Jeff felt antsy enough to want to set up camp right outside the operating room doors.
Since that wasn’t really possible without having someone from security come to remove him, he settled on the nearby lounge.
Initially.
He really had intended on waiting there until his mother’s operation was over. But despite his calm outward demeanor, when it came to being concerned about someone in his family, Jeff’s patience tended to wither.
As a compromise, he settled for pacing in the lounge—and then up and down the corridor—slowly, doing his best to kill time and to get the antsy feeling under control.
For as long as Jeff could remember, his mother had been the family rock, the one everyone else turned to when they needed support. She wasn’t supposed to be the one who needed support, but well, here they were.
Damn, but he hoped he’d done the right thing, bringing her to this doctor. He had a great deal of faith in Theresa Manetti, and in a roundabout fashion, Theresa had recommended this doctor.
But the doctor who had inadvertently misdiagnosed his father’s condition had been recommended by a friend of his father’s, and that had certainly turned out badly.
What if, well-meaning though she seemed, this doctor wound up botching the surgery she was about to perform on his mother?
He just couldn’t seem to shake the sinking feeling that was snaking its way through him, undermining his confidence.
When his cell phone began to vibrate, he all but yanked it out of his pocket, fearing the worst. All he needed now was an emergency at work. He felt that he’d left the restaurant in capable hands, but there was always a chance that something unforeseeable would happen.
Jeff debated not answering his phone, just turning the cell off and slipping it back into his pocket. But the next moment, he acknowledged that was being cowardly. It wasn’t the way he handled things or shouldered responsibilities.
Making himself look at the cell phone screen, he recognized the caller ID. Relieved and somewhat puzzled, he accepted the call.
“Theresa?” he asked.
“Hello, Jeff,” he heard his former boss say. “I hope you don’t mind my calling you.”
“No, of course not.” He just thought it rather odd—Theresa wasn’t in the habit of calling him to chat. “Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.
“No,” she answered. Maybe it was his imagination, but Theresa sounded rather uncomfortable. “Actually, I’m just calling to see how everything went with your mother’s appointment with that doctor I told you about.”
Jeff glanced over toward the OR doors. He’d seen several hospital staff members go in after his mother had been wheeled into the operating room, but there’d been no one going in or out for the last forty minutes. He told himself that was a good sign, but the truth was, he didn’t know.
“Well, I’m at the hospital,” he answered rather guardedly. “My mother’s being operated on right now.”
He heard Theresa stifle a gasp. “My goodness. Jeff, do you want me to come down there to wait with you?” she asked.
The offer heartened him. Again, he couldn’t help thinking that Theresa Manetti was certainly like another mother to him.
“No, that’s okay. There’s no need for you to come. It shouldn’t be that much longer.” Unless he thought of it in seconds, because time was passing as if it was being dragged by an arthritic turtle with a pronounced limp.
“You’re sure?” Theresa didn’t sound convinced.
“I’m sure,” he told her with as much conviction as he could muster under the circumstances.
“What kind of an operation is it?” Theresa asked.
“It’s kind of involved,” he admitted. At the moment, he really didn’t want to get into it, or explain the details. “But the doctor seems confident that my mother’s going to be all right.” He sighed, looking back at the OR doors again. And then he shared what had been weighing on his mind. “The doctor said we got her here just in time.”
“That’s all your doing, dear,” Theresa assured him. “If I remember correctly, you once told me that your mother can be a very stubborn woman.”
“Well, yes, she is,” Jeff admitted, although right now he didn’t want to say anything that sounded the least bit negative about his mother.
He felt somewhat disloyal for having voiced that opinion. After all, he knew that she was only trying her best. It hadn’t been easy for her, raising three kids as a single mother.
Theresa laughed softly. Then, as if reading his mind, she assured him, “All the best mothers are stubborn. Nothing wrong with that. Let me know how it goes, dear. Please call me if there’s anything I can do.”
“I will,” he promised, “And thanks for calling.”
“My pleasure, dear. Remember, call me,” Theresa repeated just before she ended the call.
Sighing, Jeff tucked the cell phone back into his pocket.
There were a dozen things he needed to see to and a whole host of arrangements he had promised other people that he’d get to at his restaurant. He had a more than able crew at Dinner for Two, but it was up to him to keep everything running smoothly.
However, it felt as if everything had ground to a halt the moment he watched his mother being wheeled into the operating room. He really wasn’t up to focusing his attention on anything else.
Parents were supposed to live forever. At least the good ones were, he thought as the corners of his mouth quirked in a smile. But his father had died all those years ago, and now his mother might be in danger of joining him.
No, damn it, he wasn’t going to think like that. He’d gotten her here in time and Dr. McKenna seemed like she was very capable, so he was just going to stop entertaining these negative thoughts, stop feeling as if he was on the cusp of becoming an orphan and concentrate on the fact that his mother was going to make it through this operation and get well.
Jeff slipped his hand into his pocket and curled it around his phone. Contact with the phone made him debate calling his brother and sister to tell them what was going on. They were a close family, and he knew they wouldn’t take kindly to being kept in the dark.
But what good would it do to make them worry? Robert was at a business meeting in Los Angeles today, and Tina had small kids. She couldn’t rush over to the hospital with them, and finding a sitter would take a while. By the time either one of his siblings could get here, their mother would be out of surgery and most likely out of recovery, as well.
He’d rather be the bearer of good news than to be the one to lay worry on their doorsteps.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jeff saw one of the operating room doors open, and he was instantly alert. He held his breath as a nurse wearing scrubs and a surgical mask approached him.
“Are you Mr. Sabatino?” the nurse asked, peering up at him.
If he were any tenser, Jeff thought he’d probably snap in half. Automatically, he braced himself for bad news. “Yes, I am.”
“Dr. McKenna sent me out to tell you that everything is going according to schedule and that your mother is doing well. The operation’s going to take about another hour, and the doctor suggested that you might want to get some coffee from the cafeteria downstairs. She said to tell you that the coffee from the vending machines up here’ll kill you.” The woman’s eyes crinkled above her mask as she smiled.
Jeff almost laughed out loud at the comment. Tension began to drain out of him.
“Tell the doctor thank you,” he said, “but I’ll take my chances. I’m staying right here until she’s finished operating on my mother.”
The nurse nodded, giving no indication that his answer surprised her.
“I’ll let her know.” Her eyes crinkled slightly again above the surgical mask and she turned to walk back into the operating room.
* * *
He felt like a marathon runner who had just passed the halfway point.
He knew he should sit down, that marching up and down the length of the corridor was annoying to anyone who might be looking out of the doors located along the path he was taking, but he was just too restless to remain still for more than a couple of minutes at a time.
Finally, after what felt like forever plus twenty minutes, as he turned on his heel to retrace his steps past the OR doors for what seemed like the thousandth time, he saw them opening. This time, it was the doctor who came out.
Technically, because of the surgical mask, it could have been anyone in those blue scrubs, but he knew it was Dr. McKenna.
No one else had clear-water eyes quite that shade of blue.
Jeff cut the distance between them in less time than it took to think about it.
“Is the operation over?” he asked, suddenly afraid to ask the real question that had been preying on his mind for the last two hours.
“Yes,” Mikki replied as she removed her mask. “And your mother, I’m happy to say, came through it with flying colors.”
“Was it a tumor?” he asked, bracing himself for the worst while praying for the best.
“Yes, it was,” Mikki replied. “But the preliminary biopsy said it was benign.”
“Not malignant?” he asked, wanting to be very, very sure.
Mikki smiled. “Not malignant.”
The dam gates opened and Jeff felt relief flooding through him. Overjoyed, he wasn’t completely aware of what he did next. Wasn’t aware of throwing his arms around the woman who had come bearing good news until he suddenly realized he was doing it.
He felt her blue-clad body against his as he spun her around in a circle.
The very next second, common sense made a belated appearance, and he quickly set her down again.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
What he meant to tell Mikki was that he hadn’t meant to get so personal, or so exuberant because he was afraid he’d insulted her.
Mikki absolved him of any guilt before he could get the words out.
“That’s all right. That spin was probably the most fun I’ve had in a month,” she told him with a laugh. Gaining her bearings, Mikki went on to say, “As I told you earlier, your mother’s going to be in recovery for an hour, then they’ll take her up to her room. You’re free to go visit her then, but she’s probably going to be asleep for most of that time.”
He remembered her telling him that before and nodded. But he was more interested in something else she’d said.
“When I asked you about the tumor, you mentioned the word preliminary,” he began, wanting to have everything spelled out for him. It was important that he didn’t misunderstand or get his facts mixed up.
By the expression on her face, he could tell that the doctor knew what he was thinking. “We always like to double-check results to make sure we haven’t missed anything, but right now, it’s all looking very good, Mr. Sabatino.”
“Jeff,” he reminded her.
“Right. Jeff,” she repeated with a smile, just happy that she was able to give the man good news.
For now he had just one more question. “And was my mother mistaken about her appendix having been removed years ago? I mean, it didn’t grow back or anything, right?” he asked. “Just curious,” he added, not wanting her to think that he was in any way doubting this woman who, in his opinion, had done the impossible and gotten his mother into the operating room.
“No, it didn’t grow back, and yes, your mother was mistaken about it being removed when she was a little girl. As I said to you before we took her into the OR, your mother’s very lucky that she hadn’t had her appendix removed the way she thought she did. Having her appendix there was what saved her life.”
But Jeff shook his head. “You saved her life,” he corrected.
She was definitely not going to argue with him. The operation had been a complicated one, and she was tired. Tired with a full day still ahead of her.
“Let’s compromise and call it a team effort,” she told him. “Now, I’ve got a whole office full of patients waiting for me,” she said, already backing away. “But I will be back to look in on your mother tonight. And, of course, she’ll have nurses monitoring her progress all day.
“If you have the time now,” she said, raising her voice so that it would carry as she continued backing away, “stop by inpatient registration and give them your mother’s insurance cards and her personal information. They get very nervous if that’s not entered into the system for someone staying in one of the hospital’s single-care units.”
He had brought all the necessary papers with him. They were in his wallet.
“I’ll do that,” he told her. Then looking around, he asked, “Um, which way—”
“Inpatient registration is to your left,” Mikki called out. Then, seeing him start to go the wrong way, she prompted, “Your other left.”
He gave her a quick salute as he changed directions.
There was a lot of background noise, but he still managed to hear her laugh. The sound connected with something within him and buoyed him up.
Jeff hurried off to comply with the doctor’s request. After everything Dr. McKenna had just done, he wasn’t about to drop the ball and neglect to register his mother.
He knew that they couldn’t very well evict her—did patients get evicted from hospital rooms? he wondered. But he had no doubt that there was probably someone who was in charge of all this who might take it upon themselves to admonish Dr. McKenna about her unregistered patient.
After everything that she had just done, he wanted the doctor canonized, not given grief for an oversight, especially if it was his oversight.
And after he got his mother all squared away and properly registered, Jeff told himself, he was finally going to call Tina and Robert to let them know that their mother was in the hospital and that she had gotten through her operation with flying colors.
He intended to emphasize that she was doing just fine thanks to a very able, very kindhearted surgeon who also happened to be extremely sexy.
Maybe he’d keep that last part to himself, Jeff amended. At least for the time being.