“Mark?”
My heart squeezes in my chest at the sound of her hollow voice. I press my hand harder against the hand lever that attaches to the gas pedal, picking up speed.
“Jackie, are you at Memorial?”
There’s a beat of silence on the other end.
“Jackie?”
“Yes. M-Memorial.”
“I’m on my way. What floor are you on?”
“What? Isn’t the meeting still going on?”
“Screw that meeting. All the hard work is done. Tell me about your mom. How is she? How are you? What room are you in?”
I pepper her with questions, one after the other, because I feel stupidly helpless not being there with her. I want to comfort her, but I need to know how to get to her.
“S-She’s alive.”
“What room are you in? Are you still in the ED?”
She clears her throat. “Yes.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.” I pause and wait for her to say something stupid like you don’t have to come, but she doesn’t. And that makes me press even harder on the gas.
“Dumbass,” I yell at myself as soon as I hang up the phone. Slamming my palm against the steering wheel, I force myself to calm down. I’m pissed because I knew something was wrong, and I waited nearly this entire day to find out what the hell it was. I should’ve been on top of things.
“Jackie,” I yell as soon as I enter the ED and find her sitting in one of the waiting chairs.
“Mark.” She comes to me, and I immediately see the tears in her eyes.
We move toward another bank of empty chairs. “What happened?”
She swallows and looks at me with the most solemn expression on her face. “My mother tried to kill herself.”
Chapter 17
The words make me nauseous as they come up my throat and out of my mouth, but there it is—the ugliness of what I walked into this morning.
“I walked in on her lying in the bathtub,” I say to Mark as my hands tremble in his. “She’d filled it halfway with water and slashed her wrists. There was so much blood.”
“But she’s alive?”
I nod. “She barely made it. If I’d been a little later—” I break off and wipe my running nose with the sleeve of the silk shirt I’m still wearing. “The paramedics said she only had minutes left. She must’ve done it in the middle of the night or something.”
“You haven’t been able to speak with her?”
Shaking my head, I hiccup out the word, “No,” before pausing and taking a breath. “She’d lost so much blood they had to do transfusions on her. They wanted her to rest, and a few different doctors have been in to see her. They’re trying to decide if they should admit her to the psychiatric unit.”
“What do you think should happen?”
Looking down, I see how tightly he’s wrapped his hands around mine. It’s as if his touch is pouring energy into my body, holding me up. Before he called, I felt as if I were going to collapse. Between not knowing if my mother would live and the memory from what I saw in the tub this morning, it all started to become too much.
“I just want to talk to her. I want to see what she has to say. To ask why she did this.”
“Let’s see if we can make that happen.”
Before I can ask how he plans to do that, Mark releases my hands and rolls over to the nurse’s station. I can’t hear the conversation he has with the woman on the other side, but she soon picks up the phone, dialing someone. Soon enough, she’s handing the phone over to Mark, who takes it and begins speaking with whoever’s on the other end.
The conversation is brief before Mark hands the nurse back the phone and returns to me.
“A doctor will be out soon to take you back to see your mom.”
Frowning, I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I’ve been waiting here almost all day.”
“Ms. Hinkerson?”
Pivoting in my seat, I turn to see a tall, lanky figure dressed in a white coat and wearing a stethoscope. Dr. Mike Jacobsen is embroidered over the left breast pocket of his coat.
“Yes.”
“I’m Dr. Jacobsen. I’ve been overseeing your mother’s care. She’s resting, and the blood transfusions have helped tremendously in elevating her levels. Physically, she’s out of the woods.”
“Physically,” I mumble. Standing, I ask, “Can I see her?”
“Yes, of course. Right this way.”
I turn to look at Mark, who nods with his head for me to follow the doctor. I do so, but I remind myself to ask later how he could get done in a matter of minutes what I’d been waiting for hours to accomplish.
“I can only give you a few minutes with her. She needs to rest.”
I nod to the doctor before stepping around him and pushing the hanging, light green curtain aside so that I can pass through. This isn’t an official hospital room, just a partitioned off part of the emergency department until they admit my mother to an actual room.
“Mama,” I call lightly from the makeshift doorway.
Her eyelids flutter, and I release the breath I’m holding, seeing signs of life. She turns her head as her eyes open to slits.
“Ma,” I croak out as I draw closer and toss my arms around her. I begin sobbing uncontrollably. I cry so hard that it takes me a minute to realize that my mother is crying, too. I have to fight to control myself. The doctor is only giving me a few minutes with my mother before he does whatever he plans to with her. Working in mental health and addiction services, I know all about the seventy-two-hour hold, where I won’t be able to speak with her at all.
My stomach drops as I realize my career and experience should’ve told me she was vulnerable to something like this. I should’ve picked up on the signs.
“Mama, please tell me why you did this to yourself. Please?” I beg as I take her by the shoulders and bring our faces even.
“I-I don’t know, Jackie. I just don’t know.”
I shake my head. “That’s not good enough. Daddy dying is hard, but I know you can get through this.” The words feel like battery acid on my tongue. I loathe my father even more than I already did, but I know she loved him.
“It’s been so hard. I know you think I’m weak, Jackie. It’s because I am. Always have been. He told me so every day. How am I supposed to live life without him? A-And with the house and you …”
I stiffen. “What do you mean, the house and me?” I never confided in my mother about what my father mandated in his will.
“I know about it,” she says. “I know everything.”
My knees weaken, and I have to take a seat on the side of her bed. “What do you know, Mama?”
“Your Uncle Will came over last night. He’s been doing that for weeks. Just showing up now and then when you were out working late.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She shakes her head. “It never seemed important. He always said he was just coming by to check on me. He’d ask about you and if you were seeing anyone. I know I’m not that smart, but I felt like he was spying on us or something. So, I always told him you were out late working on a big project.”
Reaching forward, she grabs my forearm. “That you’re seeing Mark slipped out on accident, Jackie. Please believe me.”
“Wait, Mama, slow down. What happened last night?”
She nods. “I’d gone to the store to get a bottle of rum. After Thanksgiving, I found out it helped me get to sleep, but your uncle stopped by after my second or third glass. I offered him a glass of the Coke I purchased also. I filled mine with rum thinking he wouldn’t notice if I mixed it with the soda.”
“You were drinking home alone?”
She nods, looking down at her hand in her lap. “I would go to the store when you weren’t around and hide the bottles under my mattress.”
“Oh, Mama.”
She shakes her head. “It helped me sleep. Your uncle asked about you again, and I said you were probably over Mark’s. He began g
rilling me about Mark and what his last name was, if I’d met him, on and on. He knows Mark O’Brien. Your father told him about Mark from your teenage years.”
“I know, Mama.”
“And the house. He told me that since you lied, the house and money would go to him, and he’d kick me out, making me homeless. I’m broke because your father left me with nothing, and I haven’t had a job in over thirty years. But Will also threatened to get Mark into trouble somehow. You know he and your father have connections all over the state. I’m so sorry, Jackie. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay, Mama. It’s not your fault.”
“I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth. He always told me I talked too much.”
Gritting my teeth, I bite back a curse. I didn’t need to ask who he is. My father manipulated my mother so much over the years, I’m surprised she knows which way is up and which is down.
“Is that why you did this?” I ask, softly running my hand over her bandaged wrist.
She peers down, staring also. “I was just so tired. I went to bed after your uncle left but tossed and turned for hours. I made myself another drink. That didn’t put me to sleep, and I began fretting more and more. I don’t know what made me do it. I just thought you’d be better off if I weren’t here. The world would be better off if I weren’t around. The next thing I remember is waking up here in the hospital.”
Taking my mother into my arms, I rock her side to side as she cries. Tears stream down my face as well, but they’re mostly tears of anger. How could one man do this to a woman he claimed to love? How could someone reduce another human being to a quivering mass of loneliness and sorrow after his demise?
A heart attack had been too kind of an ending for my father.
“Ms. Hinkerson, I’m sorry, but that’s all the time I can give you with your mother,” the doctor from earlier interrupts.
Wiping the tears from my eyes, I stand and look at him. “Are you admitting her?”
He nods. “Yes, for seventy-two hours.”
I nod, expecting as much. I take my mother’s hand into mine. “It’s going to be okay, Mama. You’re going to have to spend Christmas here in the hospital, but you’ll be home for the New Year.”
She shakes her head. “We don’t have a home.”
“Shhh,” I shush. “Everything will be fine.”
Regrettably, I have to release her hand as more medical staff enter the room. I take a step back and give her one final look before exiting.
Mark remains in that same spot. Our gazes meet, and I fall into the chair next to him, breaking down.
“What happened?”
I can’t hold back anymore. I tell him everything. About how my father manipulated his will to include the clause about my mother only getting ownership of the house under strict conditions. One of them being that I was forbidden from dating anyone for five years, especially him.
“He had a vendetta against you even after all of these years. Once he found out that I’d been sneaking around with you in high school, he threatened to have you arrested even after the accident. It’s why he sent me away to a boarding school up in Maine.”
Shaking my head, I sniffle and finish telling him how I planned to use the money from my bonus at Cypress to buy the house.
“That wouldn’t have been enough to buy it outright,” Mark says of the $10,000 bonus I should be receiving from Cypress at the signing of the merger.
I nod, agreeing. “No, but I have some money saved, and I hoped it’d be enough to hire an attorney to get the will overturned and put down a down payment or something. At least, I could let my mother have it so she could start over in a new place if she wanted. He left her with nothing, all because he wanted to remain in control even after his death. He knew the only thing keeping me under his thumb would be my mother. She and my aunt are all the family I have.”
Mark’s gaze moves down to my hands that are again clasped in his, before he peers up at me. There’s a cold look in his eyes.
“You never wrote that note, did you?”
Wrinkling my eyebrows, I ask, “What note?”
His shoulders slump. “I should’ve known it.”
“What note, Mark?”
“After I woke up from surgery in the hospital, I received a note. There were all types of cards and whatnot, but the one with your name on it was a type-written letter. It said that you never wanted to see me again. That you were too good for me. Had always been too good for me, but especially now that half of me was useless.”
I gasp and cover my mouth with my hand. “I never said or wrote anything like that, Mark. I never would’ve.”
He swallows and nods, retaking my hands. “I know. I might’ve realized it back then if I weren’t in so much pain and anguish over my new reality.”
“My father …”
“Yeah, I figured it out that night you finally told me how abusive he was.” He sighs heavily. “We’re going to fix this.”
“How?”
He squeezes my hands. “You and I have had enough heartbreak during this time of year. It’s time for a little Christmas miracle.” He brings my face forward and kisses my forehead.
“Trust me,” are his final words before he turns to head out the emergency department’s exit.
Chapter 18
“Are you sure you don’t need anything, Mama?” I ask for probably the third time that morning, as I come to sit on the couch next to my mother.
It’s been five days since she got home from the hospital. Eight days total since that horrible morning I walked into her bathroom and found her in the tub. And seven days since I’ve seen Mark, though he called on Christmas to wish me and my mother a Merry Christmas.
“I’m fine, Jackie. Sit down and rest,” she insists, sounding a little stronger than she has in months, but that could also just be me hoping she’s getting better. I kick myself almost every day for not seeing the signs sooner. I hate that I didn’t notice how far my mother had sunk and where her mind was going. Add to that my sheisty uncle coming over and essentially threatening and bullying her, and I hate that she was so alone.
“How are you feeling? Do your bandages itch?” I ask, looking down at her wrists covered in the white medical tape and bandages the hospital used. We change them every other day. Thankfully, the wounds are on the mend.
“Jackie, please. I’m allright. Let’s finish watching this film. It was one of your favorites as a little girl.”
Sighing, I turn back to the screen at the exact moment ten-year-old Macaulay Culkin pats his face with his father’s aftershave and screams from the burn. The classic Home Alone scene. It brought me to laughter as a kid, but right now, it only makes me long for when days were simpler. For days, my mind has been on a constant rotation between trying to figure out if I’ll be able to save the house for Mama or if we’ll have to find someplace else to live.
Also, exactly how I’m going to manage to pay for that place since I’m not entirely sure I still have a job. I haven’t been to work or in contact with anyone at my job since I called out that day. The only person I’ve spoken with besides doctors and my mother is Mark, which was relatively brief on Christmas morning. He called to wish me a Merry Christmas but said that he had some things to take care of and wouldn’t be able to see me.
I spent the holiday alone switching between Hallmark and Lifetime movies, wishing I was snuggled in Mark’s arms, and that my mother was okay. Those are the only two things I still want.
Glancing back, I look over my shoulder to see my mother let out a little laugh at the film, and I feel some relief that at least one of my wishes appears to be coming true.
“I know you didn’t order more food, did you?” my mother asks with a wrinkle in her brow when there’s a knock at the door.
Shaking my head, I push the red and green throw blanket off my legs and head to the door to see who it is.
Peering through the peephole, I gasp when I see who’s on the other side.
“Resha?” I question as I pull the door open.
Resha, Mark’s sister-in-law, stands in front of me, smiling as she wraps her arms around the baby strapped to her chest.
“Connor’s parking,” she says.
Glancing over her shoulder, I see Mark’s brother getting out of their dark-colored SUV across the street.
“What are you doing here? How did you know where I lived?”
“Mark.” She laughs, shrugging. “He told me to tell you it’s a little payback for me giving you his address.”
My frown deepens along with the wrinkle in my forehead. I’m still incredibly confused.
“Don’t hold the woman in suspense, astór. Tell her why we’re here.”
“Don’t rush me,” Resha says to Connor over her shoulder and rolling her eyes. Turning back to me, she says, “We’re here because Mark wanted us to drop off your dress for the New Year’s Eve party over at Townsend tonight. According to him, there’s a special announcement happening that you were instrumental in making happen. He insists you can’t miss it.”
I begin shaking my head when I realize what Resha is referring to. “I can’t.”
“Who’s at the door, sweetie? Oh, Resha, Connor,” my mother says as she comes up behind me.
“Good evening, Mrs. Hinkerson.”
“Come in,” my mother insists, pulling the door open farther. “What are you all doing here?”
“We’re here to spend the New Year’s with you while Jackie attends a crucial work function.”
“What? No, I can’t.”
“Why not?” my mother asks, and three pairs of eyes land on me.
Pushing out a breath, I run my hand through my hair, thinking it should be obvious. Aside from the fact that my mother is only a few days out of the hospital after trying to kill herself, I don’t have anything to wear, nor am I sure I’m even still invited to this thing.
“I brought you a dress. Mark said you might need one. He knew your size and everything. Also, Connor will drive you, and yes, you’re very much still invited,” Resha says, answering all of the questions running through my mind. “Come with me.” She doesn’t wait as she takes my arm into hers and pulls me down the hallway, away from everyone else.
A Holiday Temptation: A Holiday Novella Page 14