“So this doesn’t show up on routine physical exams?” Bradford clarified, his mind having already raced ahead to the upcoming mandatory physical J’Quarius had to undergo before signing with CSKA Moscow.
“Nope. This wasn’t an oversight of any of his pediatricians or anything they could have possibly predicted. Nobody did anything wrong here,” Dr. Bennett said, incorrectly inferring where Bradford was going with his line of questioning.
“So what would the odds be of something like this, or worse, happening if he were to play basketball again?” Bradford probed.
“The risk that this would happen again is high. The American Academy of Cardiology has published a guideline that participation in sports be stopped immediately,” Dr. Bennett said definitively.
“But wouldn’t that decision ultimately be left to the parents?” Bradford asked, keyed in on the fluidity of the word ‘guideline.’
Dr. Bennett was aghast. “Mr. Bradford, did I not make myself clear that this is a potentially life-threatening condition? He might get away with one game or two or even ten, but it’s Russian roulette. Yes, technically the decision is up to the parents, but there’s no decision to be made here. Now, do you want to break this news to him, or do you want me to do it?”
“I will!” Bradford blurted out. “He hasn’t heard anything yet, correct?”
“That’s right,” Dr. Bennett said. “For now, would you mind if I at least let the Washingtons know what’s going on? They’re scared to death.”
“Actually I would. What I would expect is that you comply with the law and keep all of this information private. Thank you,” Bradford said, hanging up his phone. This was potentially disastrous, but if he could just get him through one more game and then the Russian team’s physical in 2 weeks, he could at least turn a substantial profit before shutting him down.
“Olivera?” the nurse called out impersonally through the swinging double doors, failing to recognize that there was only one patient seated in the waiting room.
Annamaria slowly rose to a stand, self-consciously holding the back of her hospital gown together to make sure she was fully covered, and hesitantly shuffled toward the door. She had already been through the most thorough physical of her life, and her upper arms were throbbing from all of the vaccinations she’d received. She couldn’t imagine what else they could have planned for her.
The previous day, she had dutifully boarded a cab for Panama City after a morning of tearful goodbyes to the other children and the staff at the orphanage. The headmaster, unable to come up with a sensitive way to break the news to her, had essentially run out of time, so, despite his best intentions, he’d broken the news to her that she’d be leaving the day before it was scheduled to happen. And the only part of it that he could find the words to express was that she was being adopted by an American couple. Nothing else. Certain he would never be forgiven, he only hoped she wouldn’t hold it against the orphanage.
Annamaria hadn’t wanted to leave, but she hadn’t fought it. Told in a nebulous manner that she could help more by leaving than by staying, she had readily agreed. But her heart was broken. It had taken everything she had to keep her chin up and give comforting smiles to the whimpering preschoolers, as she lugged her backpack to the cab. Once inside though, she had sobbed the entire 90-minute ride to Panama City.
Multiple times throughout the day, she had regretted her decision to leave the orphanage and had been able to reason her way through it, but lying there alone on a gurney, as a 20-gauge needle connected to an IV line sunk into a vein in her right arm, she hit a breaking point. Her eyes nearly bulging out of her their sockets, her chest gripped with fear, she screamed, “Stop! What are you doing to me?”
But before her scream had even finished echoing off the pale blue-green tiles of the pre-op room, she felt her heart rate begin to slow. And she was enveloped by a mysterious warmth.
Overwhelmed by the urge to sleep, she felt herself being wheeled through another set of doors, where a shining stainless steel tray covered with glistening surgical tools stood out on a drab green cloth. She still didn’t know what was happening to her. But with her IV running, she didn’t care
Nurses on either side of her clumsily lowered the rails on the sides of the gurney with a loud clang. The last thing she remembered was a man in hospital scrubs and a surgical mask tugging on her gown, leaving her exposed from the waist up. But in her unnaturally relaxed state, even that didn’t seem to merit maintaining wakefulness.
“My chest hurts,” Annamaria quietly moaned, gradually coming to. “And my stomach.”
A nurse hurried over to hush the agitated beeping of her IV pump, and within thirty seconds, she was peacefully back to sleep.
CHAPTER 7
“At six feet, ten inches, power forward, J’Quarius Jones, cum laude,” the principal shouted, his voice building to a crescendo that couldn’t come close to matching the volume of the amped up crowd, who easily overwhelmed the high school gym’s basic sound system and drowned out the mention of the academic accolade.
A beaming J’Quarius, wearing a Magic Johnson-like smile, floated across the stage in his double-XL black gown, which barely stretched down to his knees, and gave an appreciative tip of his cap to the crowd, squinting into the stands, trying to pick out his parents as he walked.
After a hearty handshake from the principal, he waved one last time to the crowd before quickly descending the steps on the far side of the stage cradling his diploma. As proud as he was, he didn’t want to take the spotlight off the graduates behind him. The next time he was called on to a stage though — when the NBA commissioner was the one waiting to shake his hand — that he would take time to savor.
Twelve rows up at center court, while his wife struggled to get a decent angle on a picture, Hansford Washington stopped clapping, just long enough to brush a tear from his eye. This had been a long time coming. He hadn’t walked at his high school graduation because of some stupid decisions he’d made, and his biological son had had his opportunity tragically ripped away by a drunk driver two years shy of his graduation ceremony.
When all was said and done, this probably wouldn’t end up ranking in the top fifty of J’Quarius’s biggest accomplishments, but the moment couldn’t have meant more to Hansford. He went on clapping right through the next graduate’s announcement, until J’Quarius finally spotted him in the crowd. Matching his son’s smile, he nodded and signaled a proud double-thumbs-up across the gym.
Later that evening, as was tradition the night before a game, Arlene Washington cooked the family a big pasta dinner. Tonight it was spaghetti with meatballs — J’Quarius’s choice.
“You’re gonna miss these in Russia, JQ,” Arlene said, piling a fourth massive meatball on the heaping mound of pasta that would be his typical first serving.
“Yeah,” he said dispassionately, keeping his gaze fixed down on his plate. “There’s a lot I’m gonna miss.”
“Come on, now. It’s only a year, and we’ll be over there on every break we get during the school year,” Hansford said. Then he lowered his head, and with his jaws clenched together and his eyebrows mischievously raised, he covertly mumbled without moving his lips, “And sun of those fretty Russian girls night vee very haffy to neet you,” intending his wife not to hear. The sharp smack that jarred his whole head forward, almost into his plate of spaghetti, indicated that she had.