Deadly Charm

by Claudia Mair Burney

  God smile on you and gift you.

  God look you full in the face.

  And make you prosper…in heaven.

  Until we meet again, my love, and hey, kiss all three of my children for me. I’ll be there very soon.

  He died for me, but he wouldn’t want me to die for him. In fact, if he were here he’d yell at me like he always did and tell me if I died he’d kill me. And I’d tell him, “That’s a bit redundant, Jazz.” And he’d laugh and tell me I always had to win the argument.

  I finally opened my eyes and looked at my mother, who cried when I reached for her.

  I was still in a weird, drugged haze, but I wanted to get up. I wanted to live because he’d want me to, but how I’d do it without him, I had no idea.

  “Mama,” I said.

  “Yes, baby,” she said.

  “Take me to him. I want to see Jazz.”

  She paused. “He’s not in good shape, baby.”

  “I don’t care. I want to see him.”

  “I don’t know if you can.”

  “Ma, just get my clothes and take me to him.”

  Carly spoke. She had gone to get coffee; she had a cup of Starbucks in her hand. “Bunny!” she said. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “I want to see my husband.”

  She wasted no time. She handed the cup to my mother. “Come on,” she said.

  “Carly,” Ma said, “I don’t think she should do that. She’s been shot. And the babies.”

  I felt as if she’d kicked my empty womb.

  “Mother, the babies will be fine. We’re just going downstairs. I’ll take her in a wheelchair. Give me a break. I’m a doctor.”

  “But all your patients are dead,” I said.

  “Not all of them,” she said with a hint of a smile. “Not today.”

  I stopped. “Wha—What do you mean, Car? What do you mean ‘the babies will be fine’?”

  “Honey, your husband called it right when he said you were a soldier. You got shot in your shoulder. You’ve been through surgery, your fibroid tumor twisted on its stem and began to bleed, and you still hung on to those babies.”

  I knew the drugs were in my system and God knows I felt woozy, but it sounded like Carly said I was still pregnant.

  “Carly?” She must have seen the confused expression on my face. “What?”

  “The babies are fine. The fibroid is actin’ a fool, but your babies are safe for now.”

  My hand flew to my belly. I hadn’t thought I could cry anymore. “I’m still pregnant?”

  “As pregnant as you can be, baby.”

  I hugged her and we cried, two sisters. We’d never been closer than this moment.

  She looked at me. “Come on, girl. Let’s go see your man. He’s just a few floors down.”

  “Oh, Carly, how am I going to do this without him?”

  “You won’t do this alone. Trust me.”

  “I wanted to die, but I knew Jesus wanted me to go on. And Jazz would want me to go on.”

  “You better believe he would.”

  I sat on my bed and waited until she got me a wheelchair. I didn’t worry about clothes or even shoes. I thought it odd that they’d brought him to the hospital when he was dead on the scene, but what did I know about how the ME operated in Ann Arbor?

  She took me to the elevator, and we went down several floors to the Burn and Trauma unit.

  “What is this, Carly?”

  “I’m taking you to your husband.”

  “I thought we were going to the morgue.”

  “If we were going to the morgue, I’d have made you get dressed. I’ve got a few friends over there. We Brown women gotta represent.”

  I was still confused. “Why do you think they brought him here?”

  “Because the burn and trauma unit here is one of the best in the nation.”

  You can’t just waltz back into the burn and trauma unit; it’s locked. But they must have recognized Carly.

  She got us buzzed in, and I finally jerked my hand out of hers. “Carly…”

  Anger rose in my voice. I didn’t appreciate her if this was a ploy to get me up and about. I’d made peace with God. I told him I’d live. This was cruel.

  I got up from the wheelchair, still loopy from the sedatives, and stood in a wide hall. The rooms had large panes of glass, as if the patients needed to be watched at all times, even from outside the room.

  “Pumpkin?” Pumpkin was a new one for Carly. “Jazz was hurt badly, but he’s going to make it. That’s what we were trying to tell you when you started that awful screaming lullaby. The worst is over. He pulled through his surgery. He was wearing one of those Saint Christopher medals, good Catholic boy that he is. Chris got the worst of it. Not to say that Jazz fared well…”

  I stood there, my mouth agape. My heart did the Snoopy dance, God help me.

  “Carly?” I didn’t know what else to say. Words failed me.

  “You helped save his life, too, Bell—not just Saint Christopher. When you lay your body on his, you put pressure on his wound. The bullet went into his chest cavity. It punctured his lung but missed his heart. He’s going to have a rough go of it with his lungs for a while, but he’s going to be all right. Especially when he sees you. Now stand up. Your man is anxious to see his family. Give him something to live for.”

  I wanted to believe her, but it seemed too good to be true. When I lay on top of him why didn’t I feel his heart?

  You were in shock. God gently whispered to me. All things are possible to the one who believes.

  I started sobbing. “He’s alive?”

  Carly pulled me forward. “Look through the glass. Who’s that fine man in that bed?”

  I have no memory of walking into the room. I may have floated about three feet off the ground—and not just from the morphine. I only know that I found myself staring at my husband. Every kind of tube imaginable snaked in and out of his body, and I’d never seen him so pale. Jack and Addie flanked me on either side. I don’t even know where they came from. I didn’t care.

  My beloved. Alive.

  He breathed in and out, though the breaths were ragged and wheezy.

  His mother spoke to him. “Jazz, baby, say hello to your family.”

  His eyes fluttered open, and he fixed them on me.

  I thought my heart would burst. Tears streamed down my face, and I covered my mouth. Why, I have no idea. I couldn’t have spoken if I’d tried.

  He gave me a tiny smile. “Jane,” he said.

  I leaned over the bed rail, even though it hurt like crazy, and kissed my man. “You lived for me.”

  “For a long time, baby.” Then he closed his eyes and fell back to sleep.

  Jack laughed. “He got to calling for Jane when he woke up, and we didn’t know what to think. We thought he had another woman. We were horrified.”

  “He has four Janes, but I know exactly which one he wants now.”

  Full-time wife and mother Jane, and by the grace of God, he had her.

  “For a long time, baby,” I repeated back to him. Somehow, I knew he heard me.

  chapter twenty-nine

  WE HAD A LONG RECOVERY ahead of us. I got home ten days before Jazz and seven days after Rocky, who responded beautifully to the poison antidote, had dialysis briefly, and was not much worse for wear. I didn’t sustain any major damage. I think Nikki shot me someplace she didn’t think would kill me because she wanted me to suffer living without Jazz.

  On Valentine’s Day I was still in the hospital. Rocky wanted to cancel the Rock House traditional Valentine’s Day feast and postpone his and Elisa’s wedding so their “best person” would be available. I insisted they go forward. The feast went on—for the sake of love—but without Rocky and Elisa. She went into labor at seven in the morning. Since we were all at the University of Michigan, Mason May married Mr. and Mrs. Rocky Harrison, with a nurse, his parents, and several Rock House staff and friends present. They even had their best person, in a lovely ho
spital gown, dragging my IV with me. Twelve hours later, the happy couple became the proud parents of a seven-and-a-half-pound, gorgeous, white-chocolate-kiss-colored, green-eyed baby boy, Rocky St. James Harrison. Since papa Rocky didn’t have a middle name, he insisted on using Elisa’s maiden name, that way her name, which Gabriel had once stolen from her, would live on.

  They came to see me after the baby was born, and Elisa looked radiant. And honestly, little Rocky had to be the cutest baby ever.

  Two days later, Ezekiel Thunder came to see me at home. I invited him in, and we sat at my dinette table, he having a Pepsi, and me a cup of warm milk.

  “I don’t know how to thank you, Bell.”

  “You did what I asked you, and you protected your family from any more harm. I’m sorry you’ve lost so much, Ezekiel.”

  He looked sad. “There were more losses,” he said.

  I thought he may be speaking of Louella. The DA’s office was trying to decide if she was competent to stand trial. She’d likely be charged with manslaughter, but I doubted if in her mental state she’d do any time. “I don’t think she’ll go to jail, Ezekiel, and even more, she’ll get the help she needs.”

  “I should have seen to it that she got help years ago. I mean real help, but I didn’t imagine she’d do anyone harm. I couldn’t imagine. I’ve been such a fool.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. We’ve both made incredibly foolish choices. I could have lost Jazz and my own life, along with our babies. I kept thinking of that scripture you gave Rocky as a child.”

  “All things are possible,” he said, his eyes lighting up.

  “That’s the one,” I said. “But even with believing, you know it could have gone very differently. People believe all the time and still have losses. I know what my husband means, now, about God being a mystery. I have a lot more respect for God. And reverence.”

  “You know why I called you sissy that first time?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I saw the same sorrow in you that I have. I recognized in you a kindred spirit. Bell, I never wanted that insanity that I let my life become, just like you never wanted your life to get so crazy with that man who was so cruel to you. And neither of us have fully recovered from the losses we suffered through those things.”

  “You’re right. You’ve made me see that we are all a lot more alike than we may think we are. I guess that’s yet another reason Jesus told us to judge not.”

  His expression sobered. “Sissy?”

  I didn’t tell him not to call me sissy.

  “Nikki is dead,” he said.

  My hand went to my mouth. Despite my Dream, her death still shocked me. I reached for his hand. “What happened?”

  “She met her match in jail. Nikki got into a fight with another inmate and was beaten to death.”

  I told Ezekiel about my Dream, how it all was freakishly accurate, though things hadn’t turned out as I’d feared they would—because of the power of prayer, no doubt!

  “Oh, Ezekiel. I couldn’t stand her. I should have prayed as heartily for her as I did for Jazz and my babies. Forgive me.”

  “I’m just as much at fault. I should have been praying more for her, too. I should have done a lot differently, but we both know that.”

  “May God have mercy on her soul,” I said sincerely.

  “May he indeed, and mine, too.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “Sis, I want to get my sister settled and take my kids somewhere so we can all heal.”

  “Is Joy going with you?”

  “She always has. And I’m blessed that she still wants to go with me. I should have married her long ago. I was a weak, sinful man. I’m still sinful. Still weak, but so help me God, I don’t want to do anything but spend the rest of my ragamuffin life making her happy.”

  “Are you a Brennan Manning Ragamuffin Gospel fan?” I asked, grinning.

  “I think he wrote that book for me.”

  “No, he wrote it for me.”

  He gave me a soft hug, so as not to hurt my shoulder. “You are my sister.”

  I hugged him back. “You are my brother, and friend.”

  I never knew ten days could stretch out so long. I hated the nights Jazz sent me home from the hospital. I missed him so. In a short time, he and I had changed so much. My own apartment wasn’t home without him.

  I welcomed my king home on a bright Tuesday morning. I’d have carried him up those stairs myself if I could have. He braved them like a soldier.

  He was still very weak and slept a lot, but I cuddled with him, careful not to hurt him. With all that had gone on, we hadn’t exchanged Valentine’s Day gifts. I hadn’t gotten him anything and felt bad, but he said the twins and I were all he wanted.

  I didn’t expect a gift from him, but one night, several weeks later, he was watching the news in our bed and I was reading my Bible—The Woman’s Study Bible, New King James Version, not The Message. I still hadn’t quite forgiven Eugene, especially about that whoring thing. Jazz flicked off the television with the remote control, reached under the bed, and pulled out a box.

  It was bigger than a ring box, and besides, he’d already chosen the perfect wedding ring for me—a one-of-a-kind band of lilies and vines crafted by my favorite artist, his mother, Addie Lee.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said.

  “You silly guy,” I said. I kissed him and opened it. I startled when I saw it and slid it out of the box, sentimental tears springing to my eyes.

  He’d given me another Addie Lee creation, my Marriage Wish necklace. His mother made one for each of her children when they got married. She even made one when she found out that Jazz had married Kate—just before he divorced her. By that time he and Kate were already separated, and she’d gone to live with his partner, Detective Christine Webber.

  Jazz wouldn’t let his mother give it to her. Now he delivered mine himself.

  I fingered the delicate necklace, created with multiple strands of cream-colored, white, and luminous gold peyote beads, mixed with funky hand-blown glass beads—all kinds, all gorgeous. My Marriage Wish necklace was completely different from Kate’s, with a more fun, more whimsical quality. I laughed as much as I cried at the charms she’d chosen. Unlike Kate’s, the charms on this necklace were made of fourteen-carat gold.

  There was a crab, which Jazz said was for his mother’s crab cakes that I loved. I told him it represented his attitude. There were two baby shoes, a Love Bug, and a dollar sign, to represent Addie and Jack’s hope for our success in life. I don’t know where Addie found the little Kool-Aid pitcher charm, smiling face and all. That was for Jazz giving up alcohol. He didn’t go to AA, and he didn’t promise he’d never have another beer in his life, but he definitely got real about his abuse and did what any good man would do—he acted in the best interest of his family. To top off everything, he’d commissioned his mom to paint a portrait of me pregnant. He said she didn’t give him a discount, but I was worth it.

  When we’d finished marveling at the necklace, I told him I felt bad that I didn’t have anything for him.

  “There is something you could give me.” He gave me that mischievous look and trailed his finger up my arm. “It would be the perfect gift.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t seen sexy Jane for weeks. I’m not even sure she stuck around.”

  “She stuck around,” he said, unbuttoning my pajama top.

  “How do you know?” I asked, every part of me becoming alive.

  “Because I know what she likes.”

  I knew what she liked, too, and I also knew that not only had Jane stuck around, but she was feeling mighty good tonight. But it was fun to play a little hard to get.

  “Whatever could that be, detective?”

  “Call me Tarzan. It’s been way too long, baby,” he said. He unbuttoned until there were no more buttons left. “And I’ll do you one better, I’ll show you what she likes.”

  And that’s just
what he did. But he was wrong about one thing. She didn’t merely like it…

  She loved him.