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“When will we do this?” Aiden asks.
“I’ll put the order in now,” Dr. Simbiglia says with a wink. “We want to get some good medicine in you, so no sense in waiting, right?”
Another nod. This time he smiles bravely.
The doctors make their goodbyes after promises to deliver the results as soon as they get them. When we’re alone, Aiden asks, “On a scale of one to ten, how worried are you?”
“Pfft,” I say with a wave of my hand. “Maybe a two. Okay, if I’m honest… two point five at the most.”
Aiden laughs and that starts him coughing more. I reach over and hand him the water, insisting he take a drink.
“How do you feel?” I ask after he swallows a few sips.
“Really tired,” he says. “But Dad and I stayed up late last night talking, so I think that’s all it is.”
I don’t buy that for a second. I watched the way he was sleeping this morning and it wasn’t just a nap to catch up on a few missed hours. He was under hard and heavy.
“Well, go back to sleep. I’ve got some work to do but I’ll probably go down for a coffee first. Want anything?”
Aiden shakes his head, burrowing back under the covers. I start to turn away but he says, “I don’t think we should tell Dad about this test.”
I spin back toward him. “Why not?”
“It might cause him to drink again.” He flushes with what I think might be a bit of guilt for his lack of confidence in our father.
Moving back to the bedside, I sit in the chair and reach over the rail for his hand again. “Aiden… it’s not our responsibility to keep Dad from drinking. That’s all on him. He has to learn to deal with tough times and he has the necessary tools to do it. We have to let him try, and we have to be ready for him to fail. He might fail, actually. But we can’t hide things from him. That wouldn’t be fair to him or even us. Make sense?”
“Yeah,” he says dejectedly. “I just don’t want you to have to deal with Dad getting drunk and me getting sicker—”
“You’re not getting sicker,” I say heatedly, squeezing his hand. “You’ve got a little cough and fever. It’s probably just a cold. You’ve been doing so well and getting so strong. This is nothing.”
“Really?” he asks, all his fears playing out in that one hopeful word.
“Absolutely. One more test to add to your repertoire of things you can use to impress the girls when you go back to school. A few new medications and you’ll be as right as rain.”
Aiden sighs with relief. “I was worried. I mean… I don’t feel good, and they’re doing tests, so…”
“Did Dr. Yoffe seem worried?” I ask, which is kind of a misleading question. Dr. Yoffe always projects calm. Even when he was giving us the grim odds of a transplant succeeding, he radiated an air of optimism and hope because he’d seen many successes in his career and Aiden was no different from any of those kids.
Aiden shakes his head, plucking thoughtfully at his blanket. “So you’re going to tell Dad and Boone what’s going on?”
“I’m most definitely telling Dad and in fact, I’ll call him when I go down to get coffee. But I don’t know when I’ll tell Boone.”
“Because he’s away in New Jersey and is focused on the playoffs,” Aiden concludes. “Don’t want to mess up his mojo, especially since they lost last night.”
“No, silly,” I drawl, standing up and rubbing the short, fuzzy hairs sprouting from his scalp. “Because there’s nothing to tell. Nothing to worry about. Simple little test that’s being done just so they know the correct drugs to give you. Why even bother him with something so inconsequential, right?”
“Totally,” Aiden agrees.
Although in truth, none of this feels inconsequential. It seems overwhelming and I’ll update Boone after I get the results from the bronchoscopy. No sense adding anything to his already full plate until I have more details, especially since they lost game three last night. It was not pretty and when I talked to Boone for a few minutes after he got back to the hotel, it was the first time I’d heard him stressed over his job. He was tired and frustrated and all I could do was sympathize with him. Sadly, I’m not sure I did a good job of it since I don’t have a great handle on what the playoffs really mean to this team. Hockey is still very new to me and I’ve been so preoccupied with Aiden that I feel like I’m constantly playing catch-up with Boone.
Regardless, I will be true to him and honor his request to keep him in the loop, and I’ll just have to eat the guilt I’ll feel by potentially messing up his head while he’s in the middle of the playoffs.
CHAPTER 26
Boone
Istep offthe hotel elevator and head toward the set of meeting rooms that the team reserved for this two-game playoff trip. One is set up for meetings with a large screen that allows us to go over opponent video. It has rows of chairs in neat lines for us to sit in and take notes as well as a podium at the front and to the left of the screen for the coaches to speak from. We used that room just this morning to go over last night’s game video, especially in light of the fact we got our asses kicked once again in a bruising 3–0 defeat. We’re now officially down in the playoffs, two games to one with another game here in New Jersey tomorrow night. We have to win at all costs, or the uphill battle will become almost insurmountable. If you look at playoff statistics with teams coming into game five at home with only one win, it’s not pretty.
