by Beck, Jamie
“No, that’s right, and it’s a good sign.” Dr. Acharya didn’t exactly smile, but his expression relaxed.
A good sign. A relieved sob bubbled up from inside, so I covered my face. My mother and Sam exhaled.
“Like I mentioned before, your spine has undergone trauma, so there’s a lot of swelling, which can confuse the nerves and cut off sensation. I told your parents that we successfully removed all the fragments without causing additional damage. As the swelling subsides, the hope is that you’ll regain all sensation and some or full control of your legs. We’ll know more in the coming days, but I’m encouraged. You’ll experience muscle weakness as a result of the nerve injury, but let’s see what unfolds as you work with the therapists.” Dr. Acharya spoke to Carter about the road ahead, and the hard work and complications that could ensue. I tried to focus, but exhaustion mingled with the tiniest relief made it difficult for me to process new information.
When the doctor finished, I followed him into the hallway. “So you think he’ll walk again?” I asked.
“We’re moving in the right direction.” He offered a slight smile instead of an affirmative reply. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” I swiped my cheek dry, refraining from hugging him, as he didn’t appear the type who’d welcome it. He’d left room for hope, so I would cling to it.
When I returned to Carter, I silently thanked God for this small chance. My son could feel his feet. With dedication and hard work, he might walk again. And no one was more dedicated and hardworking than my beautiful boy.
“I love you so much, sweetie,” I said.
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?” Carter asked, his anxious gaze darting back and forth between Sam and me.
The desperation in his eyes made me equally frantic to ease his mind. “Doctors don’t lie—”
Unaware of the gravity of our situation, Kim interrupted. “Can I use your Xbox while you’re here?”
“Not now, Kim,” I said.
My mother shot me a disapproving look before pulling Kim to her side and rubbing her shoulders. I regretted my tone, but the cortisol coursing through me had me strung tight.
Carter pressed. “Do you think I’ll be able to walk again?”
His despair strangled me into silence.
Sam gripped Carter’s hand and leaned close, fixing his steady gaze on our son. “I’m encouraged by what he said and what you felt. If it’s possible, you’ll make it happen. I’ve never known anyone more determined than you, son.”
Carter’s facial muscles relaxed. As usual, Sam’s easy manner and confidence had calmed our child much the way it had always soothed me. I was grateful, if a bit envious, of that talent. For so long I’d seen my job as protecting my kids, but it would be lovely to also reassure them.
Carter fell silent, his gaze unfocused. Too soon the space between his eyebrows creased with worry lines.
“What’s the matter, honey?” I frowned. He had a catheter, so he didn’t need to use the bathroom. “Are you hungry, or do you want to rest?”
He worried his lip, his eyes now as wide as Sugar Momma’s cookies. “The cops were there when we left. What’s happening to Rowan and the others?”
“The police were at the party?” Kim’s fascinated expression might have been comical under other circumstances.
“I don’t know,” I answered Carter. Aside from the run-in with that cop in the waiting room hours ago, I’d hardly spared a thought to any of the others since climbing into the ambulance.
Sam cleared his throat. “I spoke with Mrs. Gillette earlier this morning. She’s extremely sorry about what happened and sends her love, but didn’t mention what the police have determined, or if any charges are being filed.”
“You spoke with Mimi?” Other than my few trips to the restroom, we’d been together all night. Why had he kept it a secret? The flash of anger turned to envy because, unlike him, I couldn’t take comfort in talking with my friend today.
From the corner of my eye, I noted my mother’s hand cover her mouth. She probably thought it suspicious that another woman had called my husband, but she’d never understood how intertwined my life and Mimi’s had become. Since Dirk left, Mimi contacted Sam about everything from simple plumbing problems to tax questions.
“She tried me when she couldn’t reach you. She’s worried about everyone and asked for updates. Why don’t you call her now and fill her in?” Sam projected his “please do the right thing” look my way without apologizing for keeping this from me for hours.
Normally the “right thing” with Mimi was as obvious as the sun in the sky, but now a fog of doubts descended. Why had she gone on a date and left the boys alone with alcohol? Even if she hadn’t permitted this particular party, she’d been careless with other people’s children. And had she ever sought other parents’ permission before letting their boys drink beer? Surely no parent had the right to make those important choices for other people’s kids.
“Maybe later, Sam. I’m still processing what the doctor told us.” I then turned to Carter. “Honey, whatever’s happening with those kids, their parents will help them deal with it. Your only job is to recuperate. Stressing out over that other stuff will hurt your recovery.”
“Where’s my phone?” Carter asked.
Social media chatter would only work him up. The first shots of a parental battle over this party had probably cropped up on the moms’ Facebook group before breakfast. I’d been praying too hard to bother checking. “You’re barely out of surgery. Let’s leave the phone be until tomorrow.”
“Dad,” Carter begged, turning from me.
Sam’s hesitation told me he didn’t agree, but he said, “Your mom is right. Relax and rest. Everything will still be there in the morning.”
I would’ve mouthed a thank-you, but everyone would’ve seen me.
“I’ll ask the nurse what you’re allowed to eat. There may be restrictions for a few days, but I’m happy to bring you your favorite meals.” I held my son’s hand.
“I’m not hungry.” Carter stared at the ceiling. If only I could hear his thoughts, I’d know how to help him.
“Well, let me know anything else you want from home. Your laptop, comfortable loungewear, slippers . . .”
He shrugged, uninterested in such details. Even that small gesture made him yelp. A reminder of the pain and scars he’d carry around forever. The only thing holding me together was the fact that he wasn’t falling apart. My mother remained suspiciously silent, but I preferred that to more of her “should’ve” statements.
“We probably ought to get Kim settled at home and make some arrangements soon,” Sam said to me, then glanced at our son. “If you think of things you want us to bring back, let us know.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I shook my head.
Sam blinked. “I suppose I could take Kim home, and you could Uber later.”
“No. I mean I’m staying the night.” I flashed my son a smile so he knew it wouldn’t be any burden.
After catching my attention, Sam turned his hands over. “There are visiting hours.”
“Then I’ll ask for an exception.” I gestured to Carter. “He’s only fifteen and has been through a huge ordeal. I want to be here in case anything changes or if he needs company. I also don’t want to miss seeing the doctor in the morning because we’re stuck in traffic.”
“Is that workable, though? We need to figure out all the moving pieces, like getting Kim off to school. We need to make long-term arrangements.” Sam stared at me as if waiting for me to wake up. If he didn’t understand why Carter’s security and comfort outweighed any other consideration today, what else could I say? This new disconnect between us couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“I can help with Kim,” my mother offered, then promptly hunched as if bracing for a blow.
Granted, I might’ve bristled. But her posture irritated me because I’d never once tried to hurt her. If anything, I’d gone out of
my way to repress my resentment because she was the only family I had left.
For two seconds, no one made a peep. There was no better solution, but I struggled to trust my mother to keep my children safe when she’d failed miserably with Margot and me.
“That’s very kind, Becky. Could you excuse us for a second?” Sam gestured to the door, so I followed him out of Carter’s room.
Sam drew a breath, tapping his fingers against his mouth while considering what he wanted to say. I folded my arms beneath my chest and waited him out, too aware of how this situation had killed our ability to read each other’s minds. “Grace, I don’t think it’s a good idea to baby Carter. He’s facing a lot of time away from home, and making him afraid of being alone or having him relying too heavily on you to make everything better won’t help him in the long run.”
My jaw nearly hit the floor. “You’re not serious right now, are you? He just got out of major surgery.”
“I know, and if they’ll make an exception, then sleep here tonight. But you can’t ignore Kim’s needs all week. Once Carter is settled, we need to come up with a workable game plan.”
I flinched. “I can’t think about the future when I’m still catching up with what’s happening now. Let’s take my mom up on her offer. That gives me the freedom to see how things unfold this week. By Friday, we’ll have a better idea of what to expect, and then we can make long-term plans. If you want to be more involved this week, maybe you could work from home to help deal with Kim after school.”
Sam made a face. He wasn’t wrong to be concerned. My mother could be spacey, and Kim was likely to take advantage of our absence and manipulate her in any number of ways. “Despite your mom’s intentions, we both know she’ll struggle with Kim. Mimi offered to watch her for a few days. That would take the burden off your mom, and maybe then you and I could get a hotel room up here for a few days.”
“You want to hand Kim over to Mimi after what she did to Carter?” My words felt like razors coming up through my throat.
“Mimi didn’t hurt Carter, Grace. You can’t blame her.” He crossed his arms, a signal that he was losing his patience with me. Well, ditto.
“It’s hard not to, given that this happened at her house among Rowan and his friends.” My body buzzed as if someone had plugged me in. For Rowan to let things go so far suggested he was becoming more like his father than Mimi or I would have hoped.
Sam shook his head. “We still don’t know what happened.”
“And we won’t until Carter is ready to talk. Until then, maybe we shouldn’t speak to anyone else involved.” My heart split in two, creating a piercing ache in my chest. I loved Mimi. Every time I looked out my kitchen window at the cherry tree she’d bought me on the fifteenth anniversary of Margot’s death, it reminded me of her generosity and love. She would be beside herself with regret and worry today, but I was running on empty, and the person who most needed my love and protection was my son. I’d failed him once. Never again.
Sam closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “We’re both upset and concerned, so I’m trying to give you a lot of rope, Grace. But in this case, we need to follow Carter’s lead, not the other way around. This happened to him, not you. You weren’t there, so whatever he says goes.”
“Carter is a child. You and I are the grown-ups. You don’t let children make decisions that require adult experience and comprehension.” I scowled. “Look at what happened when we gave in to him this weekend.”
I didn’t know where that urge to lash out with sarcasm had come from, but the betrayal in Sam’s eyes hit me like a bullet. We’d never hurt each other before. “Sorry. I’m exhausted and on the verge of collapse. Please, let’s first focus on getting through the next twenty-four hours. I can’t think beyond that.”
“Fine.” We didn’t hug or smile like we usually did when coming to a decision together. Instead, he rocked back on his feet. “Becky can watch Kim this week. I’ll book us a hotel room nearby and take a few days off work.”
“Thank you.” I sighed at the hollow victory. His uncommon coolness proved he was still smarting. For whatever reason, I could not make myself reach for him. That scared me almost as much as Carter’s injuries. Until I had a better handle on my son’s status, I couldn’t deal with my marriage. “Do you have that card the cop gave you? We should let them know they can come talk to Carter.”
Sam shook his head slowly, then reached into his wallet and retrieved it. “Here. You call since you’re so eager to assign blame.”
I clasped his arm. “You think I’m being a monster, but tell me why you aren’t more interested in getting justice for our son.”
“If Carter tells us that those boys pushed him on purpose, then I’ll encourage him to press charges. But I don’t want this situation to rip apart our friendships or our marriage and family, Grace. That would make it all more tragic.”
As soon as I let him go, he disappeared into the room, leaving me alone. His words repeated like a yellow caution light.
I flicked the card, debating with myself.
The cops wanted to talk to Carter—that was the law, not some extraordinary request of an overwrought mother. And by God, when we’d played fast and loose with the law about attending Rowan’s party, our carefully planned world had gotten upended.
I glanced at the open door, knowing Carter needed more rest before any interrogation. The call could wait until morning, but I would make it then.
CHAPTER NINE
MIMI
Monday, January 11, 6:45 a.m.
Mimi’s kitchen
“I don’t want to go to school.” Rowan wore the same pained expression he’d sported since Saturday night.
“Last I checked, school wasn’t optional.” Things at home had been rocky since yesterday, when he admitted that he’d planned the party—although he swore it had gotten bigger than he’d intended. Until this weekend I’d trusted my mothering instincts. All these years of being his buddy—someone he could talk to who wouldn’t judge him—had landed us here. Yet playing a hard-ass did not come naturally. I’d grounded him, which hardly seemed like much punishment considering most of his friends would also be grounded.
“Mom!” he moaned, tossing his phone across the table. “Look at the hate because I talked to the cops. I’m gonna get crushed.”
The phone’s screen lit up with each new message like a fireworks show.
“No one said it’d be easy.” I winced, remembering the ugly comments posted to the Potomac Point Moms Facebook group last night. It wouldn’t have surprised me if my computer screen had started to ooze tar and sprout feathers.
It was one thing to have suspected many had tolerated me out of respect for Grace, quite another to see their disdain on display. And these women were out for blood—specifically mine. Multiple versions of accusations like All the kids knew that Mimi let boys drink at her house, so it’s no wonder something like this happened hadn’t been a shock, but It should’ve been Rowan on the floor had literally made me cry. That kind of cruelty went so far beyond the thinly veiled judgment I’d finally begun to overcome in recent weeks. Now I wasn’t back to square one; I was ten paces behind it. “But we can’t move out of town, Rowan. My business is here, with a lease I can’t break. And playing on this high school team can get you a football scholarship.”
“Just let me stay home today. Please.” He pulled the phone back to his side of the table.
His suffering hurt me, especially because I blamed myself. I’d been lax about parties and imposed merely a stern discussion whenever he screwed up, creating an environment where he and his friends thought they could do as they pleased. Uncle Tommy would be so ashamed. Heck, my own parents might even be disappointed. They hadn’t imposed a bunch of rules, but they’d had more expectations of me in terms of chores and manners than I’d required of Rowan.
“Putting it off will only prolong your anxiety. Own what you did, and make your friends own what they did. You didn’t hold a gun to anyo
ne’s head, and you sure didn’t force anyone to give Carter a hard time.” That was the truth. I’d made mistakes, but I hadn’t raised a bully.
My son’s shoulders slouched; his jaw bulged from grinding his teeth.
After I removed a tray of cookies from the oven and set it on the stove top, I crossed to him and gave his shoulders a squeeze. We both needed a hug and some hope. Harkening back to my cheerleader days, I tried to rally him. “Honey, I hope this is the hardest thing you’ll ever do in your life. Look at it like any other challenge—like building muscles. This is a character-building moment that may end up changing who you become, hopefully for the better. You want to be a captain one day? Be a leader now.”
He glanced up at me, doubt in his eyes, but grabbed for a warm cookie. “Why’d you make these for breakfast?”
I’d been up at dawn, racked with uneasy energy and needing a project. Using a spatula to transfer the cookies to a cooling rack, I said, “They’re for Carter. He loves my double chocolate chips. He also loves my homemade mac ’n’ cheese, so I’m making an extra tray to take over to Grace’s.” The last thing she’d be thinking about right now was cooking, but her family needed to be fed. “Hopefully when I go over there, I’ll learn what’s happening. The not knowing is killing me, and the hospital won’t tell me squat ’cause I’m not family.”
Those folks didn’t know that Grace treated me like family. Once she’d learned about my parents’ deaths and my lack of close family connections, she’d consistently invited me and mine to holidays, birthdays, and even on a few vacations despite never much warming to Dirk. She’d been the sister I’d never had, and I’d filled the hole that Margot had left behind long before that poor young woman died. Our relationship was one of the biggest blessings in my life.
Rowan shook his head. “That’s not a good idea, Mom. If the Phillipses aren’t calling you, they probably don’t want to see you. They probably hate us now.”
The sting of tears gathered behind my nose, but I kept them at bay. Our differences had always brought out the best in Grace and me, so I held on to hope that this time would be no different once the dust settled. “Grace is too overwhelmed to think of us now, but I can’t sit here and do nothing. Today is my only day off, so I’ve got to make it count. Now quit stalling and get yourself to school.”