Daddy's Game (12 page)

Leaving the hospital, she walked down the deserted fluorescent-lit hallway. The click of her heels against the laminate floor echoed through the hallways and she was reminded why hospitals always seemed eerie late at night. When she opened the exit door, she took a deep breath of the midnight air, and despite a phone full of messages from friends, Carmen felt completely alone.

* * *

The next morning at 6, Carmen opened the door to Natron’s room to find a dark-haired woman standing beside him holding his hand. The woman was clucking over him and he seemed to know her.

Natron lit up when he saw Carmen and waved to her. “Hey, babygirl.”

The woman turned and pasted on a fake smile. “Hello. You must be Carmen.” Even at this ungodly hour of the morning, the woman was as put together as a model about to walk the runway. Her hair was curled so perfectly that Carmen wondered if it was a wig. Her creamy
café au lait
skin reminded Carmen of a frothy drink one could order at Starbucks, and she wore a well-cut beige pantsuit that set off her flashing amber eyes.

“Yes,” Carmen stammered, confused.

“I’m Veronique, Natron’s mamma.”

“Oh!” Cutting her eyes at Natron, Carmen smiled sweetly. “He didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“Sorry, babe. I was a bit out of it last night.” Natron gave her his most pitiful puppy-dog eyes.

“That’s fine,” Carmen said, feeling out of place.

“Well, of course I’m here. My baby’s having surgery, I had to come take care of him.” Veronique said, pinching Natron’s cheek.

Great
, Carmen thought.
Then what am I supposed to do?

Carmen took a deep breath and reminded herself that this was not about
her
. It was Natron who was injured and having surgery. She needed to focus on him, helping him as best she could.

“So when are they coming to take you to surgery?” Carmen asked.

“Any minute now,” his mother answered.

“Do you need anything?” Carmen asked.

“I’m really thirsty, but they told me I can’t have anything to drink,” Natron replied.

“Carmen, why don’t you go to the nurse’s station and see if he could have just a few ice chips?” Veronique asked.

Carmen agreed and walked down to the nurse’s station. She found a nurse who agreed he could have a couple of ice chips and gave her a small paper cup half-filled with tiny ice pellets from the kitchen.

By the time she walked back to Natron’s room, it was empty. Natron was gone and apparently his mother had gone with him.

“Ugh!” Carmen muttered under her breath and went to find him. Of course she ran into the same trouble she had the night before, not being ‘family.’ She finally gave up and asked directions to the surgery waiting room.

When she got there, she found Natron’s mother sitting there smugly reading a magazine.

“Hey,” Carmen said.

Peering over the top of her
Vogue
, Veronique said, “There you are. I had no idea where you’d run off to.”

Carmen thought her head might explode. “I-I-I went to get him some ice chips, as you requested.”

There it was, the fake smile again. “Well, I don’t know where you went to get them. We looked everywhere for you… He’s in surgery now.”

Carmen just stood there staring.

“It should take a few hours. If you like, I’ll give you a call once it’s over.”

Planting herself in the seat across from Natron’s mother, Carmen said, “Oh, no, I’m fine, Veronique. I’ll wait.” Then she opened her phone and began checking emails.

“Suit yourself,” Veronique said dismissively.

Carmen had heard Natron talk about his mother. Veronique had raised him as a single mother, the two of them against the world. Clearly his mother didn’t relish an outsider disrupting their little dyad. Carmen wished she could talk to Natron about his mother, but this wasn’t the time for him to worry about his mother being jealous of his girlfriend.

When the doctor came out to discuss the surgery, Veronique practically shoved Carmen out of the way, then did most of the talking. Fortunately, Dr. Whitaker made a point of including Carmen in the conversation as he explained that he installed a stainless steel plate along the outside of Natron’s tibia, stretching up along the curve of the ball joint. The plate along with the screws used to secure it would become a permanent part of him and would serve as a sort of internal cast so an external plaster cast would not be necessary.

He showed the women an x-ray of the plate now implanted in Natron’s leg, complete with the eight screws that went through the plate into the bone to hold it in place. Dr. Whitaker told them, “The stability of the knee is of utmost importance for an athlete like Natron, and the plate in his knee will give him the extra support he will need when putting the kind of pressure on it he does on a regular basis. Keeping that in mind, I did everything I could to save as much of the cartilage around the knee as possible. I had to cut the lateral meniscus in order to install the plate, so he will have to recuperate from that as well.”

“What’s the meniscus?” Veronique asked.

“The cartilage around the knee.”

“Oh.” Veronique’s brows knitted together.

“It’s too early to tell how much overall cartilage and ligament damage has been done. The first thing we have to do is heal the bone. That’s the biggest injury, and while he’s healing from that, the cartilage and ligaments should heal up as well, especially since he’s young and in such good condition.”

“Will he be able to play football again?” Carmen asked.

“With the ball socket being broken the way it was, there are bound to be cartilage issues, so I can’t make any guarantees his knee will ever get to where it was before, but I hope it will. We won’t be able to really assess the situation until he’s able to bear weight on it again and that will take a few months.”

Veronique and Carmen thanked him and he gave them his card and told them to call him if they had any questions or if Natron had any problems. Natron would stay in the hospital for two days to be sure there were no complications, and Carmen had to hold back a chuckle when Dr. Whitaker said Natron would be going home in a wheelchair. He was
not
going to like that.

For the first two and a half months, Natron wasn’t allowed to put any pressure on his injured knee. After that, he’d be allowed to put fifty pounds of weight on the knee and slowly work his way back to standing on it. It sounded like they had a long road ahead of them, but Carmen vowed to be by Natron’s side. They could do this together, and it would probably bring them closer.

Carmen and Veronique waited another hour before being told which room Natron had been moved to. Carmen went to her car to retrieve the bags she’d packed for Natron and herself. She knew Natron well enough to bring his laptop, his headphones, and his favorite sneakers for his trip home. All of that made his bag super heavy and she was out of breath by the time she found his room and walked through the door.

Setting the bags down with a thud, she noticed Natron was sleeping in the hospital bed.

Veronique shushed her and sweetly asked Carmen to “run to the cafeteria and bring us a salad, would you, dear?”

Carmen nodded; she’d resigned herself to her role as Veronique’s errand girl. But she did stop to kiss Natron on the head before making her way to the cafeteria. He stirred, saying, “Love you, babygirl.” Even though he was asleep, he knew she was there. His words gave her strength and during the elevator ride back from the cafeteria, she promised herself to be more patient with his mother. After all, Natron
was
her only child.

Upon entering the room, Carmen found Veronique filling out a bunch of paperwork. The night before, Carmen had been told by a nurse that she would be asked to fill out paperwork to get Natron a set of crutches and a walker for the first few days and that could be used in the shower.

Apparently now Veronique was filling out those papers.

Handing Veronique a salad, Carmen sat down on the small couch and pulled out her knitting, determined not to feel useless.

Veronique turned the television to soap operas and watched them in silence, every now and then getting up to fuss over her sleeping son.

When dinnertime came, the hospital staff rolled in a tray for not only Natron but also for Veronique.

“How did you get a tray?” Carmen asked.

“I was here when they asked. I guess this morning before you arrived.”

“Oh,” Carmen said flatly, her stomach grumbling. “Guess I’ll go down to the cafeteria and get something.”

“You can go on home, dear. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I was planning to stay the night with him,” Carmen protested. “I brought my bag and everything.” She gestured to her suitcase.

“So did I,” Veronique said, a challenge in her voice. “I’m his mother, dear. You just run along and come back tomorrow when he’s awake. There’s really not much you can do here now.”

Carmen frowned at her sleeping boyfriend. Veronique was right. There was nothing she could do here while Natron slept, except feel her presence was unwanted. “Alright.”

She kissed Natron on the cheek, picked up her bag, and wished Veronique a nice evening.

Walking down the hall, she fought the dreadful churning in her stomach that told her this injury was slowly squeezing her out of Natron’s life.

Chapter Thirteen

From the moment Natron got hurt, Carmen had envisioned herself taking care of him, nursing him back to health. He was such a caring daddy, always meeting her needs and doing things for her. This would be the perfect opportunity to pay him back for all the wonderful things he had done for her. Her turn to care for him.

But it had been a week since Natron had been released from the hospital and today Veronique was tending to him. Carmen had been invited to Charmaine’s place for brunch and she was looking forward to seeing her girlfriends. The other ‘Daddy’s Girls’ would be there and Carmen was looking forward to catching up with her friends. The other girls either had a daddy and were in a dominant/submissive relationship with him, or were between daddies like Charmaine and Sloane.

Come to think of it, Carmen had never known Charmaine to have a daddy. The girl was too wild and always had several guys on the chain, but Charmaine talked about wanting a daddy. Though she was way too intimidated by Charmaine to tell her this, Carmen thought her friend could really use a daddy to keep her in line.

Sloane, on the other hand, had been hung up on a dom named Rocco for as long as Carmen could remember. A workaholic, Sloane spent most of her time designing clothes, and Carmen wondered if she used work as a distraction from her unrequited love.

Carmen pulled the Jetta to a stop at the front of Charmaine’s building and handed the keys to the valet. Would she ever get used to the opulent lifestyle Charmaine, James, and Natron led? Her lower middle-class upbringing consisted of clipped coupons, a one-story ranch house, and hand-me-downs from her cousins, so having servants, doormen, and stylists took some getting used to.

After a quick trip up the elevator, Carmen barely had a chance to knock before Charmaine threw open the door and enveloped her in a bear hug. “Come in, come in, girl. The champagne’s flowing. How
are
you? How’s Natron?”

Charmaine was striking as usual in a low-cut black jumpsuit trimmed in leopard, her sun-striped mane spilling out in every direction, looking every ounce the sparkling golden Leo that she was.

“I’m good. He’s doing well,” Carmen responded.

She must have been the last one to arrive because all the other girls were lounging in the living room sipping Cristal from crystal flutes—Sloane, Lucinda, Marley, Nellie, and Kimberly. They all rose to greet her and hugs were exchanged all around.

Kimberly, the mother hen of the group, fixed her big brown eyes on Carmen and whispered, “How are you
really
doing?”

Carmen smiled. “I’m fine,” she said, shaking off the truth. She didn’t want to fall apart within three minutes of walking through the door.

Perching on the arm of a white suede couch, Carmen accepted Marley’s offer of a glass of bubbly. She hadn’t seen Marley since the day of Natron’s injury, though they’d texted and spoken on the phone almost every day. Carmen had always felt close to Marley because they were both new to the opulent world of money and fame. When she and Marley hung out, it felt like she was spending time with a friend from high school.

“Tell us about Natron’s injury. I want to hear all the gory details,” Sloane pressed.

“Eww, Sloane. Not that gory, feel free to leave that part out.” Kimberly made a face.

Carmen filled them in about the surgery. Then, wanting to change the subject, she turned to Lucinda.

“Long time no see, Lucy. How’ve you been?” Carmen asked.

Lucinda and Colin, a former conductor, had a daddy/little girl relationship both in and out of the bedroom. Lucinda had told the girls many times that she credited Colin for her success with all his prodding her to practice and study. With her hectic travel and performance schedule, it was unusual for Lucinda to be in town when the girls had one of their get-togethers. The last time they’d met, she was in Norway giving a private concert for the royal family.

“Exhausted,” Lucinda sighed. “I just got back from Prague last night. But I had to come by to see how you were, and hear about Natron.”

“Thanks, Lucinda. You’re sweet, but we’re fine,” Carmen said.

“Then how’s work going?” Lucinda asked. “I saw your portrait of Natron at the portrait show at the Guggenheim Museum. I stopped by and saw it when I was in New York a couple of weeks ago. Impressive.”

“Aw, thanks. I haven’t had much of a chance to paint lately. Fortunately the woman whose portrait I’m doing right now is a socialite, and apparently she’s so tickled to have her name linked with Natron’s that she didn’t mind pushing back the completion date on her portrait. She called me the other day and grilled me about Natron. I think she wants to brag to her friends that she’s in the know.” Carmen giggled. “That’s good, I guess.”