by Dale Mayer
So far, it was something she had kept to herself. Her pride in her profession was something she didn’t want her mother to trash, which she would for sure. Catherine didn’t think Kano would, but, at the same time, the situation hadn’t really lent itself for her to tell him that she was now a child psychologist. Somehow she thought he would approve, but she didn’t know for sure.
Then again, being who he was, he’d probably already searched her background, finding out what she’d done with her life since they’d split. Seven years was a long time. She’d already had her basic degree at the time, so going into psychology had been an easy maneuver, and she’d grown up, learning a lot about herself through those courses. Specializing in children with special needs had topped off her education.
Even though it was not something that she was terribly proud of, but, looking back, she now understood how much impact her mother had had on her world, and, for that, she had given herself a break and wasn’t quite so hard on herself. She was much harder on her mother. Whether that was right or wrong, Catherine still wasn’t prepared to deal with it. Sometimes you had to do what you had to do—just to survive. And that’s how she felt about herself.
Finished with the phone call, the receptionist looked up, smiled, and said, “Hello, Dr. Sutherland. What brings you here so late?”
“Little Jeremy came in,” she said, “Jeremy Rider. Can you give me a room number for him?”
“Right.” She went to the computers and found his room assignment.
“Thanks.” Caroline turned and headed upstairs. Little Jeremy was on the third floor in the pediatric wing. As she stepped inside the pediatric wing, she ran into Jeremy’s mother, bawling her eyes out in the hallway.
“Samantha?” The woman looked up and dropped into her arms, crying. “What happened?”
“He had this strange fit,” she said. “I don’t know how much longer I can deal with this.”
“You can deal with it as long as you must,” she said firmly. “Jeremy needs our help right now. Did you change his diet, as I suggested?”
His mother gave a heavy sigh. “I tried, but his father thinks it’s all garbage. He doesn’t see any impact on what a diet can do on his moods and his temperament.”
“It can have a lot to do with it,” Catherine said firmly.
She nodded. “I believe you, but I keep trying, and then Angus turns around, and he gives Jeremy sugar and these other foods that you said he was already allergic to.”
“Sure, and all that sugar is just making his health much more difficult to deal with, and you won’t let me do any more testing on him to see what other allergies he might have. He needs a complete elimination diet. You know that.”
“I know that,” she said, “but I can’t get his father to know that.”
“Is Angus here?”
“Of course not,” Samantha said bitterly. “He just causes the havoc and won’t stay around and help me deal with it.”
It was all Catherine could do to bite back the words on her lips because she’d seen it time and time again. Women who knew what needed to be done but didn’t have the wherewithal to stand up against the men who argued against the methods. But neither would those men show up for the treatment. “It would be good if I could talk to him.”
“He doesn’t want anything to do with you,” she whispered.
“Of course not.” That was another thing that she saw all the time too. Men who gave a lot of arguments but never went to the pros to get a rebuttal because they didn’t want a rebuttal. They wanted to be right, even at the cost of their son’s life. “So what do you want me to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Samantha said. “Tell me what to do.”
“I’ve told you what to do,” she said, “time and time again.”
“Please don’t, don’t blame me right now,” she said, starting to sob again. “It’s so very hard.”
“It is, but this is your son’s life,” she said. “You need to tell me what it is you expect me to do. Short of me contacting law enforcement to get somebody to do welfare checks to ensure Jeremy’s given his best chance at a real life,” she said, “you’re not giving me much choice.”
“I can’t do that, or he’ll stop me from coming to you.”
“It may not be something you have a choice about anymore,” she said. “You came to me, but, when you refused to comply with any of the recommendations, you put me in the position of having to do my job, with you or without you. Now that you’re still not complying, and Angus is not complying, you know where we’re heading.”
“But it’s just allergies,” she said.
“Yes, allergies that have put your son at risk and now in a hospital,” she said, with a hard glance. “And how long do you think that’ll wash?”
At that, the mom sat down in the chair and started to sob. “I need help,” she said. “I can’t get Angus to see what’s going on.”
“Now we get to the crux of the matter. He doesn’t want to help Jeremy, correct?”
“He thinks it’s all garbage.”
“Yeah. I hear you,” Catherine said, with a heavy sigh. She turned and said, “I need to make some phone calls.” And then she turned away.
Samantha grabbed her by the arm and said, “No, no, no, you can’t call the social workers. You can’t take Jeremy away from me.”
She looked at her and said, “How many times do you think I’ll watch this happen to Jeremy before I do something?”
“I promise I’ll change. I promise I’ll get Angus to understand.”
“No,” she said, “you’ve had all the chances you can have. If Angus won’t show up to our appointments, then he’ll have to show up in court. And, in the meantime, Jeremy’s not leaving the hospital, until I’ve had a chance to examine him.”
At that, she turned and walked into Jeremy’s room and closed the door on the mother. Inside, Catherine’s heart was breaking, but she’d seen way too much abuse to let little Jeremy suffer anymore. Although to many people diet meant nothing, when the parents kept feeding Jeremy foods that he was obviously allergic to and kept sending him into cardiac arrest, it moved from being a medical condition to being a legal welfare challenge for custody of the child.
*
Kano wasn’t sure whether Catherine was aware that he was close enough to hear or not. With great interest, he listened. Catherine was a completely different woman, and he had no clue who she was on the inside. The woman he used to know was definitely a child, compared to the mature woman fighting for the rights and benefits of a child who was being mistreated by the family. Although he wasn’t sure the term mistreated applied. More like out and out abuse.
He knew it was a gray area when it came to things like this, but Catherine was fighting for the child’s sake, and, although she probably would have fought the same when he’d known her before, this time she had shown no signs of giving ground. She’d been completely under her mother’s thumb back then. And, even now, Kano was constantly struggling with this new look at who she was.
When Fallon poked Kano in the ribs, he turned and glared at him.
Fallon motioned and said, “Come on. We’ve got to go.”
He nodded. “I guess.”
“Unless you want to stay,” he said.
“No,” he said, “you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
“Hey, if you don’t want to join in on this chase and see what the hell’s going on, that’s fine by me,” he said, but, at that, Kano again glared at him. Fallon shrugged and said, “Dude, this is your call.”
“We’re leaving,” Kano said. Yet he hesitated and turned. “Just give me a minute.” He walked to where the mother sat on a bench.
“Are you a doctor?” she asked him.
“No,” he said, “a colleague of Catherine’s.”
She nodded. “She’s a good person,” she said, “but sometimes life isn’t quite so easy.”
“When it comes to a child,” he said, “it’s actually e
asier than you think.”
She shivered, and he realized a lot was going on here. “It sounds like your husband doesn’t want to be cooperative.”
“No, he takes being difficult to a whole new level,” she said. “Then that just makes me feel even worse.”
“Why?”
She just gave him a look and didn’t answer.
“If it keeps your child alive,” he said, “the decision’s easy.”
“And if I die in the process? Who’ll look after him then?” she asked soberly.
He studied her for a long moment. “Is it that bad?”
“It’s always that bad,” she said. “How do you ever make it better than that bad?”
“I get it,” he said. “Sometimes we don’t know what we’re supposed to do, do we?”
“It’s not that easy for a lot of us, when we get into a scenario like this, and we’re up against somebody who wants to make life difficult.”
“Time to leave?”
“Angus will find me,” she said bitterly. “He doesn’t believe in any of this hocus-pocus stuff. He doesn’t believe in allergies, doesn’t believe in food sensitivities. He says so or believes I’m just making it up and that I need to buck up and be a better person.”
“Somebody needs to buck up,” he said.
“Yes,” she murmured. She brushed away her tears, straightened her back, and said, “but, if it happens now, somebody here will look after my boy because he’s stuck in the hospital, right?” She turned with a hard look at the closed door, nodded, and said, “This is as good a time as any.” And she got up and headed to the elevator.
With alarm, Kano watched as she got in, and he recognized the resolution in her voice. He bolted to the stairs and met up with Fallon.
“Where are we going?” Fallon asked.
“We’re following that woman,” he said. Fallon looked at him in surprise. Kano shrugged. “She’s about to tell her husband something that’ll likely get her killed. If the abuse that she’s been telling Catherine about is real, then we have a good chance of getting into an ugly situation.”
“What’s going on?”
“I can only tell you the little bit I just found out,” he said, then quickly filled him in on the little boy in the hospital.
“Wow, so the father doesn’t want anything to do with medicine or diet changes, and he’s allowing his boy to die because of it?”
“Just plain stupid blockheaded stubbornness. Another name for bullying, manipulating, trying to control everything and to keep everyone under your thumb, no matter the cost,” he said, “particularly in this case.”
“Still shitty.”
They bolted from the stairwell to see her exiting the elevator and walking across the hallway. “Is that her?” Fallon asked.
Kano nodded. “You want to grab the vehicle while I follow in the shadows to see where she goes?”
And, with that, Fallon headed out the front doors to get their rental, while Kano watched, as the woman walked down the street and crossed the road. He hoped she was headed for another set of wheels parked somewhere else, but, as he continued to follow her, he realized that she literally was walking home.
It was great that they lived close enough to walk, but not such a great thing if it meant that the little boy was at the hospital all the time either. He wondered about that. Just because she said it was her husband didn’t mean it was true. Kano had seen enough cases in his life to make him wince at what people really did. He followed her, sending Fallon a text with Kano’s current location and the direction they were headed.
When she came to a small run-down apartment building, she stepped across some patchy grass and entered a ground-floor apartment through a sliding glass patio door, instead of going around through the main doors of the building. A parking lot was here for the tenants and visitors.
Kano heard a man call out in guttural english.
“What the fuck are you doing coming in that way?”
“The door was open,” she said, her tone ever-so-patient.
“Where’s the kid?” he asked. “Don’t tell me that you left him at that bloody nuisance of a hospital again. You know I’m not paying the medical bills you keep running up, right?”
“Yeah, I got that,” she said. “And I’m not arguing anymore. Jeremy needs help, so he’ll stay in the hospital.”
“I just said I’m not paying any more of those bills,” he roared. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
All of a sudden Kano heard a hard smack. Swearing, Kano jumped over the old flowerpot onto the deck itself in time to see the woman pick herself up from the floor.
“I get it,” she said. “I get that you don’t want anything to do with Jeremy, so we’re leaving. I’ll find a way to pay the bills regardless.”
“You’re not leaving me,” he roared, getting to his feet and hitching up his pants, as he glared at her. “No way in hell I’m letting you out of here, saying I beat you up. Next thing you’ll be wanting child support and all the rest of that shit,” he said. “I’ll fucking kill you first.”
And Kano realized that she’d already known that. That’s why she’d come, hoping her son would get the care he needed at the hospital, and then they’d be done with this guy too.
“Yes, you probably will,” she said.
Whether brave or stupid, he didn’t know, but he watched her with respect, as she pulled herself to her feet.
“On the other hand,” she said, “I am leaving. So you need to kill me right now or figure out how you’ll stop me somehow.” As soon as she said this, she bolted for the glass doors. Kano stepped out of the way, but she was grabbed at the very last minute by her husband. He pulled her back in and tossed her to the floor.
“Not a problem. You’re nothing but a stupid bitch anyway. I can find another one of those anywhere.” He pulled his fist back, but, when he tried to let it fly and to plow it into the poor woman’s face, he couldn’t move his arm. Turning, he glared at Kano in shock. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Somebody who doesn’t like to hear you beating up a defenseless woman,” he said, his voice quiet. He looked at the woman and said, “Go pack what you need.”
She looked at him gratefully and said, “He’ll just come after me.”
“Oh no, he won’t,” Kano said, and his tone made her eyes go wide. She ran into the bedroom and very quickly came out with a bag, then went into her son’s room and came out with two bags. She looked at them doubtfully but then put one on her back and grabbed the others in her hands, and she headed out the glass door.
Her husband roared at her. “You get the fuck back here, you little bitch. I don’t care where you found this loser here. I’ll have him in pieces in no time.”
At that, Kano squeezed the other man’s wrist, slowly building up pressure on his knuckles.
The other man cried out. “What the hell? What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
But Kano didn’t relieve the pressure. When he heard a nearby sound, he didn’t give up; he turned ever-so-slightly and caught sight of Fallon, helping the woman into their vehicle. Kano then smiled. “So that is your wife?”
“Yeah, she’s my wife,” he said, “and I get to do whatever the hell I want with her.”
“No,” he said, “you don’t. That’s a woman, a mother, a person who deserves to be treated with respect. She’s not somebody you get to use for a punching bag.”
“She’s a loser anyway,” he snorted, only to cry out as Kano crushed his hand harder.
“Not in my book and especially not if she just left you. The thing is, I won’t tolerate you going after her. No way in hell I’ll ever hear that you put your hands on her or threatened her or Jeremy again. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah? Or what?”
With that, Kano snapped two more knuckles. With the man screaming and now down on his knees, Kano whispered in his ear, “You see? I don’t think you understand how I feel about this, because I really don’t mind breakin
g every knuckle, every toe, and we’ll just go to other body parts as needed. I really don’t give a shit.”
The guy was crying now. “She’s nothing,” he snapped. “And I am going to kill—”
Another knuckle cracked loudly, and the man screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Oh, gosh,” Kano said. “Did you accidentally hurt yourself?”
“You’ll pay for this!”
Snap.
Now Fallon was in the doorway. “Do you want some help?”
“Hell no. Not only do I not want any help,” he said, “I haven’t had this much fun in a long time. When we get these little bully boys, who think they are bigger and better than all these poor women and kids they push around, I really enjoy taking them down a peg or two.”
“Got to make sure this guy really understands though,” Fallon said. “Go ahead. I think you should break something else. Something to help him remember to leave her alone.”
“No, no, no,” Angus said, sobbing on the ground. “I can’t leave.”
“Yeah, why is that? You’ll have to get these knuckles fixed anyway,” he said. “Oh, wait. You probably don’t have a job, do you?”
“No, she does. She supports the family. I need her paycheck,” he said. “You can’t do this.”
“Jesus, you are even more pathetic than I thought. You’re not getting her paycheck anymore,” Kano said, with a sneer. “You’re a loser, and you’ll stay the hell away from her and Jeremy. If I find out you’ve so much as talked to her on the street or contacted her in any way, shape, or form—like phone, email, or even screaming from the rooftops,” he said, “I will come back, and I won’t be nearly this reasonable. Do you hear me?” He twisted the sobbing man around on the ground, until he could look at the promise of death in Kano’s eyes.
But Angus was done, and he nodded several times. “I understand. I got it,” he said. “I won’t have anything to do with her.”
“She’s not your wife anymore. She’s not your property. She’s nothing to you and neither—look at me,” he snapped. The other guy fearfully raised his gaze. “Neither is your son.”