Page 15 of Trevor

“Hello?Henry?Is something wrong?”He nearly wept when he heard Trevor on the other end.After telling him what was going on, he laughed a little.“I’m in town now, as a matter of fact.I can be there in just a couple of minutes, ten at the most.”

“Thank you, son.Thank you so much.Don’t tell the women.I just want to get the news and deal with it on my own for a few minutes before I have to talk to them.They’ll pester me to death with questions, and I know that I won’t have the answers.Maybe you can listen, and you’ll be able to help me out.”

“You’re thinking that this isn’t going to be him telling you that your diabetes is gone, am I right?”He said that he’d been feeling off for a bit and thought that he was going to tell him something more.“I’ll be there for you.And I can understand wanting someone there to remember for you.My dad does that and sometimes goes with people to the doctor to hear the news.I’ll be there soon.”

The relief that he felt had him feeling a little guilty.Asking him to what he thought of was a lie to his wife and granddaughter.However, this was important.He didn’t know why, but he was worried that he had cancer.It had been something that had taken his older and younger brothers when they’d been young men and his mother.He didn’t want to know, but he knew that it was important too.As soon as Trevor opened the office door, he held onto him like he was a lifeline.And he was for him in that moment.A lifeline to a better life, he hoped.

True to her word, the receptionist took him back as soon as Trevor arrived.They were sitting in the little room when one of the nurses came in and took his vitals.His blood pressure was a little high, and he told her that he was nervous.She never gave him a reason not to be.Just telling him to relax, and she’d take it again.

“I don’t know that you’ll find the numbers to be all that different.I’m still nervous.”She said that it was the same, and he was going to have to keep from getting himself worked up.Like that was going to happen when your doctor clears a time for you to come in the same day.Usually, it was weeks before a person could get in to see him.Bidding his time, he was glad that there wasn’t a clock in the room, or he might have been—

“Henry.”He looked at Trevor when he stood up.“Henry, you don’t know what he’s going to say to you and you’re worked up enough to give yourself a heart attack.Breathe in and out and try to think of something else.Like what you’re going to be doing when the great-grandchildren come along.”

“You two having a baby right away?”He asked him if he knew what Henrie wanted to do.“I don’t know, really.I know that she wanted kids at one time, but I don’t know—you have no idea how much I’d love to see one of my great-grandchildren being born.Oh my the fun I’ll have with them.I’ll get to tell them all about their mommy.And about you too.I’d love another little girl like Henrie was but a little boy that looks like you?Well, that would make me prouder than a speckled pup under a little red wagon, it would.”

“Right now, we’re just waiting on her ribs to get better.I’d marry her today if I thought that she’d say yes.”He said that he could tell that she was falling in love with him.“Really?Oh, I can’t wait to tell her that I love her.I’m giving her time, you see.I don’t want to rush her into anything just yet.”

They talked for another twenty minutes, and he felt better.His head was beginning to pound, and his chest was hurting a little bit.Glad now more than ever that he’d brought Trevor into his circle, Henry decided that whenever he had to get bad news, if this was bad news or had to make a decision, he was going to have him at his side.Trevor was calming and smart.The man would treat his baby girl the best when they got married and into love.

The nurse came in and took his blood pressure again, and it was within margin.It made him feel so much better that before she left the room, she took it again for him.It was what it usually was, a nice low pressure, and even that took some of the edge off his fear.He looked at Trevor when she left the two of them alone again.

“Hello, Henry.How are you feeling?”And just like that, the doctor coming in, he felt like he was going to have a heart attack again.Doctor Weston tsked at him and told him that this wasn’t the end of the world.“You’ll see we’ve come so far in medical procedures since your family was diagnosed.”

“I have cancer.”Doctor Weston said that he didn’t know that yet, but his blood numbers were a concern.“What do you have to do to find out what is wrong?I’ll do it.You know I will.Henrie is going to be marrying soon and I’ve made plans to be around when the children come.”

“And you will be if you stop worrying over little things.I just said your blood numbers were concerning.That doesn’t mean you have cancer.It might just be you have an infection or something.Let’s not burn down bridges until we have all the tests back.”He told him that he didn’t know if he could do that.“Well, then, I think it’s a good thing that you have Trevor Strong with you here.He comes from a good family, and his father is a good man.The entire family are people that you can depend on.I just want you to go over to the hospital today and have some more extensive tests done.Also, an MRI as well as a CAT scan.”

Arrangements were made, and he was going to go straight over to the hospital and be admitted.Only because the stress test would need to be done first thing in the morning, and they wanted him rested—by medication so that he’d tolerate the test better.It was time to call his wife and Henrie and he didn’t even want to do that.Trevor said that he didn’t mind and that he could call them both at the same time and it would be better.They could ask him questions, and he’d be able to answer them both at the same time.Henry loved that idea and fell a little deeper in love with the young man more than he had before.He really was a good man.

They were both surprisingly calm when Trevor talked to them.He thought it was because he wasn’t emotional like he would have been.Telling them what the doctor said, even about medical treatments coming a long way, he had them calmly coming in with the family limo.That way, they didn’t have to worry about them driving and getting into an accident.

As soon as they all hung up, Trevor told him he was ready and that he’d be already in his room when they arrived.Good.He thought that would be easier on him, too.Not having to push anyone out of his room when he was getting his gown on.Then he remembered that his wife was bringing him some pajamas, and he’d feel better with his own pillow, too.Trevor had thought of everything.

He was in a gown, what they preferred him to be in when his wife and granddaughter arrived.Not only had she brought him his clothing, but he had his kit too, shaver, deodorant and other necessities.Since he didn’t need to be in the bed just yet, he pulled on his pants so that he’d not forget himself.They had more questions when Anna and Henrie arrived and Trevor got a nurse to come in and answer them for them all four.He was going to adopt Trevor, he told his wife.Of course that helped as well, breaking the tension that had been in the room.

Just when his wife was making up her bed in one of the chairs, he was taken down to get the scans done.While he’d never had an MRI before, he was glad that the nurse had warned him that it was going to be loud.After that test, he did feel a little nervous again, and the nurses’ station, as he passed by there, told him that they had a little bit of something to help him relax.As soon as they put it into his IV, he could feel it working.It was just the ticket.He was feeling much better about all the crap going on.

Since Anna was going to spend the night in the room with him, he did try to get her to go home, he was ready for a little television and then bed.Getting into the bed with him, she and he watched their favorite newscasters as well as a couple of game shows.After the news, however, Trevor and Henrie left, telling him that they’d be there in the morning first thing.His first test was scheduled for eight, and that was fine with him.

Twice in the middle of the night, they woke him up to take his blood pressure and other vitals.Anna didn’t wake either time, for which he was grateful, and was glad that one of them was getting a good night’s sleep.Whatever happened tomorrow, one of them had to be on their toes.As soon as he was going back to sleep, he came to a decision that he thought Anna could take care of for him.He was going to put Trevor in charge of the money that he was leaving to charities and that would give his heart a little better feeling.He trusted his attorney, but he wanted something that had a vested interest in his life to make sure that the charities got what he wanted them to.And he knew that Trevor would be that man.

By the time the sun came up the next morning, he was ready for his day of tests.Doctor Weston was coming in to see him at noon to go over things, and he was glad about that, too.So far, things hadn’t been too bad, but Henry was glad that his little family was right there with him.As soon as he got back from his stress test, feeling slightly run down, he was also glad to see that Trevor’s parents had come in and brought food for them.

Henry had really fallen into a good family with this one and he thought perhaps he was the luckiest man in the world right now.He also knew that whatever came of the tests, he was glad that he had all the support that he did with the Strong family and his wife and granddaughter.Yes, sir, he thought, he was a lucky man.

Chapter 6

Trevor thought that he’d sleep for a month.Henry had been in the hospital for a week now, and they were finally ready to free him.The man had had a great deal done to him and all he wanted to do was to go home and rest in his own bed.

The elevator had been finished up just the day before.Not only was the apartment set up for the two of them but Trevor had turned the bottom part of the garage into a large open area so that the two of them could entertain while they lived there.After all the weatherizing had been put in and carpets put onto the lower floors, he’d had a gas fireplace put in so that they could have company over as well.With a kitchen on the top floor and bottom, the two of them could do just what they wanted and live out their lives without a bit of problem.Even after the surgery had been performed, they were both excited to be going home to their new place.

“I’m so glad that the two of them will be close.After that scare, I want them close so that I can see them both daily, if not more.”Trevor told her that he liked seeing them daily as well.“It was brilliant of your parents to get them that golf cart.Now they don’t have to walk from their home to ours.I have to do something really nice for them.”

It turned out that Henry did have two tiny spots on his liver.After setting up the surgery so that they could look at them to rule out cancer, they found one on his right kidney as well.The surgery was long, three hours, because they were doing a full search while they had him open and taking care of the spots.After removing them, all five, they ended up finding were sent off to be analyzed.They’d know the results in a couple of days, but Weston was saying that he thought they were cysts and not cancer at all.

Trevor thought that all of them were worn out.He knew that he was.Between the hospital and work, he thought that he was sleeping standing up most of the time.But his job was something that he went to when things got scary at the hospital, and he wished that Anna had something like that.As it was, Henrie was running the shipping company and going to the hospital for her grandma three times a day.It was wearing on everyone.

“I know that we’ve been sharing a house.I would also like to share a bed with you.”He nodded, not sure where this was going, when Henrie turned to him when they were in the elevator going up to Henry’s floor to take him home.“I don’t mean sex right now.I’m still incredibly sore, but I think that once I’m rested up, and you are too, I’ll be a good deal better.I’ve been stressing and hurting since this all began—don’t tell my grandparents—that I think that’s what is keeping me from getting better.I’ve enjoyed running the business, but I can’t do both of them like this all the time.I need something to go better.”

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