Miranda tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. “I don’t think I can afford them. What about the county? They must have some other group homes like yours. Maybe one of them can take him?”
Fenn shook her head. “There are a couple institutions, but they’re in the same predicament we are. So are the state facilities. We’re all overcrowded and underfunded. I’m afraid Mickey wouldn’t get the kind of care he really needs or deserves in any of the government-run facilities. It could make him worse or even shorten his life.”
Shorten his life? Miranda lowered her head and uncrumpled a tissue then dabbed her eye. “How much does it cost?”
“Based on his condition, between four and five thousand dollars a month, maybe a little more.”
“But I can’t afford that. I only have enough from my divorce settlement to last me a few more months. I’m getting a loan against my home, but that will run out, too. And I could never get a job that would pay me that much money.”
“I understand,” Fenn said while handing Miranda a fresh box of tissues. “I really do. What about your parents and other family members? Isn’t there anybody else who can help?”
“Not really. Our folks never could deal with Mickey. They were mean to him. Never visited him. As if his disease was his fault. That’s why I brought him out here, to California, where the facilities are better. Now they don’t like me either.”
“Maybe you could approach them again. They might change their minds if they know the urgency.”
Miranda shook her head. “The last time I asked them for money, they just hung up on me. We’re on our own.”
Fenn nodded. “Unfortunately, I’ve seen that same situation too many times before. Some people just can’t handle having special people like Mickey in their lives. I know how much he means to you. We love him too. Maybe I can keep him another few weeks, but then I’ve got to move him.”
Miranda lifted her tissued hand to her eye. “But every time we move him it just confuses him.”
“That’s why we should consider The Broadhouse. I’m convinced that he’ll get better if he gets the regular personal attention they can give him. If you can handle it, he’ll never have to move again.” She rose. “We can go see him now if you want to.”
* * *
Miranda and Fenn entered the Safety Room, the place they put the clients who might hurt themselves or others. Mickey was in bed, under a sheet and a light green blanket and stirring. “Hi, Baby. It’s Miranda.”
Given his shorter-than-average height and wavy, sandy hair, nearly anybody could see the family resemblance between Mickey and Miranda, although the greying of his temples and the gentle crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes and mouth along with established wrinkles in his brow and jowls made it appear as if he were at least ten years older. Miranda clicked her tongue against her teeth. He was only thirty-five and already wearing out. Mickey scratched the top of his head with both hands. “I don’t feel good, Miranda,” he said slowly.
Miranda placed her hand on her brother’s slightly reddened forehead. Just as she thought. He was very warm. “I know you don’t, Baby,” she said pulling the blanket down, “but you’ll get better when the medicine wears off.”
“I want my sunglasses and my hat.”
“I’ll have somebody get them,” Fenn said before she left the room.
There was a small private bathroom in the corner. “I’m going to get you a cool wash cloth,” Miranda said. “Would you like that?”
“Uh huh, and my sunglasses.” Miranda grinned as she moved toward the sink. Mickey always thought sunglasses made him look like Elvis. The trouble was the other clients liked his sunglasses too. Sometimes they’d take them away. It wasn’t that they were thieves, they just didn’t know any better. Fortunately, none of them could tell one pair of sunglasses from another so Miranda bought them by the dozen at the dollar store so Mickey would always have a pair. She bought baseball hats by the dozen too. She rinsed a washcloth in cool water, dabbed it across his forehead and tilted her head. “Does that feel better, Baby?”
“I love you, Miranda.”
Her lower lip puckered. She never felt more appreciated than when Mickey was loving and tender like that, as he was most of the time. To her, those oft-said three words had more meaning coming from him than when somebody with a high status might say them. There was no ulterior motive with Mickey. Not even an expectation that she would say it back. It was just a simple gesture of true love that she cherished more than any other love she’d ever felt. How could her parents have abandoned such a gentle and loving man? “I love you too, Baby. I love you too.”
One of the other staff members, Jennifer, entered the room. “Here’s your hat and sunglasses, Mickey.”
His face lit up like a kid who just got a brand new skateboard for his birthday. He sat up and reached for the items as if they were the only things in the world that mattered. “Thank you, Jennifer. I love you.”
Miranda and Jennifer exchanged glances as Mickey smiled with an enthusiasm that everybody always said was contagious. The happy Mickey was back, at least for a while. He was the only person Miranda knew who could make everybody else happy too. She could never forgive herself if she allowed him to languish in some underfunded facility that would deal with his problems by injecting him with dangerous drugs and ultimately lead him to an early death. She had to do whatever she could to prevent that.
Chapter Four
Immediately after Miranda’s meeting with Dr. Fenn, she made calls in search of any options that Fenn may have overlooked, but not surprisingly, it was as the doctor said. Miranda had either to keep Mickey in underfunded and crowded government facilities that could never give him the care he’d need or find a way to get him into The Broadhouse —and there was only one possible way she knew of to pull that off.
By the time Thursday rolled around she’d become so concerned for Mickey that she considered thoughts she never would have imagined. She recalled Don saying the lady with the trust wouldn’t miss her money. Miranda gulped back her reservations and returned to the prison on the regular visiting day. This time she’d pay better attention to what he had to say.
They were brought together in the main visiting room. A large desk was at the front of the room for a guard, and several smaller tables were scattered around for the prisoners and their callers. Officer Jackson was on duty. As always, he gawked at Miranda, but based on the unholy thoughts she’d been harboring lately she knew she had no right to judge anybody else.
She and Don got a table near the back of the room with Don’s back to the wall. After she told him about Mickey, he placed his finger to his lips. “We gotta play this smart. If Jingle Keys comes around, I’ll scratch my nose. Got it?”
“Got it,” she whispered, already coming to grips with what she was contemplating. “But before I agree to anything, I need to ask a lot of questions.”
“Of course, but we don’t have much time.”
They never did. She leaned as close as she dared without drawing Jackson’s wrath. “You have to tell me everything again,” she whispered. “Exactly how much do you know about that Rachel woman? Are you sure she lives in this area? What does she do? How do you know she’s not married already? Are you sure that the trust is activated when she gets married?”
“Hold it,” Don whispered and raising his index finger. “One question at a time. I don’t know much of that stuff. Thomas only got a few pages.”
“That’s not good enough, Donnie. It’s too vague. I need to know a lot more.”
He rolled his eyes. “You didn’t expect somebody to write all of the background info out for us did you?”
“No, but you said you figured out all the details.”
“I meant the basics, but how am I going to do any serious snooping around for specifics? They don’t exactly let me come and go as I please around here. We just have to fly in the dark on a couple of these things.”
Her eyes popped wide open. �
�Fly in the dark? We can’t do that! We don’t want to stick our necks out if we don’t know it’s safe.”
“I assumed all of that would be among your duties.”
“My duties? Great. Now I’ve got to—“
Don’s eyes leaped past her. He scratched his nose and winked.
“I’m thinking about painting my house,” she said while winking back. “What do you think of yellow with light blue trim?”
Don grinned. “I dunno. Whatever you think.”
“That retired guy across the street has some tall ladders.”
She waited for Jackson to walk past them, and toward the other tables. Then, “What about your brother?” she asked, picking up where she left off. “Why can’t we just bypass him and wait until you get out of here? Then you can schmooze Rachel yourself. If you can persuade her to marry you, we’ve got what we want without complicating the whole thing with Mac.”
Don shook his head. “First off, we gotta get that chick off the market before somebody else wiggles in on our money. Second, if things don’t go as we plan, the cops will bust my son-of-a-bitch brother, not me. That way you and me can still dance in the moonlight even if things go wrong.”
Go wrong? “But nothing is going to go wrong, right?”
“You just told me that you’ve only got enough money to pay for Mickey’s new place for a few months. If we’re gonna do this, we can’t afford to drag our feet.”
She riveted on Don’s eyes. “If I do this, Mickey gets at least half the money. Maybe all of it.”
“Alright, already. Your brother gets half of our cut, no matter how much that is. There. Are you happy?”
“Just making sure, Donnie, because without that I wouldn’t even think about stealing somebody else’s money.”
He tapped her hand. “Me neither, Baby. From here on out, it’s all about Mickey.”
As disgusting as Don’s plan was, this single issue made it almost, barely, sort of, remotely bearable, but that wasn’t the only thing she wanted to resolve.
Just then, Don tweaked his nose again.
Chapter Five
After Miranda set her anxiety aside, she agreed to do some homework regarding the mysterious trust. Some of her questions had answers and some of the answers led to more questions. Regardless, Don would want to know what she discovered. This time Maxine Montoya was the presiding guard in the visiting room.
“What’d you find out?” Don whispered almost immediately.
Miranda stuffed her fingers under her thighs to hide the shaking. “Mickey got accepted at The Broadhouse,” she said, faking a grin, “but I’m a nervous wreck. I haven’t eaten much and I keep getting diarrhea.”
“Gross.”
“I had to give them a huge deposit and it doesn’t look like I’m going to get as big of a line of credit out of my home as I thought.”
“Don’t worry about that. I already figured you’ll have more than enough to cover all our costs. It’s what they call venture capital.”
“We have to be very careful, Donnie. I can’t afford to lose that money.”
He tapped her hand. “Relax. You have way more than we’ll need. Now, what about that Rachel chick? What’d you find out?”
She pursed her lips. She would have appreciated a little sympathy about her situation, but if she whined about it he’d probably remind her how little time they had. Best just to get to the point. “Before I answer that, I want to clarify a few things.”
Don shook his head. “The rules again? Okay, but hurry.”
“You’ve got to agree one more time that there’s not going to be any killing—either of Rachel Johnson or Mac or anybody else. That’s very important. Right?”
He rubbed his face with both hands, then said, “Look. I agreed to spare Rachel, but if my brother screws us over I ain’t cutting him no breaks. He’s an asshole. Deserves what he gets for all the bullshit he’s done to me and everybody else over the years.”
A chill flushed across Miranda’s shoulders. “No, Donnie. That’s not good enough. I don’t care what he’s done. If you want to kill him, you can count me out. It’s not negotiable.”
He hesitated but Miranda stared in his face and waited him out. Finally, Don examined his nails. “Okay. Okay. Don’t get your panties all scrunched up. I’ll figure out some way to make him want to leave town on his own.”
Until that moment Miranda hadn’t realized that her heart had been pulsating like a cruise ship’s engines. “That’s better,” she said. “Now, about Rachel’s money. I don’t want to steal more than we need, just enough for Mickey to get by.”
“Like I said. I ain’t greedy. We’ll wait to see how much she has. If she don’t have all that much, we’ll let her keep some.”
“At least half?”
“Okay. Okay. We’ll let her keep half of her money if we find out she ain’t got a lot, but I’m betting she’s got a couple mil.”
“If that’s the case. She keeps half and we’ll split the other half with Mickey?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Half for her. Half for him. Half for everybody. By the time we’re done splitting our pie into all them halves, there ain’t gonna be nothing left for you and me ‘cept crumbs.”
“Well this isn’t about us. It’s about Mickey. Now there’s something else and it’s very, very, very important, Donnie. It’s about your brother.”
“For Chrissake, Baby,” he said, while shifting in his chair. “We just went over that. We’re never going to get nowhere if we keep plowing the same damn ground.”
“This is different. The last big thing. If we get this straightened out, you’ve got yourself a partner.”
“Hurry, before I die of old age.”
“I will, but I want you to look me in the eyes and listen to me, cause I think you’ve got so many dollar signs floating around in your head that you’ve overlooked a major problem.”
Don plopped his elbows on the table and laid his chin in his palms. “I ain’t forgot nothing,” he said with too much confidence for her liking.
She floated a peek over to the guard’s table and back. “If I have to trick Mac into thinking we’re boyfriend and girlfriend I’ll probably have to make love with him and I don’t want to do that. It’s cheating. That’s what my husband did to me and I hated him for it. It was why we got divorced.”
Don sat back and waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Is that all? This ain’t cheating. We both know what’s going on here. It’s about setting us up forever.”
“You mean setting Mickey up.”
“Whatever.”
“I’d rather just tell Mac the truth. Then we can share the money with him too.”
Don pounded his hands onto the table. ”I ain’t doing that. Haven’t you ever known a really rotten person? There are lots of guys like that in this shithole. They’re scum and deserve what they get. You gotta make him think he’s in love and then break his damn heart. That’s the only way this works.”
“But, I don’t want to make love to anybody else, Donnie, especially somebody like that.”
Don shook his head. “You’re looking at it all wrong, Baby. It’s like a job. We go to work, do what we have to for a few hours so we can get other things we want out of life. That’s all this is, a job with a great big payday at the end. It’s no big deal unless you make it into one.”
“Look, we both know I’m no angel, but it could take months for me to win him over, not to mention he has to win over Rachel. I might have to make love to him a whole bunch of times. Doesn’t that bother you? Because it sure as hell bothers me.”
He squeezed her hands. “How many times do I have to tell you there’s no love to it? There ain’t no emotions in it. It’s just a necessary step to get what we want. Like dates or marriages. You give up some things to get other things.”
She leaned way forward. “But if he’s as callous as you say he is, I’m not sure I can get intimate with him even once. You gotta promise me that if I can’t stand hi
m, I can call this whole thing off before we get in too deep.”
She heard papers rustle from the area of the guard’s table. “Twenty more minutes, everybody,” Officer Montoya said.
Miranda glared into Don’s eyes. “If Mac gives me the creeps, I get to call the whole thing off? Right?”
“Okay, but remember: If you walk away, Mickey’s the one who gets screwed and I don’t mean in a fun way.”
“I won’t forget,” she said. “but I don’t want to make love to somebody I hate. I already feel like a damn whore.”
“You ain’t no whore, Baby. You’re just on a mission.” Don grinned. “But if you was a whore, you’d be damn good at it. Now if that’s all, what’d you find out?”
With the most distasteful issues mitigated, Miranda sighed. “Okay then. I guess we understand each other. I just wanted to clear those things up.” She looked both ways as if she were a schoolgirl about to cross the street. “Rachel’s an assistant principal at the high school in Palmdale.”
Don smiled and made a large check mark in the air. “And she’s still single,” he said, making a second imaginary mark.
“How’d you know that?”
“Simple. If she was married, she’d already have her money and probably wouldn’t be working, and you wouldn’t have grilled me on all those other issues.”
Comments like that reminded Miranda that Don was a lot smarter than he usually sounded. She took an imperceptible moment to savor the renewed confidence she had in him. “The school year is coming up so I called her under the pretense of doing a survey for an article in the district’s newsletter. I figured I’d just ask her some basic questions—get her talking about her job, what she likes and dislikes, before I asked her about her marital status.
Don’s lower lip curled while his head bobbed up and down.
“Not even a boyfriend,” Miranda said proudly. “But it wouldn’t do any good to hook her up with your brother if she’s not psychologically ready for a relationship, so I asked her about her views on families.”
“That worked out too, didn’t it?”
The word astute occurred to Miranda but she plowed on. “We talked about how kids usually do better in school if they have two parents in the home.”
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