by Susan Gable
Traditional media had started the mess, but it had exploded over the internet, as well. Blogs for military wives were roasting her. Blogs for right-to-die advocates were slugging it out with right-to-life advocates over Scott’s situation. The gossip sites were all over the story.
Today was about trying to take back some control.
Ronni cleared her throat. “Thank you all for being here,” she said to the Hawkins clan. “It...it means a lot to me.” She blinked back the mist forming in her eyes.
“No. Oh, no.” Judy rushed over to her. “You are not going out there with red eyes to start with. Stop it. Right now.”
“Sorry.” Ronni ran the tip of her finger under her eyes, careful not to smudge her makeup.
“Remember what I told you. In the media, you’re either a sinner or a saint. You’re a sinner turned saint. If there’s anything the public loves, it’s a reformed sinner.”
Ronni nodded.
Judy checked her watch. “Okay, folks, it’s five minutes till. Let’s get this show on the road.”
As Hayden moved to Ronni’s side, Judy snapped, “You, back off. I want you standing several people behind her. They’re already having a field day with you.” Photos had surfaced of her with Hayden, including one of him with his hand on her elbow, protectively putting her into the car on Memorial Day.
“Foxtrot uniform,” he growled at his sister—his politically correct military euphemism for eff you when his mother was in earshot. “I’ll be standing right behind or beside her. If you try to stash me in the back, they’ll assume we have something to hide. Which we don’t.”
The papers in Ronni’s fingers rattled as they walked through the automatic double doors. A podium had been set up next to the flagpole beyond the entrance portico. She hesitated when she saw the throng of people and cameras. “I can do this,” she murmured. “Show no fear, right?”
“Right,” Hayden agreed.
She kept walking. Shutters clicked. Cameramen adjusted lenses as she set her notes on the podium. Judy stood off to the side, but in front so she could offer covert coaching tips. Vera took a position at her left, while the Hawkins family closed in a semicircle behind her.
Hayden radiated reassurance and support from just behind her right shoulder.
“Good morning. Thank you for coming. As you all know, I’m Ronni Mangano. I have a brief statement to make.” She gestured at the building. “My husband, Sergeant Scott Mangano, resides here. Scott was injured in Iraq nineteen months ago while serving with his National Guard unit. He came home severely brain damaged. His condition is now classified as permanent vegetative state. My husband was a proud man. He wouldn’t want people gawking at him. This is not a circus. We’re not celebrities, and we really don’t want all this attention. Such as it is, this is our life. We just want to be left alone to live it.”
Ronni swallowed hard. “Everyone wants to know if I told my husband I wanted a divorce while he was in the field. The ugly truth is yes. I did.”
Murmurs circulated through the crowd of media people, and more shutters clicked.
She ducked her head.
Hayden cleared his throat softly.
Ronni raised her chin to look out at her judges through a shimmering haze. She blinked rapidly. “I live with that truth every day. With the guilt and the anguish of knowing I may have contributed to my husband’s condition.” Tears escaped, cascading down her cheeks. She swiped at them with the back of her hand, doing her best to stifle them. “It’s certainly not how I wanted things to turn out.”
“Why?” someone shouted. “Why’d you want a divorce?”
“I’m not going to answer that. I have a teenage son who doesn’t need the messy details about our relationship circulated all over the internet. And if you have any decency at all, you’ll honor my request for privacy in that matter.”
Judy waved her hand, shaking her head, pointing at the paper. Get back on the message and don’t antagonize the press came through loud and clear.
“My husband deserves the respect that all our men and women who serve this country in the armed forces deserve. Are they perfect? No. Are their families perfect? No. We’re just regular human beings, like everyone else. I’m not the first wife to Dear John an active military man. I won’t be the last. I had my reasons. But I’m standing by Scott now. Please let me do so in peace. Thank you.” She folded the paper.
The crowd surged to life, all shouting questions at the same time.
“Have you considered withholding medical care from him?”
“Are you staying with him just to continue getting his service benefits?”
“Scott’s mom, Vera! Vera! What do you think about your daughter-in-law asking your son for a divorce, possibly leading to his injury?”
Vera leaned in to the microphone. “Are you married, young man?”
The reporter shook his head. “No.”
“Have you ever been married?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t have a clue, do you? Marriage can be trying. It’s hard work. Ronni has explained to me what happened, and I’m satisfied with her explanation.” Vera took Ronni’s hand, squeezed it. Scott’s mother hadn’t been exactly surprised to find out her son had been cheating. She’d suspected it for years. Turned out Vera had her own experience with cheating husbands. Apparently Scott’s father had stepped out on her more than once. Vera, however, had chosen to ignore it, and had stayed with him until his death, five years ago.
Relief that she hadn’t shattered Vera’s image of her son had tempered Ronni’s aggravation that Vera had suspected Scott and never even dropped a hint to her. But it had reinforced her desire to shelter Nick from the unvarnished truth about his stepfather.
“Didn’t you walk out on your son’s father while he was dying?” another reporter shouted. “What makes Scott different?”
Every last Hawkins behind her bristled at that question. Ronni could feel the electricity in the air. When they’d been given the full story about what had happened with her and Ian, there’d been a lot of chagrin on everyone’s part. They’d agreed to let bygones be bygones, although Ronni still wasn’t certain she’d completely convinced Judy.
Hayden stepped up to the podium. Judy’s eyes bugged out, and she frantically shook her head.
Hayden ignored her, yanking on the microphone to reposition it. “The people you see standing here, surrounding Ronni in this difficult time? We’re the family of her son’s father. Ronni Mangano has our full support. That should tell you something.”
That had been the point of invoking the Hawkins Family Emergency Meeting. Even if she hadn’t been a Hawkins family member in good standing at the time.
There was something comforting about having them around her. About having Hayden back in her life, willing to tilt at windmills for her.
“Don’t you have something better to do?” Hayden continued. “Isn’t some star getting out of rehab today? Didn’t some celebrity forget to wear her panties? Shouldn’t you all be covering that kind of stuff and leaving this poor family in peace?”
“Are you involved with Mrs. Mangano?” one of the women reporters asked.
“Yes.”
Judy rushed forward.
The clicking of cameras crescendoed, and Ronni’s stomach tensed. What was he thinking, baiting them like that?
“I’m her son’s uncle, and her friend.”
A pack of wolves circling prey, they all started clamoring, shouting out their questions again.
“What kind of friend?”
“Mr. Hawkins, are you the reason she wanted a divorce?”
“Tell us more!”
Elbowing Hayden out of the way at the podium, Judy leaned in to the mic. “Thank you for coming.” Then she turned, spreading her arms wide and herding Ronni into the midst of the Hawkinses. “Get her inside. Crap, Hayden, you just don’t know when to keep that big mouth shut, do you? Good going.”
###
“Your mom looks real
ly happy there,” Jordan said. She was sprawled on her stomach across her bed, watching him work on her computer at the desk in the corner of her bedroom.
Nick studied his grinning mother on the monitor as the video clip played. She laid her finger over her lips, telling the cameraman—he suspected Uncle Hayden—to be quiet. Then she crooked that same finger in a “follow me” gesture. The camera did, bobbing behind her as she crept down a hallway. The camera panned down to his mom’s butt in a pair of tight jeans, then back up again. That was so wrong in so many ways. Yeah, Uncle Hayden, for sure.
In the arch of a doorway, she motioned him closer. “My boys,” she whispered, jerking her head toward the room. “Don’t wake them.”
His father slumbered in a rocking chair, head tipped back, mouth open. Baby Nick slept on his father’s chest, Ian’s hand sprawled protectively over his back.
“Yeah,” Nick said to his cousin. “She looks happy.” He jabbed the stop button.
“Why’d you stop it?”
He shrugged. “I want to look through more clips. You can help me decide which ones should go onto the special DVD I’m making.”
“What’s this for again?”
“It’s a present.”
“For your mom?” Jordan rolled over to sit on the side of the bed, leaning forward. “For her birthday?”
“Sort of. Not exactly.” Actually, it was for his father’s birthday. An occasion his mother celebrated every year, although he only ever got to participate in the chocolate-cake-for-breakfast ritual that day. What else she did was a mystery because he always spent the day with his grandparents. It became a tradition, because on his father’s last birthday, Grandma had babysat Nick while his parents had gone out to celebrate. And ever since then, Mom believed that having Nick with them on Ian’s birthday compensated in some way for his dad not being there.
Nick didn’t think he’d ever understand the adult thought process.
“Do you ever think what it would be like to know your dad? I used to do it all the time.”
Nick scowled over his shoulder at her. “All those drugs they gave you for the chemo scrambled your brains. My father is dead. Yours...you just didn’t know yours.”
“In your head, silly. Imagine it.” She shrugged. “I imagined it a lot before I actually met him. I just wondered if you did the same.”
Sometimes when no one was around, he talked to Ian. Especially after Scott had shipped out. And then checked out. But to admit it... “Don’t be dumb.”
Jordan sighed, then rose from the bed to glance out the window at the front of the house. Great. He’d hurt her feelings. “Sorry. Guess I’m just in a bad mood today. Every time I turn around right now, my mom’s pawning me off. First to Pop and Grandma’s for the week, now here. Not that I don’t want to be here,” he added hastily when she turned to look at him. He shrugged. “Whatever.”
“What do you think she’s telling the newspeople?”
“Hopefully to mind their own damn business.” First getting caught holding the bag—literally—had put a major crimp in his life, and now this thing with the media and Scott had added a new layer of crap he didn’t need.
Although it had gotten Megan to start texting him again. She’d seen the news and started asking him all sorts of questions. So at least it wasn’t a total bust.
For him, anyway. For his mother...
He turned back toward the computer, scrolling through a list of other clips he’d imported from the old family videos.
The door to Jordan’s room opened. Aunt Amelia bustled in, leaving Aunt Shannon standing in the open door.
“Mom!” Jordan protested. “You don’t knock?”
“Umm...no.” Aunt Amelia toyed with the ends of a tape measure draped around her neck.
“Aren’t you supposed to be studying for your boards?” Jordan asked.
“I am. But I need some help. I’m doing some stuff on skeletal dimensions and body composition as related to age. Nick, can I ask you a favor?”
He pushed the chair back. “I guess.”
“Just need to get some measurements. Shannon, you have the notebook, right?”
Aunt Shannon held up a tiny blue spiral notebook. “Right here.” She flipped it open, clicked a pen. “Ready when you are.”
“Since when does Aunt Shannon help you with research?” Jordan asked.
Aunt Amelia scowled at her. “Since now.”
“I thought she was supposed to be filling in as a prep cook while Dad’s at the press conference thing?”
“Jordan, enough questions. She’s helping me for a minute because I asked her to.” Amelia gestured at him. “Come stand over here, Nick. I promise you, this will be quick and painless.”
Warily, he stood, then advanced to the middle of the rug at the foot of Jordan’s bed.
“Great. Hold your arms straight out.” She grabbed the end of the tape measure. Nick extended his arms. Jordan’s mom pressed the metal tab to his shoulder, then measured the length to his wrist, calling out the number to Aunt Shannon, who dutifully wrote it down.
The process was repeated for the length of his spine from the base of his neck to his tailbone, from his hip to his heel, and other assorted measurements.
“Thanks. Got what I need. We’re good, right, Shannon?”
Aunt Shannon tapped the notebook with the pen. “Got it all here.”
“Okay.” Aunt Amelia held out her hand for the pad. “You can head back to your chopping or whatever you were doing down in the kitchen. And you two can get back to what you were doing.” She paused in the door way. “What were you doing?”
“Mo-om,” Jordan said. “What do you think we were doing?” She blew out an exasperated breath. “Smoking dope and having sex?”
Nick winced. While the adults in the family had been enlightened about his probation, his cousins hadn’t. And Aunt Amelia’s scrunched eyebrows said she considered the former an actual possibility.
A guy made one stupid mistake and it messed up everything, including the way people looked at you.
“Not funny, Jordan.”
“Oh, lighten up, Mom, would you? A year ago you didn’t think I’d live long enough to torment you with thoughts of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.”
“A year ago, you were plotting behind my back to run away to Erie to meet your father.”
Jordan beamed an innocent smile. “And look how well that’s turned out. Now we live in Erie with Dad and Chip, and we’re really a family. I think you owe me and my plotting a great big thank-you.”
Aunt Amelia wagged a finger. “If I recall correctly, you’re supposed to still be grounded for that adventure. Don’t make me rethink it.”
Jordan keeled over on the bed as if she’d passed out. Her voice floated up faintly. “Right. Sorry. Never mind. Carry on. Go study for your test!”
Aunt Amelia left the door partially opened behind her.
“’Rents,” Jordan said, sitting back up on the bed. “They think we’re totally stupid or something. Like after all I’ve been through, I’m going to be dumb enough to smoke dope. Or anything else for that matter. No, thanks. I’ve had enough drugs in my system already.”
“Remember that the first time some guy you think is totally cute asks you to try it.” Admittedly, it hadn’t just been because of Megan. Curiosity played a part.
Jordan cocked her head, studying him. “Oh, man, Nick. You didn’t?”
He lifted his shoulders. “Not for a cute guy.”
She giggled. “Didn’t mean that part.”
“You’re not supposed to know this.”
“Ooh.” The bed frame squeaked as she jumped off it and scurried to his side. “A secret. I love secrets. Spill it.”
Given the media blitz, Nick wondered if he shouldn’t spill his biggest secret to his mother. But when she’d sat down to explain that she had asked Scott for a divorce while he was in Iraq, she’d refused to give Nick the reasons, saying only that it was an adult issue, and something she
didn’t want to saddle him with. That it wouldn’t be fair.
What wasn’t fair was what Scott had done to his mother. Nick picked at the edge of the pink mouse pad on Jordan’s desk. His mom deserved to know. But it would hurt her. Make her feel even more horrible.
As horrible as Nick had felt when he’d found out Scott had been using their fishing trips as a cover story to his mother for screwing around on her.
Nick didn’t want to hurt her.
For now, he’d just keep his—and Scott’s—secret a bit longer.
###
“Whatcha lookin’ at?”
The slats on the blinds snapped back into place as Ronni whirled from the picture window in the shop. “Tamara.” She extended her arms to hug her friend, whose salon, A Cut Above, was also closed on Mondays, making it their preferred day to get together. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I got that. Especially when you didn’t respond to my report that there were only two lone photogs lurking out there today.”
That was welcome news. Slowly but surely, interest in her story was easing, at least in the traditional media. Ronni had gotten invitations to appear on several talk shows. She’d politely declined.
Tamara squeezed her, then stuck her fingers in the blinds, widening the gap so she could look. “And now I get why.”
“Why? I was just checking on Nick.” Ronni looked out again herself. In the blazing sunshine, Hayden and Nick leaned over a pair of sawhorses, repairing one of the house screens. The rest of the frames were stacked on the ground alongside the driveway. Part of Hayden’s plan to keep Nick occupied and doing useful things involved catching up on the household chores that had gone neglected since Scott had shipped out. Some of them had actually been neglected since before he’d left for Iraq.
Hayden was shirtless and his muscles glistened with sweat. His cutoff jeans hugged his rear, the frayed edges caressing rock-hard thighs.
Tamara sighed. “Poetry in motion. Checking on Nick, my ass. More like checking out the pretty man-candy. He could park his boots under my bed anytime. Please tell me his boots have been under your bed, and then give me all the details so I can live vicariously through you.”