Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese [267]
She felt the response arrive as distinctly as if it were a voice or a touch: first, a lightness in her forehead, then a calmness in her chest that said she had been heard. Thank you, thank you, Hema said. I promise to keep you updated.
She returned to the waiting room. She was so exhausted that she could only wonder how Stone and Deepak managed to stay upright. From the waiting room window the earth looked as if it were mostly sky and concrete—no real earth to speak of, no manifestation of nature on the ground other than the sun setting in that direction. It was so odd, and yet this was the view her son had known for the last six years.
At 7:00 p.m., Thomas Stone was at her side. He nodded, then smiled, an expression so rare that she knew it had gone well. He said nothing, and she, too, was speechless, tears running down her cheeks. In studying Stone's face, grooved where his magnifying spectacles and lamp had sat, and grooved also from worry and work, she realized with a start how old he had become, how old they had both become, and how if they had nothing else in common, they had this: that they were both still standing after all these years, and that her sons (his, too, at some level, she had to admit) were both alive.
Thomas Stone sat down, or rather fell into the sofa, and he didn't protest when she forced juice and a sandwich on him from Vinu's ice chest of goodies. Stone washed the juice down with a bottle of water and started on a second before life seemed to stir within him. His gaunt face filled out. “Technically, everything has gone well,” he said. “Marion's new liver, Shiva's old lobe, was already making bile before we had even finished the anastomosis.” He smiled again, a shy twist of the corners of his mouth, pride in his voice. The bile, he said, was an excellent sign.
“We had a scare,” he added. “There was a moment when Marion's blood pressure dropped precipitously. No explanation for it. We were ahead on fluid and blood, but still his heart raced to one hundred and eighty beats a minute. We poured fluid in, tried this and that … and just as suddenly, the pressure came back up.” She was about to ask him precisely what time that was, but then she didn't bother, because she knew. She closed her eyes and thanked Sister for her intercession. When she opened them, Thomas Stone was staring at her as if he understood. She felt so close to him, so grateful. She couldn't go so far as to hug him, but she did reach for his hand.
“So, I must leave now,” he said to Hema after a minute. “It will be touch-and-go for a while for Marion, given how sick he was when we started. But at least he has a working liver. His kidneys are still not functioning, and he needs dialysis, but I trust it is just hepatorenal syndrome and the new liver will fix that.” He was holding things back from her. He didn't tell her how, when things had looked so dire in the operating room, hed looked up at the ceiling and prayed not to a God or to spiders, but to Sister Mary Joseph Praise, asking to be redeemed for a lifetime of mistakes.
THERE WAS REJOICING in the hospital, first that one of its own who had been near death was still alive, and second that Our Lady had made history. The Mass of Gratitude in the chapel was packed, Hema and Vinu in the front pew and the crowd spilling out to the cloisters.
Outside Our