“I have nowhere to go,” she says. “Rick’s kids don’t want me living in the house anymore.”
Shocker.
“There’s a YMCA two towns over. Good luck.”
“They’re full. I checked. You’re really going to put me out on the streets?” Misty stomps her foot.
“Exactly. You’re delusional if you think I owe you one goddamned thing.”
Standing here arguing with a meth-addicted moron is not the smartest decision I’ve made in recent days.
“Bye, Misty. And don’t come back here again. I’m finally off paper, and you’re the last person I need to be seen associating with. Not trying to go back to prison for another crime I didn’t even fucking commit.”
I push the door open and slam it in her face.
She whines from the other side, but I can’t make out the words. Besides, I could give two shits what woe-is-me bullshit is spewing from her crusty lips.
She’s a liar.
She’s a dirty, fucking, filthy, drug-addicted liar.
And she deserves to rot for what she did.
Twenty
Demi
* * *
“The first twenty-four hours will be the most critical.” Brooks’s doctor stands at the foot of his bed, along with an anesthesiologist. Brenda’s on Brooks’s right, and I take his left.
Mom is in the corner, and Dad, Derek, Delilah, and Haven are in the waiting room. They’re planning to rotate in and out since there can only be three of us in here at a time. They all want to be here, waiting for the moment he finally opens his eyes.
Brenda threads her hand through her son’s as a nurse tends to his IV drip.
“We’ll begin by reducing his sedation, little by little,” the doctor explains. “Our tests have indicated that his swelling is subsiding, and the EEGs have all shown promise.”
I watch his nurse move quickly, switching bags and injecting something into a port with a syringe. She doesn’t flinch, like this is second nature to bring people back to life like this. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t have someone’s life in my hands like this.
“It’s not uncommon,” the anesthesiologist says, “for this to take several attempts. Don’t be alarmed if he doesn’t wake up our first try. We always hope they wake up the first time, but sometimes they don’t. We take that as a sign that the brain’s not ready, and in that case, we would put him back under using the same barbiturate cocktail.”
“So what are you doing now? How does this work?” Brenda squeezes Brooks’s hand.
“We’re reducing his sedation, little by little,” his doctor says. “We want to avoid a quick withdrawal. So for now, we reduce and we observe. We’ll be looking for signs, and he’ll be monitored around the clock.”
“Do we know how much brain damage we’re looking at?” Brenda asks her question like she’s asking about the weather. Her ability to keep it all together and stay so calm never ceases to amaze me.
“We won’t know until he wakes up.” Brooks’s doctor sticks a pen in his front breast pocket before folding his hands across his hips. “Once he wakes, we’ll run a few simple tests and ask a few questions. If he’s aware of his surroundings, that’s a good sign. If he’s able to say hello, recognize faces, and remember names, that’s even better. We just won’t know until the time comes. Given the extent of the trauma, we’re expecting to see some lasting effects of his brain injury. We just don’t have a way to predict that at this time.”
Brenda clenches her heart. “Thank you, doctors.”
The white coats leave and the nurse stays, recording his vitals and silently monitoring the process.
I adjust my coat over the back of my chair and bunch it up to provide a makeshift pillow. I need to get comfortable, because this is going to be a long night.
Brenda hasn’t said more than a few words to me since I got here. From across Brooks’s bed, I feel her staring, but I don’t engage.
“How’re you doing over there, Mom?” I ask.
My mom smiles and checks her watch. “I’m about to head out and let Derek come in. He’s going to stay for a while, and then he needs to get Haven home to bed.”
I turn back toward Brooks. He’s less swollen than he was earlier today. Every hour that passes makes him look more like his old self.
The credit card statements are still scattered on our kitchen floor. I should’ve looked at them to see all the things he was buying, but at the time, I was too busy adding up all the five-figure balances to care.
His gifts to me were usually modest. Thoughtful little trinkets, nothing major. Definitely not six figures’ worth. I bet he was charging things for his mistress. Expensive lingerie. Jewelry. Cliché little things to make her feel like she’s the special one.
I don’t know what twenty-eight-year-old man needs a mistress anyway. It’s not like I was forcing him to marry me. Maybe it wasn’t so much about her as it was about the rush he got from his dirty little secret.
Men and their fucking secrets.
Brenda stares at my hands, and I suddenly realize I’m ripping a piece of Kleenex to shreds.
“Nervous, sweetheart?” she asks. Her endearment calms me and gives me hope that maybe she isn’t on to me. Maybe she’s not well on her way to hating me—yet. “He’s going to be fine. He’s going to wake up. I just know it. I ran into Sister Sapphire outside Greenberg’s Deli yesterday, and she told me she had a vision about Brooks, and he’s going to be just fine.”
Sister Sapphire. The town psychic.
I never understood why no one ever questioned her high rates, low accuracy, and the fact that she lived in a McMansion down the road from me and drove a hundred-thousand-dollar Aston Martin.
I guess when you make a living telling people what they want to hear and people are willing to pay up, you can charge whatever you want.
Brooks managed her assets at his firm, and he suggested on several occasions that I should give up teaching kindergarteners in lieu of learning the art of cold reading.
“That’s good to hear,” I say. I slip my hand into Brooks’s. She smiles. I inwardly cringe.
“Excuse me.” Mom rises and moves toward the door. “I’m going to get Derek. I know he wanted to leave here by eleven.”
“Sure, Mom,” I say.
“I was going to tell you, sweetheart,” Brenda says once Mom leaves. “My sister’s Go Fund Me efforts have raised nearly fifty thousand dollars in the past week. Isn’t that incredible? This community is so generous. So many people are concerned about Brooks. They love my son so much, don’t they?”
“Wow. That’s quite impressive.”
“Now, our insurance will cover Brooks’s rehabilitation expenses, but I was thinking that perhaps you could quit your job at the elementary school and commit to taking care of Brooks full time?”
My jaw hangs on its hinges.
Any teacher knows you don’t walk away from a job you love at a school you love with a principal you love. That kind of trifecta in this industry is rare.
“I, uh . . . I don’t know what to say.” I’m burning. My throat constricts. I need a drink of water and fresh air, or I’m going to lose it.