The Courage Tree - Diane Chamberlain [132]
“Mr. Donohue!” she said, rushing toward him. “I wanted to catch you before you left. A few of the kids are getting their IVs right now, and their parents wanted to see you.”
“I don’t really have time.” Joe kept walking. He was not up to meeting a bunch of sick kids and their parents.
“Please. They begged me to bring you back to the Herbalina room.”
He made a show of looking at his watch, although there was nowhere he truly needed to be.
“Okay,” he said. “Just for a minute.”
She guided him down the hallway once again. The large room at the end of the hall reminded him a bit of a dialysis treatment room, but there were none of the cumbersome dialysis machines, only IV bags on poles, and four kids sitting in recliners. Three women and one man rose to their feet as he entered the room.
“Joe!” one of the women said, as though she knew him. She took his hand, squeezing it between both of hers. “We feel so terrible.”
“Sophie was such a delight,” another woman said. “We all miss her so much.”
“She was doing so well on Herbalina,” the first woman said. “It’s so unfair.”
The man shook Joe’s hand. “I’m Jack’s dad,” he said, nodding toward the small boy in the recliner. “We got to be sort of a family here. I know you didn’t think much of the study, from what Janine said, but I hope you realize now that she was making the right choice for Sophie.”
Joe nodded. “I know.”
“That was Sophie’s chair.” One of the women pointed to the recliner nearest the window. A few stuffed animals were propped up against the back of the seat. “All the kids brought stuffed animals in, you know, for Sophie when she came back. I guess we’ll eventually donate them to the hospital or something, but for now we like having them there as a reminder of her.”
Joe could only nod again; he seemed to have lost his voice. He could picture Sophie in that chair, hooked up to an IV the way these other kids were, bravely enduring yet another affront to her fragile and unreliable body.
He looked around him at the three boys and one girl. A couple of the boys smiled at him. Another read a magazine, while the little girl colored in a coloring book. Joe knew they were all smaller than their ages would suggest, but they had rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes.
And thanks to Lucas Trowell, they had every reason to hope.
CHAPTER FORTY
Joe needed to be alone.
After leaving Schaefer’s office, he drove directly home. Downstairs in his family room, he mixed himself a drink, even though it was still early in the day and he was not much of a drinker. Right now, though, he felt the need.
The stack of videos Janine had given him was on the coffee table, and he picked one up at random and inserted it into the VCR, then slouched down on the sofa and hit the play button on the remote. The image on the television was of a clinical-looking room, the walls lined with recliners, and it took him only a moment to recognize the setting as the room he had visited an hour earlier: Schaefer’s Herbalina room. But in this film, the chairs were empty, the room still. Then, suddenly, he heard voices, and the camera moved in the direction of the long, empty hallway.
The red-haired nurse appeared in the hallway, leading Janine, Lucas and Sophie toward the Herbalina room. Janine held Sophie’s hand, and Lucas had one hand on Janine’s elbow. In his other hand, the one with the splint, he was carrying a plastic grocery bag.
“See the camera, Sophie?” the nurse said, pointing straight ahead of her. “You’re one of our first patients, so we’re making a little movie about you.”
The camera closed in on Sophie.
Sophie.
Oh, God. So tiny and pale. She looked puffy and sick; Joe had almost forgotten how sick she had looked before starting Herbalina. She was clutching Janine’s hand hard, and the frightened look in her huge eyes seemed to be asking, What new torture do I have to endure now?
“You don’t need to be afraid, Sophie.” Janine seemed well aware of her daughter’s trepidation. “You’re just visiting here today, and Gina will