Only after the funeral had it begun to sink in that his mother and father would never be there with them again. Only when Destiny had moved into the house, trying in her own unexpected way to make things normal, had he fully grasped that things had changed forever. His aunt was such a dramatic change from their parents, and in some ways a welcome one. She was always laughing, always unpredictable, always ready for a new experience. It had been easier after a while to simply pretend that his world was okay.
But it hadn’t been. He could see now that it had never been okay, that the scar from losing his folks ran deep, shaping him in ways he hadn’t had to confront until he contemplated losing first Beth over something foolish and now Tony through a ravaging illness. He was terrified right down to his soul that he would never recover from this loss, that he would never dare to risk his heart again.
He wasn’t thinking just of himself now, either. He didn’t want Maria Vitale to have to face the feelings that had shaped his life. Nor could he handle watching Beth struggle so hard to bear that loss, that stark reminder of another boy—her beloved brother—who had died of the same devastating illness.
Filled with a sense of urgency, he made a mental checklist as he went down the hall. As he passed Beth, she gave him a questioning look. He mouthed that he would be outside, and she nodded. Then she and the other doctors kept on talking, struggling for answers that could buy Tony a few more days, or even a few more hours.
It was a half hour later and Mack was still on the phone when Beth finally broke free and came outside looking for him. He reached for her hand and gave her a tired smile as he wrapped up this one last call. She looked as wiped out as he felt.
“You okay?” she asked when he’d finished and stuck the cell phone back in his pocket.
“How could I be?” he asked, astounded that she had enough strength to worry about him, when she so clearly needed comfort herself.
She raised a hand, rested it against his cheek. “Don’t take it so hard, Mack. We knew this could happen.”
Her quiet acceptance, her defeatist attitude, grated. “We can’t let it happen,” he said angrily, shrugging off her touch and her words. “I won’t listen to you give up on him.”
“Sometimes you do everything you can and it’s not enough,” she said pragmatically.
“I can’t accept that,” he stated flatly. “I’ve made some calls.”
“To?”
“The team.”
She gave him a bewildered look. “Why?”
“He needs a bone marrow transplant, right? That’s his only hope?”
She nodded. “But the chances—”
He cut her off. He wouldn’t listen to any more doubts. “I’ve got just about everyone I know coming in here to be tested as potential donors. Can the lab handle that?”
She stared at him, her expression filled with disbelief and maybe just a tiny hint of hope. “Yes,” she said at once. “I’ll alert them right away, but are you sure? Did you explain to them that it’s not just a simple little blood test?”
“They get it,” Mack assured her. “They understand the important part, that it’s a chance to save a boy’s life.” He met her gaze. “You can start right now with me. I should have done it weeks ago. It never even occurred to me that it was the one thing I should do that might really make a difference.”
Sudden tears welled up in her eyes. “Oh, Mack.”
He squeezed her hand. “Let’s get started. That boy has to live, Beth. He has to.”
What he couldn’t say was how terrified he was of losing not only Tony but Beth. The two were so connected by now, he didn’t think he could bear it if he lost either one.
Beth would have sworn that she’d already shed all the tears she possibly could, way back when her brother had died. Since then she’d maintained a stoic kind of calm in the face of each and every loss that had come her way. She might be shaken when she lost a patient, she might feel like a failure, but she never shed a tear. Even today, when she’d been forced to accept that the end was all but inevitable for Tony, her eyes had remained dry.
Now, though, as she watched one brawny football player after another appear to be tested as a prospective bone marrow donor, she kept bursting into tears. Mack had finally gone to the gift shop and brought back the biggest box of tissues the store offered.
She blinked away a fresh batch of tears when she spotted Mack’s brother Richard, accompanied by a man who could only be another Carlton, the reclusive artist, Ben. Her eyes grew even mistier when she saw that Destiny was with them.