“Me too, Nana,” Kayla said as they drove away from the house. “This is some mansion you live in.”
“It’s some mansion she slaves in, you mean. What’s your room like, Mom? Where is it, in the basement?”
“Not in front of the child.”
Crystal turned around to face Kayla. “Never you mind your mom, sweetie. I have a good job and a very nice room.”
“Maybe we could move in with you,” Kayla said.
Jessivel let out a snort. “That’ll be the day.”
“All I have is one room, dear. And what’s wrong with your new apartment? I hear you have your own bedroom and everything.”
“It’s okay. You’ll see it. It’s okay.”
Jessivel parked in her assigned spot before they walked the short distance to the building’s back door.
“Welcome to the dump,” Jessivel said to no one as she opened the door and led the way inside. “It’s only fifteen flights up, Mom.”
“We have to walk up fifteen flights of stairs?”
“Not if the elevator is working.”
Once inside her apartment, Jessivel walked to the kitchen and pulled a soda from the fridge. “Want anything?”
“Nothing right now.” She looked around the room. “This is nice, Jess. Are you going to show me the rest of it?”
“Kayla, give Nana the grand tour.”
Jessivel formulated her thoughts while Kayla showed her mother the other half of the apartment. She had to remind herself of her plan to be a kinder and gentler daughter, to get on the good side of her mother so she would be more forthcoming about her father.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jess. This isn’t so bad,” her mother said as she entered the living room.
“And we even have Hercules here to help us with stuff,” Kayla announced.
“Hercules?”
Jessivel explained Hercules’s position.
“Can’t ask for more than that, right?” her mother said.
“Not until you go outside these walls and see all the ’hood rats roaming the halls. Other than that, and the panoramic view of a parking lot we have from the only two windows in the place, it’s just heavenly in here.”
“You can work your way out of here, you know.”
“Mm-hm. In the meantime, I have to live among the wretched.”
“In the meantime, you are one of the wretched. Don’t forget that.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
“When do you start your barista job?”
“Monday.”
“That’s great!”
“It’s just a stupid job.”
“The sooner you change that attitude of yours, the better. Don’t be such a fool, Jess.”
“A fool? Is that what I look like to you?”
“Look like one? No. But you’re acting like one.”
“Kayla, go to your room. Nana and I have to talk.”
Jessivel waited for the sound of Kayla’s door closing before she continued the conversation.
“You try living here and—”
“What are you so angry about?” her mother asked. “Sassy, rude, mad at the world. No one wants to be around an angry woman. Trust me. Especially a child.”
“Now you’re telling me how to raise my child?”
“I’m telling you that if you kick a stone in anger, you’ll only hurt your foot.”
“Great. Now here come the sayings.”
“They’re sayings because they have meaning. It would do you some good to think about them once in a while.”
“I’ll tell you what will ease my anger, and that’s knowing more about Dad. Do you know what it’s like to one day have a decent life and then—”
“No, tell me about it.”
“Mom?”
“Hmm.”
“When are you going to open up and tell me about him?”
Her mother didn’t flinch.
“At least tell me something. He had another family for Christ’s sake!”
Her mother slumped down in the chair and went quiet for a moment before speaking. “Your father hid a lot from us. There’s so much we don’t know about him.”
Finally.
“More than his other family?”
“Yes.”
“Like what?”
“Like he had a dishonorable discharge from the Army.”
“Really?”
“And he never graduated from college.”
“How did you find out about these things?”
“Aunt Hannah, mostly.”
Hannah was Crystal’s younger sister. Once a vivacious and active woman who had flown private aircraft for a living, she had suffered the past fifteen years with multiple illnesses, including two bouts of breast cancer, COPD, and an anxiety disorder. She had stayed with Jessivel and her family a few times over the years while recuperating from the worst of her afflictions.
“Aunt Hannah?” Jessivel braced herself for how her aunt fit into the picture.
“She was suspicious of Wayne from the get-go. He made her uncomfortable, didn’t like him much, and so she did some digging.”
“And?”
“She told me things about him, some of which I just told you, that I didn’t believe…at first anyway.”
“Like that he had another family?”
“Yes. She was the one who told me that.”
“Was there more?”
“She told me that Wayne Salter wasn’t his real name.”
Jessivel let that sink in for a moment. “So Salter isn’t my last name?”
“That’s what’s on your birth certificate, but as far as I know, it’s a made-up name.”
“So I don’t even have a legitimate last name? That sure stinks!”
“You can have it legally changed if you want.”
“To what?”
“To his real last name I would think. He is your natural father. Or to my last name. We’d have to check out the legalities.”
“What about Kayla?”
“Same thing.”
“And you knew these things all along?”
“She told me a bunch of stuff years ago, but I didn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it, for a long time.”
“And you never confronted him on any of it?”
“No.”
“Why not?!”
“I was in denial I suppose. And he was supporting us, financially. We couldn’t live on what I made. Not like we did with him. He served a purpose.”
“How do you know he doesn’t have other families too, besides Paige?”
“Actually, he…” She paused. “I don’t know. Maybe he does.” She gazed into Jessivel’s eyes for a long moment, adjusting herself in her chair before speaking. “Let’s just say your father had a problem keeping his you-know-what in his pants.”
“Mom!”
“Well, it’s the truth.” Her mother leaned back, closed her eyes, and sighed before continuing. “There were times I knew he’d been somewhere other than where he said he’d been, and I suspected he was with another woman, but I refused to think about it. Every once in a while, he’d slip up and say something that…well, confirmed he’d lied to me earlier.”
“I wouldn’t have put up with it.”
“You don’t know what you’d put up with in that situation, trust me.”
“I’d haul his ass off to jail or something.”
“Jess, we weren’t married. He was taking care of us. We always had food on the table. You went to decent schools. He could have walked out at any time.”
“Why didn’t he?”
Her mother looked past her, obviously lost in thought.
“Why didn’t he?”
“Well, I…”
“You what?”
“At one point, I sort of held it over his head. He knew I could expose him, and he was so well-connected and known around town, around the country really, that it would have destroyed him, his job maybe, and his other family.”
/> “So you threatened him with this?”
“No words were ever spoken or anything. It was a silent agreement of sorts. He knew that I knew. We just never talked about it.”
“And that’s the reason he supported us? To save his ass?”
“I don’t—”
“What a bastard!”
Her mother’s face reddened. “Don’t talk about the dead like that. He did what he had to do for as long as he could, and that was that. Actually, I feel grateful—he could have left us high and dry from the beginning.”
“Grateful?”
“And you should, too. You had a pretty good life…because of him.”
As hard as it was to let go of the ridiculous suggestion that she feel grateful, she did. Her mother was on a roll revealing some of the deep seeded secrets about her father, and she didn’t want to prevent her from continuing.
“So I could have other half-brothers or -sisters out there.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“That explains why we didn’t know about him dying right away, doesn’t it?”
Her mother nodded.
“How did you find out about it?”
“I called his company—the one where Hannah said he worked—and asked about him. I pretended to be his sister and got information about his funeral and memorial service.”
“But we couldn’t go, of course.”
“Actually, I did go. Not to the funeral. I didn’t know about it in time. But I went to the memorial service, sort of.”
“What do you mean ‘sort of’?”
“I slipped in an hour or so after it started, when people were just standing around talking, and I…”
“You what?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking, what was going through my mind at the time.” She laughed. “I really don’t. But I ended up tipping over the table with the urn of his ashes on it. I was so mad at him.”
“You gotta be kidding. Did anyone see you?”
“I don’t know, and I didn’t care at the time. I did it, and I left. It made quite the crash, and it did make me feel better in the moment.”
“So you did it on purpose?”
She nodded. “Hannah tried to talk me out of going there. And then she actually came herself to try to stop me, but she got there too late. The damage had been done.”
“Geesh. I can’t get over this. So he has this other family, but he comes home to us from his so-called business trips, all smiles, bringing stupid gifts, like he’d missed us. Did he really inspect construction sites for a living?”
“No, he sold medical equipment. High end stuff.”
“More lies.” Jessivel shook her head in disbelief. “All this bullshit about being away on business when he’d really been with his other family or hookin’ up with someone else.” Jessivel slapped the palms of her hands on her lap. “Well, you know something? I’m glad he’s dead.”
Her mother massaged her forehead with her fingertips. “So maybe he betrayed us, both of us. But that doesn’t take away from what he did for us your whole life, Jess.”
“If it hadn’t been for you getting pregnant with me, you would have been nothing more than one of his flings.”
Her mother’s glare softened to a polite smile that soon fell away. “You can drive me home now.”
Chapter 23
Paige didn’t have to ponder for long about Cassandra’s cryptic comment regarding Jessivel’s whereabouts. Once in her office, she attended to the most important phone calls and e-mail messages before Googling trendy coffee flavors and heading for The Busy Bean.
The café was large compared to other neighboring storefronts. Inside she noted two long bar-height tables in the center, several bistro tables scattered throughout the space, a few conversation pits, and a bar that would seat a dozen or so people. She walked toward the ORDER HERE sign and looked at the confusing menu board, glad she had researched coffee before arriving. Not much of a coffee enthusiast, she settled on a caramel macchiato.
Paige waited for her order to be ready and then sat at a small table in the corner where she had a good view of activity in practically the whole place—people ordering their beverages, others sitting at the tables conversing, couples holding hands at the bistro tables, laughter and conversation humming throughout the room. She estimated thirty to thirty-five patrons in all. Her “business” mind compelled her to perform quick math in her head—open ten hours a day, each coffee $3.50 to $4.00, pastries, coffee beans, teas, and lots of unconsumable branded merchandise. If this volume of customers were steady throughout the day, and depending on overhead and operational costs, one could make a lucrative living this way.
Paige’s attention perked up when she saw Audrey emerge from the back room. And when she saw Jessivel following close behind her, she felt her mission had been accomplished. Careful to remain unnoticed, she observed what appeared to be Audrey showing Jessivel around, explaining things. When the two women returned to the back room, Paige got up and discreetly exited the café. She needed to think about the right way to approach Jessivel—what to say that would get her attention, be non-alienating, and possibly build some goodwill.
Soon after she walked back into her office, Paige got a call from the hospital to learn that her mother was having emergency surgery. When she asked for details, she was told it would be better for her to come to the hospital.
“I’m on my way,” she told the nurse. She offered up a crude prayer asking for her mother to be okay, and then felt guilty about praying only when she needed something.
At the hospital, Paige approached the nurses’ station on shaky limbs.
“I was called about my mother, Elaine West. Can you tell me what’s going on with her?”
“Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll let the doctor know you’re here.”
She’s dead.
Paige moved to the farthest corner of the waiting area to avoid being around other people, the only distraction a plastic ficus tree that had obviously seen better days. The more she stared at it, the more she wanted to grab it, march out the door, and throw it as far as she could. When it finally dawned on her that getting upset over a fake plant was ludicrous, she tried to focus on something else. Couldn’t do it. The damn ficus tree bothered her.
Her mind raced through erratic possibilities of her mother’s condition while trying to avoid thinking about worst-case scenarios. Memories of better times floated through her mind—how proud her mother had been when Paige graduated college summa cum laude, married someone she actually liked, and bought her own business. Things that made her smile.
She was about to get up and revisit the reception desk when a tall, lanky man in scrubs approached her.
“Miss West?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Doctor Ahsan,” the man said as he reached for her hand.
“How’s my mother?”
“She’s in surgery right now. Her pulmonary embolism progressed to CTEPH, chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, which means high blood pressure in the arteries in her lungs. She was a good candidate for PTE surgery.”
“PTE?”
“Pulmonary thromboendarterectomy. It will remove the blood clots that are causing this high blood pressure.”
“How dangerous is it?”
“There’s risk, of course, but we are fortunate to have a surgeon on call who is trained specifically for this type of surgery, so I can assure you she’s in very capable hands.”
“When can I see her?”
“She went in around ten o’clock. She won’t be out for a while. With this type of procedure, they lower the body temperature—drastically, I’m afraid—to perform the surgery. Afterward, it will take some time to rewarm her to normal. Then she’ll go to the ICU where she’ll be on a breathing tube and remain asleep throughout the night. I would recommend you go home—there is nothing you can do here. Someone will call you when she’s out of surgery to give you an update and an indication as to when
you can see her.”
Overwhelmed by the amount of information she had been given in the span of less than three minutes, Paige thanked the doctor and watched him disappear through the swinging double doors. She remained seated for a brief time, now finding some solace sitting next to the dismal ficus tree.
The next day, Paige sat in a chair at her mother’s bedside in the ICU listening to the symphony of beeping sounds emanating from the patient monitor. The large digital screen displayed all of her mother’s vital signs in vivid colors, but without knowing what was normal for most of them, Paige didn’t know whether to be content or concerned. Heart rate, blood pressure, respiration rate, temperature, oxygen saturation. She Googled each of them. Her mother’s heart rate and blood pressure were above the normal range according to her quick research. Her temperature was 95.2 degrees, only slightly above the hypothermia zone.
Why aren’t alarms going off?
Online research from her phone revealed what happens to your vital signs when you are subjected to extreme cold. Temperature decreases, obviously, and heart rate and blood rate increase. She felt better knowing what her mother was going through was probably normal.
Her mother’s arm moved, then her foot.
“Mom?”
No response.
Paige checked the monitors. Her temperature had risen almost a degree since she had arrived, not back into the normal range but going in the right direction.
Her mother stirred, her face flushed, and her forehead puckered before she opened her eyes.
“Bring me my will,” she bellowed. Paige jumped up from the chair, amazed at the volume of her mother’s voice, given the ventilator tube in her mouth.
“Calm down, Mother. There are sick people here.”
“Can’t you see I’m dying? Get me my will!”
“You’re not dying. Anyone with lungs like yours right after surgery is a long way away from dying.”
“What’s this thing in my mouth? I can hardly talk.”
“It’s a ventilator tube. To help you breathe.”
“And what are these tubes coming out of my chest?”
“They’re for drainage, Mom. They need to stay there for a few days. The ventilator, I would think, could come off soon though. I’ll check with the nurses.”
As if on cue, a nurse approached them. “Everything okay in here?” she asked.
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