“No, honey.” I rub her back. “Nobody has their babies at the mall. We need to go. We need to get to the car, right now. Come on, get up.”
She nods and steadies herself against me as she rises.
“Oh. My. God.” It comes from her deep and controlled yet equally panicked. “My water just broke.”
“Shit.”
I speed dial 911 as a crowd amasses around us.
“Another one’s coming.” Kat breaks out into an all out shriek, throwing a nearby toddler into hysterics.
“God, you sound like a Yeti,” I tease, trying to calm her with her own brand of humor.
Kat shoots me a death stare clearly letting me know there is no brand of humor strong enough to pull her through this moment.
“Breathe, sweetie!” I help her pant her way through the next several contractions, which happen to be right on top of one another—always a good sign when you break out in spontaneous labor at the mall.
“Lee?” She tips her head back and squeezes her eyes shut. “I take back everything I ever said about natural childbirth.” It speeds from her lips like only the truth can. “I don’t want it. Get it the hell away from me. I want a mountain of drugs. What do you have in your purse?” She holds out her hand as if I’m actually going to drop a fistful of aspirin into it.
“You’re having a C-section remember?” I’m quick to remind her.
“Yes,” she pants. “But before that I want something fucking illegal to take the edge off.” She spits it out like venom. “Powerful sedative shit that offers the benefit of mass delusions—like you had with Stella.”
“I had Stella natural remember?” It was the birth from hell, but I leave that part out. “You don’t want drugs, Kat. You made me promise. You can totally handle this until the doctor straightens things out. I’ll even buy you a huge box of chocolate as a reward.”
Her eyes spring wide. Her panting all but ceases. “I can trace every damn yeast infection I’ve ever had back to a box of chocolate.” She hisses at the offer as if it were vile, and her hands twist around the front of my shirt quick as a ninja. “You make sure I get the best damn drugs available. And I don’t need you or Steve interfering with my new plan of action!”
“You picked a lousy time to turn into the exorcist. What about that verbal contract you made me agree to? You threatened to make copies of my high school diary and give both Mitch and Max a copy for Christmas if I didn’t comply. I’m not messing with you.”
A siren screams up to the entrance, and two men in white rush over.
“Great news, Kat!” I place the cool of my hand on her forehead. “No mall babies for you.” I pull the bags off the floor and get up.
“Lee, quick!” Kat holds out her fingers. “Drag me to Macy’s. Imagine the discounts my children will have!”
I meet Kat over at the hospital just as they’re wheeling her to the maternity ward.
The smell of this place has always reminded me of ketchup, and it inspires a thin rail of nausea in me.
“I called Steve,” she croaks the words out. “He’s two hours away, but I told him to take his time.”
“You really don’t want him here do you?” Her face is rife with perspiration as I push the tendrils of hair from her cheeks.
“Not if he’s going to interfere with my pressing pharmaceutical needs,” she pants.
“Please, it’s not like you’re doing anything illegal. Women take stuff all the time to take the edge off. Labor’s no fun, that’s why it’s called labor—not fun.”
“Right.” Kat snatches at my wrist, a look of wild determination shoots through her. “Get something, now. Make friends with the nurses. Tell them you’ll supply them with a year’s worth of free wine—hell, make it a lifetime. Throw in that box of chocolate you were going to get me.”
“Now, Kat…” I pick up my pace, trying to keep up with the gurney. “I’d hate to be responsible for all those yeast infections.”
They wheel her into a private room, and the nurse turns on the television as I help her change into a pale yellow gown. I hold out the sleeves. I don’t bother securing the back, just help her under the thin sheet and sit on the edge of the bed.
“Tell her.” Kat nods at a nurse in the corner. “Get the good stuff, or I will not forget this, Lee.”
“Excuse me?” I get the nurse’s attention. “She’d like something to take the edge off.”
“Oh sure, hon.” The squatty faced nurse winks over at Kat. “Soon as the doctor gets here. Should be about twenty minutes.” She speeds out the room without waiting for a response, probably due to a history of unfavorable responses.
“Twenty minutes?” Kat whimpers into my shoulder.
It goes by like twenty years.
The doctor is a small-framed woman who speaks too fast for me to understand, so I just nod while Kat thanks her profusely for the shot she had the nurse administer.
Kat is relaxed—toasted to be exact, with her head moving in slow lethargic circles. She’s completely unaware of the fact the nurse is prepping her for emergency surgery. And, all things considered, it’s probably for the best. Kat is lost in her own reality. That may not be what she wanted, but it’s damn sure what she needed. I’m guessing she’ll wake up tomorrow and slap me silly for not cheering her on while she chewed her arm off in pain.
The nurse hands me a blue paper uniform, and I pull it on with booties to match over my shoes. Steve is an hour away—defying all traffic laws to get here.
An entire medical team dressed in paper suits helps wheel Kat’s bed into the OR. I follow behind into a well-lit room with a table laden with surgical supplies that can double as medieval torture devices.
The over-bright lights, the people dressed as aliens, the thick orange paste they paint over her burgeoning belly in haste, it all sends me swaying on my heels.
A nurse slides a stool over to me and stuffs my hand with cotton-shaped rods.
“Smelling salt. Easy breaths,” she barks. “Only if you think you’re going to pass out. Take in a sharp breath, and you will.”
“Right.” I study the team as they build a tent around Kat’s stomach. Thank God. I can’t see a thing from this angle, and I’m more than relieved.
“Don’t just sit there! Get your phone out and record this!” Kat is quick to morph into a director.
“It’s going to be gory,” I warn.
“It’s going to be beautiful. I’m going to be a mother, Lee. This is my one shot, and I want to see it, please?” Her eyes glitter with tears, and it’s becoming clear Kat is cognizant once again.
I wait for the doctor’s signal then slide my stool over. If I stand up I’m going to black out, and nothing will piss Kat off more than me landing face first in her gaping belly.
Gah!
I cover my mouth as I take in the sight and subject my phone to the horror.
Her flesh is neatly sliced open, exposing layers of flesh. A wall of yellow fat leads to a pocket of bloodied muscles. Four gloved hands reach in and dig around at the same time. I see a foot, then a back, before I know it the doctor fishes out a beautiful bloody baby.
“It’s a boy!” He passes it off to a waiting nurse before plunging his hands back into her stomach. The next one comes out more readily. “Another boy!” Cheers erupt from behind the masks. He reaches back in and fishes out the last baby—at least I hope it’s the last baby. It’s smaller than the other two—already crying, this one. “Girl!”
I can hear Kat bawling from the other side of the curtain. I move the phone up over her face. She sort of does look like the exorcist, but I mean that in a beautiful way.
“How does it feel to be a mommy?”
“Feels good, Lee.” She sniffs through the tears. “Real good.”
Mitch
Never let an abductor take you to a second location. Heard it a million times.
The car thumps along as the night stretches out indefinitely. It’s damn hard to argue with someone holding the barrel of a
gun down your nose. Colt kicks me in regular intervals as we crouch in the backseat. Gao’s in another car, at least I hope he is. I’d accept that rather than him dying in a ditch—although—he might prefer the ditch.
His last words were, this is good. Maybe we had this whole crazy thing backward—maybe it’s been Crazy Gao all along. Obviously, I’m insane for coming back here—expecting a different outcome—expecting to be in control for once. That’s just like me. I tried to keep Max from Lee and that’s not exactly what I got, and now here I am as a testament to my own stupidity. I wouldn’t blame Lee for setting up a conservatorship if I manage to get back alive. Hell, I’d beg her to do it to keep me from making such magnificent mistakes.
What in the hell did I think was going to happen? That I was going to tie everything up in some nice, neat bow? That the guards who made my life miserable at the detention center were going to apologize? Maybe throw in a little dance number? I fog up the window with a huff. I don’t stop Colt from knocking into my bad arm either. I deserve far worse than that for taking our lives and screwing up the hell out of them. I’m the master of disaster. Maybe that’s why God sent me here the first time—to protect Lee and Stella. He knew what He was doing when He put Max into her life. He was just putting the puzzle pieces back where they belonged. Max is the anti me—a superhero in blue jeans.
It takes another half-hour before we arrive. A building materializes from the night and stretches skyward like a cinderblock palace.
We’re back. I’m home and not in any good way. I blink in disbelief. I’ve landed myself right back at the detention center and brought my brother with me. I bet my father is rolling in his grave at what a fool he raised—although I could always point a finger and say I learned from the best.
They hustle us in through the side door, up a familiar stale yellow hall and into the infirmary. Gao comes in last, his face bloodied, his lip swollen on the side. We hear the distinct sound of a bolt penetrating the wall once they leave.
I pull my lips into a bleak smile over at the two of them.
“Looks like more work.” Gao nods as if he’s accepted his fate.
Funny, I’m not feeling so charitable with my life this time.
“You don’t seem to mind,” I say, trying to free my hands, my arm feels like a knife is stabbing through it with every move.
“I teach, I die, live real life.” He’s still smiling like a loon, and it weirds me out until I realize what he’s just said. He lives then dies—then his real life begins. It’s as if all of the horror, the grandeur of life were simply a prelude to something bigger.
That’s what I pumped in his head for years, and now he believes it. Not sure if I do anymore.
“You’re a good guy, you know that?” I sag into my words.
“You still crazy.”
“You’ve both got a few bolts loose,” Colt says with a level of defeat I’ve never heard in him before.
The door rattles before two men enter with rifles, then the familiar round face of my sweet friend Mei.
Her cheeks pucker in a series of wrinkles then loosen as if she expected this on some level. Her hands fold into her hips as she shouts something at the armed guards. They lower their weapons and look over at us uneasily. She makes her way over, pokes at my scuffed knee.
“Shit,” I hiss.
“You baby. Nothing wrong.” She looks over at Colt and surmises the same minus the name-calling. She invokes her singsong tone once again as she speaks to the gunmen and points toward the hall. Mei pulls a scalpel from her pocket. In one swift move she creates an incision along her forehead.
“Stop,” I bark.
A seam of crimson trails down her check and corrupts her crisp, white uniform by way of red flecks. She does the same to the arm of one of the guards.
She speeds out something to Gao then turns to me. “Get out! Nice see you. Now go. No come back!”
Gao leads us out the hall until we come upon a door held open with a bucket. Mei must have known the floor was being cleaned—either that or she planned our escape like a prison mastermind. We run into an alleyway before Gao slows down out of breath.
“I go back. Goodbye, Mitch. Mitch brother.” He gives a half bow to each of us.
“Why?” I try pulling him with us.
“More work. Thank you for beautiful thing. I see you.” He points skyward, squeezes my hand with both of his.
The sound of footsteps, clutter the night. An entire army is about to materialize at any moment. This is it, fight or flight—prison or Lee.
“Gao, no!” I try to latch onto him, but he breaks free from my grasp.
“Goodbye, Mitch,” he shouts, bolting back in the direction of the detention center.
The area explodes with shouting.
“I have to get him,” I start to take off just as a shiny black shoe steps out from beyond the bushes—stops me dead in my tracks.
“Are you fucking nuts?” Colt pulls me back by the shirt, but something in me stalls.
Out from the brush emerges the familiar frame of a man. He wears a navy suit, slick gold tie, patent leather shoes—I know that face.
“Dad?” My heart races as I take a step forward.
“Dude, let’s go!” Colt’s voice elevates with panic.
“He can’t see me, Mitch.” My father gives a placid smile. “It’s over now. Lee needs you at home. There’s no reason for you to be here.” He nods with a touch of sadness in his eyes. “Go on. Get out of here. Go home on your own terms. Lee needs you to save her, one last time.”
Colt rains down expletives around me, but my ears are stopped up with the wonder of seeing my father. I’m immovable as stone. Tears flood my vision. My lips twitch out of control as a baseball-sized lump of grief lodges in my throat.
“Why did you hurt us?” I whisper. Of all the things to say, I suppose it was the least productive.
“I’m afraid I don’t have a good answer for you—just know that I’m sorry. If I could do it all over again, I’d do it different. But I wasn’t offered a second chance, a chance to ask forgiveness—to forgive, a chance to say goodbye. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones.”
“Let’s do this,” Colt drags me down the dirt path as my chest heaves from holding back tears.
My father fades into the scenery, until he becomes clear as velum.
“I forgive you,” I try to shout the words, but they come out less than a whisper. Something tells me he still heard.
Colt whisks me down the road without my permission as my father’s words siren through my skull like a warning, a salve.
Colt and I run through a series of narrow alleys. We climb over a chain link fence until we hit the general population. Colt finds an abandoned water bottle, and we wash our wounds before ambling along slowly as if nothing ever happened.
We finally hit the harbor, sacked and rundown like a couple of glorified carcasses. My father’s image is still fresh in my mind. I forgave him. It felt like a boulder moving off my chest just like it did when I made amends with Max after all these years.
“Shit,” Colt hisses as we hit the junk boat. There’s not a sign of our luggage anywhere near Gao’s boat.
“That’s why we took what matters,” I say, pulling him back up the pier. Colt and I still have our wallets, our passports—ourselves. We don’t hang around. We walk until we find a cab and head for the airport.
It’s time to get home to Stella, to Lee if she’ll have me. And, after the stunt I just pulled, it feels rather doubtful.
Max
Hudson and gold-tooth-Duane participate in a shoving match, exchanging a few words before Candi removes the keys from my brother’s pocket, and she and Duane take off in Hudson’s car. That should teach my brother for disabling a getaway vehicle.
Hud doesn’t put up much of a fight. He simply kicks his way into the house, cussing at jet engine decibels.
I walk out and meet him in the entry.
“What the hell.”
“Ca
me looking for you,” I say, holding up a beer. “This is better than cable. You should sell tickets next time. So who’s the asshole with the gold tooth?”
“Some shit she’s been seeing.”
I don’t say anything about Mitch and his description of the bastard that shot him. But something doesn’t make sense.
“You friends with that guy?”
“Why would I be friends with him?” He picks up the piano bench and hurls it at the mirror, sending glass shards raining down with a crash. He speeds off down the hall in a tirade.
There’s something odd about Hudson—something more brewing here than just Candi’s Hollywood exit.
“Are you high? Dude, what are you on?” I quicken my gait and track him down to the kitchen where he’s on his belly digging in a cabinet next to the dishwasher.
“You’re not gonna help, so I gotta help myself.” He pulls out a wad of bills in a plastic bag with duck tape securing the middle. “Bingo.” He waves the money at me like he just caught a trout. “My secret stash.”
“I can’t help you because I can’t help myself,” I bark. “In fact, you should hand over every damn dollar you’re hoarding, so I can pay the electric bill over at Shepherd.” I leave out Townsend. Although, the idea of Hudson helping out either of my businesses is a joke at this point.
“Now…” He holds up a hand. “I recall you threatened to call the cops on me.”
“Might not.” I’m pretty sure Lee will once I tell her about my new friend Duane.
“Might. That’s a loaded word, little bro.” He picks himself up off the floor. “One day you’re going to look back and remember all the things I did for you.”
“Like?”
“Like giving you Lee on a silver platter.” He pulls out a pocketknife and examines it in a stream of sunlight.
I don’t even ask the question.
“When Mitch came looking for you at some party back in high school, I pointed him in your direction. Personally, I was sick of listening to the two of you jawing over her, but when I saw you take her to the room, I was damn proud of you buddy.” He slaps his hand over my shoulder. “Too proud to keep it to myself. Had to find Mitch and share the big news.”
The Solitude of Passion Page 41