by Hart, Rebel
I piped up. “Not supposedly.”
Mom held her hand up, signaling for me to be quiet.
“You are more than welcome to come inside and sit. I can make us some coffee. But before you speak with my daughter, she’s going to get herself a hot shower.”
The officer sighed. “Ma’am, I’m afraid this is urgent.”
Mom stood her ground. “Well, so is her shower. She’s covered in blood and still shaking from trauma. You can take it, or you can leave it. But if you take it, it comes with coffee, courtesy of me.”
She held the door open, waiting for the officers to choose.
“Either way, I’m going to go run my daughter a hot shower before placing a call to her school. She’s in no condition to go to classes today. Give us thirty minutes, and we’ll be with you. Or find another time. I’m good either way.”
And as my mother stood there, stronger than I’d ever seen her, I leaned my forehead against her shoulder. I kissed her robe, hoping she felt it through her clothing. Her hand came up, running through my hair as the officers murmured between themselves.
“All right, ma’am. We’d enjoy the cup of coffee.”
Mom smiled. “Great. Let me get my daughter in a shower, then I’ll brew a pot while placing that quick phone call.”
8
Clinton
“I already pushed back the trip, Cecilia. Just what exactly do you expect me to do about it?”
“I expect you to cancel it, Howard. Because your son is going to need you in the coming weeks.”
I felt myself waking up, but I didn’t open my eyes. The second I heard their voices, I stayed silent. I kept my breathing even. I wanted to listen in on their conversation. On what they were arguing about. And as their hushed whispers grew to faint growls, I wondered if my father would ever give a shit about me.
“I’m not canceling anything, Cecilia. This meeting is too important.”
She scoffed. “Then do it via video conference. From your laptop, or your home office. My God, Howard, you’ve got one but you never use it.”
“Because I have to be there in person. I’m the owner of the damn thing. I can’t just not show up to a meeting everyone is expecting me to be at.”
“Well, when you tell them your only child has gotten himself into a life-threatening accident. I’m sure they’ll change their tune.”
He snickered. “CeCe, we don’t know the details of that crash. The police are still trying to sniff things out. For all we know, this was Clinton’s fault!”
“And why does that matter?” she hissed.
“It matters because if he put himself in this situation, he can get himself out of it. It one hundred percent matters, if you knew anything about raising a boy like him!”
“So you think that even if he did cause this accident, he wouldn't need his father? Howard, he’s staring down the barrel of weeks of physical therapy. Weeks of strenuous activity before he’s walking normal and riding his bike and moving without assistance. He needs you at home. He’s a boy, Howard.”
“He’s my boy, and don’t you forget it. I know what I need to do in order to parent my son, Cecilia. You, of all people, don’t need to educate me on that.”
“Then step up and be the father he needs.”
I waited for it. I braced for the cracking sound of his hand against her face. I mean, I knew it was coming. It would have been coming had I said something like that to him. Cecilia was brave. Braver than I could have ever been. I was proud of her for standing up for what she believed. And honored that she was standing up for me.
But I heard the door of my hospital room whip open, stalling out the moment in its tracks.
“Take it outside, if you have to fight. Clint needs his rest, and I won’t have you two ruining it with your bickering. Understand?”
The doctor’s voice was curt. Pierced. And I would have given anything to see my father’s face. The argument halted in its tracks before Cecilia apologized. But all I heard from my father was the lumbering of footsteps, murmuring and stumbling. Cursing. I heard the clicking of Cecilia’s heels as they left the room.
“Howard. Get back here!”
I let my eyes fall open as I stared at the ceiling. The doctor walked around me, checking vitals and shining that godforsaken light in my eyes. I wanted to rip that damn flashlight out of his hand and bash him over the head with it. Or shove it up his ass. One of the two.
“The talk with the police wear you out?”
I shrugged. “Got it over with.”
“Sometimes that’s the best course of action.”
“What day is it?”
He chuckled. “Still Friday. Just after lunch. Almost two, I think? Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Well, I’ll get the nurse to run down to the kitchen. The lunch trays have already gone by, but I’m sure she can pick you up something that is suitable for your current diet.”
I sighed. “Ah, yes. The boring, no fun foods diet.”
He snickered. “I’ve been on that diet before. It’s more or less so nothing interacts with the medications you’re on. Like food dyes and such.”
“Just don’t have anyone attempt to mix up white rice and a banana again. I don’t know who decided that was a good thing, but it isn’t.”
The doctor took a few notes, then pressed my morphine button. I was on my last pump of it. After today, no more morphine. I wasn’t sure how I’d take that. How my body would react to it. Or what kind of pain I’d be in. But any step down was a step closer to home. And a step closer to Rae.
Which was where I wanted to be.
I heard the doctor talking to Cecilia outside. But I didn’t hear my father. No shocker there, of course. He probably stormed off and used this fight as an excuse to get more work done. And if it was up to me? He’d stay gone. He didn't help. He wasn’t supportive. And, apparently, this accident was all my fault. At the very least, I didn’t deserve an ounce of pity until it was proven that I didn’t cause my almost-death.
He could fuck off with all that bullshit.
“Clint? Can you hear me?”
I nodded as I cleared my throat. Cecilia sat down beside me again, taking my hand like she had this morning.
“Dad’s gone again, isn’t he?”
“You know how he is.”
I snickered. “Yeah, yeah. I know how he is.”
That seemed to be the excuse for my father more days than not nowadays.
“How are you feeling, Clint?”
I sighed. “Better. But the doctor also just pressed my morphine button, so…”
“I was on morphine once, you know. A little ball drip thing fastened around my waist in a fanny pack.”
“That when you got your boobs done?”
I didn’t catch the question before it flew out of my mouth. But I was kind of glad I didn’t. Because it launched Cecilia into another story of her life I would have never expected from her.
“Actually, yes. It was a reconstructive surgery I got when I was twenty. Saved up almost my entire life for it.”
I paused. “Reconstructive surgery?”
She giggled. “Yep. I left home when I was seventeen, after graduating high school early. And in between part-time classes at the local community college, I took on a job. Saved up as much as I could while living with three other girls in a two-bedroom apartment to save up enough money to have it corrected. And boy, was that a surgery.”
“What was the defect?”
“Its technical name is ‘tubular hypoplasia,’ or something like that. It essentially means the base of a woman’s breast is much narrower than it should be, causing a tissue deformity and nipple malformation during puberty.”
“So much more than I ever needed to know about my stepmom.”
“And yet, here we are.”
The two of us laughed softly before she patted my arm.
“Hell of a surgery. Nine hours under, lots of sawing and suctioning and tugging about. And whe
n I came out of it in recovery, I had this compression bra on and a fanny pack of morphine around my waist with tubes running into the tops of my chest.”
“Yikes.”
“Yep. I still don’t remember those first two weeks of recuperation. Because morphine wasn’t the only drug I was on during that recovery time.”
I smiled. “Holy shit. I don’t blame you on that one, then. This morphine’s got me fucked up enough as it is.”
“You know, part of me wants to tell you ‘language.’ But, here I am. Cursing up a storm along with you.”
It almost felt surreal. Like this was simply another dream. The shy, timid, soft-spoken stepmother I’d become accustomed to was anything but. And it made me wonder why the absolute fuck she’d settled for someone like my father. Then again, I knew why. We both knew why. She’d grown up in a life of conservatism. And my father, well, wasn’t. He gave her all the things she wanted. And even things she didn’t want. That would be attractive to any woman. Even a woman with her head seemingly screwed on straight.
Money talked nowadays.
“So, weeks of physical therapy?”
She paused. “You heard that?”
I shrugged. “Bits and pieces. I was still waking up and falling back asleep.”
“You’re a shit liar, you know.”
That made me laugh hard. “All right. All right. You caught me.”
“I’m sorry, Clint.”
“Don’t be. You stuck up for me. No one’s ever done that before.”
“I should’ve started doing it sooner.”
“Well, something tells me you’ve at least been trying.”
“I’ll get him to stay behind, though. Don’t worry.”
“At this point, I’d rather him go.”
She paused. “Really?”
I nodded. “He’s useless during shit like this. In his mind, this is my fault. So the medical bill will be my fault. For all I know, since I’m eighteen, he’ll write me up some sort of an official loan document and expect me to pay him back for it. Either that, or he’ll feel guilty after the fact and buy me a new bike to try and make things better.”
“I’m sorry, Clint.”
“Not your fault, Cecilia.”
As I lay there, holding her hand within mine, I felt the crushing weight of an unwanted burden settle against my chest. I closed my eyes, hoping sleep would sweep me underneath its warm current again and rid me of the insanity of my mind. What in the world had I done to make my father hate me so much? Why couldn't he just love me? Accept me? I mean, I was his only child. It wasn’t as if there was another child to play ‘favorites’ with.
Did he just not want me?
Had he ever wanted me?
“I’ll be here with you, okay?”
Cecilia’s voice pierced my thoughts, and my next question flew out faster than I could even process it.
“But why? You don’t owe me anything. And I’m pretty sure you don’t love Dad. So, you aren’t sticking around for him.”
And after a beat of silence, she sighed.
“I’ll be here because I want to be here. And you’ll just have to deal with it.”
She didn’t comment on my other insinuation. On the other comment I’d made. And I couldn't blame her.
I mean, how the hell could she love a man like that?
“I feel tired.”
“Then get some rest. I’ve got a book I’m reading, and I’ll let you know what the doctor says—if anything—once you wake back up.”
I sighed. “What are you reading?”
She held up the book in front of my face. “Finding The Spouse You Married.”
I would have laughed had my heart not randomly started aching for her. This beautiful woman, full of love and interesting stories and lessons to pass on, was reading some bullshit self-help book on how to make my dad treat her the way she wanted to be treated. It was sickening, and yet very telling of what my mother must’ve gone through with Dad.
I wondered if she’d ever tried reading books to fix what had become so broken.
“Want me to read you a page? The anecdotal stories are pretty funny.”
I smiled, closing my eyes. “Sure. Go ahead.”
“All right. This particular chapter is about getting the two spouses on the same page. Listen to this. There are two people in the story, Mary Margaret and James. And I’ll let the story tell the rest.”
I settled into bed as she launched into this story. A ridiculous story of some imaginary married couple that had drifted apart because James thought he wasn’t getting enough sex. And Mary Margaret thought James had gotten lazy about sex. I chuckled as Cecilia giggled through the story, and before she could wrap it up the two of us fell apart in laughter. The story was so ridiculous, and had almost nothing to do with them getting on the same page. I mean, I’m sure it did, eventually. But Cecilia and I were laughing so hard we couldn't actually get to that part.
“It’s so ridiculous. I still can’t finish this chapter because of the story.”
My chest jumped with laughter. “How the hell can you read shit like that?”
Cecilia kept giggling. “I don’t know. It’s so insane. And all the stories are like that. I guess I just…”
Her sentence trailed off and I coughed, trying to calm down my laughter. Because hers had shut down, like someone had flipped a switch inside her head.
“You just what?” I asked.
She sighed. “I guess I’m just desperate to get back the man I married, I guess. And maybe, if I read enough of these books, the answer will jump out at me and I can fix what’s been so very broken for so long.”
And in that moment, I didn’t know which I hated more: my father, for putting her in this position, or the damn author of that book, for preying on women like her and draining them of their money, only to feed them shit I could sum up with one sentence.
It can’t be fixed if the other person doesn’t feel like they need fixing.
9
Raelynn
“Why don’t you come make brownies with me? We can have them for after dinner tonight.”
“Want to try our hand at making fresh ice cream to go with them?”
“Let’s go out to eat tonight. Come back to the brownies and have a movie night.”
“Want to put on pajamas, too? We could go out to eat in our pajamas.”
I knew my mother was trying the best she could to cheer me up. To get my mind off things. But all day yesterday had spiraled into my Saturday, and I still sat up in my room. By the window. Hoping someone might come over and give me information on how Clint was doing. His father, even if he yelled it at me. His stepmother, even if I had to pull it out of her. Hell, even the police officers, even if they had more questions for me to answer.
I’d take any update I could get.
I sighed, gazing out over the dirt we had for a front lawn. The rain drizzled down, creating a sheen of mist over everything as clouds rolled above. The sun hadn’t peeked through once. So, apparently, it and I were on the same wavelength. The weather matched my mood perfectly, and I found myself brooding at my windowsill.
Until a knock came at my door.
“Hey there, sweetie.”
I sighed. “Hey, Mom.”
“I brought you some lunch. Leftovers from last night.”
“Thanks.”
“You mind if I eat in here with you? The breadsticks look tempting.”
“You can have them, if you want.”
I heard her sit on my bed, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t hungry. Even though eggplant parmesan was my favorite. I wanted to be at the hospital with Clint. By his side, assuring him I’d be there for him. I’d made him a promise. I’d told him I wouldn't leave his side. And yet I couldn’t get past his fucking father.
At Clint’s side was the only place I wanted to be.
And his father didn’t give a shit about that.
Mom cleared her throat. “You sure you’re not hungry?”
> I nodded. “I’m sure.”
“You want to come downstairs and watch Judge Judy with me?”
“Maybe later.”
“It’ll give you a chance to yell at the television for a while.”
I shrugged. “Not really in a yelling mood.”
She sighed. “Sweetheart, I know you’re worried about him. But—”
“Mom, please. I just…”
I heard her stand up before her hand came down against my back. I closed my eyes, feeling my empty tear ducts try to churn out more salted tears. But there were no more for me to cry. My pillow had soaked all of them up last night. They burned without recompense as Mom rubbed my back, trying her best to continue distracting me.
I was tired of the distractions, though.
I wanted to know how Clint was doing.
“I made him a promise.”
“I know you did, sweetie.”
I sighed. “And I’m not there, like I promised.”
“I’m sure he’s a smart boy and has figured out why you aren’t there. Especially if he doesn’t have a good relationship with his father.”
“I just don’t get it. All I want to do is be there, and his father’s being a—”
Mom sat down, wrapping her arms around me. She pulled me against her and I felt my frustration growing. The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. I mean, why they fuck did his dad have to be such an absolute asshole? I’d confided in Mom with just about everything. The first time I ever met his father. What he did. The bruises Clint came to school with. The life he really led with his father behind those massive mansion doors.
Her party tricks were wearing thin as my worry for Clint grew.
“Maybe he’s not at the hospital anymore,” I murmured.
Mom kissed the top of my head. “At any rate, it’s best if you stay here and wait for an update. The last thing you need to be doing is storming in there and getting yourself into trouble. Especially after already dealing with the police.”
“It wasn’t his fault, Mom.”
“And I believe you. But, until things cool down, you know I’m right.”
I hated that fact, too.