it but we’re lucky we caught this as soon as we did. This disease isn’t easy to diagnose. I’m glad Jude thought to reach out to us in Pittsburg.”
“Jude?” I asked in surprise. “What?”
Dr. Riggs hesitated. “Jude Archer? I understand he’s a friend of the family? He called me last week to ask me to reach out to Maks’s doctors here at Mount Sinai.”
“Jude told you about Maks?” Elena said, which I was glad for because the doctor had managed to stun me into speechlessness.
“Yes. Were you not aware of that?”
“When did he call you?” I managed to ask.
“Um, I’m not sure. Tuesday, I think.”
Tuesday. After he’d walked out on me. “How do you know him?” I asked.
“Jude sits on the board for The Hayes Foundation. It helps our hospital and many like it fund medical care for kids in need. My understanding is he suggested starting the foundation to Mr. Hayes a couple of years ago.”
I felt completely blindsided.
“I’m sorry, didn’t Jude tell you any of this himself?” Dr. Riggs asked.
I shook my head.
“Well, maybe I just beat him to the punch. He did seem a little distracted before I came in here.”
I lifted my head. “What?” I asked, sure I’d misheard the woman.
Dr. Riggs furrowed her brow and then pointed in the direction of the hallway just outside the conference room. “I ran into Jude right before I came to talk to you. He was by the nurses’ station.”
“Is he still here?” I asked as I moved past Elena and around the table. It was a stupid question because the doctor would have no way of knowing if Jude were still here or not since she’d been in the room with us. I didn’t wait to hear her response. Instead, I flew out of the room and hurried to the nurses’ station.
But there was no sign of Jude anywhere. I reached for my phone before remembering it was dead.
“Fuck,” I muttered. I turned and made my way to Maks’s room. I threw the door open so abruptly that my mother jumped.
“Is he here?” I asked, blurting the question in English rather than Russian.
It didn’t matter because my father smiled and nodded his head. Then he told me in Russian that Jude had taken Natalia to get some ice cream in the cafeteria. I was already out the door before I realized I hadn’t told my parents anything about Maks. Fortunately, Elena was just outside the room.
“Jude took Nattie to the cafeteria,” I explained. “Mama and Papa—”
“Go!” my sister cut me off. “Go get him!”
I grabbed her and kissed her cheek, then ran for the elevator but stopped when I reached it. Nattie had an abject fear of elevators. Knowing Jude, he would have happily given in to her request to take the stairs down the three floors to the cafeteria. Not wanting to risk missing them, I went to the stairs and began trotting down them. I made it down one flight before I heard it.
Jude’s voice.
The sound of it had me coming to an abrupt stop. God, how I’d missed that voice.
I had no clue what Jude and Nattie were talking about, but I didn’t care. I took the next set of stairs with lightning speed. My heavy footsteps must have startled Jude and Natalia because they were both wide-eyed when I rounded the landing above them.
“Nikolai,” Jude breathed.
I drank in the sight of Jude as he stood just a handful of steps from me.
He was really here.
I felt caught up in a vortex of emotion as my eyes held Jude’s.
My Jude’s.
I saw every piece of him in those beautiful eyes of his. Uncertainty, courage, fear, joy… everything that made Jude who he was clearly showed in his expression.
“Uncle Nikolai, Jude got me and Maks ice cream,” Nattie announced as she held up her ice cream cone and a package that I could only assume was a treat for Maks.
“I asked the nurse if it would be okay for Maks to have it before we left his room,” Jude blurted. “She said it would.”
I began descending the steps one by one, never taking my eyes off of Jude.
“Is Maks going to be okay, Uncle Nikolai?” Nattie asked.
“Yeah, honey, he is,” I said to my niece as I shot her a quick smile. When I returned my attention to Jude, I could see how relieved he was. I didn’t think it possible, but I fell even more in love with him in that moment.