by Cathy Lamb
She headed down the street. A bus pulled up. Who knew where it was going? I didn’t. She didn’t.
She climbed aboard. I felt her loss immediately.
“Yes, Tate, she’s leaving again. I’m sorry.”
Why was she leaving? The pull of drugs again? The complications of family life? The cauldron of emotions here? The guilt from our father’s death? Was she leaving because of my verbal attack in the greenhouse? Had I blown up at her because I secretly wanted her to leave and felt threatened by her? Or because she’d deserved it and I wanted her to hear my pain? Was I more vengeful than I thought? Maybe I ranted simply because Tate’s life-threatening medical condition had been excruciating and she was a convenient target.
Would she have left anyhow?
Did it matter?
Tate silently cried, but this time I didn’t feel the same anger I had felt so often with Brooke. I felt an overwhelming sadness for her, my mother, my father, Caden, and for Tate, but the anger was gone.
Tate was here.
Tate had survived.
That was the most important thing. I could deal with losing my sister again, but I could not live without Tate.
I bent to hug him.
One of my tears fell on his cheek.
We did not wipe it away.
On a sunny afternoon, with my pink and white cherry trees blooming, Ethan’s truck rumbled up the drive between our column of green-leafed maple trees.
I took a quick breath, as I always do when I see him, and patted my hair in front of a tiny mirror I kept in my greenhouse. My fingers brushed the new crystals Tate had bought me saying, “Keep these out of the fountain, Boss Mom.” I tried not to get all mushy-gushy emotional again.
It had been an interesting day at work. One patient, Catalina Goodall, threw a full beer can at me and said to “kiss my fat ass,” and another, in her delirium, said she was seeing funny people running out of the TV and thought they might have been sent there by Star Trek.
Ethan smiled and waved and I waited for him by the door of my greenhouse, loving the way he moved, shoulders back, smiling, smiling. He wrapped me in his strong arms and held me close.
“Ethan, I know I’ve told you this a hundred times, but I can’t ever thank you enough for saving Tate—” I burst into the sloppy tears I wanted to avoid.
“You already have thanked me.” He tilted my head up and kissed me. “You put the ring back on. That’s what I wanted.”
My nose started to run and I knew I looked awful, red and wet. “I love you, Ethan. I love you so much.” I loved that I had him. I loved that I had Ethan in my life.
“I love you, too, Jaden. Have since the first day I met you.” He kissed me, held me tight. “I love how you take all the hits life has given you and you come up swinging and hit back. I love the way you do what’s right, all the time, no matter how tough. I love how you’re open and vulnerable and you cry when you feel like crying and you laugh when you feel like laughing and when you’re pissed off you destroy your greenhouse. I even love Witch Mavis. I especially love how you looked in that white lace negligee the other night. Although”—he pretended to ponder—“the purple one was nothing to sneeze at.” He pondered again. “The black one with the fishnets and garters was enough to make me stop breathing.”
He picked up my left hand and kissed my sparkly engagement ring. “Soon then, Jaden?”
“Anytime, Dr. Robbins.” I leaned against him. “Anytime.”
“If you had only taken the time to talk to me, Jaden, I think we could have avoided this mess.” Dirk leaned across the hospital’s conference table and shook his head, as a father might when reprimanding a child. He was decked out in an expensive suit. I knew he’d picked it carefully to be intimidating.
“How so?” Sandra asked, my whip-sharp attorney with the large teeth. She cocked her head to the side as if examining a foreign species. “You’re accusing her of killing your father. If Jaden had taken time out to talk to you, why would that have changed your mind?”
Dr. Baharri raised his eyebrows at me. Sydney humphed. My heart rate sped up because I was ticked off.
“I mean that during my father’s illness, I asked her out many times, I mean, not on a date. I wanted to talk to Jaden, privately, alone, at my home, for more information about my father, and she declined.” Dirk actually wagged a finger at me.
“My employees are not required to go home with the sons of their clients to”—Sydney made quotes in the air—“talk to them.”
Dirk’s attorneys, Nigel and Ralph, they of the outrageously high hourly rates who knew there was no case, tried to appear appropriately stern and forbidding, but I saw Nigel stifle a yawn. Ralph glanced at his watch. Keep those hours coming!
“Let me wrap my small brain around this,” Sandra said. “If she had dated you, you would not now be accusing her of killing your father?”
Dirk’s eyes narrowed. He is a weasel and he knew he was being trapped. “Yes. No.”
“Dirk means,” Nigel said, “that Jaden was remiss in her duties as a hospice nurse, that’s why we’re here. To talk about. Uh. That.”
“My client,” Ralph said, coughing, “didn’t mean what he said. He meant that if Jaden had talked to him, explained things better, instead of being confusing, evasive, and secretive, about medical issues and concerns, uh, things would have been, uh, more clear, but the result, uh, would be the same.”
“I believe Mr. Hassells meant what he said,” Sandra chimed in. “We have a court reporter here who tip-tapped it in, too. Dirk, if you think Jaden murdered your father, it seems silly to think you would change your mind about that accusation if you had a romantic dinner date together, but that’s what you’re suggesting, right, Dirk?”
“My client,” Nigel said, “doesn’t have to answer that. He’s not saying that anyhow—”
“Are you afraid of the question, Dirk?” Sandra said.
Ah, playing to Dirk’s ego. He wasn’t afraid of anything.
“I’m not afraid of anything.” He slapped the table with his open palm.
Ha. I had called it!
“I’m not afraid of nothing! Not anything or anyone! I’m saying if Jaden wasn’t standoffish and cold, we could have gotten to know each other . . . personally, the medical part would have been easier to understand. That was bad treatment and it led to a bad outcome for me, I mean, for my dad!”
“She is not required to get to know you”—Sandra paused deliberately—“personally. She was there for the care of your father.” She shuffled some papers and addressed Nigel and Ralph. “We believe Mr. Hassells is pressing this lawsuit because Jaden didn’t want to date or sleep with him. We can’t blame Jaden for feeling that way, plus his behavior makes my skin crawl, it’s gross to think of him coming after a woman, but his being pissed off at Jaden for not dating him, or worse, that’s no basis for a case, legally or ethically, as you know. We can, and will, countersue.”
“We, uh, are filing this lawsuit because, uh, Miss Bruxelle did not follow medical rules and regulations,” Nigel said. “Negligence. . .”
“Questionable use of”—Ralph flipped through his paperwork—“morphine.”
“For the record, on numerous occasions I told him to stop asking me out,” I said. “And Dirk asked me why I wouldn’t go home with him. I told him I didn’t owe him an explanation.”
“You did owe me an explanation.” Dirk was red and he clenched a fist. “I figured you had a husband or a boyfriend.”
“That’s the only reason you can think of that a woman wouldn’t want to go out with you?” Sandra said, her shiny teeth shining. “Perhaps there are other reasons?”
“Hey, hey.” Dirk chuckled and spread his arms wide. “Nope. Nada. No, I can’t think of another reason a woman wouldn’t want to date me.”
The court reporter continued to tap. . . .
Ralph squirmed. Nigel sighed, then smothered it.
Sydney said, “A snake might.”
Dr. Baharri said,
quite loudly, “Shameful, unfounded arrogance.”
“Jaden didn’t want to go out because of the patient, client thing,” Dirk said, “but I was trying to convince her it would be fine, that we could get pleasure together out of a hard time—”
Nigel made a gargled sound in his throat, Ralph tried to interrupt.
“I could not get pleasure with you because I find you slimy,” I said. “I find you slick, dishonest, and disgusting. I found your lack of care and regard for your father to be appalling and hurtful to him. I thought your disregard of the enormous load your sister worked under to be unfeeling and thoughtless. I thought you treated her as your personal maid. I couldn’t stand how you constantly stared at me and tried to encourage me to get in your car with you—”
“It’s a Porsche—”
“I don’t care. I did not want to go in the living room and lie down, relax, and get a massage as you suggested. I did not want to hug you when I left because all you wanted to do was shove my boobs against your chest, plus you smell like moral rot, which is why the second time I saw you I told you not to hug me again.”
Ralph mini-groaned and exchanged a glance with Nigel, who closed his eyes.
Dirk started to sweat.
“It doesn’t negate Dirk’s concern about the untimely death of his father,” Nigel said, but it was a routine comment, thrown out. He was an expensive attorney!
“Not untimely at all,” Dr. Baharri said, then he, again, gave a medical lecture about Mr. Hassells’s liver cancer.
“What relevance is this?” Ralph asked, but he pulled on his collar. Thank heavens he’d had Dirk pay up-front money!
“The relevance is that Jaden declined Dirk’s advances and that pissed him off,” Sandra said. “He was rejected, couldn’t handle it. She has to pay. In addition, clearly Mr. Hassells is filing this suit because he wants money. That’s unethical. This is close to extortion. His father left him five hundred dollars, plus cassette tapes, an old lamp, and his favorite brown belt. He left the rest of his estate to his daughter’s children for college. Does the brown belt fit?”
“That’s not true,” Dirk wheezed.
“It is. You may have to sell the Porsche, Dirk,” Sandra said. “Or is it leased? Just because you accuse, falsely, one of our nurses of murder, your words, it doesn’t mean the hospital is going to flip over and vomit up some money. But let’s have some fun.” She flipped her folders shut. “Let’s take it to court. Mr. Hassells, you’ve already spent a ton of money on your two attorneys, who knew from the get-go that you would lose.”
“That’s not true,” Ralph said, his voice almost humorous. He knew what he’d done. “His father could have lived . . . uh . . . a while longer . . . uh.”
“False,” Dr. Baharri said.
“Impossible,” Sydney said.
Nigel coughed. “We think our client has a solid chance of winning! Malpractice! Incompetent medical care. Too much morphine on a dying patient!” It was weak.
“Also false,” Dr. Baharri said.
“Wrong,” Sydney said.
“Non adherence to medical laws!” Ralph said.
Sandra, Sydney, and Dr. Baharri laughed out loud.
“Go ahead and pay your attorneys some more money,” Sandra said. “They’re pale. They can use it to go on a cruise to the Bahamas and get tanned up.”
Ralph’s eye lit up a bit. I think that idea appealed!
“When we take this case to court, a jury will listen to all the testimony, including testimony from Jaden about how Dirk was all riled up because she wouldn’t go out with him in his car.”
“It’s a Porsche—”
“Who the hell cares? This’ll be fun. When you lose, the hospital will make sure that you not only pay your legal fees, but ours, too, and court costs. And they’ll be significant. Anything else?”
“She did it!” Dirk pointed at me. “She killed my father!”
“Mr. Hassells”—Sandra leaned in, her teeth white and snappy—“if you accuse Jaden Bruxelle of killing your father to anyone in future, I will sue you, on her behalf, for defamation of character. You’ll be fried.”
He swallowed hard.
“Let’s go, Dirk,” Ralph said. I think he wanted to plan that Bahamas trip! “We’re done.”
Sandra called me the next day, when I was sitting in my hundred-year-old rocking chair staring out at the cherry trees and irises, both swaying as puffs of spring wind wandered through.
Ralph and Nigel had dropped the case. They asked the hospital to cover their legal fees. Sandra laughed.
Dirk called me, asked me out on my voice mail, said he wanted to “make amends. You apologize, I apologize, and we can be friends again.” He e-mailed me. He stopped his car in front of my home, and my neighbor wrote down his license and called the police. The police came, asked him what he was doing. They called me. I told them I was being stalked by Dirk Hassells.
I have a restraining order against him. One must take revenge when one can.
Last I heard he had decided to move to Florida. Hopefully the alligators will eat him.
21
Part of Tate’s head had been shaved where Ethan had cut him open and operated on his brain. There was the expected scar. Tate had named the scar Cleopatra. As in, “General Noggin has a girlfriend, and her name is Cleopatra.”
Although his humor was intact, he didn’t have his balance back completely, but it was coming. From a devastating blow to his head, a coma, an operation on his brain, his heart stopping, breathing again, to eating chicken pancakes, he was our Tate, and he was recovering rapidly.
Today the basketball team was being honored in a school assembly in the gym for being the Class 4A state champions. Tate’s last shot had been a three-pointer. The ball had arched, up up up, Tate had been slammed to the ground, the ball circled the rim, Tate’s head had bounced, the ball swooshed through, his head kept bouncing, and the blood had poured out.
We had won the game. The cheers had abruptly stopped, I was told, when Tate didn’t move on the floor of the gym.
The community had been invited to attend the celebration, and the gym was packed, the bleachers filled, with rows upon rows of chairs on the gym floor, where my mother, Caden, Ethan, and the kids and I sat. The band played the school fight song, the drumbeat loud and strong. The media had set up cameras all around the gym as Tate’s ordeal, his story, his blog had been on the news every night since it happened.
Coach Boynton and the entire team, except for Tate, had been introduced and were on a stage at the end of the gym, below the basketball hoop, in uniform. The principal, Melinda Musfa, who is blond, six feet tall, and former military, had been calling each player’s name over a microphone to enthusiastic applause and bleacher pounding. The boys sauntered down the aisle from the back of the gym to the stage, all lights off, a spotlight on each player.
After all the players had been introduced, Melinda said, “We have one more player to honor.”
The drums rolled, and we all hooted and hollered.
Tate, Tate, Tate!
The principal held up her hand for silence. “We have a young man who has shown all of us, for years, courage and character. He also has shown us a spectacular three-point shot.” She paused, and I knew she was holding her emotions in check. Melinda had been at the hospital almost daily with us, as so many other friends and neighbors had, young and old. Her voice cracked when she spoke again. “A young man who played hard, played to win, but who always gave credit to his teammates. A young man who, I know, we will be hearing about in years to come. He’s gonna be a legend.”
The band played, and people cheered, the noise so deafening I thought the walls would collapse.
“Ladies and gentleman, please welcome the young man whose last shot won Tillamina High School the 4A state championship!” More pounding. “Taaaatttteeee Bruxxxxelllleeee!!”
If it was any louder in there, my ears would have fallen off my head and run for the doors. Tate high-fived people as
he slightly wobbled his way down the aisle in his uniform to the makeshift stage, the spotlight following his path.
I knew that my dear son was crying, tears rolling down his face. He did not wipe them off.
“I have a box load of emotions,” he’d told me. “Sometimes in the past I thought I should box them up, lid down, but then I wouldn’t be a real person anymore, would I? I’d be a humanoid with a head the size of Kauai and a Bert ear.”
I didn’t wipe the tears off my face, either.
Caden bellowed, muscled arms up in a V, “That’s my boy!” The triplets were dressed as a Life Saver, a lollipop, and a hot dog. It was “Food Day,” they’d told me. Damini chanted, “Tate, Tate, Tate!” Ethan was clapping over his head.
“There’s my ball breaker!” my mother screamed into my ear. “There’s my ball breaker!”
Tate stopped to hug me, Caden, Damini, Ethan, and my mother while the Life Saver, lollipop and hot dog jumped around.
He climbed the steps to the stage, grabbing Coach Boynton’s hand for more balance on the way up. We did not realize the triplets were gone until they scampered up on the stage. Caden made a lunge to grab them, but Tate waved him away.
He was hugged by the principal, his teammates, and especially Coach Boynton, who didn’t let him out of the hug for a long time. I had seen the man cry a bucket over Tate at the hospital. He had told me, “Jaden, I feel it in my bones, he’ll be okay! He’ll be okay! He will! It’s in my bones!”
After the long Boynton/Tate hug, his teammates pushed him toward the microphone.
“Hey, dudes. Dudettes,” Tate said.
Tate, Tate, Tate!
He told them to, “Have a seat, fellow galaxy walkers,” and they did.
“I got a little banged up at the tournament.” Tate tapped his head. “General Noggin is a big target up here to hit. But now General Noggin has a girlfriend, ya see.” He pointed at his scar. “I call that scar Cleopatra. The scar looks like an asp, you know, that poisonous snake that bit her? But I didn’t want to name the scar asp, that’d be creepy, so it became Cleopatra.” He cupped his hands around the microphone and said, conspiratorially, as if he was sharing a secret, “I think General Noggin is in lust with Cleopatra. I think Cleopatra and General Noggin are . . . getting it on together behind my back.”