Читать книгу I Need More - Kimberley White - Страница 8

He refused to let her go.

He couldn’t let her go.

Brock knew he must let Erika go. Wasn’t this what he’d decided the first day? The moment he found out, his first thought had been of Erika and what it would mean to her life. He had struggled with his decision, continued to struggle with it now, but the right thing to do was to end his marriage with the hope that Erika would go on to live a happy, productive life. It was the reason he’d started to pull away from her. Not because he didn’t love her. It had been difficult to watch her hurt as he withdrew his affection, stamping out the core foundation of their marriage, but in the end, it would shorten her suffering.

He watched Erika approach, her crisp white lab coat unable to hide the fluid shift of her hips. He could smell her sweetness before she reached him, his mind playing tricks because he missed the softness of her touch, the unspoken understanding of his quirky ways, the gentleness of her kiss, and the ever-present support she gave by holding him in her arms.

He had come to the realization he had to end his marriage, and believed himself emotionally ready to accept his fate—until she walked into his office the other morning announcing she’d taken the necessary steps to end their limbo. The divorce papers made it too real. He had almost choked as his breakfast pushed its way up into his throat. His love for her materialized with such force he had become irrational, refusing to sign the papers when he had promised her a long time ago he’d always give her whatever she wanted.

“How’s my patient doing?” Erika’s presence settled around him like a broken-in blanket, soft and fuzzy and warm. He wanted to wrap her around him and absorb the love she had once offered. She encompassed the opposite of all of his qualities. Her kindness was genuine and unlimited, freely given to everyone she encountered. She calmed him, and made him believe he was invincible. Her face was not only flawlessly beautiful, her expressions openly displayed each of her emotions. She had barged into his life unexpectedly, opening her heart to him without pretense, and he’d immediately fallen in love with her.

“He’s stable. Neuro wants to keep him in the ICU for a few more days.” They began to leave the unit, walking side by side, her nearness enough to weaken his knees.

“Any deficits from the stroke?”

They were all about business, no signs of the closeness they’d once shared. “Hard to tell until he wakes up.”

She shook her head. “It was blood pressure related. He wouldn’t take his antihypertensives. He kept telling me he felt fine. I kept telling him it’s common to be asymptomatic with hypertension.”

“You did all you could do,” he assured her as he stood aside to allow her to exit the unit first.

“There’s always more I can do.”

Erika always thought there was more she could do for her patients. She took it hard when one became acutely ill. He’d witnessed her crying when her patients died. She offered a tiny piece of her soul to everyone she encountered, losing a bit of herself when those she cared about were hurting. His duty as her husband, as the man who loved her more than anyone else ever could, was to replenish her mind and body. How could he be contemplating reneging on his original plan and refusing her a divorce when his situation threatened to destroy her?

“Don’t beat yourself up for what you can’t control,” he told her.

She glanced up at him, cleverly finding double meaning in his words. She stopped, turning to him. “Things don’t always turn out the way we want them to.”

“No, they don’t.” He itched to reach out and caress her lips, wiping away her frown.

“We shouldn’t belabor this.”

He glanced away, checking the hallway to find they weren’t alone. “We’ll talk. Later.”

She watched him, clouds of confusion washing over the smooth planes of her face. “I’m going to hold you to it, Brock.”

He pressed his lips together, afraid he was about to blurt out how he really felt. Instead, he nodded.

“I’m going to check on my patient. I want to speak with his wife. See how she’s holding up.”

The long-suffering wife. Afraid her husband was going to die, prematurely leaving her and ending their life together. It would kill him to see Erika hurting this way.

“Erika,” he called as she walked away.

She turned to face him. Her gentle nature was palpable, warming the air and washing over him in soft waves. How could she be strong and determined, and so loving and forgiving at the same time? He knew it was selfish, but he couldn’t let her go. He needed to be in her heart; he had to be the man of her dreams.

“Brock?”

He blinked, unable to clear his warring emotions.

She came to him. “Are you okay?”

He watched for her reaction as he lifted his hand and rested his palm against her cheek. Shocked, there was a hitch in her breathing. A moment passed and her body relaxed into his touch. If they had been alone, he would have pulled her in close, buried his face in her neck, and apologized for all the grief he had caused her. Instead, he leaned in and pressed his lips very softly to hers. When he pulled away, she was watching him, her lashes beating frantically. Before she could recover and ask any of the hundreds of questions flashing behind her eyes, he walked away.

“How are you feeling?”

“Physically? Fine.” Brock slipped off the exam table and began buttoning his shirt. “A little tired sometimes, but otherwise okay.”

“Get more rest. I can write you off from work for a couple of weeks.” Dr. Hassan Kabul was already reaching into his lab coat for a prescription pad.

“No.” Work helped maintain his sanity when everything else was so out of his control. It gave him a focus other than how much he missed his wife.

“I don’t have to tell you there are support groups—”

“For husbands who have separated from their wives and now want them back?”

“No shit?” Hassan asked, smiling beneath his turban. His accent made his attempt to curse comical, but Brock hadn’t been able to convince him to stop trying. According to Hassan, he was a full-blooded American now, and his accent had been left behind with all the dark memories of the brutality in his homeland. “I told you, a wife’s place is next to her husband. What do your American wedding vows say? ‘In illness and in health’?”

“Something like that.”

“Erika would want to know what is going on. She would want to stand by you.”

Brock shrugged into his lab coat. “Not a word about this to Erika.” He knew doctor-patient privilege would make Hassan keep his secret, but he wanted the promise of a friend.

“Not a word from me.” Hassan crossed his legs, balancing himself on the tiny stool. “Any decision about what you’d like to do?”

How many options did he have? “You act like I have a choice.”

“There are choices.”

Brock leaned on the edge of the exam table, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

Hassan continued, “I think we should move beyond the observation phase.”

He froze, everything coming to an abrupt halt in his mind. “Surgery?”

“It was my recommendation from the beginning.” He leaned forward, an earnest expression on his face. “My friend, you have testicular cancer. We should have acted seven months ago. You wanted time to get your life in order. Your tumor makers have changed. We have to move on this now.”

“Surgery?” he asked again, not believing it had come to this.

“Radical orchiectomy followed by single-dose carboplatin adjuvant therapy.” Hassan scribbled something in Brock’s medical chart.

“Wait. You want to remove my testicle and give me radiation therapy?”

“It’s the recommended standard of care.”

His nightmare began in the shower eight months ago, after making love to Erika. He’d had a hard day, and she’d been so sweet, greeting him at the door naked except for a short silk robe. His emotions were on overdrive, so foreplay was short. He would often play with Erika’s body for hours, not making love to her until she begged, on the verge of implosion. This night was different. He was the one in a hurry. He wanted her more than he’d ever needed her before. He dominated her body, egotistically taking what he wanted. She bucked beneath him, encouraging his selfishness until he turned over his control, coming with an explosion he would never forget.

As an internal medicine doctor, Erika preached prevention to her patients. At home, they’d made a sexy game out of her monthly breast exam. But he was like so many other physicians, keyed in on his patients’ health but neglectful of his own. He’d left Erika to sleep after their vigorous lovemaking while he showered, and that’s when he’d discovered the small lump on the right side of his scrotum.

Hassan had been encouraging, assuring him it was probably epididymitis, an infection of one of the cords responsible for transporting sperm. He was treated with antibiotics and scheduled for a follow-up visit. The antibiotics didn’t work. The lump remained, and he began experiencing swelling and tenderness. Hassan scheduled an ultrasound of his testicles, which warranted more testing, and eventually a tumor was confirmed. The mass measured two centimeters, which should have placed him at stage II, but the cancer hadn’t spread to his lymph nodes, and Hassan labeled it a stage I seminoma—it was all a play on words, because the cancer had already grown enough to limit his treatment options.

Brock shook his head adamantly. “I can’t let you remove my testicle. I can’t do radiation.” He couldn’t deal with the side effects when he’d just decided to get Erika back. “I need a quick fix, doc.”

“Being a doctor, you know there aren’t any.”

“Remove my testicle?” He laughed sarcastically.

“This cancer has a greater than 95 percent cure rate, but we have to do something. We can’t just wait around hoping it will go away on its own.” Hassan began writing in his chart. “I’m ordering more tests today. We’ll get you scheduled for surgery next week.”

“I can’t—”

“Brock, you know what can happen.”

He did. His father had died from the same disease.

“Next week, Brock.”

“I need to do a couple of things first.”

Hassan stood and approached his friend. “I’m in this with you, but we can’t fool around anymore.”

He dropped his head in defeat. The moment he’d found the mass, he knew his life was changing for the worse. He fit the profile. An African-American man between the ages of 15 and 35, with a familial history of testicular cancer was at the top of the hit list. At 35, he’d thought he’d managed to escape. At 30, Erika was too young to watch her husband die.

“If the surgery and radiation don’t work?”

“Don’t get so far ahead.”

“Hassan, please.” He already knew the answer, but male cancers weren’t his specialty. Maybe there had been medical advances he wasn’t aware of.

“We try chemotherapy.”

“And then?”

“And then? We won’t worry about ‘and then’ because the surgery will remove the tumor and radiation will keep the cancer from spreading to the lymph nodes.”

“But if it doesn’t?”

Hassan sighed. “Surgery. Radiation therapy. Chemotherapy.”

Brock looked away, not wanting his friend to see his weakness. The muscles in his neck were so tight he couldn’t turn his head. The taste of bile lingered at the back of his throat. His mind raced uncontrollably and he was unable to filter out incoherent thoughts. The stench of industrial-strength disinfectants threatened to strangle him. He was scared. He was afraid of dying. He was afraid of losing Erika. But mostly, he was afraid of dying and leaving her alone.

“There’s something else to consider,” Hassan hedged.

“What?”

“You said you want to get back together with Erika.”

“I can’t do this to Erika. I can’t saddle her with an invalid.”

“Brock, my friend. You can go on to live a healthy, happy life.”

Not without Erika. And he couldn’t have Erika if he was half a man.

“You must tell Erika. Let her make her own decision. It is what you Americans do—let your women make their own decisions.”

He managed to smile at his friend’s peculiar personality. Hassan, a man who suffered prejudice every time he went near an airport, dismissed the rights of women.

“Seriously, you have to consider a future with her. If you decide you want kids later…”

“I won’t be able to have any.” If the radiation didn’t zap his ability to produce sperm, the surgical removal of his testicle would severely limit it.

“It may become an issue.”

Brock couldn’t handle any more issues right now.

“Visit a sperm bank before we begin treatment,” Hassan said matter-of-factly. “Secure your future ability to make a choice.”