For five long hours, Nate comforted his wife while they watched doctors and nurses coming and going. Outside, the snow stopped falling and the city awakened to an unexpected winter wonderland. It was the kind of scene Angel would have loved and one that would have likely found her up to her waist in snowdrifts making everything from snowballs to forts. But that wouldn’t happen today. In fact, it might never happen again.
It was just past eight when Dr. Hutton emerged and walked across the room to the where the couple was sitting. While he appeared exhausted, there was also a peace in his eyes.
“Is she …?” Beverly couldn’t force herself to say the words that had been etched in her mind for hours.
“She is fine,” the doctor softly replied. “She is sleeping and we are about to put her in a room. But if you hadn’t gotten her here at the very moment you did, we would have lost her. How you made it through that storm I don’t know. I mean the only the reason I was here was because I couldn’t get home.”
“Thank God she’s okay,” Nate said with a smile. He looked toward the doctor and then his wife. He knew what the doctor meant was she was all right for the moment. Today, tomorrow, or next week, or next month, Angel would be hit again, and when it happened the ending would likely be much different.
“When can we take her home?” Beverly asked.
The doctor smiled. “If nothing else happens and she feels good, I would say tomorrow. Now, Beverly, why don’t you go see her right now. It will take a few minutes before the room is ready, but I know you need to hold her.”
The woman didn’t need to be asked twice. She bounced off the chair, across the room, and into the open door that had been her focus for so much of the night. After she had disappeared, the doctor took a seat beside Nate. After putting his hand on the father’s shoulder, he softly said what didn’t need to be said, “What you experienced tonight will happen again. There is nothing we can do about that. The mass is growing and things will get worse. So, as a friend, not as Angel’s doctor, I recommend that you cherish the good days you have left. Crowd as much into them as you can. Make what life she has left as sweet for Angel and yourself as it can possibly be. Every moment in each day is a gift.”