My Sister's Keeper

Chapter 41

41

ASHLEIGH MATTHEWS SAT in a waiting room at Duke University Medical Center idly flipping through the pages of a dog-eared copy of Cosmopolitan. The only other person in the room—a man—surfed the channels on a TV mounted high on a wall.

Her brother David had been in surgery for five hours and she'd heard nothing from the doctor. She dropped the magazine on the seat next to her and walked to the nurse's station. "Have you heard anything about how things are going with David's operation? How much longer it might be?"

"The doctor will come and speak with you just as soon as he's out of surgery."

"Does it usually take this long?"

"What they're doing with David? Yes."

"Thank you."

Ashleigh paced to a window, stopped, and scanned the view. The TV paused on each channel just long enough to hear six or seven words before jumping to another. She addressed the man. "Do you have to keep doing that?"

He looked up surprised. "Sorry. I didn't realize I was doing it. It drives my wife crazy, too."

"Thanks." The TV had stopped on a local Durham station doing a newscast. "An explosion and fire claimed the lives of three women in Wrightsville Beach last night..."

The man leaned forward, set the remote on a table in front of him, and sat back. "We've only been married about a year. Last month we found out she has breast cancer."

"I'm very sorry," Ashleigh said stepping closer to the TV as video of the burned out ruins played on the screen.

"...and destroyed a luxurious three-story ocean-front house in what police believe was an attempt to eradicate evidence in the murder of a woman whose body had been found hours earlier at another Wrightsville location. Police are seeking two men for questioning in the case—one unidentified, and one named Dane Bonner. In a related story, the body of the man killed in an explosion and fire that ripped through a 1998 Corvette less than two hours later at a truck stop along I-40 has not yet been identified. The Corvette, however, was registered in the name of Dane Bonner and police are looking into both incidents to see if they are related."

Ashleigh felt her chest tighten.

"Ashleigh?" a man's voice called from across the room.

She turned to discover Dr. Harry Tatum standing in an open doorway. He was dressed in green scrubs with slip-on covers over his shoes and a white mask dangling under his chin. As she hastened to him, the Looney Tunes characters on his surgical cap —Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, and Sylvester—eased the tension she felt in her neck.

"Everything went extremely well." His voice was relaxed and positive. "He's in recovery now. We don't know yet how well this new artificial skin is going to work, but if it goes like we think it will, he's eventually going to have his face back."

"Can I see him?"

"After he wakes up and we get him into a room. But," he waved a finger at me. "I'm warning you, Ashleigh, he's not going to look good. Probably not for weeks."

Her eyes reddened. "I understand."

"Now go get a bite to eat and check back around four." He flashed a warm smile.

"Okay. Thank you."

"You bet."

Dr. Tatum nodded and stepped back, the door slowly swallowing him. Ashleigh turned back to the TV News. They were now running a commercial. She got her coat and pulled it on.