Doctored

by K'Anne Meinel

  “Why, what’s wrong with your cat?” she asked as she was led to the front door, but Deanna wouldn’t tell her, she would only smile. “Is it okay to leave your son alone while you…?”

  “I have a housekeeper,” Deanna reminded and led her, not to the front door as Madison had assumed, but to a set of stairs that led down to a built-in garage. There was room for six cars, but there were only two—the Rover that Madison was familiar with and a Volvo station wagon, plus the two Waverunners they had so much fun on the other weekend. Other than that, the large garage was strangely empty. Deanna made sure to tuck Madison in the SUV, even pulling the seat belt across to securely fasten it, stealing a kiss in the process. “All tucked in?” she asked with a grin.

  Madison was bemused. She’d learned more about Deanna in the last few hours than she had in the months they had chatted. She couldn’t recall one time where she had asked Deanna direct questions about her past or what she had done in the last ten years, much less what had happened in Africa after she had left. She felt very selfish about that and ashamed. She should have asked, taken an interest. She should have known long before this morning what had happened. As a result, she was fairly quiet on the ride home. It wasn’t until they’d pulled up in front of her house that she realized Deanna had held her hand the entire drive home. As she went to pull it away, Deanna pulled back and looked at her.

  “Are you disgusted?” she asked quietly as she pulled off her sunglasses.

  “Disgusted?” she asked, confused. “With what?”

  “With what I told you this morning.” The blue was completely back in her eyes and they were looking earnestly into Madison’s own green eyes.

  “Of course not,” she answered. Something was lacking, a bit of conviction perhaps and Deanna pounced on it.

  “But…?”

  “But nothing…” she began, but those blue eyes probed and held her. “I should have asked sooner about what happened to you. I feel ashamed that I never did. How selfish of me. I could have….”

  “Changed nothing that happened to me,” she finished for her. “Eventually I would have to tell you about my past. I’ve told you and now we don’t have to talk about it again, okay?”

  “No, we don’t have to talk about it, but I would love to hear more about your son. You never said….”

  “That’s because Roman is the only true innocent in this. I could have left Africa when you did. Instead, I convinced myself that I was indispensable, that I couldn’t possibly get hurt. A man was killed because of me. Not a man I liked, perhaps, but in the end, he was chivalrous. Another man lost his mind with what they did to him. I was lucky to get him out, but maybe it would have been better if he had died. That boy is the only true innocent here. I aim to make sure he knows how much I love him and how much I need him in my life. I will never let anything happen to him if I can prevent it.”

  Madison was fascinated with how impassioned Deanna had become. She looked like a fierce mother protector and she had never even considered that this woman could or would be one. She smiled. “It’s obvious you love him dearly. Is that why you always wanted weekends off?” she guessed.

  Deanna nodded. “That’s when he comes home from his school in Santa Barbara. He is in a private school up there, protected from his cousins and the media that follows the Kearney’s. I want no gossip to reach him if I can help it.”

  “What…what does he know of his father?”

  “As much as I do,” Deanna shrugged. “He knows that his father was not a very nice man and that in the heat of battle people do things they shouldn’t. He knows he was a soldier and that I don’t know his name. How can I tell him I don’t know which man he was?” she asked sadly, but quickly centered herself and released the negativity. “He knows that I love him dearly and would do anything for him.”

  Madison smiled. “We should introduce my kids to him someday soon, okay?”

  “That sounds like a fine idea. Maybe we should take the Waverunners out again?”

  “Oh, God, that was so much fun,” Madison remembered. “They were so jealous.”

  “I imagine so, but I loved spending so much time alone with you, just you,” she finished huskily.

  Madison realized then that Deanna was very adept at hiding her emotions. Until last night she had no idea that this woman had ever loved her. To find out that she had loved her way back in Africa and still loved her, soothed any hurt she had. She leaned in to kiss her.

  Just then the passenger side front door opened. “What the hell are you doing?” a voice raged at Madison. “You leave my children alone with a babysitter overnight, what? So you can whore your way with a…” he looked past her and realized she was with a woman, “…a WOMAN? You are with a woman? What are you now, a dyke?” he roared.

  “Scott!” she gasped. “No, it’s not like that, it’s…” she tried to protest, but he wasn’t listening as he berated her. He grabbed her arm and tried to drag her from the Rover. The seat belt caught and she began to fall to the ground from the two counter-pressures.

  Deanna was out the driver’s side of the Rover in an instant and ran around the front of the vehicle. She pulled at Scott, yelling, “Let her go! You’re hurting her! Let her go!”

  Scott was enraged and backhanded Deanna, not really realizing she was pulling at his arm. It unbalanced him and the swat he meant towards her instead smacked across her face and nose. She instantly started to bleed down the silk of her blouse as she fell to the ground.

  “SCOTT! You’ve hurt her!” Madison screamed as she released her seat belt and hopped out to go to Deanna, bending down to look at her.

  He was furious and went after Madison. She lifted an arm to hold him back, but his leg kick went under it and hit her in the ribs, knocking her to the ground and making her lose her breath. He aimed at the downed Deanna next.

  A neighbor tackled him, but not before he got in one good kick at the fallen blonde. He fought the man who had grabbed him, but by then another neighbor joined in, having been drawn by the shouts. He never even heard the yells of his children at what he had done. Finally, the police were there and Scott was in handcuffs. An ambulance was called and they checked both Deanna and Madison for cuts and bruises. Deanna had a bad bloody nose and would have a bad bruise where he kicked her, but she refused to go the hospital. Madison too would have a bad bruise, but that was all. She was shaking in reaction and Deanna tried to hold her. Madison, embarrassed by the public display, instead took her children in her arms.

  “Do you wish to file charges?” Deanna was asked after the police had all their statements. Deanna hesitated only a moment before nodding. Scott was taken away in the back of the police car, still yelling things like “Dyke” at his ex-wife and Deanna.

  “Deanna, you can’t do that,” Madison tried to argue.

  Deanna couldn’t be budged. “He attacked me and worse, he attacked you. You are willing to let him get away with that?”

  “Deanna, he is the father of my children,” she tried to plead, but there was no swaying the blonde. Finally, unable to talk to her, Madison shepherded her children into the house, away from the prying eyes of her neighbors and the gossip that had already started. She looked back once at the blonde. Deanna watched her go and couldn’t say a thing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Madison arrived at the hospital a little late the next day. She had had to go and get her injury looked at as she was having a hard time breathing. As he had been wearing work boots, the bruising and subsequent swelling from the kick were nasty looking and causing her discomfort. The doctor had ordered x-rays and while she was okay, it would take time for it all to go away. She was put on limited work detail.

  Madison looked for Doctor Kearney, but was hit with a very large dose of gossip when she arrived. Apparently Deanna had a broken nose and a cracked rib and everyone was talking about it since she wouldn’t say how she had gotten it. Madison made sure her own bruise was not visible and protected it from jostling with he
r arm. Her supervisor, while annoyed that her work was limited, seemed to buy the excuse that she had taken a fall. She didn’t put two and two together and for that Madison was grateful.

  Madison didn’t see Deanna for several days and when she did she saw that her face was very bruised from the break to her nose. She wasn’t seeing any patients like that and spent a lot of time catching up on paperwork in her office.

  “Can I see you?” Madison hesitated at the door she had just knocked on.

  Deanna looked up and nodded. “Close the door behind you,” she told her.

  Madison closed the door and walked across the small office to the chair across from Deanna. “May I sit down?” she asked politely and at Deanna’s nod she sat. Swallowing, feeling a lump in her throat, she asked, “What are you going to do about Scott?”

  “What do you think I’m going to do?” she asked thoughtfully, her head turning slightly to the side as she studied Madison.

  Madison already knew that his bail was set too high for him to get out. She was considering taking out a second mortgage to pay for it, but that was taking time. “He doesn’t deserve to stay in jail.”

  “I beg to differ. He attacked you, then he attacked me.” She waited to see what Madison would respond.

  “He didn’t mean to hit you…” she began defensively. He had acted out, childishly perhaps, but he’d been incensed.

  “My ribs would beg to differ.”

  Madison noticed that Deanna was sitting very straight in her chair. If her own ribs were any indication, she could only imagine how much hurt the blonde was feeling. At least her ribs weren’t cracked, just badly bruised, with a clear imprint of the shoe he was wearing on them. “He was just upset,” she answered lamely.

  “I got pretty upset when I saw him try to drag you from the car.”

  “Well, we were kissing.”

  “We were about to kiss. We were just talking...” she clarified the point. It was obvious she was sticking to the exact part of the story she told the police. Scott had ‘thought’ they were about to kiss, but they hadn’t.

  “Deanna, please. Scott isn’t a bad guy. He’s just like a child and he was upset.”

  “Me too.”

  “We can’t afford the bail….”

  “Why should you even worry about his bail?” she asked angrily, her eyebrows, which had noticeable gaps in them, beetling together.

  Madison didn’t know why she focused in on Deanna’s eyebrows, but she did. Deanna must have been very upset if she was pulling out the hairs. “He was my husband….”

  “Was, key word,” she pointed out. “He attacked you. He attacked me.”

  “He was upset…” she repeated.

  “He had no right.”

  “Deanna, he’s really sorry….”

  “I’m sorry too. He’s going to have to pay for what he did to me, for what he did to you.”

  “I’m not pressing charges.”

  “I am.”

  Madison sat back gingerly in the chair, her own bruised ribs hurting in the effort to try to convince Deanna to drop the charges. It was clear she was hurt and angry. “I guess we have nothing more to talk about then, do we?”

  Deanna carefully schooled her features so that the hurt and anger she felt didn’t spill out. “I guess we don’t,” she answered sadly.

  “You won’t change your mind? You won’t let him off with a warning this time?” She had to try once more, for her children’s sake.

  “Why? So he can get upset again someday and hurt someone else?”

  “It was an accident. He didn’t mean to break your nose,” she repeated exactly what he had told her when she visited him to talk about the bail. He had pleaded with her to find a way to pay it. He had talked fearfully of what he had experienced in jail so far. She’d talked to some very unscrupulous bail bondsmen since then. Their fees were outrageous and she couldn’t afford them.

  “I’m sure he didn’t. You and I were merely talking and I gave you a ride home. I still don’t understand why he went ballistic.”

  “He put two and two together….”

  “…And what, came up with five?”

  “I told him that I was in love with you,” she tried harder.

  Deanna realized what Madison was trying to do. “Was he like that during your marriage? Jealous? Possessive? ...Abusive?”

  Madison shook her head immediately. “He had no reason to be. I never even looked at another man while we were married.”

  “How about another woman?” she asked pointedly.

  Madison had been looking down, now she looked up into Deanna’s blue eyes. “I suppressed those feelings. They were inappropriate….”

  “To whom? You? Him? Your family? Or anyone else who might gossip about a woman loving another woman?” She saw the knowing look appear in Madison’s eyes. “Yes, I realize how much people gossip around here. I know how much a part of that you are, to a degree. No, I don’t think you gossip, but I know it bothers you if there is any part of any indiscretions aired. Your divorce, the reasons for it. What if they find out you and I were lovers? That we hooked up the other night?” She saw the look in the redhead’s eyes change to genuine fear. “I won’t say anything. I thought we were friends. I thought we were more than friends,” she finished sadly.

  “We are friends. We are....”

  “What? Friends with benefits?” Deanna was angry. She had finally told Madison she loved her. She had realized her mistakes of a decade before. She had fully disclosed what had happened to her. She’d been honest and open, and hurt and betrayed, all in a matter of a few short hours. Her life right now was not what she had envisioned.

  “No, it wasn’t like that! I loved you,” at the look of hurt in Deanna’s eye she amended that statement, “I love you.”

  “You have a funny way of showing it.”

  “What? I should let my husband,” she slipped, “ex-husband rot in jail because you want him to be punished for a mistake he made? Are you sure you aren’t taking it out on him because he knew me intimately?”

  “Yeah, that’s why, Madison. He’s seen you naked so I want him to go to jail for that,” she said sarcastically. Her hand started to come up to her eyebrow and her fingertips started rubbing along the hairs that were left.

  “Stop that,” Madison said automatically, seeing the gesture.

  Deanna almost smiled, but remembered their conversation. “He has to realize you don’t belong to him anymore. He doesn’t have the right to get angry like that. You have the right to date anyone you wish.”

  “Yes, I think he realizes that now. He was hurt. He lashed out like the child he is. It’s why I divorced him, I got tired of his childish behavior.”

  “I’m sorry, Madison, I won’t drop the assault charges,” she said with finality.

  “I’m sorry too, Deanna,” she answered sadly and got up to leave.

  “Madison, I don’t want to lose you,” she tried one more time to get the redhead to see reason.

  “You already have,” she said quietly as she left the office.

  * * * * *

  Madison couldn’t afford the second mortgage on her home. The interest rate alone would kill her and the rate the bail bondsmen offered her wasn’t much better. She knew Scott would be good for it, but she also knew that he expected her to take care of it for him. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t put her children’s home in jeopardy. He pleaded with her, he guilt-tripped her. After what she had told him about her love for Deanna, he really laid it on thick. She finally stopped visiting him since she couldn’t help him. She heard that he lost his job since he was stuck in jail until the court date. She also found out there had been several other incidents, that was the reason his bail was set so high. She had thought the bail was set so high because Deanna was a Kearney, because of her prestige and connections. She felt bad for that, for thinking that about Deanna. It was all just such a horrible situation.

  The day of the trial, Madison took off from work. Her
bruises had faded and she had avoided Deanna around the hospital like the plague. Because of her status, she had been able to avoid being put on Doctor Kearney’s surgical service. She reassigned her own nurses time and again when she was. She wouldn’t talk to Deanna and it seemed the doctor felt the same. Her facial bruises slowly faded, Madison saw, as she surreptitiously watched from afar.

  Madison wasn’t surprised when Scott was levied a rather large fine. He would serve no further jail time and was let off for time served. The judge, however, warned him that his vicious temper would do him no good and he was ordered to seek counseling for it as part of his probation. Another expense that he couldn’t afford now that he didn’t have a job.

  “It’s all that bitch’s fault,” he hissed at Madison as they left the courtroom. “What the hell do you see in her other than a large checkbook?”

  “I don’t see her, Scott and I’d appreciate it if you would keep what I told you quiet.”

  “It’s all her fault,” he repeated. “She didn’t have to pursue this.”

  “Yes, Scott, she did.”

  Deanna hadn’t appeared in court. The judge took the statement from the police and from her lawyers. High-powered and very expensive lawyers appeared on her behalf. Her x-rays and the damages to her person were taken into account. That, along with his past behaviors had determined his fate.

  “What do you mean? I barely hit her?” he reasoned outside of the courtroom.

  “You kicked her. You cracked her ribs,” she countered. “You kicked me!” She was looking at him as though for the first time. He had behaved like a petulant child who hadn’t gotten his way.

  “You know I didn’t mean it,” he tried to contend. They’d had this same conversation many times.

  “Yes, Scott, I know you think you didn’t mean it. I do think you need help. I’m glad you have to see someone about that temper of yours.”