AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Elena began sobbing. I pulled her into my arms and let the tears I’d been holding back flood my eyes. By the time Elena and I managed to pull ourselves together enough to listen, the room had emptied and there was just the two of us and Dr. Riggs.
“Now, it’s not going to be easy, but I expect Maks to make a full recovery. His condition is very rare and thirty years ago his prognosis would have been poor, but medicine has come a long way since then. There’s bone marrow transplants, gene therapy,” she said as she counted it out on her fingers.
Her optimism helped me regain my sense of balance.
“We have a lot of information to go over. I know your parents are with Maks. Did you want them to join us?”
“They don’t speak the language,” Elena said.
“We’ll translate for them afterwards,” I added.
Dr. Riggs nodded. “Okay, so here’s what we know…”
I did my best to follow along as she explained the disease affecting Maks’s immune system but in reality, I was just so damned relieved to know that there was hope for my nephew that it was hard to focus on anything else. After going through all the treatment options, we spent a good half an hour peppering Dr. Riggs with questions. When it was over, Elena was crying happy tears as we each reached across the table to thank the doctor.
“I know how scary this is,” Dr. Riggs said. “It may not seem like it but we’re lucky we caught this as soon as we did. This disease isn’t easy to diagnose. I’m glad Jude thought to reach out to us in Pittsburg.”
“Jude?” I asked in surprise. “What?”
Dr. Riggs hesitated. “Jude Archer? I understand he’s a friend of the family? He called me last week to ask me to reach out to Maks’s doctors here at Mount Sinai.”
“Jude told you about Maks?” Elena said, which I was glad for because the doctor had managed to stun me into speechlessness.
“Yes. Were you not aware of that?”
“When did he call you?” I managed to ask.
“Um, I’m not sure. Tuesday, I think.”
Tuesday. After he’d walked out on me. “How do you know him?” I asked.
“Jude sits on the board for The Hayes Foundation. It helps our hospital and many like it fund medical care for kids in need. My understanding is he suggested starting the foundation to Mr. Hayes a couple of years ago.”
I felt completely blindsided.
“I’m sorry, didn’t Jude tell you any of this himself?” Dr. Riggs asked.
I shook my head.
“Well, maybe I just beat him to the punch. He did seem a little distracted before I came in here.”
I lifted my head. “What?” I asked, sure I’d misheard the woman.
Dr. Riggs furrowed her brow and then pointed in the direction of the hallway just outside the conference room. “I ran into Jude right before I came to talk to you. He was by the nurses’ station.”
“Is he still here?” I asked as I moved past Elena and around the table. It was a stupid question because the doctor would have no way of knowing if Jude were still here or not since she’d been in the room with us. I didn’t wait to hear her response. Instead, I flew out of the room and hurried to the nurses’ station.
But there was no sign of Jude anywhere. I reached for my phone before remembering it was dead.
“Fuck,” I muttered. I turned and made my way to Maks’s room. I threw the door open so abruptly that my mother jumped.
“Is he here?” I asked, blurting the question in English rather than Russian.
It didn’t matter because my father smiled and nodded his head. Then he told me in Russian that Jude had taken Natalia to get some ice cream in the cafeteria. I was already out the door before I realized I hadn’t told my parents anything about Maks. Fortunately, Elena was just outside the room.
“Jude took Nattie to the cafeteria,” I explained. “Mama and Papa—”
“Go!” my sister cut me off. “Go get him!”
I grabbed her and kissed her cheek, then ran for the elevator but stopped when I reached it. Nattie had an abject fear of elevators. Knowing Jude, he would have happily given in to her request to take the stairs down the three floors to the cafeteria. Not wanting to risk missing them, I went to the stairs and began trotting down them. I made it down one flight before I heard it.
Jude’s voice.
The sound of it had me coming to an abrupt stop. God, how I’d missed that voice.
I had no clue what Jude and Nattie were talking about, but I didn’t care. I took the next set of stairs with lightning speed. My heavy footsteps must have startled Jude and Natalia because they were both wide-eyed when I rounded the landing above them.
