Just You

Chapter One

"Code blue! Code blue!" A disembodied female voice shouted over the intercom.

When Juliette Sanders heard the emergency call, her pulse beat a rat-a-tat-tat and her mouth went dry. Quickly mumbling a prayer, she raced down the hospital corridor toward her daughter's room. She would never forgive herself if Halle's situation had changed in her short absence.

Please God let nothing have happened to my kid while I was gone.

Juliette ran smack into Alicia, one of Halle's favorite nurses.

"Easy!" Alicia said, balancing the swaying tray holding medicines. "Dr. Ramirez was looking for you, but he had another patient to see."

"What's wrong with Halle?"

Damn, now she'd missed her daughter's doctor. Juliette chastised herself for taking time out to have a one hour lunch with her best friend, Pattie. She seldom ever left the building, except at night. But just this once, she'd allowed Pattie to persuade her that an hour from the hospital wouldn't be so bad. She had to eat didn't she?

Alicia wouldn't look her in the eye and that made Juliette even more worried. She grabbed the nurse's wrist. "What? What? Tell me."

Alicia did a juggling act with the tray. "No need to get upset, Ms. Sanders, Halle is resting comfortably. Dr. Ramirez asked me to find you after he'd completed his rounds, but you weren't in the lounge so he said he'd see you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? You could have called me. You had my number," Juliette snapped, knowing she sounded hysterical, and more than a little bitchy, but this was her child they were talking about, a little girl who'd been diagnosed with leukemia, and who was supposedly now in remission, but had picked up some kind of infection.

"I was simply following doctor's orders."

"Page Dr. Ramirez, now," Juliette ordered, trying not to bounce off the ceiling as a million thoughts flittered through her head, none of them good.

"I'll try, but Doc's been on duty almost forty eight hours." Alicia said racing off in the opposite direction, clearly glad to be as far away from Juliette as possible. "Sorry, I need to get this to a patient."

How can I live with myself if my child took a turn for the worse while I was gone?

Juliette bolted into Halle's room, her teeth chattered ominously as she noted her daughter's still form. Thankfully the curtains were drawn around her roommate's bed so there would be no need to even be civil. Reaching out, Juliette stroked the pale hand lying on the bed sheet. Over the years she'd been mistaken for Halle's nanny more often than not, and she'd learned to accept that. After all, an African American woman wasn't supposed to have a child with blonde hair and pale skin.

"Halle, honey, momma's back," Juliette cooed. "How are you feeling, baby?"

There was no immediate response, and that scared her even more.

"She's been sleeping for a while," Alicia said, coming up behind her. "Chemo treatments are tough on patients. It sometimes takes weeks if not months to recover."

"I know, but look at her. She looks so tiny, so fragile, like a good breeze might blow her away."

Halle's nurse wasn't telling her anything she didn't know. Juliette had watched her precious child struggle after each bout of chemo. She'd held her through the nausea and vomiting. She'd watched a child with curly blond hair become bald as a tennis ball, losing long, lovely eyelashes. She'd heard the rasp in Halle's throat when the lining became raw and sore. Juliette hated this disease. She'd do anything to annihilate it.