Laura Gale - The Tie That Binds

Still, today he’d had the past thrown in his face, in the shape of his wife and daughter. He couldn’t avoid thinking at the moment.

He took a deep breath, his eyebrows descending into a frown as he contemplated the end of his marriage to Rachel. He had been traveling a lot. It had been business, but it had been a lot of fun, too. If he was honest with himself, he had traveled more than necessary, every chance he got. He’d been eager to take advantage of what he called “opportunities.” He’d enjoyed spending time with his colleagues, establishing himself, not worrying about the limitations imposed by everyday life. Feeling like a professional in the business world.

Until that trip to Las Vegas. Las Vegas had been a colossal blunder on his part.

Yes, he knew why Rachel had not told him about her pregnancy when he returned from Las Vegas. As she said, they’d had a different sort of conversation to pursue. Back then, he would have made the same accusations he’d made today, even though he was perfectly aware that he had been the one pursuing external activities, not Rachel. Just as she had said.

Had Rachel somehow succeeded in telling him back then, would he have accepted the news? Very likely not. Very likely the scene, the breakup, would have simply been uglier. Regardless, he had lost the first four years of his daughter’s life.

Michaela, who’d spent her entire life without him. He’d never seen her, never even suspected her existence.

Well, that’s about to change, he told himself. I’m a father, and I’m going to be good at it. He felt a genuine smile tug at the corners of his mouth.

Lucas returned the photo to the safety of the envelope. He leaned back against the bench, raking his fingers through his hair in the way that had always suggested inner turmoil. He admitted to the tension he felt now, the sensation of ice-cold butterflies in the pit of his stomach.

Tense, yes, he was certainly tense. Poised for…something he couldn’t name.

How would my life be if I’d spent the last few years with Rachel, raising our daughter?

The question sideswiped him. I won’t think about that.

But he had a strong suspicion it would have been better than how he’d been living.

Walking on legs of rubber, Rachel finally made it to her car. She tossed her briefcase onto the passenger seat and blindly reached for the bottle of drinking water she kept in the console between the front seats. A few deep drinks and a few deep breaths later, she started her car and pulled from the parking lot.

She was dismayed to notice the continuing tremor in her hands and the erratic pounding of her heart.

“Bueno, Rachel, what did you expect?” she spoke the words aloud, berating herself. “You haven’t seen him in years. It was bound to affect you.” She inhaled deeply, then blew out the breath, finding she was still inundated with Lucas’s scent. “And, yes, the person you knew, the man you fell in love with—he’s still there. He’s wearing many layers, but he’s still there.” She couldn’t deny that much.

Unfortunately, she also knew that the woman who had fallen in love with him all those years ago still lived in her somewhere. She, too, was deeply buried, but she had responded to Lucas nevertheless. Something she could not allow. The knowledge left her shaky and dangerously close to tears.

But Rachel Neuman never cried—she couldn’t afford to waste the energy. In any case, she would never show such weakness where anyone might see her.

Checking the time, Rachel decided to stop at home and see if she could manage lunch. She’d had merely a bagel and juice this morning, and that only because it had been forced on her by Linda Tafoya, the day supervisor.

Rachel Neuman, at twenty-seven years of age, was young to hold the position she held: head pediatric nurse at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. When she had accepted her first position at PCH five years ago, night shift had been offered and she had accepted it. After a while she’d found it suited her. These days, even though she was head of the department, she continued to work the night shift.

Initially her remarkable academic record had caught the attention of the higher-ups at the hospital when they had interviewed her, but she had gone on to demonstrate thorough professional competence and a warm personal touch—a combination much valued in a nurse. She was adept at handling multiple tasks, monitoring health-care issues as well as those that dealt more with comfort and happiness. She fit in with both the staff and the doctors at the hospital, not to mention patients and their parents. She graciously coped with the dreaded administrative duties and paperwork involved in the job, as well. In any case, no one begrudged Rachel her position.

The upshot of this was that she worked a very long day. Her shift ran officially from midnight to 8:00 a.m. However, she usually met with patients, patients’ parents and hospital administrators after that. Her bedtime was 4:00 p.m., so the intervening daytime hours were hers. To spend with her daughter.

Today, however, she’d had her meeting with Lucas at ten-thirty. She’d gone to her office promptly at the end of her shift, knowing she could use the personal quarters the hospital staff had set up for her there as a changing place.

It was a miniature home away from home, except for the absence of a kitchen. This was a factor in her recent weight loss, but not the only factor. Her hospital colleagues were aware of it, understood the reasons, but knew she couldn’t afford to stop taking care of herself. Hence, Linda shoving a bagel in her face.

As she maneuvered through the traffic, heading out of Scottsdale and into Phoenix, Rachel was disgusted to feel the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. Usually she was so successful at controlling things like tears.

She hadn’t allowed herself such a release during her final year with Lucas, nor during the breakup or its aftermath. She hadn’t cried as she struggled to become a single mother or as she had learned, in fact, how to be a single mother. She hadn’t even cried when Dr. Paul Graham, director of the Children’s Cancer Unit at the hospital, had told her Michaela’s test results.

After all, he was really only confirming what she’d already known. She’d seen the symptoms too many times before, as a nurse. She had recognized what she was seeing; she’d known it was more than the flu. That’s why she’d gone to Paul in the first place.

Dear sweet Paul, who’d been working at the hospital for nearly fifteen years before Rachel’s arrival. He’d become her mentor, a guiding hand when she’d needed one. They had become fast friends, in addition to working together, sharing one of those rare and profound friendships that occasionally bless a person’s life.

Rachel was utterly unaware of rumors that had their relationship heading in a different kind of intimate direction. Paul was old enough to be her father and Rachel viewed him in that light. He had helped restore her self-confidence when she had arrived, new to her career, newly pregnant and without a husband. He had helped her believe again, and she had secretly hoped he would help her believe this time, too—preferably by telling her that Michaela didn’t have leukemia after all. Of course, he hadn’t told her that. Rachel had known, really, that he wouldn’t.

That day Rachel had fainted for the first and only time in her life. Paul had taken care of her, never mentioning her moment of weakness to anyone. It was something else to add to the list of reasons she was grateful to him.

Rachel knew what leukemia would mean. She knew it meant granulocytes, a certain type of white cell, were causing the problem. She also knew that chemotherapy would be the initial form of treatment and that it would likely be a rough experience for her little girl. And for her.