Live (The Burnside Series): The Burnside Series

by Rivers, Mary Ann

  Oh. Nice. She wondered if Betty learned to lay on guilt like that in some special class for old ladies at the church, like a catechism school for busybodies.

  Des took a deep breath. “I’ll think about it, Betty.”

  She raised an eyebrow. High.

  “If we’re going to make a business deal,” Des almost teased, “then we should be on a first-name basis, don’t you think?”

  “You go on and see your sister. Sam’ll be there, I expect. We’ll talk later.” Betty moved to head into her house. “You did feed your man breakfast, didn’t you? A real one? Not just coffee and those awful sweet things that go into the toaster?”

  “Um.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Do not feed Hefin breakfast, Mrs. Lynch. He’s too nice and he’ll take the time and I have no idea what it is he needs to do today.”

  There went her eyebrow again.

  “Okay. But nothing fancy. Just eggs, like you did for Sam. And don’t grill him, at least not too much. Remind him that I’ll call him later.”

  Des climbed into Marvin’s car as Betty went back to her house to, presumably, stake out Des’s house for Hefin’s appearance.

  Wait, was Betty actually going to feed Hefin his morning-after breakfast?

  Des rested her forehead against the camel-colored wrapped-leather steering wheel.

  She totally was.

  And she wanted to buy her dad’s limo.

  And drive around neighborhood people.

  Which, it did all make sense, that was the thing. Just like it had made sense to sell their family home to the Massersons to raise their family in.

  It all made sense.

  It also all kind of made her heart hurt. It made her think of engagements and weddings and graduations and baby showers and funerals. All those things that their home had been for, and her dad’s business and whole life had been for.

  Her brothers and sister hadn’t really said anything, at all, when she got their dad’s limo out of storage, but they had immediately started asking for rides, eating takeout in the back, telling each other stories. It was part of their shared history, Burnside’s Fine Limousine Service. They’d already lost so much could she give this away, too?

  It was like since her mom, then her dad, had gone, they’d all just been absorbed into the fabric of the neighborhood, and she couldn’t work out if that was a beautiful thing or if it made her sad. She thought of how DeeDee wanted to preserve the cement threshold with the names of the Burnsides, and how that had meant something to her, and meant something to her, too, to add the names of her family alongside.

  Maybe Des was just resisting something that was supposed to happen. That would have happened anyway. Maybe if her mom had lived and nagged her dad into quitting smoking so that he had lived, they would have sold their place to get a condo in Florida.

  Her family, as it was now, was the four of them and what they wanted, what would make them happy.

  Which meant, of course, she needed to know what would make her happy.

  I just started thinking about what would happen if I really started going after what I wanted instead of being afraid I didn’t want the right thing, or that I’d lose what it was I wanted or thought I wanted, or of messin’ up.

  He had told her that she wasn’t like he was then, that she didn’t live her life by its restrictions.

  She was feeling pretty restricted.

  At the same time, she had been looking at maps lately

  And she had never seen the ocean, or flown in a plane.

  She started up Marvin’s car.

  What were her transportation needs?

  A question for her dad, no doubt, though it was as easy as ever to hear his voice tell her that she would figure it out, that he never worried about her and the other side of a decision in the making. Her dad had planted that strong voice in her, the one that kept after it for months after she lost her job, the one that agreed with Carrie when she said why not you?

  Her mom had left her people for love, and was happy, and loved well. Her mom planted inside Des an ease in loving people.

  But there was that little restriction, tight around her heart. Not so little really, the one she felt when she stood inside her dome for too long, or considered selling her dad’s limo, or thought about Hefin asking her to come with him and see the world.

  She was missing something, or she was afraid, or just didn’t believe, somehow, that after she was cut out and stuck to the big blank canvas the rest of the picture would fill in.

  She let the turbo in Marvin’s car open up a little on the freeway, used the fifth gear.

  Someone should, it was what it was made for.

  * * *

  Des watched the nurse’s face as she changed the dressing where the sutures from Sarah’s chest tube had been. She had been openly pleased when she changed the hip dressings under the wound vac, the strange device sucking pus from the bad wound on Sarah’s hip, but her face did not seem openly pleased looking at the three tiny sutures between Sarah’s ribs.

  “Yeowch,” complained Sarah, and she couldn’t even twist around to see what the nurse was doing.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Burnside. It will be tender removing the rest of this gauze, okay? I don’t like the look of how this is healing.”

  Shit.

  She held Sarah’s hand while the nurse painstakingly removed the gauze, then cleaned around the wound with a saline-soaked new piece of gauze. There seemed to be a lot to clean for something so small.

  “I’m just going to rest this wound pad against this for now. I have to page on-call to take a look at this, okay?”

  “Sure thing,” said Sarah. Her voice was flat, her face angry.

  Des slipped her new phone out of her pocket and texted Sam. His message on her voice mail was that he was in the hospital but might not have time to drop by, but he needed to make time, now.

  “What are you doing?”

  Des shoved the phone back in her pocket.

  “Oh. Oh hell no. Did you text Sam?”

  Des closed her eyes and blew out a breath. “Yeah.”

  “Fuck that. He is going to freak, do you know that?”

  “He might freak, and I wish he wouldn’t, but he’s also almost always right about this stuff.”

  “According to you.”

  “According to everyone.”

  “We don’t even know anything yet. I haven’t even been cleared for PT. I won’t be cleared for PT until the leech thing is done with my hip and my body weight is in the ideal range and basically, three thousand other rules.”

  “But you are getting PT. Every day.”

  “Raising my arms over my head. Some guy moving my legs around for me. Big deal.”

  “It is a big deal.”

  “Well, I’m not even going to get to do that if something else has gone bad here. If that wound is infected, I’ll have to go on IV antibiotics again. I’ve been hoping to get approval for oral blood thinners instead of IV, so I can lose the IV completely, but if they put me on antibiotics, they won’t even think about it forever.”

  Des tried to stay calm, but Sarah was right. So many things in this environment worked as a setback. Every guideline was incredibly narrow. Every decision took forever and had limited results. Sarah might be young, and work hard, but she was also impatient.

  Des had lost her job all those months ago, but Sarah had lost that and her mobility. Time with her friends. Her apartment. Control over what she ate or did from hour to hour. Restful sleep. Minimal comfort. All of that was just gone, for her.

  Sam walked in wearing a white coat with a blue badge that the hospital’s urgent-care clinic used. He had Sarah’s chart.

  “That has to be against ethics, or something,” Sarah said.

  “It’s not. You can look at your chart anytime that you want and show it to whoever you want.” Sam was flipping to the last plastic flag in her chart. He hadn’t even looked up.

  “I don’t wan
t to show it to you. It’s my chart. If it’s my call, then hand it over.”

  He looked up then. “Seriously?”

  She stuck her hand out. “Seriously, give it to me.”

  He didn’t. He just kept reading. Then he tossed the chart on the bedside table. “Let me see it.”

  “See what?”

  “Your wound.”

  “No fucking way Sam. No.”

  “Hey, Sarah.” Des stepped around the bed and got between Sarah and Sam. “Please, just let him see it. The more brains you have working on your situation the better, right?”

  Sarah rolled her eyes.

  Des looked at Sam. “I called you because I was worried and because the nurse is too, but I mean this, don’t be an asshole, Sam. Don’t make me sorry I called. Don’t put me in a position where I have to decide if I am the last of us who tells you anything or if I’m going to cut you loose, too, because you act like this.”

  Sam pushed his hands through his hair. “Jesus Christ, Des.”

  “I mean it. Don’t be an asshole.”

  “If you’re going to look, now’s your chance, Sam.” Sarah pulled the side of her gown forward and exposed where the nurse had rested the pad.

  Des backed away, and Sam looked. His forehead wrinkled and he grabbed a glove from the box mounted on the wall above Sarah’s head, snapped it on, then ignored Sarah’s jumping and wincing as he probed it.

  “I’ll make sure they culture this. And I’m going to have the thoracic guy paged. I think it should be imaged to see if you’re working on another fistula someplace even worse than your hip.”

  Sarah yanked her gown back. “IV antibiotics?”

  “Oh, definitely. How’s your pain?”

  “That’s been good, no more than three on a scale of one to ten, or do you prefer I use the pain scale that has the little smiley and frowny faces on it? I can eat and drink just fine. They haven’t removed my catheter, so I am still peeing in a bag, but the PCA who drains and measures my pee does not seem alarmed. I’m shitting and passing gas. I’m turned every two hours and keep the squeezing inflatable things on my legs so another clot won’t try to kill me and yes, I am blowing into the thing every hour and coughing. Am I missing anything? Oh wait, my dignity, but you could give a fuck about that.”

  Des turned away and looked out the window at the view of the parking garage, which got blurry and swimmy.

  “Jesus, Sarah,” Sam said.

  “Just go. Both of you.” Sarah used her bed control to lean her bed back and turn off the reading light over the head of her bed.

  Des looked at Sam. He had his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket. He met her eyes. “Can you meet me by the coffee bar in the west lobby in about twenty minutes?”

  “Sure.” She looked over at Sarah. “See you later, Sare.”

  “Have fun having a day.”

  “I’m coming up before I go.”

  She didn’t answer.

  When Sam joined her across one of the little tables in the coffee bar it had been way more than twenty minutes. Though she had expected that and used the time to play with her new phone, even returning emails for work. What she hadn’t expected was for Sam to look pissed.

  “Who’s this guy, Des?”

  She looked back at him to confirm that he was serious. Because he couldn’t be serious. While it was true that he’d never been buddies with the guys she and Sarah had dated, he’d never interrogated either one of them about their dates or boyfriends. He mostly seemed not to care. If it lasted a while, he’d sometimes have some kind of awkward talk where he’d ask if the guy treated them well. But who’s this guy? No. Never.

  She looked at him. He was serious.

  “Hefin?”

  “Where the fuck is he from, again?”

  “Oh my God, you are not talking to me that way about this. Step off, Sam.” The back of her neck went cold, then hot again.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “He was here the night Sarah was brought in.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “So he’s important to you?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Betty said he was moving back to wherever he’s from.”

  “Wales.”

  “Okay. Wales. He’s moving back?”

  Des dug her fingers into her thighs. “Yes.”

  Sam looked at her. His gray eyes actually boring into hers. “Don’t make me fucking ask, Des.”

  Here it was. She wished she could push in on the place where her heart was beating out of her chest without giving Sam a clue she was upset. Her blood roared in her ears, and suddenly Sam seemed like he was far away. She pinched her thigh so that she would breathe and not pass out. “I don’t know.”

  “Oh my God. You don’t know? So you’re actually considering going away with this guy?”

  “There’s a lot I’m still thinking about, Sam. Work. Money. Family. I care about him. I believe he’s the right person for me, but our relationship’s been relatively short and there’s been a lot going on with Sarah right in the middle of it. ‘I don’t know’ is a fair statement. I don’t.”

  “So, to get this straight, this guy, this much older guy who you haven’t even dated very long, the one who was in your fucking house with you this morning would be totally okay with you just taking off with him, no savings, no nothing, leaving your family here, who need you, who are actually in crisis. He sounds like a winner. He definitely sounds like someone to ‘I don’t know’ over.”

  Des stood up so fast her chair tipped over and crashed to the floor behind her.

  “You can’t talk to me that way Sam. I said, already, that I’m not doing this if you talk to me that way. You don’t get to make it seem like I don’t care about this family when I was the one who used all my vacation time and all my leave time to sit in the hospital with Dad. When I arranged my whole schedule after I lost my job to help Sarah. When I had to fucking beg you to come to her place to help me. One time, one time in all of these months I asked you for a loan, and you were so patronizing about it I never asked again, even when it would have really helped. I sold my fucking car, Sam. I drove around town in the limo. And now, when I got a job, and I’m building my own business, and I meet someone great, you’re coming at me with this shit like I am nothing. Like I have nothing. Like I’m stupid.”

  Destiny didn’t care that there were tears burning down her face or that there was a knot in her throat that was so painful it made her want to vomit, or that her voice was loud. Or that she didn’t even know how Sam was taking this because she couldn’t even see him through the tears and adrenaline. “I’ve been fucking defending you. Telling Sarah and PJ to back off, that you’re under a lot of stress, that you’re helping in your own way. But fuck that, Sam. After all of this, if you can’t believe that I wouldn’t do what I thought was best for me, and would be accepted by my family, than you can forget about my defense of your shitty attitudes. You can just stop. You can just forget it. I won’t. I just won’t.”

  “Desbaby.” His voice was cracked and she watched him stand up.

  “No.” She turned around and headed to the bank of elevators to go see Sarah because she told her she would see her before she left, and she would. Because she was a good sister, damn it. She was.

  “Can we start over? Talk about this again?”

  Des pushed the up arrow button on the elevators a thousand times and ignored Sam.

  He grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her to the staff car and shoved his ID badge into the reader. The doors slid open immediately.

  She walked in but didn’t look at him.

  “Look, I’m sorry.” He sounded like he would elaborate, but apologizing probably popped something in his brain.

  Des felt the initial edge of her anger fade, and now she was shaking. She tucked her hands into her armpits and stared straight ahead.

  “I don’t think you’re stupid, or a nothing. And”—he cleared his throat—“I do have a lot going on, but it isn’t fair th
at I dump on you or make you feel like you don’t have any backup or can’t live your own life.”

  “That’s a pretty big speech for you, chief.”

  “I know. Will you please talk to me about this guy?”

  The elevator opened onto Sarah’s unit and Des kept right on to the nurses’ station to sign in. Sam followed her all the way back to Sarah’s room.

  She was watching TV now, and someone had found the chocolate soy milk boxes she liked because she had six of them lined up on her tray. She ignored Sam, too, and he went to sit in the recliner.

  “Is there anything you want me to bring back for you, Sare?”

  “Could you find my ereader for me? I had it in the drawer that’s in the coffee table.”

  “Sure.”

  “Bring Hefin by, next time, too.”

  Des looked at her and Sarah smiled, a little. “I like him. He’s nice to talk to and knows how to listen. Plus, if he steals you away, I want to know him better.”

  “You knew about that?” Sam leaned forward

  “About what?” Sarah glared at Sam. Sarah’s glares were scary.

  “About this guy, and Des … I can’t even say it.”

  “Seriously?” Sarah looked at Des, her eyebrows meeting her scalp, and Des shrugged. The thing she hated most was that she kind of understood Sam about this one. If she let herself really, really think about leaving, her first reaction was closer to Sam’s than not.

  But it was worse to think of Hefin in some unimaginable future without her than it was to think about an unimaginable future.

  “You’d be okay with it? When you’re like this?” Sam’s voice threatened to go into the register that had Sarah pushing her call button, and Des held her breath.

  “With me like this, Sam? You mean young and trying to get through something and have a life? This is fucked-up, but it’s also my problem. I’d miss Des, but it would be because I missed her, not her caregiving. I’m feeling kind of shitty for how much I’ve depended on her the last couple of months, already.”

  Des was shocked. Sarah’s pain medicine must be really great.