“You’re listed as the next of kin, and there is no wife, so yes,” he said.
I had watched his eyes the entire time he had been speaking, and although it came as no surprise, and it was my opinion that he believed every word he said. I stared down at the toes of my boots and held my gaze there for some time, wishing twenty-four hours had passed, so it would be tomorrow already.
I lifted my head, glanced at my sister, and my eyes were immediately drawn to my mother’s diamond bracelet she was wearing. A gift from my father on their 25th wedding anniversary, he had said buying her the traditional silver wouldn’t serve as any form of justice to commemorate the quality of woman she was. Diamonds worn around the wrist, according to him, would draw attention to the fact that he perceived her as valuable.
She wasn’t valuable.
She was priceless.
After my combat training and before I deployed the first time to Iraq, my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Four short weeks later, under the care of the best staff money could buy, she passed peacefully while in her sleep. She was a saint of a woman, always placing others before herself, and never turning her back on someone in need.
Growing up, I admired my father; but I adored my mother.
She died without ever having an opportunity to meet her grandson.
I shifted my eyes from my sister’s wrist to the doctor. “Do the ablation procedure.”
I reached up, gripped Katie’s wrist, and lowered her hand from my shoulder to my side. As Alicia’s eyes followed the path of my hand, I nodded my head toward her wrist.
“We’ll get it started right away, I’ll keep you up to speed as the procedure makes progress the best I can, but don’t expect any progress reports for at least two hours,” he said.
I nodded my head.
“You know that should be kept in a safe deposit box or a safe,” I said as I tilted my head toward my mother’s bracelet.
“I think she’d want me to enjoy it,” she said.
“That was for someone who was priceless,” I said as I gripped Katie’s hand. “You heard the story. Priceless.”
“Alec, please. Don’t…”
I raised my hand between us to silence her.
“We’ll be over there,” I said as I tilted my head toward the corner of the waiting room.
“I’d appreciate it if…” I paused and shook my head, unwilling and almost incapable of continuing. Seeing her was much more difficult than I would have imagined.
“Are you okay?” Katie asked as I turned away.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, realizing I had acted inappropriately toward my sister in front of her. “I’m sorry. There’s just a lot of animosity between us.”
“I can see that,” she whispered.
We walked to the corner of the room and sat down on a small sofa. I dug through the magazines at the table beside the arm of the couch, hoping to find answers to questions I had yet to ask, but instead found nothing. I lifted my boot, and propped it onto my knee as I gazed toward the far end of the room. Alicia sat on the far sofa with her head in her hands.
“You told me you always give people a second chance. Did you give your sister one?” she asked.
I lifted my boot from my knee and let my foot drop to the floor. I turned to face her, mentally prepared to answer, but incapable of doing so without admitting I had excluded my sister from a fundamental rule I had applied to all walks of life.
With the exception of Alicia.
“No,” I responded.
“Well maybe you should,” she said.
I was the first to admit when I was wrong, but I was rarely wrong. It wasn’t that I believed I was without fault, or that I was arrogant or egotistical, because I wasn’t. But my actions always came as a result of deep thought, and contemplation of any and every possible scenario that may arise as a result of my decision.
I was left living a life with few mistakes.
My eyes fell to the square tiles on the floor and I counted the years since my sister and I had acted as loving siblings.
Twelve.
I had never considered myself a stubborn person, but as I shifted my focus to the other end of the room, I came to realize I had yet to walk in my sister’s shoes.
My forgiveness wouldn’t act as an acceptance of her behavior, only an admittance on my part that I, too, wasn’t without fault.
I stood from my seat and humbly walked to where she was seated, thinking the entire time of what she must have gone through in her decision to allow her only child to be placed up for adoption. Her choice, although unfathomable to me, had to be extremely difficult for her.
“Come sit with us,” I said.
She glanced up, wiping her eyes as she did. She had obviously been crying long before I arrived, and looked ten years older than she probably would have on any other day.
Alone.
“Come on,” I said as I reached for her hand. “You can come cry with us.”
“I miss him so much,” she said as she cupped my hands in hers.
“Who?” I asked, and then immediately realized I knew the answer.
“Derek,” she said.
I gripped her hand firmly in mine. “So do I.”
“That’s a beautiful ring,” she said as we stepped in front of Katie.
Katie reached for the ring and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger as she responded. “Thank you,”
“And I love the bracelet,” Alicia said.
“Yours too,” Katie said as Alicia sat down.
“Let me tell you a story about it,” Alicia said as she glanced at the bracelet. “My father said every day that my mother wore it, no one would question her value to him. He said the bracelet would prove to all who saw it that she was priceless. And she was.”
Katie shifted her eyes to meet mine.
I shrugged my shoulders and grinned.
In case Katie didn’t already know, she now realized that to me, she was priceless.
The talking and story-telling continued for some time, and I agreed to go get us a cup of acceptable coffee from the coffee bar by the cafeteria. As I walked from the room and turned down the hallway, I realized not only did I have a family in Texas, I had another in Kansas.
And the thought of having both let me feel just a little closer to becoming human.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Summer 2015, Wichita, KS, USA
As he walked into the room, the first thing I noticed was how he wouldn’t make eye contact with any of us. With his head hung low, he continued to walk in our direction.
“Come on.” I said as I stood.
We met in the center of the room, and he raised his head slowly. “Well, he’s one of the most stubborn men I’ve ever seen.”
“Alive and stubborn?” I asked.
“Yes, he’s alive,” he said. “I guess telling you now causes no harm, but we lost him twice.”
Alicia gasped. “Oh no.”
“It’s irrelevant now,” he said as he raised his hands in front of his chest.
He poked himself in the lower portion of his chest with the tip of his finger. “The portion we worked on was here.”
“It ended up being a much larger part than I had anticipated. The procedure took six hours,” he said.
“He’s in recovery now, and I suspect you’ll be able to see him in an hour or so,” he said. “I’ll let you know as soon as we have him in a room.”
“Thank you,” I said.
The six hours had passed like minutes. Sitting with my sister talking about our childhood, my new life, her new job, and Shane’s son went rather well, and I enjoyed it immensely. As the doctor left the room we turned toward the couch we had been seated on.
“Have you ever eaten Pho?” I asked Katie.
“What?” she asked.
The food was my sister’s favorite, at least the best I could remember. She and her friends would drive repeatedly to a Vietnamese soup kitchen when they were 16 years old and
devour the soup, and she would come home without enough appetite to eat dinner. I refused to even try the stuff as a kid, and although many years had passed, I still had yet to try it.
“It’s a noodle soup,” I said.
“I love noodle soup,” she responded.
“You eat it now?” Alicia asked.
“Never tried the stuff. You still like it?” I asked.
“Love it,” she said.
“Well, Erik Ead brags on the shit like it’s gold. Let’s go grab a bowl before they get him to a room, I’m hungry,” I said.
“Who’s Erik Ead?” she asked.
“A good friend,” I responded. “So, do you want to?”
“I’d love to,” Alicia responded.
I raised my arms and wrapped them around the two women’s shoulders who I cared dearly for.
One bound to me by blood, and both by love.
As we walked to the door, I realized Alicia reminded me of my mother. By the time we reached Alicia’s car, I admitted I resembled my father in many ways, one of which was described accurately by his doctor.
I was stubborn.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Late Summer 2015, Wichita, Kansas, USA
As a child, I made a decision on my own to believe in God. I don’t think children require much convincing to believe, for most I suspect it comes rather easily. Believing there was a mighty being in charge of the universe pulling the strings from above like a talented puppeteer continued for me until I was a teenager. I gave considerable thought to the subject as a teen, and as I became more and more intelligent about my surroundings, I decided not only that I believed in God, but that God wasn’t a puppeteer.
God was real.
My mother was outspoken about her belief in God and was a religious woman. Although Alicia and I went to service with her on almost every Sunday as children, I never saw my father step foot into a church. Initially, I though fathers in general were too busy for church and probably didn’t attend, especially after working as hard as they did for the entire week to provide for their families. As time passed, and I grew older, I determined my father wasn’t sure about the existence of God.
It wasn’t something he talked about, nor was it something he ever admitted. He didn’t have to, we just knew.
As a believer, I often wondered what would happen to my father when the clock ran out. When his heart beat its last drop of blood through his veins what would be next?
Would there be some means of forgiveness for stupidity?
Would he receive a free pass for being stubborn?
Did he really believe and was simply too afraid to admit it?
With the series of tubes taped to his mouth and extended into his throat, it was impossible for him to speak, and our only means of communication was by writing on a pad of paper with a pen. Clearly frustrated and growing angrier by the minute, communicating with him was similar to playing a game of charades.
“Need me to scratch somewhere? Alicia asked.
He shook his head from side to side frantically.
“Want a drink?” she asked.
He widened his bloodshot eyes and stared.
I turned toward her and glared. “Jesus, Alicia. He can’t drink.”
Although he was alive and they expected a full recovery, he was extremely frail at the moment. Regardless, I placed the pen in his shaking hand and held the pad close to his chest. I was fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to write, but he didn’t seem to be in agreement.
He glanced at the pad, raised the pen slightly, and upon realizing he was incapable of writing, closed his eyes and released it. The pen fell on the edge of the bed, rolled to the floor, and Katie bent down to pick it up.
I glanced at Alicia and shrugged my shoulders.
“Let me see the pad,” Katie said.
I reached for the pad, handed it to Katie, and patted him lightly on the shoulder. “It’s just going to take time.”
He blinked his eyes.
Alicia, standing at the foot of the bed, reached out and squeezed his feet. “They said maybe tomorrow they’ll take the tube out.”
He blinked his eyes again. They were covered in a light film of grease, which made him seem even less able to exist on his own. As I studied him and wondered just how much longer he would actually live, Katie handed me the pad and pen.
“Here,” she said. “The entire alphabet. Point at the letter and have him blink his eyes or something.”
I felt like an idiot.
“Thank you, Baby,” I said as I accepted the pad.
I held the pad in front of him and pointed at the letters one at a time, starting with “A”.
When I got to “G”, he nodded his head.
I repeated the process, and when I got to “O”, he did the same.
“Good to see you?” Alicia blurted, attempting to guess what it was he was trying to say.
He shook his head and did his best to glare at her with his grease covered eyes.
“Just let him finish,” I said.
The next letter was learned rather quickly, and surprised me somewhat. In choosing “D”, he had so far spelled God, but I was quite certain we weren’t done yet.
When he chose the letter “W”, I wasn’t sure where he was leading us, but we continued, each of us eager for our own reasons to see just what it was he was determined to say.
After a matter of a few minutes we had all of the pieces to the puzzle.
A chill ran down my spine.
I suppose I was relieved by the answer, but I was also shocked. I wanted to know more, but realized I would just have to wait. For now, I was satisfied that my father’s life would probably be changing in some respects. Or so I hoped.
I placed the pad beside him on the bed and patted him on the shoulder. “I love you, Pop.”
He blinked his eyes, closed them, and fell asleep.
I guessed, at least for the time being, he had said all it was he felt he needed to.
“Let’s go get a cup of coffee while he’s sleeping,” I said.
As Katie and Alicia turned toward the door, chatting as if they were long lost friends, I tore the sheet of paper from the pad and gave it one last look before I folded it and placed it in my pocket.
God was there.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Late Summer 2015, Austin, Texas, USA
“There should be two options, but according to him, there’s only one. I guess I see his point,” I said.
“The attachment to home?” she asked.
“Basically. That’s the home he married my mother in and raised his children in. There aren’t many people who stay in a home that long, and he has. He doesn’t want to leave,” I said.
My father was going to require someone to be with him at all times, at least for a while. Although Alicia had been with him for the entire time he had been out of the hospital, it was time for her to return to Ohio, or she was going to lose her new job.
I realized using a home healthcare company was an option, but I felt it would be insensitive and selfish on my part. Going to Kansas, however, seemed impossible. My options, however, were limited. It was Friday, and Alicia had to be to work on Monday. I had dodged the subject as long as I was able and it was time for me to make a decision. I sat across from her and buried my head in my hands.
“What do you want to do?” Katie asked.
I raised my head from my sweaty palms and glanced in her direction. Sitting on the couch smiling, it was as if she was immune to my concerns and worries. Either that or she knew something I didn’t.
“Want to do? Stay here and not have this problem,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Don’t call it a problem, Alec. It’s not a problem. Look at it as an opportunity.”
I choked on the thought. “An opportunity?”
“Yes. You’ve been separated from him for what? Ten years? And now you’ve finally either forgiven him or yourself, however you want to look at it. It’s a
n opportunity for you to get to know him again, and for him to catch up on everything with you,” she said.
I leaned into the back of the chair and crossed my arms. “And what about you?”
“What do you mean what about me? I’m going with you. What else would I do?” she asked.
The night I asked Katie on a date, her father’s message to me was clear. You’re not from here. And I ain’t lookin’ to have my daughter taken from me, Mr. Jacob. Not now or ever. As far as I’m concerned, she can leave Texas when I’m dead, but not before. Taking her with me, even for what I believed to be a temporary resolution to his condition, would likely be met by a hell no response.
“Your father made it clear that he didn’t want me to take you from here. He was adamant about it. Me staying here in Texas, and you never leaving. He said you could leave when he’s dead.” I said.
She chuckled. “Sounds like something he’d say. But, is your father going to require your assistance forever?” she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t think so.”
“Neither do I. So, you’re not taking me from here. Or from him. We’d be going there for a while to take care of your father. We’ll be back,” she said.
I nodded my head in agreement, knowing damned well it wasn’t that easy. I was going to have to talk to her father, and I was quite sure his opinion wasn’t going to be the same as hers. The thought of leaving, in general, had kept me from sleeping for the last ten days. The thought of leaving her, even on a temporary basis, seemed impossible for me.
But taking her seemed equally impossible.
I felt sick to my stomach.
“I’ll talk to your father,” I said. “Either way, I’m going to have to be there Monday.”
“We’ll be there Monday,” she said.
She stood from her seat and walked into the kitchen, not seeming to understand just how much leaving was bothering me, even if it was on what we believed to be a temporary basis. She poured a cup of coffee, sauntered back into the living room and sat down.
“What?” she asked as she sat down. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
“We’ll see how he takes the news, I guess,” I said.
She sat and studied me for several minutes as she drank her coffee. As she lowered her cup to the table beside the couch, she maintained eye contact with me.
Hard Corps (Selected Sinners MC #7) Page 22