He grimaced. “Mom, we didn’t attack you. How could we? This is the first time we’ve seen you.”
“You attacked me with hate and venom in your spines and blood in your eyes. You all want me dead. But Samara—she knew. She understood. I should have stayed with her in France. She loved me.” Her face ticked on the right side, making her eye twitch and her lip dance at the corner. A little drool escaped as well.
“Fuck, Adam . . . She’s completely bonkers,” Zach whispered.
“Mom . . . Samara. Is. Dead. You know this.” Adam took a deep breath.
Her nostrils flared. “No! You’re dead. You’re the one! She’s alive. She escaped. She’s going to save me and then I’ll show Thomas and Dustin and Neil and Stacy. They’ll all see,” she said, grinning with a wicked gleam in her eye.
Drool fell out of the corner of her mouth and hit the keyboard.
“Oh no!” she cried out, spotting the saliva. She used her cloth hands to wipe it up meticulously. After she realized there was a clean spot and the rest was filthy, she leaned over and licked, then wiped. Licked, then wiped.
Adam’s stomach knotted and felt about ten thousand shades of pukey green.
“Stop! Too many germs.” He yanked the keyboard toward him.
“Mine! I had to earn that. It’s mine! You can’t have it! Sally, he’s taken my toy!” she screeched louder than Adam had ever heard from her.
Including the time he’d accidentally hurt her, shoving her into the broken, splintered piano bits he’d made in his fit. And that had ripped up her arms like crazy.
“Sally, they’ve taken my ring, too. It’s gone. Oh no! It’s gone. They’ve fucking robbed me. My money is all gone!” She rocked in place, banging her head pretty forcefully with her hands.
Adam’s eyes went wide, he shoved the piano back toward her. She was completely unhinged.
Zach raced over behind her, grabbed her wrists to keep her from hurting herself. It was a good thing because her entire body was jerking around—her legs stomping and her head flinging back, knocking into his stomach hard.
She was worse than a toddler having a tantrum. This seemed borderline suicidal.
“Sarah, shhhhh, it’s okay,” one of the female employees there said, coming to her side.
She did nothing to remove Zach’s hands off their mother. She merely crouched down beside her, patted her leg soothingly while someone approached on the other side of her. They shoved a pill in Sarah’s mouth in a flash, then covered her mouth and plugged her nose until she was forced to swallow.
No wonder they didn’t mind Zach binding her that way.
They needed him too.
Fuck. This was serious.
Adam wanted to push away from the table, flee this place and never return.
How was he supposed to tell her Thomas was sick and about to die when she was so out of it?
“She has bad days sometimes. This one’s been her worst yet. I told her that family was coming to visit and she became hysterical this morning. She was ripping her hair out and trying to strangle herself with it. I had to shave her head to keep her from doing that.” The woman stood up. “I’m Sally. I’m so glad to meet you both.” She smiled, offered her hand to Adam first.
He shook it.
“Is she okay?” His brows slammed together. “She seemed completely disoriented. Does she have hallucinations often?”
“Yes, pretty often, but if we’re on top of her meds, then she’s usually fairly calm and even happy. She gets along well with most of the others here, except one woman who likes the piano, too. They fight over it sometimes, so I had to make a chart so they both get equal time. I don’t know why Sarah wants it, though. She doesn’t seem to know how to play, and she rarely does anything with it other than stare at it. She says two names over and over when she has it.”
“Is it Adam?” Zach asked, still holding his mom’s wrists, but looser. He rubbed along her wrists with a soothing touch.
“No. She says, Thomas, he’s Dustin’s. Then she switches and says the opposite, Dustin, he’s Thomas’s.” Sally shook her head. “I have no idea what it means, but she seems stuck on those ideas.”
“Basically she’s talking about my brother here, Adam,” Zach explained.
Sarah went limp and tried to drop her head to the table, forcing Zach to almost land on top of her back.
He released his grip on her and stroked her bald head as if it was nothing at all to see her this way.
How was Zach doing that? He didn’t seem repulsed at all.
“Ah, I see. I heard she’s had quite the past, being with a lot of men. I had no idea it was like that.” Sally smiled.
“She didn’t know who my father really was. We found out recently,” Adam told her.
Her eyes softened. “Oh dear. Well, I’m glad you know.”
Adam was about to ask Sally if they should tell his mother, along with the news about Thomas being near death, but he didn’t get a chance.
Zach picked their mom up, sat down in her seat, then set her in his lap.
He held her like a small child he was about to read to.
“Mom, it’s Zach. I’m your little boy—your youngest.” He patted her back and ran lulling circles on it.
She seemed to move in the pattern of his hands, switching directions so she circled her body with his motions.
“I love my little Zachy. He’s so sweet. Always so good to my Adam. Such a good boy,” Sarah said in a happy-sounding whisper.
“Yes, it’s me. I love you, Mom, so much, but I have to tell you something, and you have to stay calm.” Zach caressed from the nape of her neck to her waist.
She sagged into his touch. When she was completely placid, Zach said, “Adam is Dustin’s biological son. We had DNA tests run. Dustin is happy, Thomas is sad, but he accepts. And he kind of has to. Adam’s been good to him, giving him money, taking care of him. Thomas’s real sick with lung cancer. He could die very soon, and he wants you to know you’ll always be in his heart. He loves you very much.” Zach kissed the back of her shoulder.
She sighed. “I know.”
“You know?” The back of Adam’s neck prickled. His scalp tingled. It felt like every hair on his body above his heart was on end. How could she know?
“How? Who told you all this?” Zach repeated the same long strokes on her back over and over.
Adam was uncertain if the drugs they gave her had kicked in or if this was all Zach’s doing, but her eyes looked clearer, and their mother spoke with her normal, sweet voice.
“Is this the drugs, making her this way?” Adam whispered to Sally.
She was standing back, watching the entire interaction.
“No. They take about twenty minutes to take hold. Usually, I have to sing to her or play her music to calm her down in the interim.” Sally looked at Zach like she was completely impressed with his soothing ways.
“Wow.” Adam gave Zach the same look Sally did.
“Yeah, he’s good.” Sally crossed her arms over her chest.
“Thomas told me. He came and visited me a week ago,” Sarah replied. “He looked terrible. He coughed a lot. He cried. I told him not to, but he did. I stopped eating after that. If he’s going to be all thin as a rail, then so will I. It’s not his job to do that—it’s mine, since it was all my fault. I tried to kill Adam when he was inside me, and I tried to give him away for money. I wanted Thomas to be a musical star. But he wouldn’t listen.” She got a little agitated and tried to smack her head again with her hands, but Zach was too quick. He stopped her, gripping her arms tight.
It looked like a hug somehow, not a controlling hold. Her eyes were a raging war. Was she internally screaming at herself for all her past wrongs as they sat and watched her?
“You’re really good at this,” Adam blurted to his brother.
“At what?” Zach mouthed. Was he trying to stay completely in the moment with their mom and keep from interrupting their mother’s volatile thoughts, emotions and
behavior?
Should Adam be doing that, too? Should he be playing into whatever her psychosis was at the moment?
Was that how this worked?
When he thought about it—any time he had an episode, Mari was completely enveloped in him and his world, ignoring everything else unless it was an emergency. Even Meg had learned that if she saw her mommy holding her daddy or helping him and he was lying down, she needed to wait patiently for her mom to attend to her.
So, unless Button was crying, Mari was all his. And even then, she’d just attach the baby to her breast and keep going—coaxing Adam through it.
How did she do that?
His heart filled with gratitude, and his eyes reacted by flooding.
He had to grip his chest to keep his heart inside his ribs.
“I love you, Zach,” Adam said out loud. He didn’t care who heard him.
“I love you, too, man.” Zach’s lips trembled. He smiled, and his eyes moistened, too.
“And Mom loves both of us,” Adam said, nodding.
He pulled the piano back over, made sure it was plugged in and did his best to play Sarah a song.
It was all he could do, since Zach already had the peaceful talking and holding part down.
He played and smiled at her. It was the song he’d created with Thomas as a child.
Sarah swayed, sung along and went into this tranquil space, her eyes glassy and her voice soft.
They stayed as long as they could, chatting about nothing at all.
“We have to go now, but we’ll come back next week on visiting day, okay?” Zach said, lifting her up and placing her gently back into the seat.
She lunged at him, clung to his waist, crying and wailing, “No! Don’t go! Thomas left, too, and he’s dead. I can feel it! He’s gone. He’s not in my heart anymore. There’s only black sludge there, and now I’m sick, too.” In a matter of seconds, she drenched a portion of Zach’s shirt.
He squatted down to get eye level with her. “He’s sick, but he’s not gone. We’re here. We’re healthy, and we care about you. We love you, all right?”
Adam squatted next to him. “Yeah, and when you love someone you don’t abandon them.”
HIs mother’s eyes turned dark when she looked over at Adam. “Now, you know. I never abandoned you. I loved you. I was shoved away like a piece of vile shit. Now.” She stood. “You.” She poked a bony finger into his chest. “Know!” She dribbled a little bit on the floor. “Don’t you ever blame me again. I said I was sorry, and I am. But I hate that you think it’s all my fault.” She was about to hurt herself again, by tossing her body at the table.
Zach caught her.
Sally came up behind him.
“Can I stay a little longer? I’ll calm her down and then go,” Zach asked Sally.
“Please do. I’ll get the okay.” Sally left.
Adam gave Zach a questioning look. What was he supposed to do? Sally didn’t say Adam could hang out, too.
“Just go, man. I got this.” Zach jerked his head toward the door.
Adam smiled. “This is why you’re so great, and why you’re my hero.”
He left his brother behind, knowing that both him and his mom would be good.
They had each other and him.
There was nothing else they could need anymore, since they had a good family where there was happiness.
* * *
Adam revolved around Thomas.
“I have to quit my job. I can’t be there. I have to be here with you,” Adam told his dad, lying in bed, looking paler than ever.
“You can’t do that,” Thomas wheezed.
Adam got him some water, helped him sit up and then fed him small sips.
“I can, too. I’ve got all that money still sitting in my account from the music. We’re going to start looking for a bigger house soon, but we can wait on that. We love our home, so we’re not in a rush.”
“Stop that.” Thomas shooed him away.
“No. I won’t. You need me. That hospice nurse is good, but she’s not me.” Adam grinned.
Thomas tried to avoid smiling, but he couldn’t help it.
“You need the happiness that is me. I make your room smell better since I shower daily, and I also make it brighter, because I have a nice smile and I sing to you.”
“Yeah, you do all those things, but you have a life. You have a family. I don’t expect your life to be all about me.” Thomas coughed, then lowered himself back down to lying flat.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adam said, putting the water down.
Thomas coughed so hard for several minutes, his face turned purple as he tried to hack something that simply wouldn’t come up.
Adam sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his dad’s arm. He hummed and was amazed once more at how the numbers were truly gone. They never surfaced anymore. The music wasn’t doing that either. Notes were only notes—nothing more.
They were his friends he put to music. They didn’t bug him and make him feel out of control.
He’d never felt so adult and completely in control in his entire life.
“Life is good,” Adam said after his dad finished his bout of coughing.
“It is. That’s why it sucks to leave it sometimes.” Thomas offered a small friendly smile.
“When I die, I’ll know my dad Thomas loved me more than anything. He did what he thought was best, and he did save me. He made me what I am—a decent, hard-working, talented man. I’ll always be grateful for that.” Adam patted his dad’s arm. “You helped turn me into Harkham’s first case, and that gave all of my life direction. That means my thanks is for you.” He leaned over and kissed his dad’s forehead.
“You give me credit for stuff I don’t deserve to feel good about. I know your life turned out great, but it’s not because of your issues, it’s in spite of them and me. You did all that on your own with your amazing personality and persevering attitude. You don’t quit. You never do, not even on me. And I’m constantly wowed by it.” Thomas rolled onto his side with some difficulty, so Adam helped him.
“Tomorrow we’ll write a new song together. How does that sound?”
Thomas made a choking, gurgling sound. His face turned blue, and he stopped breathing.
He went limp.
Adam hollered, “Nurse Sharon! Help! He’s . . . He’s not breathing!”
His father shook like an explosion was taking place inside him and then made a gagging, popping sound. “Aaaa-daaaahhhmmm,” Thomas whimpered.
“I’m right here. We’ll fix this. We have medicine. We know how to help.” Adam checked the IV, making sure it was in correctly.
He grabbed the bottle of pain medicine, but the next thing he knew, his father was unconscious.
Adam kicked into action, going into doctor mode.
He checked for a pulse. It was weak.
There was no breath, and his breathing pathway was clear.
He started CPR, and the nurse yelled a few orders at him.
“He has a strict no resuscitation order!” the nurse said, trying to push him off.
“Tough shit! He’s my dad, and we’re going to make music tomorrow. He wants to!” Adam kept going until she managed to knock him off.
“He’s got orders in place,” she reiterated, her spit flying on him as she said it forcefully.
“He never told me.” Adam scrambled back after his dad, trying to return into position to resume chest compressions.
But the nurse was much stronger than she looked.
She barred him from doing anything, until he whispered with a hoarse voice, “Please—I’m all he has. Just let me hold him so he won’t be scared if he’s dying.”
“All right.” She rolled him out of her grip and placed him by his dad.
Adam pushed an arm under his bony father, tugged him up into his lap, and he sang while crying, stroking his father’s shoulder and arm.
It was the song he played on their guitar. He kept scr
ewing up the lyrics, but it didn’t matter.
Thomas sputtered a final breath with a final whisper of, “I looooove yooooou. M-my sonnnn.”
When he stopped, didn’t come back and the nursed noted the time of passing, Adam let his raging emotions scatter into the air with a new song.
“When it’s time to go, I hold you tight. You say you will, I say you won’t, but it’s not for us to say. It’s for the night and the stars. Go to pieces, that’s what I’ll do, because you are the light that helped me through. And I’m the boy you couldn’t prove, but I’m your boy. I’m always your boy. In this world and in the next—the boy you taught to be a man.”
Adam held his father’s rag-of-a-body, cried some more and all he had left to say was, “Thank you, Dad. I love you, too.”
Chapter 19
“I have so many happy thoughts,” Adam began, facing the group of people watching him. He swallowed a sip of water, then continued on. “Thomas turned out to be one of my best friends in the end. I never thought I could ever say that, but he was a mentor. He was a bright source of light even when my life is already so beautiful and colorful. He was such a source of knowledge about music and life in general that I don’t even like to think about what it will be like without him.”
Zach was in the front row, filming Adam for their mom.
“For years, I blamed him for my disabilities. But I learned along the way that most of the good things in my life—the things I enjoy, the things I learned, the people I met—they were all a direct result of his parenting and his influence.” Adam’s eyes wrinkled as he cried.
The funeral was being held in his dad’s backyard. Dustin paid for everything, including the burial to come directly after.
It seemed fitting to have it here, where Adam and Mari had married four years ago.
“Thomas never was one for a whole lot of talk. He preferred music to convey his thoughts and emotions. And even if my blood isn’t from him, I feel the same way. A song is the only way to come even close to doing justice in explaining what this man meant to me—my second father and dear friend.” Adam stepped away from his spot at the front and went to the piano Zach and he had brought outside.
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