Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Jim is your patient?” Edie all out gasped.
“He was my patient.” Tabitha busied herself with a piece of shredded lettuce that had fallen out of the taco currently in her hands. Her plate was a mess of discarded ingredients. At this point she could get another tortilla and make an entirely new taco.
“And you didn’t say anything to Foster about this when you found out?”
“Edie, you and I both know I couldn’t.”
Edie’s eyes shut as she nodded, like she was attempting to backtrack her words. “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insinuate that you should have said anything. I just can’t believe you were able to keep that bombshell to yourself. I wouldn’t have been able to.”
“In fairness, Tabitha didn’t have to keep it quiet for long. The hospital contacted Foster pretty quickly.”
“It sounds like it’s serious?” Edie asked. “The cancer has spread pretty far?”
“Actually, it hasn’t,” Camille answered. “It’s contained to his liver.”
“And do you think it’s related to his past way of life? All of that drinking and drugs?”
“I honestly don’t know. And truth be told, I don’t think I want to know. All we know is that he’s a good candidate to receive a living liver transplant,” Camille stated, “And that they want to see if Foster could be a match.”
Tabitha had been relatively silent when Camille dropped the news, even though she probably could have added to the conversation. It just wasn’t hers to have. But there was one question she felt comfortable asking. “How is Foster doing with all of this?”
“About as good as one would expect. He told me that in his head, Jim had been gone all of these years. Like gone, as in no longer alive. The way he lived so dangerously and treated his body so recklessly left no reason to think he would have a long and healthy life, you know? So I think Foster was not only surprised by the request, but surprised in general that Jim is even still around.”
Tabitha nodded. “I can understand that. And I’ll add that aside from the injuries he came in with, he looked good. Like maybe he really has cleaned up his act over the years.”
She even wondered if Jim’s refusal to take the pain medicine that he was offered had something to do with that recovery process. She’d had many patients over the years decline opioids and other stronger pain killers, and though the reasons were varied, sometimes it did have to do with addiction.
“I don’t know if that information helps or not,” Camille said candidly.
“Because it’s a lot easier to deny someone forgiveness when they’ve made no attempt to right their wrongs.
And I think that’s the impression Foster has always been under.
That Jim was and is a deadbeat who only cares about his next fix. ”
Tabitha didn’t get that sense from the man. Not even a little.
“What was he doing on that boat, anyway?” Edie chimed in.
“I’m not sure anyone knows,” Tabitha answered. “We keep getting different stories.”
“Yeah, like the one about it being a sightseeing expedition so the assemblyman could learn more about endangered species firsthand.” Camille snorted. “I actually heard that he’s introducing a bill to protect the great white sharks that would more than double the current fine for hunting them.”
“Sounds about right.” Tabitha’s eyes rolled. “When Mark called with the original story they’d conjured up—”
“Wait.” The ingredients in Camille’s taco fell out the bottom when she perked up in her seat. She chucked the entire thing to her plate. “Mark called you?”
Tabitha had been tightlipped about her patients, but evidently, she’d also kept her mouth shut about that call. It honestly hadn’t even occurred to her to tell her sister. She’d had too much on her mind at the time.
“He did call me. A few days ago. Wanted to spin the story so Assemblyman Taylor wouldn’t receive any backlash. Asked for my help as Chief, which I promptly told him I wasn’t.”
Tabitha knew that look. The one when her sister’s mouth bunched into a tight pout, brows furrowing over her eyes. It was anger and frustration, with a note of sadness wrapped up in one.
“I’m sorry,” Tabitha apologized. “I should have told you that part.”
“No. No. It’s okay. I just haven’t thought about that man in a long while.”
“Because you’ve had another man to occupy those thoughts,” Edie pointed out. “A really good man who deserves all of your attention. Not that scumbag who apparently has no intention of ever changing his lying ways.”
Edie hit the nail on the head with that. Mark was a piece of work.
“His wife is due in just a couple more months.” Camille’s chest filled with a big breath she ultimately let out as a slow hiss of a sigh.
“She is, but we have an entirely different pregnancy to be excited about.” Edie smiled at her friend, but the one Camille returned was only half-believable.
Even though Camille had a good man, and even though she was going to be a grand-aunt soon, it didn’t discount the feelings she might be having over her past, and the future her ex had in store with his mistress-turned-new-wife.
“I’m excited about Hannah and Casey’s little one. Over the moon.”
“We know you are,” Tabitha acknowledged. “But you’re still allowed to be sad about things with Mark. We’re complex creatures that can feel an entire myriad of emotions all at once.”
“And speaking of emotion, how is Foster feeling about all of this? You never really said what he plans to do,” Edie circled back as the women gathered their plates and moved from the table to the sink to begin cleaning up after their evening.
“I’m not sure if he has a plan yet. I told him that he might not even be a match, and that seemed to temporarily take some weight off of his shoulders.
But I know the man. He won’t be able to ignore this.
He’ll go and get tested. It’ll eat away at him if he doesn’t.
And I guess we just need to wait and see what happens from there. ”
“Isn’t that quite a process, anyway?” Edie passed Camille a plate to dip into the sink basin filled with warm water and soapy suds. “What’s involved in that?”
“They’ll run some blood tests.” Tabitha picked up a dish towel and moved it through her hands.
“Take a chest x-ray, things like that. Most of the time, they’ll perform an EKG and take an ultrasound of the abdomen.
There are so many factors. Ultimately, they’ll need to make sure the liver is big enough to donate a section of it.
At any point in this process, something could eliminate Foster as a donor. ”
She said the words hoping they might provide a bit of relief to her sister. An out of sorts. But she didn’t get the impression Camille was relieved at all. If anything, this information only seemed to agitate her more.
“What do you want him to do?” Tabitha swiped the dishrag across a passed off plate, then settled it into the drying rack near the sink.
“I don’t know that I have a say.”
“You have a say,” Edie said. “You’re married now. These sorts of decisions should be fifty-fifty. Mutual input from both partners.”
“I disagree. Yes, I’m his wife,” Camille said, “but it’s his history. A history I wasn’t around for. And one Foster has to reconcile.”
“I’m sure he wants your input, though,” Tabitha offered. “I’m sure he values what you have to say about the situation.”
“He does. But at the end of the day, it’s his decision to make. His body to sacrifice. His forgiveness to offer.”
“You know, it is possible for him to do this without extending forgiveness,” Tabitha put out there.
“What? Giving someone part of your vital organ doesn’t suggest all is well?” Camille said, snapping.
“I’m just saying that Foster can choose to do something out of conviction because it’s the right thing to do for a fellow human, not solely because it’s the right thing to do for his brother.”
“But why is he even obligated to?”
“He’s not,” Tabitha said. “I’m not suggesting he is.
I’m not suggesting he owes this to anyone.
All I’m saying is that if he does choose to move forward, and if he does find out he’s a match, he can do this one thing without it suggesting he approves of everything his brother did in his past. The act says more about Foster than it does Jim.
And it might be equally as healing for both of them. ”
Camille rolled her shoulders in another deep sigh. She flipped the water tap off, chucked her sponge into the sink, then spun around to face her friends, a troubling look capturing her features. “Can I be honest with you two about something?”
“Was there ever a time when we’ve made you feel like you can’t?”
“I know.” She swallowed. “I know I can tell you both anything.”
“Anything and everything.” Edie placed a hand on Camille’s forearm.
“I’m worried that if Foster moves forward and finds out he’s a match, then goes through with the surgery, that something might happen to him during it. Something horrible. Something that will leave me all alone.”
“These living transplant surgeries have really high success rates, Cami,” Tabitha assured her sister.
“I know they do. But there’s always the off chance that something goes wrong, right? Something unexpected? Some fluke thing?”
Tabitha wasn’t going to lie. Percentages didn’t. “Yes. There’s always that possibility, however small.”
“So what if this is Jim’s way of finally ruining Foster’s life for good?”
Tabitha shook her head. “He doesn’t have that kind of power in this.”
“He might not, but someone or something greater does. And what if this is Foster’s penance for what he did to Jim all those years ago? His final payment.”
It was Edie’s turn to disagree. “He already paid the price for that. He did jailtime.”
Tabitha and Camille didn’t grow up going to church.
They didn’t have a religious upbringing in that sense, but that didn’t mean they weren’t spiritual.
Tabitha was fully aware that sometimes in her OR, there was something else guiding her hands.
Some other being directing the outcome. She’d seen too many miracles to question it.
And on occasion, right before a particularly tricky surgery, she would send up a quick prayer to whomever it was listening up there to ask for some sort of divine intervention.
She had faith. She didn’t have all the answers, but she believed enough to know that higher powers didn’t work the way Camille described.
“What if there’s more that’s required of him?” Camille asked. “What if a few years in a county jail isn’t enough?”
“I guess that’s not for us to decide.” Tabitha gave her sister a heartfelt look. She hated seeing her so twisted up in knots over this. She wondered what she would do if Ben were in a similar situation. She wasn’t sure she had an answer to that.
“At the end of the day, I will support Foster in any and every way he needs me to. But you know me. I’m terrible at masking my inner emotions.”
“You’ll have to,” Tabitha said point-blank. “For Foster’s sake, you’ll have to.”
Camille just gave a weary, helpless grin, flipped the water back on, and drowned out their conversation.