“He’s been different since we got back, but yeah. He was belligerent last night, and that’s not Badge. It wasn’t, anyway.” Len didn’t want to share what Badger had told him—that felt like it would be a betrayal—but he did think he needed to share one thing. “Doc, he says his skin feels like it doesn’t fit. It pulls, or something.”
“His entire chest is scar tissue. Thick and hard. It’s not as flexible as healthy, unharmed skin. I gave him a cream to help, but—” She sighed. “This is why he needed the hospital. He needed a skin graft. His chest is always going to hurt, for the rest of his life. It’ll lessen, when the wound heals completely and the scar sets, and that’s when we should deal with the Oxy. I’ll wean him off with lighter drugs. In the meantime, we just keep watch. It’s not the best practice of medicine, but it’s the best I have under the conditions we have.”
Isaac sighed and put his head in his hands, just for a second. Then he sat straight again. “Okay. We keep watch. We don’t let him get lost. Fuck. What about Cory? Are they gonna let her out?”
“I talked to the psychiatrist assigned to her. She’s not going anywhere until he’s confident that she’s not going to try it again. And Cory’s not cooperating.”
“I don’t understand how she can ignore her kids.”
“Isaac, people suffer in their own ways. We’re not in her head. You know she loves her boys. Don’t judge her. That won’t help her or her kids.”
“What will?” Len thought about Nolan, how much pain he’d seen in the boy’s eyes the day before. He needed his mom.
“Her doctor thinks she should see her boys. I said I’d bring them up. Later today, if we can get Nolan on board.”
“I think he’ll go. I’ll talk to him.”
Tasha nodded; Len had told her about his talk with Nolan. But Isaac’s brows came together. “You? You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Yeah. I spent some time with him yesterday. We talked some.”
“Okay. Let’s try to make something better. We need some good news somewhere.”
And then this time seemed like as good a time as any, and Len grabbed Tasha’s hand. “Isaac. We have something to tell you.”
“Len, what?” Tasha’s hand went stiff in his.
“Boss…we got married. About two weeks ago.”
Isaac said nothing, like he hadn’t heard. His expression didn’t change at all.
“Isaac?” Tasha’s voice was quiet; Len heard a little shake at the end.
“You…what?”
“Sorry we didn’t say anything, but it wasn’t the right time to say—with Hav, and—”
“Not the right time to say, maybe it’s not the right time to do.”
Tasha answered that before Len could. “We decide when’s the right time for us to get married. Nobody else. Don’t be a dick about this, Isaac. We’re happy. It’s a good thing at a dark time. So take the high road here.”
Len smiled at Tasha, feeling love and pride and some things he shouldn’t be feeling sitting in Isaac’s office. At least not while Isaac was in it.
Finally, Isaac nodded. “You’re right. Sorry. And congratulations.” He walked over and held out his hand; Len stood and shook. Then they embraced. Isaac hugged Tasha, too, and then he asked, “You still keeping it a secret?”
“Not so much secret as unannounced. It still feels strange to me, like we’d be seeking attention or something. It’s just the wrong time. But I’d like to wear my ring, so if people notice, they notice.”
“I’m taking her to Tony’s on Saturday, too.”
Isaac laughed. “Around here, they’ll notice the ink before the ring.”
Len laughed, too. That was probably true.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tasha and Len did take Nolan and Luke to see Cory that afternoon, but they were turned away. Cory was having an especially difficult day. When Tasha came back out to the waiting room and shared that news with Nolan, he simply turned on his heel and, his baby brother in his arms, walked back toward the elevator.
She started to follow after them, but Len grabbed her hand. “What the fuck, Doc? Did they say?”
“Henderson said that she had a breakdown about the visit, and they have her heavily sedated again. He wants to aim for next week to try again.”
Len was staring at Nolan’s back. “Maybe Lilli and Isaac are right. What she’s doing to her kids is some fucked up shit. Guess I thought she was stronger than this.”
Nobody got it. Tasha did, even though she was least familiar with Cory. She thought maybe Shannon did, too, though they hadn’t talked outright about it. Lilli clearly did not. Maybe that was it. The woman these men knew best as a mother was Lilli; she was their model, and she’d embraced motherhood wholeheartedly from the day of Gia’s birth and become a supermom. Everybody was holding Cory to that standard. Sometimes, Lilli and her constantly perfect self was really fucking annoying. Though even she had set Gia aside for Isaac when he was hurt. So Tasha thought she, too, should dig down and find some damn empathy.
“Shannon told me something that made me think there’s more to this than people realize. She said that Cory’s been a little off since Luke was born. He was only a couple months old when Hav died. I talked to Henderson about it just now, and it got his interest. If she was dealing with undiagnosed postpartum depression before she lost Havoc, then God, Len. Depression that deep is like having metastatic cancer of the soul. She’s not selfish. She’s not weak. She’s sick. Her mind is trying to kill her.”
Nolan turned around and yelled down the hall. “Can we GO?” The last word echoed faintly. Then he turned his back to them again.
“Okay, Doc. Okay. But that boy”—he nodded down the hall toward Nolan’s starched-stiff back—“is in trouble. He and his mom are close. He and Hav were close. And he doesn’t have either one now.”
Tasha nodded in agreement but had nothing to say. She didn’t know what to do for Nolan. The ironic thing was that Lilli might have been a help to him, if she could get out of her own head about it. She had lost a parent to suicide. She should be able to empathize with Nolan’s fear.
They had started down the hall toward the elevator; now, as a dawning thought rose in her head, she grabbed Len’s arm and stopped him. “Isaac. Isaac needs to talk to him.”
Len didn’t catch on right away, but confusion smoothed from his brow after a beat. He shook his head, though. “Isaac’s situation was a lot different. Isaac’s father drove his mom to do what she did. And she left him alone with that bastard. No. Isaac is the worst person to talk to Nolan. Second worst. Lilli’s obviously got some rage herself. I’ll talk to him again.”
Nolan had given up on them and pushed the button. The doors opened, and he got in. “We’ll be waiting outside whenever you’re done whispering about me.” He stepped back, and the doors closed.
Tasha turned back to Len. “Why you?” Len didn’t have family drama. His parents had died, but of natural causes. He had a sister in Oregon, and they didn’t really talk, but it had been a matter of two loners drifting apart rather than any dramatic schism. They each knew where the other was, but that was about the extent of their connection. “How can you relate?”
He chuckled sadly. “Because I loved Hav, too. And I was there.”
~oOo~
It was ten days, and the middle of December, before they tried again to bring Cory’s boys to see her. But this time, she was ready. Again, Tasha and Len drove them to the hospital. Len had talked to Nolan, but Tasha couldn’t discern much of a difference in Nolan’s outlook. He was angry and bitter and sad.
They were sitting in the waiting room again when Dr. Henderson came out and greeted them all. Then he turned to Tasha. “Dr. Westby, I’d like you to come in first. Cory hasn’t had any visitors until now, and I think she’d do better if she stepped up to seeing her sons, if you understand.”
Tasha looked at Nolan, raising her eyebrows. “That okay with you?”
“Whatever. But if she bails again,
I’m not coming back.”
She hadn’t ‘bailed’ before, but Tasha wasn’t going to fight with him about word choice. “Okay. I’ll be back.” She handed Luke to Len and followed Henderson through the locked doors into the psych ward. It wasn’t like psych wards looked in movies. No moaning people wandering the hallways or slamming their heads into walls. It looked like any other ward on any other floor—just behind a locked door.
He led her around the corner and down the hall, into a small, private room. Cory sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, dressed in a yellow track suit that was incongruously perky and not at all, from what Tasha knew, her style of dress.
She was pale, her dark hair flat and lank, but she seemed more animated than she had since Havoc had been killed. Tasha assumed the animation in her eyes was fear and anxiety, but even that was better than the emptiness of before. “Hi, Cory.”
“Hi, Tash.”
“I’ll be at the nurse’s station, Cory. Press for help if you need it.” With that and a pat on Tasha’s shoulder, Henderson left the room and closed the door.
Tasha crossed the room and put her hand on Cory’s shoulder. “You look better. How are you feeling?”
“I…don’t know. It’s hard to know. Lost, I guess. Nolan’s here?”
“Yeah. Waiting. Luke, too.”
“Loki. He’s Loki.” Her face collapsed, like a sudden seism, and then she shook her head sharply and composed herself. “That’s what Hav wanted to call him. I wouldn’t let him.”
“I like it.”
“My milk’s gone. I can’t…I can’t even feed him.”
Tasha was surprised they hadn’t allowed her to express, at least to keep her production going, even if the milk she would have produced would have been too full of meds to give to Luke—Loki. “He’ll be okay on formula, Cory. He had breast milk for more than four months. That’s a good start.”
She nodded, her head moving slowly. “Is Nolan okay? Does he hate me?”
“He doesn’t hate you. He’s sad. He needs you.” She hoped Nolan would show some sense coming in here. If he resisted Cory in any way, he could really set her back. That was a lot of pressure to put on a grieving kid, but Tasha knew it was true. He had to forgive her.
Again, Cory’s face collapsed into a clutch of pain, and this time she didn’t shake it off. She dropped her face into her hands. But she was quiet, not crying. Just hiding.
“Cory?”
She looked up. “I don’t remember how to live without him. I only had him for a year, but it’s like he recorded over everything that came before him. Including me. I’m just…static without him.”
Tasha sat down on the bed and took one of Cory’s hands in her own. “You have him. You have memories. And you have a little boy who’s half him and looks just like him. And you have Nolan, who loved him, too. And you have the Horde. You can’t live the life you had before him. You need to make a new life. But right now, you just need to let yourself live.”
“Not that easy.”
“No. I’ve never been through what you have, Cory. I don’t know what to tell you. Except that you’re loved, and you’re needed. Maybe you just wake up every day and live for Nolan and Loki until you can live for yourself again. I don’t know.”
“Maybe they’re better off with somebody stronger.”
“That, I know, is bullshit. Your strength or lack of it is irrelevant. You’re who Nolan loves. You’re who he needs. And he does need you. I see it every day. He’s lonely without you.”
Cory flinched, and then took a slow, deep breath. She reached out and pressed the call button. Henderson’s voice came through the speaker.
“Cory?”
“You can get my boys. I’m ready.”
Tasha patted her leg and then stood, but Cory grabbed for her arm. “Wait. Stay a minute.”
“Okay.”
A few quiet minutes passed between them, and the door opened. Henderson came through, and then Nolan, holding Loki. Nolan stopped about three feet into the room, seeming to be frozen in place.
Henderson left again without saying anything, but with a meaningful look at Tasha. Tasha wasn’t sure what to do. The tension in the room in those first seconds was massive and oppressive, as Cory and Nolan stared at each other.
Then, her voice small and low, Cory said, “I’m so sorry, little cub.”
Nolan blinked. And blinked. And then he squeezed his baby brother tightly in his arms, tucking his head into the crook of Loki’s tiny shoulder, and began to weep. Cory got up off the bed and went to him. She pulled both of her children into her arms.
And Tasha backed quietly out of the room.
~oOo~
Cory came home a week later, just a few days before Christmas. The Horde had cancelled their annual Christmas party at the clubhouse; nobody had the stomach for a celebration. But Lilli and Isaac had small children who didn’t understand about grief and loss, so they were keeping the holiday, and the Horde family was joining them for gifts and dinner on Christmas Day.
Lilli, Shannon, and Tasha started up their shifts with Cory again as soon as she came home, making sure she wasn’t alone. After Shannon and Tasha sat her down, Lilli found some equanimity about Cory, some understanding. And Cory was stronger. Quiet and sad, but stronger. She leaned on her friends, and she leaned on Nolan. Having his mother lean on him instead of away from him seemed to be helping him, too.
Christmas Day was quiet. Even Gia, usually an excitable, energetic little girl, seemed to key off the somber mood of the grownups around her. She spent most of the day wearing a garland of Christmas ribbons from her presents and sitting on the floor next to Loki in his carrier, ‘reading’ her new books to the baby and to Bo.
Nolan hung out with Dom and Badger for the most part, checking on his mom frequently. But he was calmer than he had been since they’d lost Havoc. Tasha even heard him laughing a couple of times.
For most of the day, Cory sat in a chair near the little ones, making an obvious effort to be present with her family, but the strain was increasingly evident as the day progressed. Shortly after dinner, Shannon packed Cory, Nolan, and Loki into her car and took them home. Tasha and Lilli cleaned up while the men talked and played with Gia and Bo.
Zeke had gone home to Illinois for Christmas. Tasha still didn’t know him well; he, like Len—or like Len had been—tended to keep to himself at little. He was certainly the quietest Horde.
Gia had gotten Hungry Hungry Hippos for Christmas, and Tasha stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room and watched Show, Isaac, and Len play the game with her while Dom, Tommy, and Badger cheered her on. Bo sat on his father’s lap, watching intently.
That moment, at the end of Christmas Day, was the happiest moment for the Horde that Tasha could remember since the lockdown. Those big men banging away at little plastic hippos, Gia screaming with aggressive delight in their midst, made Tasha smile. This is what their family could be. Should be.
Len looked over and caught her watching. He grinned—that beautiful, beautiful smile. It was a good moment. Tasha knew to appreciate them when they came.
Lilli and she had about gotten the kitchen clean, and Tasha was starting a fresh pot of coffee, when her phone buzzed in her pocket. Nadia. She hadn’t talked to Nadia in almost a month. Things with her friends hadn’t been the same since the night they’d tried to do an intervention on her. But they were trying to mend fences. Mending with Nadia was turning out to be more difficult, because Nadia was more difficult. And maybe Tasha was, too. But it was Christmas, and they still loved each other, so she answered. “Hey, Nad. Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah. Hey—if you give a shit, I thought I’d let you know that Kerry got jumped. They fucked her up. If you care.”
“What?” Tasha barely registered the adolescent snark. “When? Where is she?” Lilli was frozen in the middle of the room, watching.
“Last night. She’s at County. We’re all here. Her friends.”
“Fuc
k, Nadia. Back off. I’ll be there in an hour.” She hung up and turned to Lilli. “It’s not club. It’s a friend in Springfield. I have to go.”
Lilli nodded. “You need anything?”
“No. I just have to go.” She went out to the living room, where Len and Gia were packing up the game, and put her hand on his arm. “I need to get to Springfield right now. Can you take me back to get my Jeep?” They’d taken Len’s truck over.
“What’s goin’ on, Doc?” As Len asked, Lilli came between them and took Gia’s hand, murmuring something to her and leading her back to the kitchen.
“Kerry got beat up last night. She’s in the hospital. I have to go to her.”
“Yeah. ‘Course. But I’ll take you. It’s snowing.”
“No, Len. You don’t have to come with me. It’s better if you don’t.”
“What? Why?”
“It just is.”
“Tash, I’m not letting you drive out alone in the dark in a snowstorm. Not fuckin’ happening.”
“‘Snowstorm’ is an exaggeration, hon.”
“S’posed to get six to eight inches overnight.” Now Show was in on this. Tasha turned and glared at him. He shrugged his off-center shrug, clearly having taken a side that was not hers.
“She’s not going to want you there. I can drive in the snow. Not like I’m from Florida or something. I’ve been driving in the snow since I could drive.”
“What is it with Kerry? What the fuck did I ever do to her?”
Tasha sighed. He was her husband now. It was weird that she had kept this fact about a dear friend—still a dear friend, despite the current chill—from him. It suddenly seemed like it would only get weirder and weirder the longer she didn’t tell him, especially with that question in the air right now. It couldn’t be a betrayal of Kerry—she was out. “She doesn’t think you’ll be very open to who she is.”
Show the Fire (Signal Bend Series) Page 26