Nicholas Sparks - The Best of Me

“They’ll find one,” he said again.

Her eyes flashed. “You of all people can’t promise me that.”

“No, of course not…”

“Then don’t say anything,” she said. “Don’t say things that are meaningless.”

Frank touched the swollen bridge of his nose. “I’m just trying to—”

“What?” she demanded. “Make me feel better? My son is dying!” Her voice rang out in the tiled hallway, turning heads.

“He’s my son, too,” Frank said, his voice quiet.

Amanda’s anger, so long suppressed, suddenly exploded to the surface. “Then why did you make him come and get you?” she cried. “Why were you too drunk to drive yourself?”

“Amanda…”

“You did this!” she screamed at him. Up and down the corridor, patients craned to peer out their open doors, and nurses froze midstride. “He shouldn’t have been in the car! There was no reason for him to be there! But you got so damn drunk that you couldn’t take care of yourself! Again! Just like you always do!”

“It was an accident,” Frank tried to interject.

“But it wasn’t! Don’t you understand that? You bought the beer, you drank it— you set all this in motion. You put Jared in the path of that car!”

Amanda was breathing hard, oblivious to anyone in the hallway. “I’ve asked you to stop drinking,” she hissed. “I’ve begged you to stop. But you never stopped. You never cared about what I wanted, or what was best for the kids. The only thing you ever thought about was yourself and how much you hurt after Bea died.” She drew a harsh breath. “Well, you know what? I was crushed, too. I’m the one who gave birth to her. I’m the one who held her and fed her and changed her diapers while you were at work. I was the one who never left her side when she was sick. That was me, not you. Me. ” She stabbed her own chest with her finger. “But somehow you became the one who couldn’t cope. And you know what happened? I ended up losing the husband I married, along with my baby. Yet even then I was somehow able to soldier on and make the best of things.” Amanda turned away from Frank, her face twisted with bitterness.

“My son is on life support and his time is running out because I never had the courage to leave you. But that’s what I should have done a long time ago.”

Halfway through her outburst, Frank had dropped his gaze, focusing instead on the floor. Spent, Amanda began to walk down the hall, away from him.

She stopped for a moment, turned, and added, “I know that it was an accident. I know you’re sorry. But being sorry isn’t enough. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be here, and both of us know that.”

Her last words were a challenge that echoed through the hospital ward, and she half-expected him to respond. But he said nothing, and Amanda finally walked away.

When family members were allowed to visit the ICU again, Amanda and the girls took turns sitting with Jared. She stayed with him for almost an hour. As soon as Frank arrived, she left. Evelyn went in to see Jared next, staying only a few minutes.

After the rest of the family was shepherded off by Evelyn, Amanda returned to Jared’s bedside alone, remaining there until after the nurses changed shifts.

There was still no word on a donor.

The dinner hour arrived and more time passed. Evelyn finally showed up and frog-marched Amanda out of the ICU, leading her down to the cafeteria. Although the thought of food made her feel almost nauseated, her mother personally supervised Amanda’s eating of a sandwich in silence. Swallowing each tasteless mouthful with mechanical effort, Amanda finally choked down the last bite and crumpled the cellophane wrapper.

With that, she stood and went back to the ICU.

By eight o’clock, when visiting hours were officially over, Evelyn determined that it would be best for the kids to go home for a while. Frank agreed to accompany them, but again Dr. Mills made an exception for Amanda, allowing her to stay in the ICU.

The frenetic activity of the hospital slowed as evening settled in. Amanda continued to sit unmoving by Jared’s bedside. Feeling dazed, she noticed the rotation of nurses, unable to remember their names as soon as they left the room. Amanda begged God over and over to save her son’s life, in the same way she’d once begged God to save Bea.

This time, she could only hope God would listen.

Sometime after midnight, Dr. Mills stepped into the room.

“You should go home and get some rest,” he said. “I’ll call you if I hear anything at all. I promise.”

Amanda refused to release Jared’s hand, raising her chin in stubborn defiance.

“I won’t leave him.”

It was nearly three in the morning when Dr. Mills returned to the ICU. By then, Amanda was too exhausted to rise.

“There’s news,” he said.

She turned toward him, suddenly sure that he was going to tell her their last best hope had been exhausted. This is it, she thought, feeling numb. This is the end.

Instead, she saw something akin to hope in his expression.

“We found a match,” he said. “A one-in-a-million shot that somehow came through.”

Amanda felt adrenaline surge through her limbs, every nerve awakening as she tried to grasp his full meaning. “A match?”

“A donor heart. It’s being transported to the hospital right now, and the surgery has already been scheduled. The team is being assembled as we speak.”

“Does that mean Jared is going to live?” Amanda asked, her voice hoarse.

“That’s the plan,” he said, and for the first time since she’d been in the hospital, Amanda began to cry.

At Dr. Mills’s urging, Amanda finally went home. She’d been told that Jared would be taken into pre-op, where he would be readied for the procedure, and she wouldn’t be able to spend time with him. After that, the actual surgery would take anywhere from four to six hours, depending on whether there were complications.

“No,” Dr. Mills said, even before she had a chance to ask. “There’s no reason to expect any complications.”

Despite her lingering anger, she’d called Frank after getting the news and before she left the hospital. Like her, he hadn’t been sleeping, and while she’d expected to hear the slurring she’d grown used to, he was sober when she reached him. His relief about Jared was obvious, and he thanked her for calling him.

She didn’t see Frank once she arrived home, and she suspected that since her mother was in the guest room, Frank was sleeping on the couch in the den. Though exhausted, what she really needed was a shower, and she spent a long time standing beneath the luxurious flow of water before finally crawling into bed.

Sunrise was still an hour or two away, and as Amanda closed her eyes she told herself she wasn’t going to sleep long, just a quick catnap before heading back to the hospital.

Her dreamless sleep lasted for six hours.

Her mother was holding a cup of coffee when Amanda came rushing down the hall, frantic to get to the hospital and struggling to remember where she’d left her keys.

“I called just a few minutes ago,” Evelyn said. “Lynn said they hadn’t heard anything at all, aside from the fact that Jared was in surgery.”