The Jade Emperor

by Suzanne Jenkins

“Lisa, first of all, she doesn’t look that bad, so I doubt she’s going to die soon. Secondly, no, I wouldn’t take him back. He isn’t going to ask to come back. He doesn’t love me.”

  Hearing that her father didn’t love Kelly was a sock in the gut. Lisa and the other children always knew there was something missing from their home life, but to put it like that was just brutal. Reaching out, she grabbed Kelly’s arm.

  “Mom, I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “You, my love, have nothing to be sorry for. I should apologize to you for exposing you -”

  Catching herself, she didn’t want to be that scorned woman who badmouthed the children’s father.

  “-for exposing you to how I enabled Steve. He said something to me that was really rather forward thinking for him. He said I used him to get the family I wanted. He was right! I wanted a big family and a nice, cozy home, and since he was my husband, I made that happen with him.”

  “So you don’t regret your marriage?”

  “Regret! Oh my, no. Without my marriage, I wouldn’t have my children. I’ve loved my life, Lisa. Even though my husband wasn’t totally engaged, I made it happen for me. I hope you kids can see that.”

  “Mother, you amaze me,” Lisa said, shaking her head. “I’m far too selfish to put up with the crap you put up with.”

  Taken aback, Kelly knew she had to get Lisa to expound on her feelings so they could be dealt with.

  “Do you mean about Dad and Lee?”

  She knew that wasn’t what Lisa was referring to, but could see she’d hit a nerve because Lisa was positively squirming.

  “No. That just happened, Lee coming here and everything. Mom, get real. We all knew you were juggling everything alone. That shouldn’t be a surprise to you.”

  Defeated, Kelly sat back in her chair and looked around the neighborhood, its quaint allure suddenly gone.

  “Dad never had two words to say to me. I shouldn’t speak for the rest of the kids, but they feel the same way. I know you did everything for us, and he wasn’t interested. It’s a fact, so why pretend that everything was okay?”

  “It’s not that we’re pretending. We can accept that life is a certain way and then move on from there. What’s done is done. You kids have to move on, too. It’s no secret we have to help Ken in some way, and I don’t mean by enabling him.”

  While they were talking on the street, Ken was standing on a stool at a patient’s bedside, administering CPR, shouting out orders ultimately destined to save a life. While in the middle of attaching oxygen tubing to the endotracheal tube feeding air to the patient’s lungs, Ken’s nursing manager came around back of him.

  “Let Dr. Higby take over, Ken,” she said.

  Although it was unusual to have an administrator switch caregivers around in the middle of a code, it wasn’t unheard of, so when he was done with the chest compression sequence, he moved off the stool so the doctor could slide in.

  “Come with me,” she said, nodding her head toward the door.

  “What’s up?” Ken asked, curious.

  “I need a urine sample and a blood draw right now.”

  Taken aback, Ken didn’t respond, waiting for her to elaborate.

  “It’s your turn for a random,” she said, looking away.

  It was the glance that told him the truth; this was no random test. “I get to summon my union rep,” he replied.

  “I’m not sure about that,” she said.

  “Ten minutes won’t make a big difference in my blood alcohol, Bev. I’ve been here since six this morning, my day off, by the way. You might want to reconsider harassing me if you ever want me to bail you out of a jam again.”

  “Mary Price said she smelled alcohol on your breath,” she snapped.

  “I drank last night after midnight. I probably reeked. I’m not on the schedule, if I can remind you of that. You said you had three call-outs, that you were desperate. I haven’t called out sick in three years.”

  “I’m sorry, but the complaint is documented and now I have to follow through. I do appreciate you coming in on short notice, but you could have refused.”

  “And I will next time,” he said. “Let’s get this over with. When it comes back within legal limits, you and Mary Price are going to hear from my lawyer.”

  “Okay, well, I guess I deserve it,” she said. “Here’s your cup. Leave the door open.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. You come in with me and hold my dick.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” she said, blushing. “Watch it, though. You might be harassing me now.”

  Ken got the urine sample and held out his arm for the blood test. Heading back to the unit when it was finished, doing a slow boil, he returned to the code, noting that the patient was stable, intubated and hooked up to a respirator.

  Suddenly, Ken thought of Kelly. He needed to talk to his mother. Chuckling, it was not something he would admit to freely. Kelly had a way of making everything okay without taking his issues on. She’d keep it about him. Terry or Alice or his brothers would get upset if he confided in them, and then he’d end up having to calm them down. Locking himself in a broom closet, he took out his phone and called her.

  “Ma, it’s Ken,” he said.

  “I see that,” she answered, the smile on her face coming through her voice. “Do you want to have coffee?”

  She and Lisa had just separated, kissing each other goodbye with promises to get together later. Walking back through town toward home, she’d gladly meet Ken anywhere.

  “I’m at work,” he said. “There were a lot of call-outs, and like a sucker I agreed to help out. Then, in the middle of a code - I mean smack-dab in the middle, I was counting chest compressions - that fat ass Beverly Wilshire taps me on the shoulder to step down so Ron Higby can take over.”

  “That’s weird,” Kelly said. “Why?”

  “Mary Price complained that I smelled like alcohol. She wanted a random blood alcohol.”

  “No way!” Now Kelly was fuming. “Did you call your rep?”

  “Not yet. We’re so short of staff, and I was in the middle of a code. An incident report would be just as effective.”

  “You should still call, Ken,” Kelly said, almost saying Don’t be like me.

  “So you agree that it was BS,” he said, smiling, getting what he needed from her.

  “It was BS,” she replied.

  As drunk as Ken could get, Kelly had never known him to take a drink while on duty or to get plastered before a shift. They said goodbye and hung up, her concern for her son outweighing anything else.

  A flake of snow fell from a tree and Kelly looked up at it, at the gray skies and the melting snow. The holidays were right around the corner, Thanksgiving less than a month away. What was she going to do? No one seemed to want Steve around. But she couldn’t assume it. They’d wait and see what happened in the days to come.

  Chapter 13

  Saturday morning before she left at seven, the night nurse told Titan that Jean had had a quiet night and was still sound asleep, but that her breathing was irregular. The day nurse would be in by nine. Standing at the bedroom door, he couldn’t go in yet, needing some fortification.

  Going down to the kitchen to get coffee, he drank it standing at the window. It was already freezing out, winter making an early visit after a beautiful Indian summer. No doubt it was temporary, and the rain would come after it warmed up, making a mess of everything.

  He didn’t expect his mother until later; Lee liked to putter in the morning after sleeping in. The lure of the couch in the den, the television on with some inane rerun as background noise, was strong, like college days when he wanted to forget he had any responsibilities. Everything was crashing in on him: Jean’s more than precarious condition, the work at the clinic, his mother’s latest antics with Steve Boyd. The only thing he had any control over was the clinic, and he would call a corporate lawyer friend of his and get him moving on finding a buyer to take over. In the meantime
, he would rally a group of his colleagues to fill in for him, his state of mind so bad he didn’t even want to finish up the cases he was in the middle of caring for. This was a life or death emergency.

  Feeling too sick to drink more coffee, he turned the pot off, emptying his cup down the drain. Lee would make fresh stuff anyway; she was adamant about only drinking freshly made coffee, having insulted Jean many times about serving stale coffee.

  Wandering around the first floor, it looked sterile and unwelcoming. He’d never noticed before, but at the time they bought the place, it was the way he thought he liked rooms to look. Jean’s office was a study in clutter: books piled high in some places, bags of knitting, mementos from grateful patients. Clearly, she’d decorated their apartment to appeal to his unadorned aesthetic. Now he was sorry he hadn’t encouraged her to put her own stamp on the place, but maybe it would be easier to get rid of it without being permeated with her style. Because he wasn’t staying there after she died. It would go on the market right away. He wasn’t hanging around Chicago.

  Unlocking the front door for the nurse, Titan went back upstairs. Peeking in on Jean, she was facing the door with her eyes still closed, her chest moving enough to determine she was still alive. Titan got into bed with her, slipping his arms around her one last time.

  “You about ready?” Steve said, placing a cup of fresh coffee on the bathroom counter for Lee while she primped.

  In the few short days they’d been together, he learned that she took a long time to get ready in the morning. Although it wasn’t obvious due to its skillful application, she wore a lot of makeup. Steve was intrigued, watching her work. He’d never had a moment’s interest in Kelly’s routine, but Lee’s fascinated him. Her make up area in the bathroom was neat as a store makeup display, the various tubes and brushes and pots of color as organized as he imagined a surgeon’s instruments would be. He’d have to ask Titan. Just the thought of his son and what he did for a living thrilled him into a state of euphoria. Watching Lee put on false eyelashes and then use a pencil to highlight her eyes, he realized that he loved her completely, that the makeup was nice, but it didn’t have anything to do with who she was or why he loved her.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  “Aw, Stevie, you so nice,” she said, outlining her mouth with a red lip liner. “But you always say that. It because you love me.”

  “That’s true, I do love you,” he said.

  She picked up the coffee and took a sip. “You make good coffee, Stevie Boyd.”

  He didn’t tell her he’d never served Kelly a cup of coffee. He couldn’t remember ever taking her even a glass of water. Feeling guilty, as soon as he could, he’d call her and apologize. Why had he treated someone he loved as much as he was capable of loving, so horribly? Was it habit? Or had she enabled him to do so? It was still no excuse.

  Being with Lee made Steve want to be a better man, and that meant being nicer to his wife, soon to be ex-wife, and the children he had with her.

  That reminded him of Titan. “Come on, beautiful, let’s get going. I’m worried about Titan.”

  “He live around the block,” she said. “You don’t even have to move your car. We walk.”

  “It’s cold out today,” he said, shivering.

  “Then we’ll dress warm. We should go to Houston,” she said, placing her first hint.

  “When things settle down, we’ll go on vacation, okay?”

  “Oh, yes, I love that, Stevie,” she said. “Baker never take me anywhere. Let’s go see Titan and Jean.”

  The walk to Titan’s was fast, just around the block, as she said. But the building was much different than Baker’s house. It was a tall, three-story townhouse, dark brick, with huge, tall windows. The front door was recessed, and they had to go through a wrought-iron gate that was unlocked to reach the porch.

  “Fancy,” Steve said, beaming with pride.

  “They put the fence and gate in when the neighborhood get bad,” she said.

  “Why’s it bad?”

  “You don’t go out at night without a gun around here,” she said.

  He hadn’t heard of that in Chicago, but they were used to it in Detroit. “We’ll stay indoors, then.”

  “We don’t live here,” she said. “I’m ready to sell Baker’s house now.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Steve asked, smiling.

  Lee got out a key and inserted it in the lock, but the door was open, the front room crowded with crying relatives of Jean’s.

  “Oh no,” Lee whispered. “We too late.”

  “Not quite,” Jean’s sister said. “Titan just called us to come over a half hour ago. She’s unconscious. He said anytime now.”

  “Oh, I’m so sad,” Lee said, and burst into tears.

  Titan must have heard her voice and came running down the stairs. He grabbed her and hugged her and then put an arm around Steve as well.

  “She’s going,” he said. “She might still have hearing though, so come up quickly and say goodbye.”

  “Oh, oh, I’m too upset,” Lee said, pulling back.

  “Come, dear,” Steve said, gently holding her. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t say goodbye.”

  The endearing words were so foreign to Steve he couldn’t believe that he had said them. He thought of the times he’d avoided any involvement with death, his own mother and father, members of Kelly’s family. What was he afraid of? Of course, it made him feel like a jerk now that he thought of it, unfeeling and uncaring, and since no one insisted that he involve himself in the process of death, he hid from it. It had worked for him.

  Faced with the death of a woman he didn’t know, the wife of the son he’d just met and was already in love with, Steve’s curiosity drove him. The feeling sweeping through him made him feel connected and alive as never before.

  “I’ll carry you up the stairs,” he said gently. “I’ll stay with you.”

  Pushing him away, Lee made her way to the staircase alone. “I don’t need to be carried like a cripple,” she said, unaware of Titan wincing at her faux pas.

  Pulling herself up the stairs, her age was evident for the first time. Occasionally, a sob would escape. Lee loved Titan with all her heart, and therefore loved Jean.

  Putting her hands up to her mouth as she entered the sickroom, Lee couldn’t believe her eyes, Jean was unrecognizable.

  “She look awful,” she moaned, and Titan went around to her and bent down so she could see his face before she put her foot in her mouth again.

  “She may still have hearing, Mother. Please remember that.”

  “I forget you say that before,” she said, moving closer to the bed.

  The next minutes touched Steve, watching Titan and Lee talking to Jean like she was aware of what they were saying. He didn’t get it, but if Titan said she could still hear, he’d accept that as fact.

  They stayed with Jean, and finally, Titan got out his stethoscope and listened to her heart.

  “She’s on her way out,” he said, clearly brokenhearted.

  It didn’t take long. They huddled around the bed until her breathing stopped. That was it, she was dead. Titan sat on the bed next to Jean, holding her, crying.

  “Come, son,” Lee said. “Let her soul go to God now.”

  Pulling him away from Jean’s body, Titan submitted to his mother. Steve lost it, putting his arms around Lee’s and Titan’s shoulders, crying. He couldn’t believe that was death, thinking there should be more to it, a Hollywood production with angels coming and horns blowing. Body shaking, tears streaming, Lee went into the bathroom to get him tissues. They pushed him onto a chair in the hallway.

  “I’ll get her family,” Titan said, turning to the stairs.

  Concerned for Steve, Lee didn’t understand why he was so upset about a woman he didn’t even know. Titan returned with Jean’s crying sisters, leading them into the bedroom. Lee hovered close by, wanting to be in charge of the body. There might be a fight before the morning was ov
er. Giving them privacy, Titan left, closing the bedroom door behind him.

  Once Steve calmed down, he tried to put it into words. “That’s it?”

  “That’s it,” Lee said frowning. “What did you expect?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, blowing his nose. “Something more dramatic.”

  “What about what you saw in Vietnam?” Titan asked. “Surely that was dramatic.”

  “It was different there,” Steve insisted. “It was horrible. But Jean is your wife. You’re my son. I didn’t get to know her, and that makes it worse.”

  “Try not to be too disappointed,” Titan said, exhausted, the words going over Steve’s head. “It takes a while for the impact to build. I’d better call the funeral home. We have to get through this week, and then I’m coming back to Michigan with you.”

  This was news to Steve. “For good?”

  “Yes,” Titan said. “I’ll get my Michigan license. I want to get as far away from Chicago as possible.”

  Chapter 14

  Arriving home, Kelly decided to shovel what little snow was left, even though it was supposed to rain the next day. While she was in the garage to get the snow shovel, her phone rang again. This time it was Augie.

  “Mom, do you have a minute?”

  “Of course,” she said, getting the shovel down from its hook. “Are we getting together today?”

  “Alice and Maxine said they’d have something later. Dad called.”

  “What did he have to say?” Kelly didn’t stop, understanding that if she continued to shovel, it would be a distraction for whatever Augie was about to say.

  “What are you doing? You’re out of breath.”

  “Shoveling. Go on with it, Aug,” she said.

  “Oh, hell. I should come do that for you.”

  “It’s not necessary. I need the exercise. What did your father want?”

  “Well, Titan’s wife died,” Augie said.

  Kelly stopped shoveling and threw the shovel into the snow. Trudging up the steps, she let herself into the house and, with snow on her boots walked across the living room carpet and sat in the uncomfortable chair.