Page 51 of Before You Can Blink (Rust Canyon #4)

An all-too-familiar face came into view at the front end of the gurney they’d hauled up the stairs. My uniformed son-in-law shook his head, his face a mask of shock when his eyes landed on Daisy.

His partner, Garrett Boyd, nudged him. “Need me to stop off at the station to grab someone else to help take her in?”

“Uh.” Mac cleared his throat roughly. “Yeah, maybe, but I’m coming along for the ride.” To Tucker, he said, “Can you do me a favor and get Aspen there?”

“Yeah, anything you need,” his best friend replied.

Dread settled like a rock in my gut.

It was almost as if . . . as if they didn’t think she was gonna make it.

I stood there numb while they loaded my wife onto the gurney, following when they worked as a team to carry it down the stairs and out the front door. Thank goodness they’d tucked a blanket around her before strapping her onto the rolling bed because it was fucking freezing out there.

“Jett!” Tucker yelled from behind me right as I was about to climb into the rig with Mac. I spun around to find him holding out my wool-lined jacket. “You’ll be no good to her if you catch your death of cold.”

“Right.” I accepted the outerwear and punched my arms through the sleeves.

“We’ll be right behind you,” he promised as the doors at the back of the ambulance were being pulled shut, and the sirens began to blare before we sped off the ranch.

Throughout the entire drive, I prayed over and over for God to take me instead.

“Sullivan? I’m looking for the family of Daisy Sullivan?” a voice called out in the crowded waiting room.

I rose to my feet in a flash, and my kids and their significant others seated around me followed suit. But when I opened my mouth to confirm that was us, nothing came out, so Aspen laid a reassuring hand on my arm, her voice loud and clear as she replied, “That’s us.”

The doctor in blue scrubs with a white lab coat overtop walked in our direction, and when he stopped before us, Tripp was quick to ask, “Is she . . . ?”

“She’s stable,” he announced.

All the air rushed out of my lungs. Thank fucking God.

“Can we see her?” Aspen asked .

“We’ve moved her upstairs, but if you want to follow me, I can take you to her room, where we can discuss her condition in private.”

I finally found my voice. “Condition? You just said she was stable.”

“She is,” the doctor confirmed.

Mac jumped in to explain. “All that means is she’s not getting any worse, but it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s better, Jett.”

Agitated, I muttered something under my breath about the stupidity of using medical terms when you could just shoot a man straight. I mean, was it really so hard to say she’s not any better or any worse? Better than giving me false hope that Daisy had recovered from whatever ailed her.

“Now if you’ll follow me,” the physician prompted.

During our trek to Daisy’s hospital room, it struck me that, for the first time, I was the odd man out. Aspen had Mac to lean on, and Tripp had Penny, while my anchor, my pillar of strength, was lying in a bed somewhere deep inside this building, fighting for her life as far as I knew.

The first thing I noticed when we stepped into the sterile room was the tubes going into Daisy’s arm, attached to a machine.

Why were they red?

Then it struck me. “Is that blood?”

The doctor who accompanied us cleared his throat. “Mr. Sullivan, your wife has been diagnosed with acute renal failure.”

With my patience completely depleted, I snapped, “Speak fucking English!”

“Dad.” Tripp placed a hand on my arm.

I shrugged my son off, glaring at the man in the white lab coat. “My wife is the smart one, and right now she’s incapacitated, so I suggest you break it down into simpler terms or find me a doctor who can.”

“Very well.” He nodded. “What that means is your wife’s kidneys are no longer working. ”

Rolling that over in my mind, I finally said, “Okay, so what can you do to get them workin’ again?”

“Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple.”

“Apparently, nothing is around here,” I muttered.

Stepping toward the machine at Daisy’s bedside, the doctor explained, “This here is a dialysis machine.” A stifled sob sounded from Aspen at that news.

“The kidneys act as the body’s natural filtration system, working to clean your blood supply and flushing out waste through urination.

When they’re not working properly, toxins build up in the other organs, which can ultimately lead to death. ”

“My—” My voice cracked, my throat feeling like it was lined with broken glass. “My wife’s going to die?”

“Not if we can help it. The dialysis procedure is removing the blood from her body, running it through this machine to clean it as a functioning kidney would, before returning it.”

Eyes bulging, I asked, “ All her blood?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Very slowly. Most patients are fully conscious while undergoing dialysis.”

“So, um, how long . . .” My hand moved in a circular gesture toward the machine.

“It takes about three to five hours to run a full cycle.”

“And then she’ll be healthy again?” I pressed.

His lips turned down into a sad smile. “Dialysis is a treatment, not a cure.”

My brows drew down. “I don’t understand.”

Tripp came in hot with a question of his own. “She’ll have to keep doing this?”

“Yes,” Doctor—I took a look at his ID badge since he never bothered to introduce himself—Kohler, confirmed. “On average, three times a week. ”

“Forever?” My chest hollowed out.

“That’s not something I can answer at this time.”

Irritated, I challenged, “Well, when can you answer it?”

Sympathy filtered into his gaze even though I was being an asshole.

“I know this is a lot to take in. Sometimes, if there’s another underlying cause, patients can regain full function of their kidneys, and other times, the kidneys just quit for no reason.

I’m going to transfer Daisy’s case to a specialist, who can continue to monitor her condition now, and also after she’s been discharged. ”

Discharged. That word gave me the tiniest scrap of hope.

Mac stepped forward to shake the man’s hand. “Thank you, Doctor.”

“My pleasure. You folks take care.” With that, he left the room.

The silence that descended after his departure was deafening. With cautious steps, I moved to Daisy’s bedside. She looked so fragile that I worried that if I touched her, she would shatter into a million pieces.

“Here, Dad. Why don’t you sit down?” Tripp brought over a chair.

I dropped onto it, leaning forward so my forearms rested on the thin mattress.

Swallowing thickly, I stared at the woman whom I’d vowed to love through sickness and health over forty years ago. She’d upheld her end of that bargain more times than I could count, and it was finally my turn to repay the favor.

“Daze,” I rasped. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.

If there’s anyone who can fight their way through this, it’s you.

Doesn’t matter if you have to do dialysis for a day, a week, a year, or more, we’ll make it work, because we always do.

” That last part had tears I refused to let fall burning behind my eyes.

Turning to my children, I told them, “Ya’ll should go home.” Aspen shook her head, opening her mouth to protest, but I cut her off. “Squeeze your babies extra tight tonight so they’ll know how much Gramma loves them.”

My daughter buried her face in her husband’s chest, muffling the sounds of her sobs. Over her head, Mac said, “You call us if there’s any change.”

“’Course,” I agreed.

Tripp looped his arm around Penny’s waist. “We’ll come back in the morning, okay?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Finally, they shuffled out of the room, and I was left alone with the love of my life.

Rising from my seat, I pressed a kiss to her forehead, whispering, “You and me against the world, Daze.”

But in the back of my mind, I feared this might be the battle where we finally lost.

January

“Thank you both for coming in.” Dr. Pierce, the kidney specialist Daisy had been seeing for the past few months, folded both hands over his desk. With a warm smile, he asked my wife, “How are you feeling, Daisy?”

Slumped in the chair beside me, she replied, “Tired.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s to be expected with your condition.”

“And what exactly is her condition?” I pressed.

It had been two months since Daisy’s hospitalization, and during that time, we’d driven an hour to Enid three times a week for her to receive dialysis with no end in sight.

Sensing my need to get right down to business, Dr. Pierce opened a file—Daisy’s file. “Through our extensive testing, we were unable to determine an underlying cause for the sudden kidney failure. ”

“So, what, we just keep doing dialysis forever, then?” The lack of answers had frustration leaking into my tone.

He dipped his chin. “That’s one option. On average, patients can survive five to ten years, sometimes longer, going that route.”

“Five to ten years,” I scoffed. He made that sound like a positive outlook, but my wife was only sixty-six. She deserved more than a decade. Hell, my ma was still kicking at eighty-five.

“Jett.” Daisy placed her hand on my arm, her touch an attempt to calm the swirling storm inside me. There was nothing I hated more than feeling helpless.

Dr. Pierce cleared his throat. “The best treatment option for a case such as Daisy’s would be a kidney transplant. The upside of needing this particular organ is that it can be received from a living donor since humans only need one to survive.”

Without a beat of hesitation, I declared, “Give her one of mine.”

The doctor’s lips pressed together. “While I can appreciate your enthusiasm, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

The first step in determining a match is that the donor and recipient have the same blood type.

” His finger trailed over the paperwork set before him.

“Daisy’s O-positive. Do you happen to know what type you are, Mr. Sullivan? ”

“A-negative,” Daisy said from beside me.

Her answer crushed any hope that I might be the one to save my wife. We weren’t a match.

“The best chance of a living donor match is generally a sibling,” Dr. Pierce explained.

“She ain’t got any of those.” My voice grew rough, the walls closing in around me as the reality began to sink in that I might very well outlive my wife—something I had never considered before two months ago. I’d always assumed I would go first .

“All right. Next closest would be your children.”

“No.” The amount of strength in that word from the woman at my side was so shocking it had my head whipping around so I could gawk at her.

“No,” she said again, this time with even more conviction, which I hadn’t thought possible. “They’re both under forty with little ones still underfoot. I won’t have them sacrificing their health for mine.”

“Daze . . .” My windpipe began to close up as she slammed the door shut on the possibility of a life-saving operation.

“Daisy,” Dr. Pierce’s tone grew placating. “I can understand your concern for your children, but let me assure you that there is no impact on the life expectancy for a living kidney donor.”

Her gaze sharpened on him. “Can you sit there and tell me there would be no risk to them?”

A heavy sigh sounded. “Well, there are risks with any surgical procedure.”

“Then my answer stays the same.”

“You’re not making this easy, darlin’,” I muttered.

“Nothing about this is easy,” she shot back. “But I won’t have Tripp or Aspen suffering on my account. It’s my job as their mother to protect them, and so long as I’m living, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Fine.” My eyes slid closed, and I tried in vain to pull in a deep breath. “So we keep doing dialysis, then.”

Dr. Pierce spoke again. “Ruling out immediate family doesn’t mean a transplant is off the table. We can put you on the waiting list for a non-directed donation—either living or deceased—from someone you don’t know. Would that be something you might be interested in exploring, Daisy? ”

Reaching over, I squeezed her hand, praying she could feel how much I needed her to get better, and clearly, a transplant would offer her the greatest quality of life while extending it at the same time.

“Yes, okay,” she agreed, and I sagged in relief.

“Great.” The doctor nodded his approval over her choice. “I’ll get to work right away, making sure you’re added to the list. In the meantime, we’ll continue with the dialysis and maintain our regular appointments every two months. How’s that sound?”

Less than ideal, but we’d make it work.

Because what other choice did we have?