The Motherhood Intervention: Book 3 in the Intervention Series Page 6

  “It’s so nice having the kids in bed already,” Summer said.

  “We should really do that more often,” Derek said.

  “True,” Summer said. “We always say that, but we should really do it.”

  Derek turned back the covers and then came around to Summer’s side of the bed and began massaging her shoulders.

  “Want a massage?” he said.

  “Like, a massage? Or a massage?”

  He kissed her neck and she shivered.

  “The latter,” he said.

  “I would love one,” she said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wednesday morning, Summer woke up feeling sick and irritable. Because the heart specialist was a specialist, she’d had to take the appointment time they gave her, which meant she was stuck taking Hannah with her. Not that she minded, but Hannah would undoubtedly be walking all over the office, eating the pages of waiting room magazines and anything else she could get her grubby little fists on.

  Of course, Derek left for work before the kids even got up, and the morning routine wasn’t routine at all. Or it was, if Summer considered the lost socks, lost shoes, lack of clean clothes and complaining about going to summer camp.

  “You don’t know what camp is like for me,” Nate said. “Or else you wouldn’t make me go.”

  “Mo-om,” Luke said. “I don’t have any clean jeans.”

  Summer felt like yelling, “You’re lucky you even get to go to camp! I had to fend for myself! And I just washed eight loads of laundry yesterday. Don’t tell me you don’t have any clean jeans!”

  But she didn’t.

  She managed to keep it together (and by keep it together, she thought, she meant that she didn’t eat any of her young) until she pulled through the camp’s drop-off driveway, but as soon as she watched her kids walk away, Sarah’s hand on Luke’s shoulder to guide him through the gate and Nate, who always ran ahead, waiting patiently for them so they could walk into the building together, she lost it.

  What if Luke did need surgery? What if his condition was permanent? What if he died on the table? What if he died after surgery because of a blood clot or an infection or those other mysterious complications? She hated that word, complications. Her life was a complication.

  She tried to calm herself with yoga breathing and gentle reminders that she had no control over this situation, but panic set in, an inflating balloon in her chest. The appointment wasn’t for another hour, so Summer had to wait. She hated waiting. Driving around in this condition certainly wasn’t prudent, so she went to the little coffee shop down the street.

  “The usual, Mrs. Gray?”

  Summer flinched. She hadn’t even realized she’d walked inside.

  “Are you okay?” Eddie, the kid who worked the espresso machine every Wednesday morning, peered at Summer from behind the register, his brow wrinkled in concern.

  “I’m fine,” Summer said, hoping her fake smile cut down on the angry tone of her voice.

  “Why are you handing me a diaper?”

  “Shit.”

  Summer stuffed the diaper back into her purse and rummaged around for her wallet.

  “You know what? Coffee’s on me today. And Hannah’s granola bar.”

  “Oh, Eddie.” Summer felt the beginnings of a big cry, so she thanked him and rushed outside to the patio. Hannah immediately climbed atop the ride-on horse and began bouncing.

  Eddie delivered Summer’s decaf latte and gave her arm a gentle squeeze.

  “You’re going to make a great husband one day,” she said to him, patting his hand.

  He made a show of bolting, and she managed a smile. Hannah kept bouncing. And bouncing. The squeaking of the horse’s springs put Summer into a kind of trance, and she sipped her latte, repeating the silent mantra, inhale, exhale.

  The time passed so slowly Summer felt like she was in a parallel universe. Or a fishbowl. She sat at the little table, her legs crossed, and her foot bouncing and shaking in a way that would drive her crazy if someone else was doing it. She checked her phone compulsively, every minute or even more frequently.

  Hannah bounced.

  Eight forty-five finally rolled around, and she gathered Hannah off the horse and carried her to the car.

  “Let’s go see what the doctor has to say,” she said to her daughter.

  “Dr. Tippy Toes?”

  Why did even that make her want to cry?

  ***

  The heart specialist obviously made a lot of money. Dollar signs flashed in Summer’s mind and she hated herself for thinking that way. If Luke needed heart surgery, how would she and Derek afford it? She winced when she noticed the real leather chairs lined up along the walls, and dug a wipe out of her purse to clean Hannah’s hands before she could slime the cushions.

  A table in the corner held a single serve coffeemaker, but apparently the office staff didn’t stock decaf. Summer sighed. Not that she really needed any more coffee. She just wanted something to do with her hands. Celebrity gossip magazines covered the surfaces of another small table, but Summer knew she’d just get angry reading speculation about romantic feuds and plastic surgery. Did any of that crap really matter? She sat down and tapped her fingers on her legs while Hannah ran from one end of the room to another shouting, “Tippy Toes!” over and over.

  Fortunately, no one else was in the waiting room at the moment, and the evil Winter had the audacity to suggest that perhaps it was because all of this doctor’s patients had died. After what seemed like hours, a nurse opened the door and called Summer’s name. She stood up, briefly wondered where Hannah was, and then sighed with relief when she realized she was hiding under a chair.

  They walked through a labyrinth to a fancy conference room so sterile-looking and dust-free Summer felt like she’d entered another dimension. The nurse told her the doctor would be just a moment, and closed the door behind her. Summer pictured her own house, cluttered and dusty, footprints on the cabinets and handprints on the floor.

  How could this doctor even understand her? How could he understand where she was coming from? How worried she was? Hannah seemed to sense Summer’s anxiety and climbed onto her lap.

  Someone knocked gently on the door, just two taps, and then opened it. Before Summer could finish her thought about why someone would knock on the door of his own office, she felt her train of thought screech to a surprise-induced halt. The doctor was a woman. A woman not much older than herself. Tall, with chocolate-colored hair and bright green eyes.

  “I’m Doctor Karlsen,” she said, holding out a hand to shake. Summer noticed her short, square fingernails were quite clean. Abnormally so.

  “Summer Gray,” Summer said, after closing and then opening her mouth a few times.

  “Are you okay?” Dr. Karlsen asked.

  “I’m f—no. I’m not okay.”

  “Freaked out, right?”

  “Right,” Summer said. She heard the waver in her own voice and swallowed it.

  Instead of walking around the conference table and sitting opposite Summer, Dr. Karlsen sat in the chair next to Summer’s and smiled at Hannah. When Hannah squealed, the doctor grinned at her before returning her attention to Summer.

  “I get it,” she said. “I’m a mom, too. I’m not going to patronize you with cliché phrases like ‘don’t worry, it’ll be fine,’ and ‘I’ve done a million heart surgeries,’ because Luke is your baby. Yes, he needs surgery.” She didn’t pause to let the news sink in, but instead plowed ahead. “He has a congenital defect on one of his valves and it needs to be replaced. If we don’t replace it, he could go into cardiac arrest. But I want you to know he’s going to be in good hands, okay? Yes, he needs surgery. But the good news is that a valve replacement is a routine procedure with very little risk for complication.”

  “But, I mean, it’s open heart surgery, right?”

  The doctor nodded. “It is, yes.”

  “How many have you done?”

  “Hundreds.”

&nb
sp; Summer had hundreds of questions, which she asked, and Dr. Karlsen answered them all thoroughly, calmly and patiently.

  “Think about it this way,” the doctor said. “This surgery gives you control over the situation. If he doesn’t have the surgery now, he’ll go into cardiac arrest at some point. You won’t know when. Then we’re playing catch up, being reactionary. The surgery keeps us ahead of the game. By being proactive, we maintain control. He’s fine and the heart works great. The reward outweighs the risk by a long shot.”

  Summer nodded. When they both stood, Dr. Karlsen opened her arms for a hug. Hannah patted her shoulder, making Summer smile.

  “My staff will schedule the surgery, okay? Brittany, at the front desk, will call you. When are you due, by the way? I guess we should schedule around that, right?”

  Maybe this fancy specialist would understand.

  “Next week,” Summer said.

  “It’s your third?” Dr. Karlsen said.

  “Fifth.”

  “Oh, my! And I thought two were a handful.”

  Summer laughed. “Two are a handful. Three are two handsful. Anything after that is icing on the cake.”

  “All right. Well, I’ll talk to Brittany and make sure she schedules it a few weeks out, to give you some time to recover.”

  Summer shrugged. “Having us both in the hospital at once would be helpful for visitors,” Summer said.

  ***

  Summer walked back to the car with a renewed sense of calm about Luke’s surgery. Hannah babbled happily in her arms, and continued pointing out colors—of flowers, the sky, the leaves on the trees—as Summer buckled her into the carseat.

  Derek answered his phone on the first ring.

  “So he does need the surgery,” Summer said without preamble. “He has a congenital defect on one of his valves, so that valve needs to be replaced. The doctor says it’s pretty routine and complications are rare.”

  She exhaled, waiting for a response. When she didn’t get one, she realized Derek was crying.

  Shit. Just when I was feeling this amazing sense of peace.

  “I know,” she said. “It’s scary. But I really liked this doctor, Derek. She’s a mom, too. She—”

  “The fact that she’s a mom doesn’t mean she’s any good at what she does,” Derek said.

  “No, of course not. You’re right. But she understands our anxiety. She answered all of the questions we came up with. Very thoroughly, too. It seems like she knows what she’s doing.”

  “It seems like it? I mean, did you actually get, like, I don’t know, a success rate from her or something?”

  “No, Derek. I trusted her as soon as I saw her.”

  “You trusted her based on how she looks?”

  Summer sighed, and rolled her eyes, grateful Derek couldn’t see her.

  “It was The Vibe.”

  “Oh, the mysterious Vibe.” His tone was acidic.

  Usually, that type of comment was a joke. Summer always “got a vibe” from people, and judged them immediately based on that vibe. “It’s very accurate, too,” she said.

  But apparently Derek didn’t want to trust The Vibe when it came to their son’s heart surgery. She could respect that. So she bit her tongue, even though Winter wanted to tell him, You didn’t even meet her. You weren’t even there.

  A startling thought flitted into Summer’s consciousness: That Winter was showing up at all the wrong times.

  “You’re right,” she said instead. “The Vibe isn’t the best method for determining a heart surgeon’s level of ability. But she comes highly recommended by Dr. Tippy Toes, and she seemed very knowledgable. We can get a second opinion if you like, but Dr. T. heard the heart murmur and he thought it was a valve problem, which is exactly what Dr. Karlsen says it is. So their diagnoses match. They did the scan and everything, too.”

  As she justified her trust in Dr. Karlsen, Summer began to feel resentful and angry. Derek hadn’t come to the appointment. She’d told him she could handle it, and he had just agreed. He’d even said something about trusting her, something exactly like, “I trust you.” Yet, he didn’t want to trust her analysis of the surgeon. He should be reassuring her, not questioning her.

  “If you’re so concerned about it, why didn’t you come to the appointment with me so you could grill her yourself, get her success rate, ask her to pledge Luke’s survival on the life of her own firstborn?” Summer said.

  She stomped on the brake pedal, jerked the van into reverse, and backed out of the parking spot without looking, nearly hitting a light pole and then slamming on the brakes again. Then, shaking from adrenaline, she drove slowly out of the parking lot.

  “You know I couldn’t. I can’t take time off work, yet, especially if I’m going to have to take time off for the actual surgery.”

  “Then you should trust me to make the decisions based on what I learn at the appointments.”

  “Touché. You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just stressed.”

  The light at the intersection of Birch and Pinecone Roads turned red, and Summer put her forehead on the steering wheel. They were both stressed. She knew it was stupid to get upset with Derek. He had the right to ask questions.

  Summer wondered for the briefest second whether their marriage would make it through this. Her own rational mind said it would. Winter, though, her teeth bared, said it wouldn’t. A child’s illness often pushed his parents apart, to opposite edges of the plane of mental stability.

  Another driver honked. Summer jumped, noticed the light had turned green, and stomped on the gas.

  CHAPTER NINE

  After her appointment with Dr. Karlsen and the subsequent argument with Derek, she had picked the kids up from summer camp early. She’d decided to take them for ice cream to tell them about Luke’s impending surgery. The fact that Luke handled the news so well only made her feel worse. He had no idea what could happen. He had no idea these next few weeks could be the last weeks of his life.

  He just sat there in the booth at the ice cream parlor, his blue eyes—identical to hers—blinking a few times before he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Can we go home and sword fight now?”

  Summer nodded, gathered up the kids and drove them home, where the anxiety of the past couple of weeks took over yet again.

  She had begun to see everything as a hazard. She locked Chuck in his dog crate so he wouldn’t trip the kids. She overcooked the meat at dinner to ensure she killed any bacteria it harbored. She washed the bedsheets every day.

  Without telling Derek, because she knew he’d think she had lost her mind, she set up the baby monitor in the boys’ bedroom so she could listen to Luke breathe at night. She hid the speaker under her pillow and turned it up to full volume. Now, in the bedroom folding laundry, she could hear Nate and Luke talking in their bedroom.

  “Are you scared?” Nate asked.

  “Nah,” Luke said. “I mean, Mom says the lady is a good doctor. And I’m a tough kid, so.”

  Luke often ended his sentences with, “so,” and a shrug. She pictured him now, probably sitting on his bed loading a gun with foam darts, his fingernails dirty (she should really scrub them to make sure he didn’t transfer bacteria to his immune system) and the afternoon sunlight making his blonde hair white.

  Hannah’s birth had unseated Luke as the youngest, but Summer still thought of him as her baby. She burst into tears again, then laid down on the bed and buried her face in the pillow.

  Of course, Winter chose that moment to pipe up: You should be scrubbing the kitchen counters right now, not crying into your pillow. Get yourself together, woman.

  “You’re right,” Summer said. “I should be scrubbing the counters. Why haven’t I done that yet?”

  She heaved herself off the bed and blew her nose.

  The kitchen counters were a breeding ground for bacteria. Before she could scrub them, she had to empty them off. For some reason, her children (and her dear husband) thought the counters should serve as the du
mping grounds for anything they didn’t know what to do with.

  “Kids! Come into the kitchen, please!”

  For once, they listened immediately, probably because she’d let them come home early from camp and also because she’d fed them ice cream. For once, they did as she asked right away, and carried their various things to their bedrooms. Sarah had left a few books on the counter, and the boys had stashed their ninja throwing stars there. Hannah couldn’t reach the counter, but someone (probably Derek) had set some of her ponies down next to the throwing stars.

  The kids didn’t complain about the quick clean-up, but Summer felt herself growing increasingly irritated with all of them, and with Derek, too. Why couldn’t they just put stuff away? Didn’t they realize she was going to have to clean it all up later? Or force them to do it? By the time Derek walked in the door on Wednesday night, she was hankering for a fight.

  “Nice of you to come home,” she said.

  He looked surprised. Of course he did, Summer thought later. He came straight home from work, and arrived at the same time as he did every Wednesday. Despite her cool reception, he leaned forward to give her a kiss, just like he would any other day. She turned her face so his kiss landed on her cheek instead of her mouth. He backed away slowly, obviously afraid to do or say the wrong thing.

  “How was your day?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he said. “Busy.”

  “You think your day was busy?”

  And so it went. She proceeded to list every event of her own day, including diaper changes and bathroom breaks. The longer she spoke, the more frightened Derek looked. She knew she was out of control, but she couldn’t make herself stop. It felt so good.

  When she got to the counter-scrubbing, “but only after having everyone come in here and pick up the gazillion pieces of junk they’d left on the counter, for some inexplicable reason,” Derek said, “I’m sorry you had a rough day. And I’m sorry you had to go to the surgeon’s office by yourself. Okay? I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing by staying at work. But obviously I wasn’t. I know you’re stressed, and I’m stressed, too. But don’t take it out on me.”