I got up, scraping the chair against the linoleum floor, and walked out of the room. In the hallway, I started to tremble, and I fought tears as I left the hospital and walked into the parking garage, knowing I’d done what no one else had dared to do: tell Laurel the truth.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Andy
I HAD A HARD TIME GETTING ALONE WITH UNCLE MARCUS. Mom and Maggie were always around, but finally it was just me and him at breakfast Saturday. I felt embarrassed all of a sudden, but I knew I had to do it.
I poked my cereal with my spoon. “My condom is too old,” I said.
Coffee all of a sudden squirted out of Uncle Marcus’s mouth and he started choking. He got up and leaned over the sink and coughed and coughed. Was he having an asthma attack?
“You need your inhaler?” I asked. I never saw Uncle Marcus’s inhaler, so I didn’t know where to get it.
He shook his head. “I don’t have asthma, remember?” His voice was croaky like a frog. Finally he got a paper towel and wiped his mouth and then his eyes. He sat down again. I looked real hard at his face. He looked like he’d been crying, but he was smiling. “You just caught me off guard there, buddy. Sorry ’bout that.”
“You spilled coffee on the table.” I pointed to a place where the coffee came out of his mouth.
“Thanks.” He pressed on the coffee spot with his paper towel. Then he looked at me. “What are you talking about, Andy?” he asked. “Do you mean the condom I gave you a while back?”
I nodded. “It says ten-oh-seven on it.”
“Well, you’re right, then. It’s too old.” He breathed out like he was real tired but he didn’t look tired. “Are you saying you and Kimmie want to have sex?”
“Yes.”
“Well—” he got up and poured some more coffee in his cup “—I’m proud of you for coming to me and for wanting to be careful,” he said. “But let’s talk about it a little first.”
“Me and Kimmie already did.”
His eyes got big. “Did what?”
“Talk about it.”
“Oh.” He sat down again. “Okay. And what did you say?”
“That we both want to do it but how we need a new condom. I saw them at Food Lion but I don’t know which one to get.”
“I’ll get you some, And. Don’t sweat it. But please. There’s no rush. You’re only—”
I just knew he was going to say I was only sixteen, but he looked out the window instead.
“There’re some rules that come with having sex,” he said.
“Never ever do it without a condom,” I said. I remembered that’s what he told me.
“That’s right. That’s rule number one. Number two is to always treat a girl with respect. That means you don’t go telling other people that you had sex with her.”
“It’s private.”
“Very private.”
“I’m telling you, though. You just said you were proud of me about that.”
“I mean you don’t tell your friends.”
“Like Max.”
“Especially not Max.”
“He tells me what he does with his girlfriends, though.”
“Do you think he’s treating them with respect?”
“I don’t know. I’m not there when he’s with them.”
“No, I mean, by telling you what happens between him and them. That’s disrespectful.”
“Oh.” I got it. “Right. So I won’t tell Max.”
“Or any other friends. It’s between you and Kimmie.”
“Yup. Can I have the condom now?”
Uncle Marcus shook his head. “I’m not done,” he said.
“Okay.” He had a lot of rules.
“Do you love Kimmie?” he asked, all serious.
“Totally.”
He nodded. “Well, here’s another rule. If she ever says no or she doesn’t want to do it, you don’t push her.”
“I’d never push her.” I was surprised he thought I’d do that.
“I mean, you don’t try to talk her into it,” he said. “When a girl says no, that’s it. You stop. You won’t want to stop, but you have to. Even if you have to get up and go in the bathroom and…”
“Jerk off,” I said.
He laughed and twisted his mouth up funny. “You know more than I figured about this,” he said.
“So does Kimmie. We both know how to do it.” We’d been talking about it a lot since the movies. I couldn’t wait to see her again, and not just at stupid swim practice when all the people were around. “We just haven’t ever done it. Either of us.”
Uncle Marcus rubbed his face with his hand. “It’s a powerful urge, isn’t it?” he asked, like he didn’t know about it himself.
I nodded.
“D’you remember we talked last year about another powerful urge you have? Used to have?”
I shook my head.
“Hitting people?”
“Oh, yeah. When they call me a name.”
“Right. And what was the rule for that?”
“Stop, think and act,” I said. “Only it’s atomic now.”
He scrunched his eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”
That wasn’t the right word. “You know. When you don’t need to do all the steps in your head.”
“Automatic?”
I smiled. “Yeah.”
“That’s great, Andy. But when it comes to sex, I want you to go back to the rules. When you feel like…getting close to Kimmie that way, stop and think first.”
“About what?”
“About being safe, first of all. About how it might be better to wait.”
“For what?” I was getting confused.
He blew out a long breath. “Too many rules, huh?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Just repeat the important ones back to me.”
I just wanted the condom, but I knew he wouldn’t give it to me unless I said the rules. “Always use a condom.” I looked at the ceiling, remembering. “Don’t push her if she says no. Jerk off instead. Don’t tell other people.” Then I looked back at him. He was smiling. “How’d I do?”
“Great, Andy,” he said. “I’ll get you some condoms today, okay?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Keith
LAUREL CALLED ME A COUPLE OF DAYS AFTER THE P.I. PAID his visit to my trailer.
“I spoke to Mr. Johnson,” she said, “and he’s concerned you have some household bills coming in with no way to pay them.”
Damn Mr. Mister Johnson, I thought. He’d asked me about the bills that were piling up, but what gave him the right to talk to Laurel about them? Maybe since she was paying for him, she got to know everything there was to know.
“And how is this your business?” I asked.
“Let me take care of them,” Laurel said.
“Uh-uh,” I said.
“Keith,” she said, “please don’t let your pride get in the way of letting people help you.”
I would have hung up on her if I didn’t know she was right. I needed help if I wanted to stay in the trailer. So far the phone and electric bills had shown up, along with medical bills that weren’t covered by my insurance. I knew where my mother kept her checks and had thought of forging her signature, but the bank knew she was missing and I figured I’d just end up screwing myself. I didn’t need the house phone as long as I had my cell. And I could get by without electricity until winter, but I would definitely need it then. I wished Dawn hadn’t let Frankie move in with her. I could tolerate living with Dawn, but that was out of the question with him there now.
“If it makes it easier to swallow, I’ll use the restitution money, okay?” Laurel said. “Instead of having that money automatically sent to your mom’s bank account, I’ll pay whatever bills come in.”
All right, I thought. “I don’t need the house phone,” I said. “Just the cell.”
“Well, the P.I. said for you to definitely keep the landline,” she said. “Just in
case someone tries to contact you about your mother.”
Oh, man. I wished someone would contact me. Kidnapper. Extortionist. Mom herself. As long as it wasn’t the school or Social Services, I’d love that phone to ring.
I decided to go over to Jen’s that afternoon. I didn’t call first and I guess it was kind of uncool of me to just drop in, but I felt like we were getting tight and she wouldn’t mind. There was no answer when I knocked on the front door of her cottage, though, so I walked around back and saw her sitting alone out on the beach. Her back was to me, and even though the sky was overcast and gloomy, she had on a straw hat and she was bundled up in a big tan sweater.
“Hey!” I called as I walked toward her. The ocean was rough, and she didn’t seem to hear me. “Hey!” I shouted again when I was practically on top of her.
She jumped to her feet suddenly, a hand to her chest. “You scared me!” she said.
“Sorry.” I smiled, reaching for her, but she dodged my hands.
“Don’t do that again,” she said. “Don’t sneak up on me, okay?”
“Okay.” I raised my hands like I was showing her I was unarmed or something. “I said I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” She flopped down on the sand again. “Didn’t mean to overreact.”
I sat next to her. “You want me to go?” I asked.
She shook her head. That’s when I noticed that her eyes were red, her cheeks damp. I’d caught her crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Then why are you crying?”
She didn’t answer right away. Finally she smiled. “You know how girls get sometimes. PMS and all that. Anything can set us off.” She pointed at a string of pelicans flying low over the rough gray water. “Like the pelicans, for example. See the one at the end? Why’s he at the end? Is he sick or just slow? Is it some pelican pecking order? Does he always have to be last?”
Whoa. Weird. PMS could turn a perfectly sane chick into a lunatic.
“So you’re sitting here crying over a pelican?” I asked.
“Not specifically. I’m just trying to explain how I get emotional sometimes. It doesn’t need to make sense.”
She had those scars inside. I couldn’t make myself ask about them. I didn’t want to get into a whole big heavy thing with her.
She wiped her cheeks with her hands like she was trying to erase her bad mood. “You want to watch a movie?”
“Yeah. Sure,” I said, though I would have rather gone to bed with her. I had the feeling that wasn’t going to happen.
“Okay.” She stood up and brushed off the back of her shorts. Then she brushed off the back of my jeans, which only made me want to fuck her ten times more.
She suddenly stood on her tiptoes, leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re here, Keith,” she said. “I really am.” And she put her arm around my waist and kept it there as we walked back to her house.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Maggie
TAFFY BROUGHT MADISON INTO THE PLAYROOM THURSDAY afternoon. “I thought she could use a break from her room,” she said.
“Great!” I reached out, and Madison moved her hand easily from Taffy’s to mine, as if she was used to being transferred from one person to another.
“Thanks, Miss Maggie,” Taffy said. “I’ll see you later, Madison.”
I walked with Madison toward the table in the middle of the playroom. We had the whole room to ourselves for the moment.
“What would you like to do, Madison?” I asked. “We can paint or color or I can read to you or you can watch a movie?” She looked sort of lost, and I thought I’d given her too many choices. Her dazed expression reminded me of the way Andy looked when someone asked him too many questions at once. “Would you like to paint or use clay?” I tried.
“Paint,” she said so quietly I had to read her lips to understand her.
“Okay.”
I put her in a corner of the room with the easel, but quickly realized she didn’t have enough wind to stand and paint. I got her a chair and lowered the easel for her.
“How old are you?” I asked as I set up the paints for her.
“Almost seven.” She looked much younger than that.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
She stared at the blank paper in front of her, and I leaned close to hear her answer. “A brother,” she said.
“Me, too.” I said. “My brother’s name is Andy.”
“Mine’s Devon.”
“Younger?”
“Older.” She almost smiled. “He’s horrible.”
I laughed. “How is he horrible?”
“He tells gross jokes.”
“Wanna tell me one?”
She giggled, but shook her head.
“Well, okay,” I said, moving the paints closer to her. “Do you know what you’d like to paint?”
She shook her head again.
“Maybe these pictures can give you some ideas.” I pointed to the wall in front of her, where someone had hung photographs of animals. There were twelve of them, but we needed more. I’d find some stock images on the Internet and bring them in.
Madison began painting a lion, doing a not-bad job for a six-year-old. She wheezed a little when she breathed, but her arm with the tube taped to it didn’t seem to be bothering her today.
I’d seen Dr. Britten in the hallway outside Madison’s room that morning. I’d stared at him, separating which features were his and which were Ben’s. I had to stop that. I knew perfectly well that my attraction to him was screwed up. Plus, the man was married, married, married! Yet that didn’t prevent my insides from knotting up with longing when I looked at him. Sick.
But it was really Madison I was in danger of falling in love with. That had been one of Miss Helen’s warnings to me on my first day. “You’ll want to love ’em up, honey,” she’d told me, “but you have to keep a little bit outside their world to be able to help.”
I thought of that now as I sat with Madison while she painted. She was pretty good at it, considering how sick she was and the goofy fat brushes we had for the kids to use. Maybe I could get some better ones. Madison painted the lion, an alligator and a bear. I got her to tell me a couple of her brother’s gross jokes in her quiet little voice, and we giggled together. I kept feeling my eyes tear up, and could practically hear Miss Helen warning me to get a grip. It was just that I felt so healthy, sitting there. I tried to beam my health into Madison’s tiny, weak body. For the first time in more than a year, I felt the Empathy tattoo on my hip burning.
“I’m tired,” Madison said after a while. She set down the paintbrush.
“Okay,” I said. “How ’bout I wheel you back to your room? Save you the walk?”
She nodded, and I pulled the kid-size wheelchair from the side of the room. Madison sat down in it, and I wheeled her out into the hallway.
I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon reading to kids in their rooms, giving their mothers—and in a couple of cases, fathers—a break. I reached Madison’s room last and her mother, Joanna, seemed relieved to see me.
“I’m dying for a smoke,” she said. It bothered me that she used the word dying when that was exactly what her daughter was doing. She had Madison’s brown eyes and small pouty mouth. Her strawberry-blond hair was clipped to the back of her head so that the ends spiked straight up like a crest. I wondered if Madison’s hair was the same color.
“Go ahead,” I said to her. “I brought a book to read to Madison, if she’s up for it.”
“I’m up for it,” Madison said in her small voice.
Joanna leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be back soon, cutie,” she said.
Miss Helen had told me we weren’t supposed to sit on the patients’ beds, so I sat in the big recliner in the corner of her room, and Madison climbed willingly into my lap with a trust that made my heart ache. I could barely feel
her weight on me, she was so thin. Her head rested against my chest while I read to her, and I could actually feel the air moving in and out of her lungs as she breathed.
Ten or fifteen minutes had passed when a man walked into the room.
“Hey, Madison!” he nearly shouted. He was around thirty, with a few days’ growth of beard on his cheeks and blond hair to his shoulders. And he was, like, totally drunk. The stench of him reached all the way to the recliner. “How’s my girl?”
Madison rolled her head against my chest to get a look at him. I thought I felt her stiffen beneath my arms.
“Can I help you?” I asked. I didn’t like the boom of his voice.
Neither did Madison. “Go ’way, Rudy,” she said.
He suddenly seemed to notice me. “Who the hell are you?” he asked. “Where’s Joanna?”
“She’s taking a break.” I could see old sweat stains in the armpits of his T-shirt. “She should be back any minute. Maybe you could wait in the hall for her.”
“Like hell!” He pointed at Madison. “I can read to her now,” he said. “You can turn her over to me.”
Madison shook her head, and I tightened my arms around her. “Sir…Could you wait in the hall until—”
“No, damn it!”
I cowered, sinking a little deeper into the chair.
“I’ll be damned if I’m waiting in the hall!” he said. “I’ve made arrangements at Children’s Hospital for her to go there. This here hospital’s for kids they give up on!”
I spotted the call button attached to Madison’s bed. Leaning forward, I grabbed it and pressed it hard, over and over again.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He snatched the button out of my hand.
“Nurse!” I yelled. Madison curled into a ball on my lap, hiding her face in her arms.
“Who are you anyway?” the man asked. “You’re nobody to her. Let me have her!”
What was I supposed to do? I knew the hospital had security guards, but I couldn’t reach the phone from the recliner.
“Sir,” I said as calmly as I could, which wasn’t very. “Please go out in the hallway and see the nur—”
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