Page 1 of Captured Heart

Prologue

Walker

Five years prior, twenty-three years old…

“Mr. Doyle,” Dr. Pritchard begins after entering my exam room. His eyes are kind, his tone sympathetic, and the feeling I’ve had for the last few months solidifies. There’s something seriously wrong with me. His next words confirm it. “I won’t beat around the bush,” he says, though it’s still an attempt to soften the blow he’s about to deliver.

“I’d appreciate that.”

“You have Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.” While I don’t know exactly what that means, I know enough to be aware it’s cancer. Panic starts to rise within me, snapshots of all the things I’ll never get to do, of the treatments I’ll have to endure.

Of the possibility I won’t survive.

I’m barely able to get the question out, yet he seems to understand what I’m trying to ask. “What are,” the rest is garbled as tears threaten, “my odds?”

“Statistically, they’re high. Great strides have been made in the treatment, and cure of, this disease. While nothing is guaranteed,” no shit, I think with a humorless laugh, “your age and overall health are factors to your advantage.” And yet, I still have cancer. Dr. Pritchard is either a mind reader or he’sfamiliar with the impact this news can take because he smiles. “I understand the irony of that, but it’s still true. Another point in our favor is that we caught it early, thanks in part to you recognizing the change in you and acting on it right away.” Yay me. “You are considered stage two, meaning it’s in two or more lymph node regions. I’ve already started assembling a team that’ll be working with and for you throughout the process.”

“And what will Team Walker be doing?”

“Chemotherapy, for one,” he answers, and yet again, I appreciate that he’s being straightforward and not attempting to sugar coat my diagnosis and what that entails. “Immunotherapy and radiation. However, your physical well-being isn’t our only concern. That of your mental and emotional will play a part, too.” As he goes on to list what comes next, I come up with my own plan. Oh, I’m fully on board with his, but I have an addition that’s just for me. While the treatments will, hopefully, do their job, there’s no telling what else they’ll do to other parts of me.

I’m trying to be positive, to look past this moment in time and think about the future I intend to have. One that, in my heart, has always included a family. I want what my parents have. A soul deep connection that grows stronger every day. A wife with which to create it. Children, grandchildren, that we’ll watch grow up.

Thinking of that stuff at my age probably isn’t the norm, yet I don’t care. I’m an old-fashioned guy. Always have been.

When there’s a break in the conversation, I inquire, “When do we start?”

“Two weeks.” That doesn’t leave me much time to enact my fail safe, but I’ll make it work. While I wait for him to speak to his nurse and schedule my next appointment, I wake my phone up and look for sperm banks near me.

Seeing there’s one within fifteen minutes of my current location, I commit the address to memory. Simply knowing that,when I’m ready to become a dad, I’ll have healthy possibilities waiting for me, makes me feel better.

I can do this.

My future kids are counting on me.

Chapter One

Zoe

Five years later…

Since my own family didn’t want me, I’ve adjusted to being on my own. To doing everything alone. Why should having a baby be any different?

Okay, logistically, I know I need a man to complete the process. However, I don’t need to bewithhim for that to happen.

Ahh, the beauty of sperm banks.

Yeah, I heard it after I thought it and am fully aware it’s probably a statement that has not ever, and never should be again, uttered.

Normally, the odds of somebody my age, twenty-five, being able to afford such a costly endeavor are slim. However, my paternal grandfather died, leaving me a tidy sum in his will, giving me the funds to make it happen.

At first, I’d refused to take it, just let it sit there, untouched and unwanted.

Just like me.

But, as I’ve gotten older, I began to look at it differently.

While I’ll never know if it was done with sincerity or regret, or the guilty conscience with which I believed it came from, I could do something good with it.

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