Danielle Steel: Changes

“Hi.” She looked frail, her eyes enormous in the fragile face, like a broken china doll, waiting for him to repair her.

“Hello, Sally. How're you feeling?”

“Funny.” Her eyes fluttered for a moment and she smiled at the familiar eyes. She had come to know him in the last few weeks, better than she had known anyone in years. He had opened doors of hope for her, of tenderness, and of caring, and the loneliness and isolation she had felt for years had finally seemed less acute to her.

“We're going to be pretty busy for the next few hours. All you have to do is lie there and snooze.” He watched her and glanced at the monitors nearby before looking back at her again. “Scared?”

“Sort of.” But he knew she was well prepared. He had spent weeks explaining the surgery to her, the intricate process, and the dangers and medications afterward. She knew what to expect now, and their big moment had come. It was almost like giving birth. And he would be giving birth to her, almost as though she would spring from his very soul, from his fingertips as they fought to save her.

The anesthetist moved closer to her head and searched Peter Hallam's eyes. He nodded slowly and smiled at Sally again. “See you in a little while.” Except it wouldn't be a little while. It would be more like five or six hours before she was conscious again, and then only barely, as they watched her in the recovery room, before moving her to intensive care.

“Will you be there when I wake up?” A frown of fear creased her brows and he was quick to nod.

“I sure will. I'll be right there with you when you wake up. Just like I'm here with you now.” He nodded to the anesthetist then, and her eyes fluttered closed briefly from the sedative they had administered before. The sodium pentothal was administered through the intravenous tube already implanted in her arm; a moment later, Sally Block was asleep, and within minutes, the delicate surgery began.

For the next four hours, Peter Hallam worked relentlessly to hook up the new heart, and there was a wondrous look of victory on his face, as it began to pump. For just a fraction of a second, his eyes met those of the nurse standing across from him, and beneath the mask he smiled. “There she goes.” But they had only won the first round, he knew only too well. It remained to be seen if Sally's body would accept or reject the new heart. And as with all transplant patients, the odds weren't great. But they were better than they would have been if she hadn't had the surgery at all. In her case, as with other people he operated on, it was her only hope.

At nine fifteen that morning, Sally Block was wheeled into the recovery room, and Peter Hallam took his first break since four thirty A.M. It would be a while before the anesthetic wore off, and he had time for a cup of coffee, and a few moments of his own thoughts. Transplants like Sally's drained everything from him.

“That was spectacular, Doctor.” A young resident stood next to him, still in awe, as Peter poured himself a cup of black coffee and turned to the young man.

“Thank you.” Peter smiled, thinking how much the young resident looked like his own son. It would have pleased him no end if Mark had had ambitions in medicine, but Mark already had other plans, business school, or law. He wanted to be part of a broader world than this, and he had seen over the years how much his father had given of himself and what it had cost him emotionally each time one of his transplant patients died. That wasn't for him. Peter narrowed his eyes as he took a sip of the inky brew, thinking that maybe it was just as well. And then he turned to the young resident again.

“Is this the first transplant you've seen?”

“The second. You performed the other one too.” And performed somehow seemed the appropriate word. Both transplants had been the most theatrical kind of surgery the young man had witnessed. There was more tension and drama in the operating room than he had ever experienced in his life, and watching Peter Hallam operate was like watching Nijinsky dance. He was the best there was. “How do you think this one will do?”

“It's too soon to tell. Hopefully, she'll do fine.” And he prayed that what he said was true, as he covered his operating-room garb with another sterile gown and headed toward the recovery room. He left his coffee outside, and went to sit quietly in one of the chairs near where Sally lay. A recovery-room nurse and a battery of monitors were watching Sally's every breath, and so far all was well. The trouble, if it arose, was likely to come later than this, unless of course everything went wrong from the beginning. And that had happened before too. But not this time … not this time … please God … not now … not to her … she's so young … not that he would have felt any differently if she had been fifty-five instead of twenty-two.

It hadn't made any difference when he lost his wife. He sat looking at Sally now, trying not to see a different face … a different time … and yet he always did … saw her as she had been in those last hours, beyond fighting, beyond hope … beyond him. She hadn't even let him try. No matter what he said, or how hard he had tried to convince her. They had had a donor. But she had refused it. He had pounded the wall in her room that night, and driven home on the freeway at a hundred and fifteen. And when they picked him up for speeding, he didn't give a damn. He didn't care about anything then … except her … and what she wouldn't let him do. He had been so vague when the highway patrol stopped him that they made him get out of the car and walk a straight line. But he wasn't drunk, he was numb with pain. They had let him go with a citation and a stiff fine, and he had gone home to wander through the house, thinking of her, aching for her, needing all that she'd had to give, and would give no more. He wondered if he could bear living without her. Even the children seemed remote to him then … all he could think of was Anne. She had been so strong for so long, and because of her he had grown over the years. She filled him with a kind of strength he drew on constantly, as well as his own skill. And suddenly that wasn't there. He had sat terrified that night, alone and frightened, like a small child, and then suddenly at dawn, he had felt an irresistible pull. He had to go back to her … had to hold her once more … had to tell her the things he had never said before … He had raced back to the hospital again and quietly slipped into her room, where he dismissed the nurse and watched her himself, gently holding her hand, and smoothing her fair hair back from her pale brow. She looked like a very fragile porcelain doll, and once just before morning burst into the room, she opened her eyes …

“… Peter …” Her voice was less than a whisper in the stillness.

“I love you, Anne …” His eyes had filled with tears and he had wanted to shout, “Don't go.” She smiled the magical smile that always filled his heart, and then with the ease of a sigh she was gone, as he stood in bereft horror and stared. Why wouldn't she fight? Why wouldn't she let him try? Why couldn't he accept what other people accepted from him every day? But he couldn't accept it now. He stood and stared at her, sobbing softly, until one of his colleagues led him away. They had taken him home and put him to bed, and somehow in the next days and weeks he had gone through all the motions that were expected of him. But it was like an ugly underwater dream, and he only surfaced now and then, until at last he realized how desperately his children needed him. And slowly, he had come back, and three weeks later he was back at work, but there was something missing now. Something that meant everything to him. And that something was Anne. She never left his mind for very long. She was there a thousand times a day, as he left for work, as he walked in and out of patients' rooms, as he walked into surgery, or back out to his car in the late afternoon. And when he reached his front door, it was like a knife in his heart again every time he went home, knowing that she wouldn't be there.