Faith (Rescue Me, A Contemporary Romance) (17 page)

She couldn’t give them a comment if she didn’t believe it herself. She kept replaying it in her mind. Rory pulling the trigger and seeing his head explode in front of her. It played like a scene from one of his own movies, rather than real life.

Her mother was okay, thank god. She was going to visit her and Liam now, but it had been close for Myra. She was in her sixties, no spring chicken, and a bullet wound wasn’t the traditional type of thing that a senior citizens immune system and health had to grapple with. But she was a tough old lady, more than one doctor had said, and she was pulling through.

She kept telling everyone what Rory had done. Listing his offenses like she was the Chief of Police herself.

“I swear she’s alive just so she could tell the police what Rory Reynolds did to you all,” the doctor told her with a smile. “I think she’s disappointed that he killed himself, she seemed to really be looking forward to watching him suffer for his crimes.”

“I’m sure she was,” Faith agreed with him.

She was so thankful her mother had lived through the ordeal that she could think of nothing else. She just hoped Liam would be as lucky.

“It’s a form of post-traumatic shock,”
the psychiatrist explained to her. “He’s in a catatonic state right now. He can recover, but his brain is trying to deal with the shock he’s experienced. It might take a few days or it could take a few years. It’s up to him.”

Faith thought of Rory blowing his head off just to make herself feel better when she heard the doctor explain what her son was going through. Would the tragedy in her life never end?

“Mac,” she prayed to him. “If you’re watching over us, your son needs you right now. Please comfort him. I can’t reach him in the dark place he’s gone.”

“All we can do right now is keep him comfortable for the next few days and watch him,” the doctor went on, “if it persists longer than that, then we’ll need to move him to a different facility, somewhere they can handle something like this on a more long term basis.”

The nuthouse. They were talking about putting her baby in a nuthouse, Faith knew.

“Can I see him?” she asked.

She followed the doctor into Liam’s room. A comfortable space she’d been visiting him in every day since the latest attack. Just as he had been every other day she’d been there, he was laying on his back with his eyes open staring unseeing at the ceiling above his bed.

He would eat if food was placed in his mouth; would swallow liquids if they were poured between his lips. But, he hadn’t moved or said a word since she’d heard him moaning and weeping on the kitchen floor before she passed out.

“Hey baby,” she said as she arranged his blankets over his chest. “How are you feeling today?”

As she’d expected he didn’t answer or move. Just continued to lie still and silently staring upwards.

“Liam…” she didn’t know what to say or how to reach him.

“All the darkness is behind us baby. All the bad men are gone and nothing is going to hurt you again. I promise. I’m here and grandma’s here to protect you. You’ve got a lot of living to do honey. Please come back to us Liam…”

She laid her head down and cried. Every tear was an outpouring of grief, sadness, and hope.

After a few minutes she dried her eyes and sat back in her chair. She needed to get Myra, they were letting her check out today. She could come back and sit with Liam later that afternoon.

She leaned down to give him a kiss goodbye and that’s when she saw it.

He looked at her.

“Liam?” She held his hands and peered into his face hoping for a sign of recognition.

In answer, he closed his eyes and a tear ran down his cheek.

He had come back to her. She wouldn’t disappoint him again. All she needed was the chance to prove it.

Yesterday is over. Tomorrow is unknown. Today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present.

Faith tried to remember the truth of that statement as she walked through the flower garden in the lavishly landscaped courtyard of the Tennessee Juvenile Mental Health Facility, better known as her son’s current home.

An imposing building with an imposing name, the TJMH was actually one of the most well respected and well appointed mental health recovery centers for children in the country. The rooms were all private and designed to resemble the world’s most comfortable suites with a bedroom, sitting area, and lavish bathrooms.

The only thing that separated the suite at TJMH from the Ritz Carlton was the ever present cameras that watched and recorded anything and everything that happened in the rooms. Bathtubs were set on a timer so residents couldn’t drown themselves. There were no shower rods to keep unstable patients from trying to hang themselves. And, although there was a four-star room service menu, everything was delivered pre-cut into bite sized pieces since no knives or forks were allowed in the rooms of patients at Liam’s treatment level.

You never know what a patient will use to harm themselves or someone they perceive as a threat, the doctors had told her when she’d questioned their methods.

Surely, she’d argued when Liam had first been admitted last month, it would be better to make these kids feel like they were in a safe and normal environment? Treating them like unstable villains was almost asking them to commit some heinous attack on themselves or someone else, wasn’t it?

But, they’d ignored her and continued along the treatment plan that had worked for so many other children
.

So, here she was. In one of the many flower gardens at TJMH waiting for Liam to finish his one on one therapy session and join her in the garden.

The TJMH was proud of its use of floral and fauna in treatment. They employed the world’s best landscapers and environmental designers to construct an environment that ‘is both pleasing to the eye and calming to the mind,’ according to the Center’s brochure.

They weren’t lying, Faith thought as she gazed around her at the explosion of color in the garden. Springtime at the Center was like being in Paris, she thought. Or, at least she guessed it was similar to Paris, she hadn’t actually been there. She really hadn’t been anywhere, truth be told.

Don’t forget about your trip to New York, the little voice inside her head piped up to remind her about that fateful trip that ended up sending her son to this gilded cage for crazy kids.

She’d been the object of affection—obsession—for m
ovie star Rory Reynolds and the evening she had thought of as her Cinderella moment had actually been the trip that had sealed her fate and the fate of her family for Rory.

Three nights after he had flown her to Manhattan for dinner and a night of Broadway and cocktails on his studio’s private jet, he had attempted to kidnap and kill her mother and son before ultimately killing himself in their kitchen.

Her heart broke for the anguish her son was experiencing as a result of that night, but she felt a sick, twisted pleasure in remembering how Rory’s brains had exploded onto the kitchen wall when he’d pulled the trigger. She only wished she’d been able to pull the trigger herself.

“Mom?”

She whirled around at the sound of her son’s voice.

“Hi baby!” she called and waved him over. “I saved your favorite seat!”

Liam favored the bench across from the little stream that ran through this garden. It was indeed a babbling brook with all the characteristics one would expect to see with that description. Bordered by sun dappled trees, perfectly rounded pebbles, brightly colored flowers, green moss, and this bench that gave a soothing view down into the picturesque scene. A person almost expected to see a deer arrive out of the trees to drink from the stream; but, as far as Faith knew the center hadn’t imported any animals yet, although they were probably considering it.

“Thanks mom,” Liam said and sat down.

He sat slowly, like an old man, and leaned back with a heavy sigh like his body hurt him. Faith watched him and sighed in frustration. When was he going to return to normal and be her happy, sensitive teenage boy again?

“How was therapy today?” She asked curiously.

She wondered what went on in those sessions. There were mandatory family sessions, but so far she hadn’t been a part of them. His doctors had told her that he was too fragile at the moment and they would let her know when her presence was required. For now, Liam sat in the family therapy with all the other families and just listened. It was supposed to make him realize that all families struggled with guilt and blame and he didn’t have to torture himself with his own family tragedies.

“Fine,” he said.

He rarely ever gave more than one word answers to her questions. At first she’d been thrilled to hear even one word from him. He’d slipped into a catatonic state for a couple of days after Rory’s suicide, and for those 48 hours Faith didn’t think she would ever hear her son speak to her again.

Now she’d be grateful for just a few more words added to his usual
responses. It felt as if he wasn’t making any progress when she heard him consistently answer her in monotone. What was he in here for if not to get better? And what better way to judge his improvement than by his answers?

“Do you have everything you need here honey?” She asked him, concerned.

“Yes,” he said. And leaned his head back gazing at the little brook.

She sighed and resigned herself to his silence. The doctors had told her that he blamed himself for all the tragedy they’d experienced over the past six months. The attack on his father, which had led to his murder. Her miscarriage of his little brother. The attack and attempted murder of him and his grandmother by Rory, who thought they were the one’s standing in the way of carrying on a relationship with Faith.

It was lunacy, but her son had always been overly sensitive and empathetic with the people in his life. He had taken on this burden like a second skin, and his doctors had been telling her that he was showing only small signs of improvement. Guilt was one of the heaviest burdens a person could bear, and a teenager naturally felt everything more intensely, it was the nature of that time of life. This was one of the heaviest weights her son could ever carry. She hoped he could find it himself to be strong enough.

“Mrs. Byrne?”

She looked up at the sound of her name to see a nurse clad in the Center’s uniform of classic khaki and sky blue walking over to where she and Liam sat.

“I’ll be right back honey,” she told Liam and got up to meet the nurse. He didn’t respond. She didn’t know why she always expected him to.

“Can I help you?” She asked the nurse, not unkindly. The staff at the Center were always unfailing polite and she admired the way they handled the teens, many of whom were volatile and all of whom were unstable.

“Doctor Barnes has asked that you stop by his office please,” the nurse told her with a polite, professional smile.

“Okay, thank you. I’ll stop by on my way out.”

“I’m sorry Mrs. Byrnes, the doctor would like to see you now.”

She looked at the nurse curiously. It wasn’t normal for Liam’s head doctor to call her into his office in the middle of a visit with her son. Something must be going on. She prayed it was good news, she didn’t think she could take any bad news.

“Fine, I’ll come now,” Faith agreed.

She walked over to Liam to let him know what was happening, and started to walk away through the grass. She only took a few steps before something made her turn around and look behind her.

Liam was talking to someone.

He sat alone on the bench, but his head was turned and he was chatting away in an excited conversation with someone sitting next to him. But there was no one there.

Alarmed she moved a little closer back toward him to try and hear what he was saying. The only words she could make out were, “Thanks for coming by Emily,” and she stopped dead in her tracks with surprise and revulsion.

Was her son’s invisible friend the same girl who had helped kill his father?

“I’m sorry Mrs. Byrne, but we can no longer continue to treat Liam at the Center with the constant press attention and public outcry,” Doctor Barnes said to her sternly.

She felt like a student being punished as she sat there in the leather chair he reserved for guests, surrounded by books and degrees. The whole atmosphere screamed ‘learned doctor,’ and she was feeling the intended effect, ‘intimidation.’

“But Dr. Barnes,” she protested, “the Center is set up to shield patients from the paparazzi. You admit dozens of well known children to your treatment programs. It’s one of the reasons we chose to send Liam here! Not to mention the world class medical help,” she added in an attempt to flatter him.

He simply gazed at her over his glasses. Obviously, he wasn’t in the mood to succumb to her flattery.

“Mrs. Byrne, we are proud to set the standard in juvenile mental health care for the United States, maybe even the world. And yes, we do treat the children of some of the world’s most well known celebrities and many of our patients are celebrities in their own right
, but the mild press attention those patients receive is nothing compared to the onslaught of paparazzi and fans that have followed your son here after the Rory Reynolds incident.”