Bad For Each Other

by Kate Hathaway

  She disrobed and stepped into the shower, turning the water on as hot as she could stand it.

  When she opened the bathroom door a little while later, the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee teased her nose. Charlie. She hurried to her room, quickly slipped into her clothes, and wove her wet hair into a thick braid.

  As she rounded the corner from the hall, she saw him sitting at the counter where she and Tobie ate their meals. He had his nose in the morning paper, his hand curled around a mug of coffee, two fingers thrust through the handle hole, the way he always held it. There was something different about the picture he presented, but she couldn't put her finger on just what.

  He eyed her over the top of the paper and indicated with a nod of his head the bag sitting on the counter next to the Swedish ivy. At the sight of the familiar white bag with pink-and-orange lettering running up the center, her stomach gave an audible growl and she saw Charlie grin. She reached for the bag and opened it. Two chocolate honey-dipped. Her favorite. "Is one of these for me?"

  "They both are. I've had mine. I still can't abide chocolate."

  Judging from the powdery residue at the corner of his mouth, he still preferred raspberry jelly-filled. As if he read her thoughts, his tongue came out to swipe away the sugar, and she had a sudden knee-weakening recollection of sweet-mouthed morning kisses.

  In an effort to get a grip on her emotions, she walked over to the coffee maker and poured herself a cup. There was only one other stool at the counter. The one alongside Charlie. She hiked herself up on it and dug into the donut bag.

  He put his paper down and turned on the stool to face her. Leaning back against the wall behind him, he eyed her lazily. "When did you start wearing your hair like that?"

  She took a bite of donut and washed it down with a sip of coffee before she answered. "You don't like it?"

  "I like that it's long."

  Oh, yes. He had liked it long. It never seemed to matter to him that she couldn't do anything with the rowdy riot of red. "I don't have a lot of time to spend on my appearance these days. This style is easy."

  He folded his arms across his chest and twisted slowly on the seat, knees spread, boot heels caught on the metal rung of the stool. Completely at his ease. "What else is keeping you busy these days? What kind of work do you do?"

  "I'm a paralegal." Not the lawyer she'd planned on being. With little money and no help with Tobie, she'd had to put those dreams aside. It seemed another lifetime now, since she'd entertained that goal. It no longer seemed important.

  "Do you like your work?"

  Why all these questions? She sighed. "It's interesting. The firm I work for has been good to me since Tobie's been sick."

  "Would you quit if you could, and stay home?"

  She stared into her coffee cup. How many times had she wished for that choice when Tobie was very small? And now, when there might be so little time...

  "I have to work. There's no way I can meet these medical bills without my health insurance."

  He straightened away from the wall and leaned toward her. "That's not a consideration anymore, Molly. I'll write a check."

  She swung her head around to look at him, mouth agape.

  He'd write a check! Just like that. For the first time it really sank in, just what she was dealing with. Her family had been well-off, or at least she had thought so, when she was growing up. But nothing like this. For Charlie, money really was no object. "I couldn't—"

  He gripped her chin, not to hurt, but firm all the same. "You're gonna be my wife. Not some fancy piece I keep on the side. My wife. You can work if you want to, but you won't have to."

  "Charlie..."

  "I'm not interested in some sham, either." He went on as if she hadn't spoken. "This'll be a real marriage. I'll have claims on you, and you'll have claims on me."

  She licked her lips and pressed her fists to the edge of the counter, all appetite gone.

  "You about finished there?" He nodded at her half-eaten donut and coffee. "I'd like to meet my son."

  "Charlie." She looked at him, pleading. "Would you give me a few minutes with him...to explain?"

  His gaze hardened. "You've had seven years to do your explaining. I'll be there this time." He rose, grabbing his hat and her keys. "Let's go."

  Chapter 3

  Except for the engine knock, there was silence in the car following Molly's terse directions to the hospital. Charlie felt more uneasy about the coming meeting than he cared to let on.

  Despite Molly's claim that Tobie hadn't asked questions, he was bound to have some. How could he explain where he'd been for the last seven years? Without blaming Molly. And justified as he felt his anger was, he couldn't see any benefit from causing a rift between her and the boy. Everything he'd seen in the apartment pointed to Molly's excellence as a mother. The fact that she couldn't tolerate the presence of Tobie's father didn't change that.

  He patted the pockets of his shirt before reaching into the side pocket of his jacket and pulling out a package of gum. He unwrapped a stick, folded it in half, and popped it in his mouth. Belatedly, he offered a piece to Molly.

  He found her watching him with a bemused expression, the first hint of laughter in her eyes since she'd come back into his life.

  "What?"

  A smile tugged at her lips. "When did you quit smoking?" she asked, shaking her head at his offer of the gum.

  He shifted her an uneasy glance. "Let's see...two years, three months, two weeks..." That was a big grin she was wearing now. Did the same thing to his insides it always had. "Four days, and—" he shoved his jacket sleeve up and looked at his watch "—nine hours." He gave her an abashed smile. "I'm not sure about the minutes. I didn't check the time when I finished that last puff, but I still miss it now and then." He shrugged. "It's hard on the throat."

  So that was the change she hadn't been able to put her finger on, she realized with a quiet laugh. Hard on the throat. Probably not a good thing in his line of work. When had he become so responsible? Maybe other things about him had changed as well, but she didn't have high hopes. He was still devastatingly handsome, good-natured, with an easy grace. Just like her daddy. And now he had a confidence, a self-assuredness, he'd lacked before. The women would flock to him like ants to a picnic. How would she ever be able to live with that?

  Charlie steered the car into the hospital parking garage, surveying the area as he did. So far, so good. No one but Harlan and his family knew where he had gone last night, and they wouldn't talk. But he knew his anonymity wouldn't last. It was too much to expect he could get through what had to be done at the hospital without being recognized. He just hoped this wouldn't turn into a circus. He guided the car into a space, switched off the ignition and turned to Molly. He saw his own trepidation mirrored in her face. "Let's go see Tobie," he said.

  They entered through the main door of the hospital in the old section, where their footsteps echoed in the vaulted lobby. The visitors' desk, a huge mahogany piece that reminded Charlie of a bar, was off to one side. He held back a little while Molly got the passes. Two women worked behind the desk. The younger one, with the nose ring, gave him the onceover and went back to filing her nails. He'd almost started to breathe again, when the other lady, the one with blued hair and penciled brows, looked his way. Her eyes and mouth formed the perfect circles he'd come to recognize and sometimes dread.

  "Aren't you Kick—"

  He came closer, keeping his voice low, hoping she'd do the same. "Yes, ma'am, I am."

  Nose Ring bestirred herself enough to give him another quick look-see but was apparently unimpressed. Blue Hair was another story. She rose from her chair behind the desk, her mouth working. "I admire your music so..." Her voice rebounded off the walls of the spacious lobby.

  This had all the makings of a scene. In an effort to avoid it, he grasped her hand. "Thank you. I appreciate that. But I'm here to see a patient. I was hoping..."

  "Oh! Of course." She collected herself nicely. "I
f you wouldn't mind..."

  She slid a paper across the desk to him—room rates it looked like—and handed him a pen. "I don't mind," he smiled his answer, "as long as it's not a bill." He scrawled his name while Molly stood by, staring at the floor.

  When he had finished, Molly led the way to the Transplant Unit. It was in the newer section of the hospital, where the ceilings were about ten feet lower and marble and mahogany gave way to Formica and Sheetrock. Along the way they passed people who talked behind their hands, heads swiveling. Charlie did his best to ignore it, noting that Molly kept her eyes focused straight ahead.

  Though the wait had seemed endless since he'd learned he had a son, Charlie was unprepared when Molly turned into Tobie's room. He pulled in a long breath and followed.

  She should have warned him. She realized it as soon as they stepped into the room. Thank God, Tobie was asleep. His first glimpse of his father's face wouldn't be of the dismay registered there before Charlie had a chance to cover it She had lived with the gradual changes in her son for so long she no longer really saw them. But he bore little resemblance to the active, healthy boy in the picture she had given Charlie.

  The stark black of his hair was the only swatch of color against pale skin and white sheets, unless you counted the bruises. They covered his exposed skin.

  Charlie looked shaken. Molly touched his arm. "We need to wash our hands. It's the most important thing in protecting him from infection. We don't have to wear masks or gloves."

  They removed their jackets and she showed him the bathroom next to the entrance to Tobie's room and indicated the special scrub the nurses had told her to use. He said nothing while they washed side by side, but as he wiped his arms and hands down with paper towels he lifted his gaze to her. "He's real bad, isn't he?"

  She couldn't give him hope she didn't have. "Yes," she said. "Some people live a long time with this, but his disease has progressed very rapidly."

  "What if I'm not a match?"

  "You come from a huge family, Charlie. Maybe one of them will match. We'll deal with it when the time comes." She sensed he needed this reassurance, faced with the loss of a child he hadn't yet come to know.

  She turned to leave the bathroom, but he grabbed her arm.

  "Did you tell him you were coming for me?"

  She had debated with herself over that. Whether or not to prepare Tobie to meet his father. In the end she'd decided the chance Charlie would refuse to help posed too great a risk. "No," she said. "He has no idea. When I left here yesterday, he thought I was just going home."

  A movement from the bed caught their attention. Tobie was waking. Molly moved to his side and kissed his brow. "I've brought someone to meet you, honey." She said the words in a rush, before he had time to question the presence of the man behind her.

  Charlie stepped to the bed and put his hand on the rail. Dawning recognition washed across the youngster's face. His gaze flew to his mother, questioning.

  "He's your father, Tobie."

  Charlie watched the emotions flickering in the boy's eyes. Disbelief, wonder, puzzlement. A kind of wariness seemed to settle in for the long haul. Well, he couldn't begrudge him that. He'd be a little suspicious himself, given the same circumstances. He said nothing and waited for his son's first words to him.

  "Where ya been?"

  In three words Tobie had cut past awe, intimidation, anger, to the heart of the matter. The part that concerned him. It was funny in a way, but Charlie didn't feel like laughing. Molly bent, anxious to explain, but he stilled her with a hand on her shoulder. "I'm here now," he said firmly, "and I ain't leavin'."

  Tobie's eyes again searched out Molly's. "But, Mom, he's—"

  "Yes, he is, honey, but he's also your dad."

  "I'd be happy if you'd call me that, too, Tobie."

  At Charlie's words, Tobie gave him another quick appraisal, then slid a glance to his mother. She'd have some big-time explaining to do, Charlie guessed. When the boy's gaze returned to him once more, it was guarded, watchful. "I'll think about it," he said with a quiet reserve. Clearly, Charlie would have to earn his son's trust.

  He reached across the bed to stroke Tobie's forehead, to touch for the first time this child of his seed, and Molly's. He was caught unawares by the force of his reaction. He came from a big, loving family. He knew the strength of those ties. But he'd never before experienced them from the parents' side. Never understood what made them put up with the guff, the whining, the bad behavior. Now he knew. There was nothing pretty or delicate about this bond. It was feral, untamed, frightening in its intensity. He would step in front of a train for his child, simple as that.

  And he knew that he shared this bond with Molly. He understood, now, what had brought her to him, in spite of her fears. What he would never understand is what had kept her away.

  At a sound behind him, he turned. A tall, middle-aged man with sad eyes walked in. He wore a white coat and had a stethoscope draped around his neck. A definite clue as to his line of work, Charlie thought. Molly introduced Dr. Morrissey. When Charlie shook his hand, he noted the recognition in the man's eyes. Country music fans came in all kinds of packages.

  Morrissey did a brief examination of Tobie. Charlie caught sight of an ugly-looking tube protruding near Tobie's collarbone when the doctor raised the pajama top to listen to his chest. If nothing else, the tube served to deflect attention from Tobie's protruding ribs. Charlie turned away, wondering again if he would have what his son needed to survive.

  As Morrissey straightened from the bedside, he directed his attention to Charlie. "I can take a sample of your blood now, for matching purposes," he said.

  "You'll do it?" Charlie asked, a little surprised that he would bother himself with such a mundane task.

  "I know how," he replied with a quiet smile.

  After a few more words to Molly and Tobie, they left the room. As Morrissey guided him to a cluttered utility room on the unit, Charlie sensed the doctor had more than blood samples on his mind. He had the distinct impression the man was sizing him up. Fair enough, he supposed, since he was doing the same thing.

  Morrissey gestured him toward a chair that had a side arm and reminded Charlie of a school desk. He took a seat and watched as the doctor rummaged in a drawer for some rubber-topped glass tubes and a syringe. When the older man seated himself in front of him, Charlie unbuttoned his cuff and rolled up his sleeve.

  "We'll be testing your blood for other things, while we're at it, to make sure you're in general good health before we consider a transplant," Morrissey said.

  Charlie thought he understood the implications of that. "A celebrity's life isn't always as colorful as the tabloids would have you believe. I don't have any diseases you need to worry about."

  The man only grunted and laid out the tubes. Charlie glanced away. "What exactly are you looking for? For the transplant, I mean." He winced while the doctor cinched the rubber tourniquet around his biceps.

  "Briefly, what we're after is called an HLA type. It's located on the sixth chromosome and inherited much the same way eye color and curly or straight hair is. Each parent has two of what we call haplotypes and gives one to a child. That makes four possible combinations for any one child, and that's why there's a one in four chance that any sibling will be a match." He paused and pulled on gloves. "Make a fist."

  Charlie did as he was told and averted his eyes. He'd seen drinking straws that looked smaller than that needle. He decided to step gingerly around the minefield of siblings. Even if they were of a mind to try it, there wasn't time. "What are the odds of a parent being a match?" He felt a vigorous swabbing at his elbow bend.

  "One in five thousand."

  Charlie felt as if he'd been sucker-punched. He couldn't draw a breath. On the bright side, if you could call it that, he hadn't even felt the needle go in. Still, this gave him some sense of Molly's desperation to find him and his "huge" family. Anything to improve Tobie's chances. "That's better than the odds of find
ing a match in the population at large," he heard the man go on. God, what they were up against!

  "I wouldn't bet on a horse with those odds," he said.

  "We're in a different kind of race."

  Charlie leaned his head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling while Morrissey applied a gauze patch and Band-Aid to his arm. After a few minutes he straightened to find the doctor writing on the tube labels. He pulled his shirtsleeve down and buttoned it.

  When Morrissey finished, he addressed Charlie again. "We'll have the results in a few days. I'll call you into my office, privately, to discuss them with you."

  There was something in his tone.... "Why the secrecy?" Charlie asked.

  The other man rubbed his hands over his thighs. "A transplant—any transplant, but particularly one for bone marrow— is as hard on the donor as it is on the person receiving the tissue. You'll have to undergo anesthesia. There's going to be pain. You'll need to stay in the hospital overnight. You—"

  "Are you saying I might not be willing...."

  "I'm saying you have the right to decide, without any pressure from anyone else. If you don't want to do it, we'll just tell his mother you're not a good match. That's our usual procedure."

  Charlie figured his confusion must have been apparent. The doctor continued in clipped, impersonal tones. "There's more to this matching process than identical tissue. There are psychological .. .emotional...issues to consider. We're required to fully inform you of your options, one of them being that you can choose not to do this."

  Charlie kneaded the back of his neck, unable to believe what he was hearing. "I'd do this for a stranger," he said.

  The doctor's mouth thinned and he shifted his gaze away.

  Suddenly, Charlie went very cold. The man's meaning couldn't have been clearer. For all practical purposes, Tobie was a stranger.

  "What did Molly tell you...about me?"

  "Nothing. I had no idea who you were until I saw you in that room."

  Charlie swiped a hand across his mouth and let out a long sigh. "I don't know what you think," he said at last, "but this was no one-night stand. Molly and me...we go way back." The guy didn't look convinced. "We're getting married."