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By the time the chopper set down on the roof of the hospital in Izmir, my nerves were frayed. My legs wobbled as Ethan helped me climb down and pulled me away from the thunder and wind created by the whirling blades. Despite wanting desperately to drop and kiss the rooftop, I took up a spot alongside the stretcher and followed Maddie inside the building and onto the elevator. Her face was pale beneath the oxygen mask. Only her blue eyes, filled with fear and edged with pain, stared out, looking for something—someone—to hold onto.
“I’m right here, Maddie. You’re going to be fine.” I clutched her hand in mine, trying to pour life into her frail body. The words sounded hollow in my ears, as if someone else were speaking. The voice was sure and strong—two qualities far from me at that moment. Maddie nodded and closed her eyes. The medic pushed me aside. Forced to release her hand, I drifted into the corner of the elevator to make room for them to work. Ethan ducked in beside me.
When the elevator doors opened, the medics handed the gurney off to a bustling group of doctors and nurses, all dressed in green scrubs and speaking a foreign language, which cut me out of the conversation completely. Ethan grabbed my arm as I tried to follow them down the hall.
“We need to let them work.” He looked over his shoulder. “There’s a waiting area over there.” His head tipped toward a spot down the hall in the opposite direction. Chairs lined the walls and magazines lay fanned out on a coffee table next to a vending machine. I looked back toward the giant double doors that had just swallowed Maddie. The knot in my chest tightened.
“What if...what if she doesn’t make it?” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word that flooded my mind.
Ethan slipped his hand into mine and stepped in close, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Maddie’s a tough lady. She’s going to pull through this. I think we got her here in time.” In spite of his words of reassurance, his face held deep concern.
Tears erupted and all the tension from the past hour rushed out in a flood. Her collapse, Ethan jumping in to perform CPR, waiting for help to arrive, and the dips and twists of the forever-seeming helicopter ride. Remembering the sensations of the flight over the mountains and across the foreign landscape, a queasiness rolled through my insides. My legs threatened to buckle but Ethan wrapped his arm around my waist, leading me to the waiting area to sit down before I collapsed.
“I don’t know what I’ll do if she...” A sob escaped my lips even as the word stuck in my throat. Ethan lowered me to a chair and settled into a seat beside me. Despite the warm hands surrounding my icy fingers, a cold numbness seeped into my bones. “I can’t lose her,” I whispered. “I just found her...”
“Don’t even think like that.” Ethan rubbed my hands between his as if trying to warm them and shake me out of the shock I was in. Every nerve inside me crackled like burning embers waiting to ignite the next piece of fuel that came my way. I stared down the hall at the doors, willing someone to come through them to tell me Maddie was going to be all right. My knee bounced furiously until I popped up off the chair.
“I can’t sit here and do nothing,” I cried, tears burning to the surface again as I wrung my hands together.
“Try to stay calm, Lexi. Maddie wouldn’t want you to be all upset like this. It won’t do her any good for you to fall apart. You need to stay strong.”
“I don’t know if I can.” My face fell into my hands as my shoulders shook. I turned away to hide my pitiful display of weakness. He was right. Maddie needed me to be strong. Mom and Mitch were continents away and I was on my own to make whatever decisions had to be made for Maddie’s care. She needed me to be tough and there I was, crying like a baby and thinking about myself and how much I would be hurt if she...died. Reining in my emotions, anger rode to the surface and the realization hit me. I hadn’t told her I loved her. I’d waited too long—just as I had with Amanda. “I can’t go through this again,” I said, dropping fisted hands to my sides and clamping down on my tears. I wiped my cheeks with the backs of my hands as I stared out the window at nothing.
In the next second, Ethan was behind me, his arms wrapped around my waist in a tight embrace that instantly shored up my quivering limbs. “You aren’t alone in this, Lex.” He turned me around and pulled me to his chest, where I gladly buried my face and let him stroke my hair, drawing strength from the steady beat of his heart against my ear. Whatever happened up to now was beyond my control. But what I did have control over was how I handled what came next. I clung to Ethan for a long minute and then reluctantly pushed away with a sigh.
“Thanks for the pep talk. I needed it.” I held his hand and mustered a small smile. “I mean it. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there today. You were really amazing. If anyone is responsible for saving Maddie’s life it’s you. The way you jumped in and started CPR, contacted your dad and got that helicopter—that was really something.”
A slight pink tinge crept up Ethan’s neck. “I just reacted—that’s all. I figured it was as good a time as any to call my dad out on what he owed me. I told him if he did this for me, we’d be square.” He looked at a clock on the wall. “I only hope he comes through. He said he would come as soon as he could get on the Embassy jet. He probably needed all kinds of clearances to fly into Turkey. No telling how long it will be before he’s here.” Seeing the look of panic that rose on my face, he added, “I’m sure Maddie’s in good hands.”
I hoped he was right. The corridor was now quiet and empty, and the hospital, though clean and smelling of antiseptic, seemed small and not at all what I was used to seeing in the States. Before I had a chance to voice my opinion, a tall, round faced man in a white lab coat pushed through the double doors and headed our way. It took all my strength not to rush him, but Ethan’s hand in mine held me in place.
“I am Doctor Rossoff,” said the man as he tugged off his surgical cap, revealing a short curly mop of black hair. His long craggy nose and deep set, dark eyes, identified him as Turkish as much as his thick accent and broken English. “The patient is your grandmother, no?”
I nodded, my mouth dry and my palms clammy.
“Mrs. Hartman is stable and has been moved to our cardiac care unit. We will monitor her closely. She is a very lucky woman. If treatment was not started so quickly, she would not have made it.”
I flashed a sincere look of gratitude at Ethan and then addressed the doctor. “When can I see her?”
“Mrs. Hartman is not out of danger yet. We need to do further testing, but I believe she will need bypass surgery. She says this was not her first heart attack, and I suspect we will find blockage of her arteries. I’ll have more information for you after we complete our tests.”
A nurse came up behind the doctor and handed me a clipboard. Dr. Rossoff smiled reassuringly. “The best you can do for your grandmother is to be patient and wait, fill out the required forms, and perhaps get something to eat in our café down on the first floor.” Speaking Turkish, the doctor instructed the nurse and then turned to me and Ethan again. “Our nursing staff will assist you with any questions. Most speak some amount of English. Please be patient with the language barrier.” He turned to leave.
Ethan called after him. “Doctor, did my father, Martin Kaswell, contact you about consulting on the case?”
The doctor turned halfway and remained in mid-stance. “I did receive a call asking to grant Doctor Kaswell hospital access, but I’m sure you understand how unusual a request that is on such short notice. His participation needs to be approved by our administrators. It seems the French Embassy is working to expedite the process, but none of that will matter if Mrs. Hartman takes a turn for the worse and we need to move forward with surgery before Doctor Kaswell arrives. We will do everything possible to include him in our plan of care, but rest assured, we are quite capable of caring adequately for our patients.”
A strong sense of pride rolled off the doctor, and he was obviously insulted by the prospect of a foreigner moving in on his turf. Before Ethan and I could respond, he added, “Why don’t we take things one step at a time? I’ll keep you updated on your grandmother’s progress.” He nodded formally, turned away, and walked briskly down the hall. He disappeared behind the double doors again, leaving me holding a clipboard with paperwork written in what I assumed was Turkish, the pages covered in artful swirls, dots, and slashes. I sighed and lowered myself into a stiff, hard backed chair.
“What if your father doesn’t make it in time?”
Ethan stared after the doctor as the door swung shut, his brows pulled together in a frown. “He’d better make it—and soon. If anything happens to Maddie, he’ll have more to deal with than me never speaking to him again.”