Changes by Danielle Steel Page B

but it all seemed to be in his hands, even if it was not. In a way, she wanted it to be. It would have been simpler like that. He was a decent man, he'd make things all right … if he could.
    “There's nothing we can do right now. Although some of the new drugs may change that. We've been using some new ones lately, and that may help. The thing you have to remember”—he spoke gently to her, almost as though she were a child—“is that these people would have no chance at all without a new heart. So whatever they get is a gift. They understand that. They'll try anything, if they want to live.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Some don't. They just don't want to go through all this.” He waved at the charts and leaned back in his chair, holding his coffee cup. “It takes a lot of guts, you know.” But she realized something else now. It took a lot of guts for him too. He was a matador of sorts, going into the ring with a bull named Death, trying to steal men and women and children from him. She wondered how often he'd been gored by dashed hopes, by patients who had died whom he cared about. Somehow one sensed about him that he was a man who really cared. As though he heard her thoughts, his voice suddenly grew soft. “My wife decided not to take the chance. “He lowered his eyes as Mel watched, feeling suddenly rooted to her chair. What had he said? His wife? And then he looked up, sensing her shock, and his eyes looked straight into Mel's. They weren't damp, but she saw a grief there that explained something to her about him. “She had primary pulmonary hypertension, I don't know if that means anything to you or not. It damages the lungs, and eventually the heart, and it requires a heart-lung transplant, but at the time there had only been two done anywhere in the world, and neither of them here. I wouldn't have done it myself of course”—he sighed and leaned forward again in his chair—“she would have been operated on by one of my colleagues and the rest of the team, or we could have taken her to any of the great men around the world, and she very quietly said no. She wanted to die as she was, and not put herself, or me, or the children through the agonies she knew my patients go through, only to die anyway in six months, or a year, or two years. She faced it all with terrifying calm”—and now Mel saw that his eyes were damp—“I've never known anyone like her. She was perfectly calm about it, right up until the end.” His voice cracked and then he went on, “It was a year and a half ago. She was forty-two.”
    He looked deep into Mel's eyes then, unafraid of what he felt, and the silence was deafening in the tiny room. “Maybe we could have changed all that. But not for long.” He sounded more professional now. “I've done two heart-lungs myself in the last year. For obvious reasons, I have particularly strong feelings about that. There's no reason why it can't work, and it will.” It was too late for his wife. But in his heart he would never give up the fight, as though he could still convince her to let him try. Mel watched him with a pain in her soul for what he'd been through, and the helplessness he felt which still showed in his eyes.
    Her voice was very soft when she spoke. “How many children do you have?”
    “Three. Mark is seventeen, Pam will be fourteen in June, and Matthew is six.” Peter Hallam smiled then as he thought of his children and looked at Mel. “They're all great kids, but Matthew is the funniest little kid.” And then he sighed and stood up. “It's been hardest on him, but it's hard on all of them. Pam is at an age when she really needs Anne, and I can only give her so much. I try to get home early every day, but some crisis or other always comes up. It's damn hard to give them everything they need when you're alone.”
    “I know.” She spoke softly. “I have that problem too.”
    He turned and watched Mel's eyes, seeming not to have heard what she said. “She