Let It Be Me by Becky Wade (top young adult novels .TXT) 📕

“Would it be possible to look in on a few of your patients?” Leah asked Sebastian.

“If you’d like to, yes.”

“I’d like to.”

She followed him into a room filled with machines and monitors. On the miniature bed lay a dark-skinned, black-haired infant.

“This is Levi. He’s beating the odds. Right after his birth he survived an emergency procedure with a mortality rate of ninety-five percent.”

“What was his diagnosis?”

“Hypoplastic left heart syndrome, but without an atrial septal defect. Usually, we close up holes in hearts. But in his case, his lack of a hole was causing blood to back up into his lungs. So my colleague ran a catheter to his heart and punched a hole in exactly the right spot.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Have you operated on him since?”

“Yes. The Norwood procedure, six days ago.”

“You had to build a new aorta.”

“You’re right. I also had to make his right ventricle pump blood to the body through the aorta and to the lungs through a new path to the pulmonary artery.”

“What are his prospects?”

“Good.”

It was one thing to read about congenital heart defects and the surgeries employed to repair them, quite another to observe one of the children who’d been impacted.

Levi seemed impossibly small and frail. And, of course, all kids radiated sweetness when they were sleeping. She knew this to be true because she’d been peeking in on Dylan while he was sleeping since he’d been this size.

From the start, Mom had delegated a sizable share of Dylan’s care to her. She’d done a great deal of babysitting, feeding, rocking to sleep, and bathing. Dylan had rewarded her efforts by turning into an adorable curly-haired toddler who’d hugged her, snuggled with her, held her hand, and climbed onto her lap.

He’d been just two years old when she’d left home for high school. Right away, she’d discovered that she missed him far more than any other person. If not for him, she wouldn’t have made the effort to return home on the weekends. By that point, Dad was gone. She and Mom weren’t close. She’d enjoyed a far greater sense of belonging at Clemmons than at the apartment Mom had moved them into for Leah’s final year of middle school.

She’d come home because she’d needed to see Dylan. More often than not, she’d arrive at their apartment complex to find Mom’s car packed and waiting to pull away from the curb. The second after Leah arrived, Mom would depart. She wouldn’t return until two days later—when Leah had to head back to campus.

Leah had been fourteen years old, yet for weekends at a time, she’d been in charge of Dylan. It had been scary. It had also been oddly wonderful, because she’d been free to do whatever she deemed best. They watched Go, Diego, Go! and visited the playground. She read him The Very Hungry Caterpillar a million times. She made them ice cream sundaes topped with whipped cream and caramel sauce and chocolate sprinkles. They roved through the two parks and the one library within walking distance of their building.

She’d thought she’d understood what it meant to be responsible for Dylan. But then, when he was seven, she’d received full custody. As soon as Mom had left for the airport to catch her flight overseas, Leah had realized that no, she hadn’t truly known what it was to be responsible for Dylan. The weight of becoming his 24/7 caregiver had crashed down on her.

The first several days, fear had stalked her. She’d been so overwhelmed that she’d spent hours on her knees after tucking Dylan into bed each night, begging God for strength and mercy.

God had shown up in those dark hours.

Patiently, He’d siphoned His courage into her.

She’d laid every decision before Him that she’d felt incapable of making on her own. Should she move them to Princeton? If not, how should she support Dylan?

Every time, He’d guided her. Sometimes through a sense of rightness that tugged her in a specific direction or a sense of unease that warned her away from another direction. Sometimes through Scripture. Sometimes through a pastor’s message. Sometimes through a conversation with a friend.

Obediently, gratefully, she’d followed where He led. Her rock-solid belief that she could rely on Him to make her paths straight turned the impossible job of parenting Dylan while she herself was still a teenager into something she could do—with the Lord’s equipping.

Dylan had paid her back by continuing to adore her through his elementary school years. He was rambunctious but also kind. Truly kind.

Then his middle school years had crept in. The little boy who’d built his life around her became a gangly adolescent. He’d started to pull away. Give her attitude. Establish his independence. Indulge in moods.

As the years marched on, he’d become more reclusive, and now Dylan was a boy-man with long arms and hairy legs and the beginnings of facial hair and a voracious appetite.

She grieved their former closeness. And, in moments like this one, she ached for the affectionate baby, the trusting preschooler, and the pure-hearted elementary schooler he’d been.

On good days, she told herself that he’d likely become a contributing member of society one day. On bad days, it seemed frighteningly possible that he’d end up wearing an orange jumpsuit in a penitentiary.

It was humbling to observe baby Levi because she was certain his parents were praying fervently that he’d simply have the chance to grow into a boy-man with long arms and hairy legs. She hoped Levi received the opportunity God had given Dylan—the opportunity to experience all the passions, trials, and victories that life offered.

Next, they entered the room of a baby girl. A pink blanket had been folded over and smoothly tucked around her sides. Tape held a ventilator tube to her mouth. IVs snaked into her veins.

A blond woman set aside the book she’d been reading and rose. Sebastian introduced her as Megan.

“This is my daughter,” Megan said to Leah. “Isabella.”

“She’s beautiful.”

Isabella shifted slightly. She moved her mouth as if to make noise,