ll change her mind about seeing you?”
Macy shook her head. “No, I don’t. I think she’ll leave as soon as she can without saying a word to any of us.”
“I hope things will eventually change with her,” I said.
“Me, too.”
We rejoined the group conversation and waited.
Dad and Uncle Buck went out to pick up something for dinner.
Ink found something to watch on the small television mounted in the room.
Dice napped on and off.
Finally, at ten thirty-five, our daughter, London Lane Fox, was born. It was close to eleven when Jodi brought her into the room and gently placed her in Dice’s arms. He smiled down at her with pride, adoration, and absolute love.