Fatal Flaws

by Clyde Lawrence

  I had walked halfway around the outside of the complex on the sidewalk lining the streets before I realized that my shaven head was feeling a bit toasty. It hadn’t seen a lot of sun yet over the course of the rainy spring. Walking out on the exposed sidewalk, the sun beat down on me and it was starting to get uncomfortably warm. I was soaking up a lot of UV rays and my pasty white skin was probably at risk of getting sunburned. I just hate to get a sunburn on my face and my bald ass head. I have thick, blonde eyebrows which, when I get too much sun on my face, give me the appearance of a red-faced devil whose eyebrows were scorched off, then painted back on using white out. It’s pretty ridiculous looking, and I’m just vain enough to dread having to make my hospital rounds looking so foolish.

  I decided to finish up my walk back to Ryan’s apartment by cutting through the middle of the complex, where I’d be protected from the sun most of the time by the dense foliage along the paths. I jaunted across the parking lot filled with Bimmers, jacked up pickups and Jeeps, tuned up rice burners and other ‘totally awesome’ cars driven by the young, mostly single, twenty somethings who were tenants within this modern and fashionable apartment community. Ryan had given me and Mandy the code to the gate which provided access to the park-like interior of the complex, so I punched in the code, swung the gate open, and started down the trail leading toward Ryan’s apartment, which I figured was just about directly across the complex from where I’d entered.

  Just inside the great oval made by the long rectangular apartment buildings, I came to a jogging track which was wide enough for two people walking abreast going in each direction. I decided to take a right turn and began walking along the track. Soon I came to a playground located just inside the track and surrounded by a low cyclone fence. I figured the designers of the park had fenced off the playground in order to keep toddlers from wandering too far, either down one of the trails or out onto the track, where asshole joggers like Brandon might squash them. There were several small kids at play, so I sat on the bench that had been placed right outside the enclosure and rested while I watched the ecstatic children who were swinging, sliding, and hanging by their knees from the climbing bars as they shouted their enthusiasm by yelling out things like, “Mommy, look at me!” and “Just five more minutes, okay Daddy?”

  Middle aged, unaccompanied guys watching kids at a playground can appear a bit out of place, to say the least. I hoped that I wouldn’t be mistaken for a creepy voyeur or pedophile. With this in mind, I made sure to make eye contact with the parents who were there pushing their kids on the swings, coaxing their apprehensive toddlers down the slide for the first time, and sitting on the other benches within the enclosure keeping a watchful eye on their offspring as they perused Facebook on their phones. I figured the true creeps focused on the children and that by acknowledging the fact that I was alone to parents I would let them know that I was just innocently resting and taking in the scene of a dozen or so kids having a blast as they darted from one piece of equipment to the next without a care in the world.

  My mind traveled to an amalgam of experiences that my own family had enjoyed at similar playgrounds. As I pictured how I must have looked during these experiences to anyone watching from the periphery of the park, I had to chuckle and shake my head. I was one of those dads who couldn’t just sit and watch the kids play. I had to be right in the action. If the girls wanted to swing, I would be jumping on a swing myself and challenging them to a contest of who could go the highest or jump the furthest off the swing. If there was a teeter totter, I would put two or three of them on the side opposite me and give them a good ‘bump’ each time my side came down and struck the ground. God help my poor kids if there was a merry-go-round, because I was the dad who would spin it so fast they had to use both arms and legs to cling to the tubular steel handles jutting up from the surface in order to resist the centrifugal force generated by my relentless efforts. More than once, one of my gutsy little daredevils had come flying off the spinning apparatus in a tangential trajectory without any hope of landing on their feet and avoiding a wipeout. Of course, I would only risk this if the merry-go-round was surrounded by dense grass and the risk of injury was relatively low. Despite the potential risk to life and limb, each one of my brood would be chanting, “Faster, faster! Keep going Daddy, faster!” All the while, I was sucking wind and my heart was racing due to the effort it took to propel the thrill machine much faster than it was designed to spin. When the other children at a playground saw how much fun my family was having, they would oftentimes wander over to us and join in the mayhem. I knew that those attention starved youngsters would be thinking, ‘Awesome, I wish my Dad would play with us like that.’ When their parents, on the other hand, had borne witness to my entertaining, yet reckless, behavior on the playground equipment, they would most likely think to themselves, ‘What an asshole. What’s the number for CPS?’

  I sat for several minutes that day and thought of the times I’d taken Ryan and her siblings to various parks. Although, I may not have used the best judgement all of those times, the thing that struck me is the trust that my kids had given me—at the playgrounds, in the pool, or just about anywhere else that I had, in the interest of fun, asked them to elevate the level of play to the danger zone. Whether I was tossing small toddlers into the air and catching them under their arms as they plummeted to the ground, challenging them in a diving board belly flop contest, or showing them how to light a bottle rocket and toss it into the air just before the propellant ignited in order to shoot it downfield at a target, my kids trusted me. Just to keep the record straight, I would never subject any child to what I would consider was a truly ‘dangerous’ situation. I have great confidence in my ability to take my level of play right up to the ‘red line’ without going beyond it and actually causing an injury. However, I have made of habit of making Mandy extremely nervous and I’ve been chastised by her, as well as my parents and in-laws, on numerous occasions for using questionable judgement in such situations. The point, however, is that my kids instinctively trust me and know that their papa is going to keep them safe. So, how the fuck did I fail to protect Ryan when she needed me to protect her most?

  As if I my mind had willed it to be, a little blond girl, looking to be about three years old, was climbing up the slide, rather than sliding down. She called out to her father and cried, “I can’t make it, can you help me up?”

  Her daddy replied in an even, calming voice, “It’s okay, baby, just keep going. Just put one foot in front of the other.”

  She stopped repetitively pushing off with the toes of her adorable pair of flats, which were not gripping the slide surface adequately to propel her forward and up the slide. Instead, she flattened her feet out to maximize the friction between the soles of her shoes and the smooth, stainless steel surface of the slide. She was subsequently able to continue her climb and she called out, “I’m doing it, Daddy. I’m doing it. I’m climbing it!”

  “That’s it, baby. Just like I showed you. That’s my girl!” Wow, I was taken back to almost this exact scene from when Ryan was that age.

  I’m not sure how long I sat on the bench that day taking my trip down Memory Lane, but I do know that when my mind returned to the present, I was feeling much better. There had definitely been some therapeutic benefit to my brief exile from Ryan’s apartment, where I had been getting worked up emotionally very quickly. I felt like the sun and the fresh, spring air had caused my tension and anger to sublimate through my pores and into the atmosphere. What had been left behind was a feeling of thankfulness for my wife and children, and a renewed devotion to my opportunity and responsibility to guide them, provide for them, and protect them. It was time to go back to the apartment and figure out what was going on with Ryan. But also to fulfill my obligation to save her from anyone who would bring harm to her, and if necessary, protect her from herself.

  Chapter 25

  “I didn’t tell you guys because I didn’t want you to worry,” Ryan said,
as we sat facing each other in the living room of her apartment.

  “Honey,” Mandy replied, “I appreciate that you didn’t want to burden us, but you should know us well enough to understand that we can handle you telling us about whatever it is you are going through. I don’t care if you’ve gotten Chlamydia or joined a cult, we have the right to know what’s going on in your life. You might be surprised to find out how often one of us had experienced something similar and figured out a way to get past it and move on with our lives.”

  “Yeah,” I piped up, “remember when Mom made me join that cult called the Mormon Church? I wish it had only been a bad case of the clap. That wouldn’t have been nearly as unpleasant, and I could have shaken it a whole lot quicker.”

  “Mark, if you bring that up one more time, I’m going to go Lorena Bobbitt on you while you sleep. Remember, we are here to talk about Ryan, not about the supposed emotional damage the Church inflicted on you. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’ve embraced your wicked ways and the heathen that you have become, so just cool it, okay?”

  “Fuckin-A. That’s right, I’m a heathen! Now, who wants to play some Nine Inch Nails and shoot up some black tar heroin?” Even now, in the midst of this serious conversation, I couldn’t suppress my inner smart ass.

  Ryan smirked a little at the banter. “No, that’s actually fine. I’d much rather talk about you guys,” she said.

  “No, Mom’s right. We need to talk about what’s going on with you, sweetie. Enough of the amateur comedy hour bullshit. I’m sorry.”

  “So, tell us about the broken ribs. What happened?””

  “Well, I was driving down Greenville Avenue and I basically got T-boned by some asshole who ran the light on University. He was just in a small Scion, you know, that tiny model that looks like a smart car? He hit me right on my driver’s side door and the door smashed in against my ribs. I was really sore, so I went to the urgent care place. They saw some broken ribs on the X-ray, so they gave me some pain meds and told me to take it easy, which I have been. I’m feeling pretty much all better now. “

  “What about your car?” I inquired. “That sounds like it should have totaled it.” Ryan drove a seven-year-old Toyota Rav 4 with about 150,000 miles on it. The damage from a side impact MVA like she had described would have involved the driver’s door, the back door, and the front left fender, at least. That’s a lot of damage to repair and based on the expense of some work Mandy and I had previously had done, it sounded like the insurance company would have put the kibosh on getting the vehicle repaired.

  “Well, they repaired it, so I guess the insurance company didn’t want to total it. I mean, I’m not making this up. So, anyway, that’s what happened,” she replied with more than a hint of annoyance in her voice.

  “Okay, well, what about your arm or shoulder?” Mandy asked.

  “What do you mean? I didn’t hurt my arm or shoulder in the wreck.” She must not have realized that the statement from the radiology group included both X-ray studies, although they were not done on the same day.

  “Right,” I said, “but you had films taken of your upper left arm and clavicle in January. The statement on your counter includes both studies, because you still owe money on both of them. So, what did you do to your shoulder in January?”

  “Oh, yeah—umm,” Ryan started, then hesitated, as if searching her mind for a plausible explanation. “Well, that was just me being clumsy. Brandon and I went to the skating rink at the Galleria and he had to grab me to save me from falling on my butt. I ended up straining my shoulder muscles. One time, though, when he had to pull up on my arm to support me, he felt a popping sensation and after that I couldn’t lift my arm up without it really hurting. He wanted me to get it checked out to make sure it wasn’t dislocated.”

  Either this was true, or she had just pulled a pretty freaking good story out of her ass. She was referring, we knew, to the ice rink on the first level of the Galleria Mall, which was a popular shopping destination for the North Texans living in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The mall had a massive central atrium surrounded by the four floors of retail space. Shoppers could look down from the railing surrounding the atrium on any of the floors and watch the mostly novice ice skaters circling the rink. Probably due in large part to the simple fact that ice skating is not a common pastime in Texas and is more of a novelty experience, most of the folks who strap on their ice skates and wobble out onto the ice give anyone who is watching the clear impression that they don’t know what the hell they are doing. Whenever I’ve taken a break from mall shopping at the Galleria and paused along the atrium railing in order to check out the action at the rink, I’ve always been impressed with the number of people out on the ice who have no business being there, knowing some are wrist or elbow fractures and shoulder dislocations just waiting to happen. Anyone standing along the railing never has to wait long to see someone busting their ass on the unforgiving, frozen surface. More often than not, the next person to fall is the sorry SOB holding hands with the initial dipshit who tries to use their skating partner as a stabilizer. With these memories of ice-skating follies in mind, I could see how Ryan’s story was well within the realm of believability.

  “Well, I’m glad you didn’t get seriously hurt, sweetie,” Mandy said.

  “Why are you guys even giving me the third degree about this stuff? You know I would have told you if I were really hurt.” asked Ryan.

  “Broken ribs sound pretty significant to me,” I stated for the record. “But we were just wondering what was up with the X-rays. It just seemed strange that we hadn’t heard about any of this. You know that parents are always going to be worried about their kids. Besides, we want to make sure that your new husband is treating you well and watching out for you.”

  “I knew you were going to bring him up! You’ve always got to make sure you implicate him in anything bad that happens to me!” Ryan nearly yelled.

  “I’m not implicating him in anything, so you don’t have to be so overly sensitive about it. Jesus Christ almighty! And you don’t need to shout at me, young lady!” I replied with a snarl of my own.

  “Will you two not start in on each other,” Mandy piped up. “It seems like we can’t have a conversation anymore without the two of you finding some reason to fight. And, yes Ryan, it is usually about Brandon. You should understand that we still haven’t seen a lot of reason to trust that he is treating you well. The only interactions we ever have with him seem to be negative and we’ve rarely seen him going out of his way to be thoughtful, or even nice to you.”

  “Okay, then, let’s just drop it. By the way, I’ve got a lot of studying to work on. I know you guys have other stops to make, so…”

  “Message received. Time for us to hit the bricks,” I said. “Let’s get on the road, babe.”

  We got up and headed to the door. Despite the harsh words we had exchanged, Ryan hugged each of us and told us that she loved us.

  “Thanks for stopping by. Sorry you missed Brandon,” she added sarcastically.

  “Glad we got to see you. Hopefully, next time we get to hang out with you there won’t be any evidence of recent bodily injury. We hate to see our beautiful daughter all banged up.”

  “Right,” Mandy agreed. “Please be careful, honey! And say ‘Hi’ to Brandon.”

  “Alright. Thanks again!” Ryan called out as she closed the door to her apartment.

  As we walked back to my Lexus SUV, we passed Ryan’s Rav4 in the parking lot. I was about to comment that it looked like the repairs had been done well, but something strange caught my eye.

  “What the hell?” I mumbled to myself.

  “Huh? Now what, Mark?” Mandy said, not even trying to mask her annoyance.

  I walked closer to the driver’s side front door, squatted down and looked up and down the vehicle, paying particular attention to the front and rear doors and the front left fender. Ryan had never adopted my compulsive habits of avoiding scratches and dings in my automobiles. She
, like most car owners, placed more importance on convenience and minimizing the number of steps she would take while trekking through parking lots between her car and her final destination.

  Once I could afford to drive nice vehicles, as opposed to the base model Geo Prizm and stripped-down Ford Explorer of my medical school and residency days, I made sure that my garage always contained late model luxury sedans and SUV’s. Some people spend their money on expensive hobbies like golf, hunting, or traveling. Because of what I do for a living, I work long hours and I’m usually kept on a short leash by my patients, my pager, and the nurses in the Labor and Delivery Suite, who always seem to need to inform me of my next reason to visit the hospital. I don’t have a lot of leisure time. The money that could otherwise be spent on a golf course membership and bi-weekly greens fees or a hunting lease tended to find its way to the local Lexus, Jaguar, or BMW dealership. I spend my money making sure that if I’m going somewhere, I’m going in style, usually in a car that you don’t often see due to its price and exclusivity. I have pride in what I step out of when I park in the physicians’ parking lot at the hospital or when I hand the keys to a valet at a dining out destination. As such, I absolutely hate to see any wheel, paint, or body damage on my rides. This repulsion has led me to always seek out and claim parking spots that minimize the chance of a shopping cart rolling across a parking lot into my oblivious sport sedan, or some stupid idiot throwing their 1987 Trans Am door open and smashing it into my luxury SUV side panel. Ryan, on the other hand, does exactly what all the other lazy drivers do. She finds the closest parking spot to the cinema, store, or restaurant she is patronizing and pulls in before it can get snatched up by some other indifferent driver who is also too lazy to walk a few extra steps.