His Ordinary Life

by Linda Winfree

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Blake’s sick. He’s throwing up blood.” He cast a glance at his son, head resting against the window again, eyes closed. His chest labored with rapid breaths.

  “What?” Concern pitched Tick’s voice higher. “Del, you don’t think he’s OD’ed on something, do you?”

  “No.” The image of those mottled bruises floated in front of his eyes. He blinked them away, trying to concentrate on the road and the miles flashing by. “Tick, somebody’s hurt him. And you’d better pray to God you find them before I do.”

  Chapter Eight

  As Tick’s truck ate the miles between the cheer gym and the hospital, Barbara stared at the passing scenery, blurred as much by her frightened tears as the speed. She clenched her fingers tighter. Blake. He was hurt and she hadn’t even known, had been so focused on Del that she’d missed the signs any mother should know. A sob tightened her throat and she pressed her lips together to keep it from escaping.

  “You okay?”

  She looked at Tick to find him darting concerned glances at her. “I will be.”

  “We’ll be there in a couple of minutes.” He returned his gaze to the road. “And you know Del’s got everything under control.”

  She didn’t know anything anymore, except the inescapable fact her son needed her and she wasn’t there. In the hospital parking lot, she barely let Tick stop the truck before she jumped out, hurrying across the crowded lot. The automatic doors swished open and ushered her into the controlled chaos of the emergency room.

  A man with a large wound on his bare arm sat with a woman who uttered soothing words. Two chairs down, a young mother cradled a fussy baby on her lap. Other patients filled the room, but her son wasn’t one of them. She moved to the desk.

  “Excuse me,” she said, out of breath, the thud of her heart painful in her tight chest. “I’m looking for my son, Blake Calvert.”

  The young woman smiled, fingers hovering over the computer keyboard. “Date of birth?”

  “April—”

  “Barb?”

  She spun to find Del striding toward her, his face set and tense. “Del!” She ran to him and he opened his arms. She went into them, her face against his chest. His unique scent, a blend of soap and the sandalwood aftershave he’d worn for years, enveloped her, wrapping her in a familiar security. “Is he all right?”

  He cupped the back of her head. “Jay’s in with him.” His lips moved against her temple. “They’re doing a CAT scan.”

  “A CAT scan?” She pulled back. “Why?”

  “He’s…they think he’s bleeding internally.”

  The words landed like a heart punch. “Wh-what?”

  He gestured at his side, indicating his waist to his ribcage. “He has these bruises…”

  She couldn’t get her mind around what he was saying. “Bruises? Del, where did he—”

  “Someone hit him.” His voice was raw, as if the words were torn from his throat.

  “Del, what’s going on?” Tick joined them.

  Del ran a hand through already disheveled hair. “I wish I knew. He…it looks like someone’s punched him.”

  A look passed between the brothers. Barbara shook her head in instinctive denial.

  Tick voiced the thought pounding in her brain. “One punch doesn’t put a kid in the emergency room.”

  “It wasn’t one punch.”

  “Oh, God.” Nausea roiled in Barbara’s throat and she covered her mouth. Unwanted images flickered in her mind. Her baby. “Why didn’t he say anything?”

  Tick rubbed her shoulder, a brief, comforting caress, and turned his gaze on Del. “Did he say who?”

  Del shook his head, his mouth a grim line. “No.”

  A frown pinched Tick’s face. “If he’s sick now, this had to happen today.”

  “He was in ISS today,” Barbara whispered, the simple act of speaking an incredible effort. “It’s on a completely different campus in a wing at the alternative school. They’re isolated. He wouldn’t have been with anyone else.”

  “Until he got off the bus at the high school this afternoon.” Tick rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Did you meet him at the bus?”

  She shook her head. “No, he came to my room.”

  “If this happened at school, we can pull the tapes from the surveillance cameras.” A reassuring smile curved Tick’s mouth. “We’ll get whoever did it, Barb. I promise.”

  Nodding, Barbara reached for Del’s hand. He curved his fingers around hers, warm and strong. “I want to see him.”

  “They said it wouldn’t be long, ten, maybe fifteen minutes.” With his other hand, he brushed her hair from her face. He smiled at her, although the expression was fleeting and forced. “Where are the girls?”

  “With your mother.” She forced herself to pull her hand from his and felt the instant loss. “I wasn’t sure if…she’s taking them for pizza then home to do their homework.”

  “I’m going to need a list of his friends,” Tick said, his voice quiet.

  Barbara nodded, trying to pull her incoherent thoughts together. She looked between Del and his brother, reality sinking in. “Why? Why would someone want to hurt him?”

  Her voice broke and she blinked against a sudden rush of tears. Del reached for her again, pulling her against him, massaging the back of her neck. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I just don’t know.”

  The next few minutes passed with interminable slowness. Finally, the double doors marked “No Admittance—Staff Only” swung open, and Jay Mackey strode into the room. The young doctor paused to shake Tick’s hand and slap him on the back before greeting Barbara and Del with the professional smile Barbara knew was an integral part of his bedside manner. She’d seen that smile before—before the surgery to place tubes in Lyssa’s ears, when Anna had tumbled from the monkey bars at school and broken her wrist.

  “The CAT scan is finished,” Jay said. As he talked, faint lines crinkled at the corners of his bright blue eyes. “We’re about to take him up to the surgical unit.”

  “What?” Panic fluttered in Barbara’s throat. Del gripped her shoulders with gentle hands.

  “We have to go in and repair the damage to stop the bleeding.” Terse sympathy colored the words.

  “How much damage, Jay?” Del asked, and Barbara sagged against him for a moment, glad he was there to ask the hard question, glad he was there and she didn’t have to face this horror alone.

  “I’ll know more once we open…once we’ve started the surgery, but it looks like a liver laceration, possibly some damage to his kidney. I’ve started him on an antibiotics drip to ward off infection, but the first order of business is getting that bleeding stopped.”

  Barbara nodded, still surrounded by a haze of unreality. “I want to see him, please.”

  Jay nodded. “Sure. He’s in cubicle three, but you’ll have to make it quick.”

  She smiled, her chin trembling. “Thank you.”

  Clinging to Del’s hand, she let him lead her down the corridor. It opened into a nurses’ hub with several patient cubicles branching off. Del walked to the third room and let Barbara precede him. She stopped in the doorway and Del’s settled his hands on her shoulders once more, fingers moving in comforting circles.

  Eyes closed, Blake rested on the gurney. He was shirtless and the first sight of the massive purplish red bruises stole her breath. Above the fresh contusion were other bruises, the edges yellowing. Confused, she looked up at Del.

  “Those are older.”

  “I know.”

  Barbara went to the bed and lifted Blake’s limp hand, her gaze following the IV line to the two bags, one filled with a clear liquid, the other with blood, hanging from a metal rack. She leaned over their son, Del’s warmth a comforting blanket of security at her back.

  “Blake?” With a gentle finger, she eased his bangs off his forehead. Under his tan, his face seemed unnaturally pale.

  His eyes flickered open, the coffee bro
wn depths foggy and unfocused. “Mama.”

  She tightened her hold on him. “I’m here.”

  His eyes drifted closed again, his hand unresponsive in hers.

  Time blurred over the next few minutes. Barbara clung to Blake and let Del sign the permission forms. An orderly appeared, lifted the gurney’s side rails, and prepared to wheel Blake from the room.

  Del reached out to stop him. “Wait, please.”

  When the orderly complied, Del leaned over, his mouth close to Blake’s ear. “You can do this, Blake. You’ll be fine. Know how I know that? You’re a Calvert and we never give up.” His low voice choked and he stroked Blake’s hair. “And I’ll be right here when you wake up. You hear me, son? I’ll be here.”

  *

  Minutes stacked one on top of another and stretched into hours. The wonder of a small town unfolded before Barbara, and while she appreciated the family and friends who came to offer comfort, nothing made the waiting any easier. Unable to sit still, she straightened a couple of magazines on a corner table and paced to the window.

  The setting sun lit the clouds with vivid reds and golds. The beauty lost on her, she closed her eyes, the memory of the awful bruises floating in her mind. Behind her lids, tears pricked her eyes.

  Warm hands closed on her shoulders. “You holding up all right?” Del’s breath stirred her hair.

  She refused to sink into him, but didn’t shrug off his easy hold either, needing the connection. “I’m trying.”

  He pulled her closer, her back against his chest, and again, she didn’t move away. “He’ll be okay.”

  With his reassuring voice and strong arms wrapped around her, she could almost believe that. She allowed her head to rest against his shoulder. “The older bruises…do you think he got those Monday night?”

  “I don’t know.” He rubbed his chin into her hair. “Maybe.”

  Three days. Her son had walked around bruised and hurting for three days, had been injured worse today, and never said a word. Tears spilled over her lashes, a piercing ache stabbing her heart.

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why didn’t he tell us?”

  A sigh shuddered through Del. “He’s a teenage boy, Barb. More than likely, he wanted to handle it on his own.”

  She did pull away then, guilt burning in her. “Someone hit him hard enough to put him in the hospital. He had to have been frightened and he felt like he couldn’t confide in us.”

  The words tumbled free on a strangled sob and Del reached for her, wrapping her close. “I don’t know why he didn’t tell us, baby, but I know it wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do.”

  Fighting the sobs tearing at her, she shook her head. “How can you say that? I’m his mother and—”

  “Stop.” His finger beneath her chin, he tilted her face up. “I’ve watched you with him from the beginning.” He rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip. “You’re the best mother I’ve ever seen.”

  “Next to yours, of course.” She made the weak attempt at a joke through a fall of tears.

  “Well, of course.” He stroked her cheek. “I mean, Mama raised six of us, and Lord knows, Will and I had to count for two each.”

  “I still wish he felt like he could talk to me.”

  “Honey, face it. He’s a Calvert male. We’re not exactly free with our feelings and hell would freeze over before one of us admitted to being afraid.”

  She wiped at her cheeks and tried to return his tentative smile. “That’s not true. I remember you admitting you were afraid of dropping him.”

  “That’s different,” he said, his gaze intent on her face. “You always made me feel like I could show you I was scared and still be a man in your eyes.”

  You were always a man in my eyes. She swallowed and looked away, unable to meet his gaze any longer. When would she stop missing him, missing them?

  She stepped away, shaking off his hands. “How long has he been in there?”

  The intensity gone from his eyes, he glanced at his watch. “Almost two hours.”

  “I wonder how long—”

  “Hey, sorry to interrupt.” Tick joined them, his weary expression apologetic. “I have good news and bad news.”

  “Oh, Lord.” Barbara passed a hand over her eyes. “Tick, I don’t think I can take any more bad news.”

  “The good news is I managed to see Blake before he went up and checked his hands.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “You were looking under his nails,” Del said. “For skin tissue.”

  Tick nodded. “He didn’t have defensive wounds on his hands, but I recovered tissue from under two of his nails. Whether or not it’s enough to get a decent DNA sample is a different story.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “I went out to the school to see if I could get the security camera tapes.” He rolled his shoulders in an irritable shrug. “Half the cameras aren’t even hooked up.”

  Barbara stared, disbelieving. “What? They just installed those cameras. They’re supposed to be state of the art.”

  “Budget cuts.” Tick’s expression was as disgusted as his tone. “According to the principal, it was wiring or textbooks.”

  “More like wiring or football pads,” Barbara snapped.

  “Anyway,” Tick said, “we did a fast-forward scan of this afternoon’s tapes. The only place he’s on video is outside your room, talking to you two.”

  A grin flirting around his mouth, he cast a glance between her and Del. Cheeks burning, Barbara remembered Del leaning in, almost kissing her. She tilted her chin higher. “I wonder if the PTA knows the cameras don’t work?”

  “Hell, I wonder if their insurance company knows,” Del said, quiet anger vibrating in his voice.

  “I’ll go back in the morning, start interviewing teachers and students, anyone who might have seen something, even if it seemed unimportant.” Tick pulled a school map from his pocket. A circled “X” marked the location of Blake’s locker; arrows connected the bus drop-off to the locker and finally to Barbara’s room. “Can you show me anywhere else he might have gone before he came to your room?”

  Barbara took the map, aware Del looked over her shoulder. “He could have gone anywhere. The restroom, the library, stopped to talk to a friend.”

  “I’m going to need a list of his friends. I’ll start those interviews tonight. One of them may know something.”

  “Is that really necessary? I hate for you to go to all of that trouble when we can just ask him when he wakes up.” She watched the two brothers exchange a pointed look. “What?”

  Del cleared his throat. “Barb—”

  Narrowing her eyes, she looked up at him. “What is it? Don’t you think he’ll tell us now?”

  “Honestly?” Tick lifted a quizzical eyebrow. “I think it’s going to take us a few days to convince him to talk to us. Plus, he’ll be groggy when he wakes up. I don’t want to wait to start this investigation. For all we know, this could be happening to other kids as well.”

  It didn’t bear thinking about. She released a shuddery breath and Del ran his hand over her back. “You want something to eat? Some coffee?”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t eat anything.”

  Tick pulled a small notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. “If you feel up to it, I’d like to start on that list of his friends—” The squawk of his handheld radio cut him off and he grimaced, tucking the notebook under his arm and tugging the radio free from his belt. “Go ahead, Chandler.”

  “C-2, what’s your twenty?”

  “I’m at the hospital.”

  “C-3 requests your presence at the old cemetery off Bainbridge River Road.”

  Tick sighed and lifted the radio to his mouth again. “What’s he got?”

  “A 10-109D.”

  Surprise flickered across Tick’s face. “Come again?”

  “You heard me. A 10-109D.”

  “All right, I’m on my way. ETA ten min
utes. C-2, out.” He returned the radio to his belt before ripping a sheet from the notebook and handing it to Barbara. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll be back as soon as I can. Start that list for me, would you?”

  “What’s going on?” Del asked.

  “I’ve got a dead body. A homicide.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish. This is the third one this year. At this rate, we’ll end up with the state’s highest murder rate per capita.” A harried expression tightening his mouth, he pulled his keys from his pocket. “I’ll see you in a while. Call me when he’s out of surgery.”

  *

  An hour later, Jay Mackey entered the waiting area, still wearing his scrubs. Barbara jumped to her feet, glad for the warm strength of Del’s hand holding hers. A tired smile played around Jay’s mouth.

  “He came through surgery just fine,” Jay said. “He’s in recovery and you can see him in a few minutes.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Barbara sagged against Del. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, and his long, shuddery breath vibrated through her.

  “We were able to repair the liver lacs and the damage to his kidney. He’ll be in the surgical ICU for the next couple days, probably stay with us a week or so, and barring any complications, you should be able to take him home by the end of next week.”

  “Thank you.” Del let her go long enough to shake Jay’s hand. He hugged her, his face pressed to her hair. A rough laugh shook him. “He’s all right, Barb, he’s all right.”

  *

  After wishing the girls a good night, Barbara hung up the courtesy phone and walked back to the surgical ICU. She paused at the door to Blake’s room. Only the light over the bed remained on, the corners shrouded in shadow. Del sat by the bed, and as she watched, he stroked a finger over Blake’s hand in a soft circle.

  She eased inside, her shoes clicking against the polished tile floor. Crossing the room, she stopped behind the chair and Del glanced up at her. “Girls okay?”

  With a brief smile, she nodded. “They’re going to bed. Your mama’s staying and she said she’d come by here after she dropped them at school in the morning.”