ROYAL (13 page)

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.

“Oh, sweetheart, there’s nothing to say. I’ve already
cleared everything with Principal McLean. You know she and I go way back. She’s
a very good friend of mine. She said she has a substitute filling in for you
through the end of the year, but she’ll go ahead and terminate your contract.
You won’t have to worry about going back after Christmas or next year. You can
focus
solely
on Brooks.” Brenda
smiles, patting his hand. “He’s going to need you, Demi—your
undivided
attention.”

Wonderful.

Just wonderful.

“I really love my job, Brenda,” I say. “You didn’t have to
do that. I wanted to go back. And we don’t know how long his recovery will
take. Don’t you think that was a little premature?”

“Nonsense.” She swats her hand. “You would’ve quit your job
anyway after the wedding. Brooks needs a woman of the house, and you’re worth
more than that paltry salary anyway. Your place is in the home. Abbott women
run households, and the only snotty noses we wipe are those of the children we
bear ourselves.”

Brenda’s lips pull into a warm smile to soften her crass
words. I can’t help but wonder if she knows exactly what she’s doing—if
the sweet space cadet thing is just an act. Maybe she’s one of those people
with a personality disorder who manipulate everyone around them without anyone
ever noticing.

All her quirks, all her idiosyncrasies . . . I’d always
written them off, laughed and joked about them.

But this is where I draw the line.

“Brenda, I really wish you wouldn’t have done that.” My eyes
burn. I feel the tears building behind them.

“Sweetheart, why are you so upset? I thought I was doing you
a favor. Teachers could lose their licenses for abandoning contracts. This way
you won’t have to deal with any negative fallout from not returning to your
job,” she says. “I was only trying to help.”

I’m two seconds from telling her about the credit cards he
charged up in my name when Derek waltzes in.

“I won’t stay long,” he says. “Just wanted to show my
support and check on our guy.”

Brenda rises, arms wide open, and embraces my brother. “I
appreciate your coming by, Derek. I’ll be sure to let Brooks know you were
here.”

She speaks as if he’s going to wake up any minute and life
will return to business as usual.

I hope to God he does wake up any minute.

And I hope he’s coherent, because as soon as he’s able, he’s
got a lot of explaining to do.

Plus, I want my job back before it’s too late. I
need
my job back.

When Derek leaves, Brenda points toward a chair that pulls
out into a bed. “Why don’t you get some rest, sweetheart? I’ll wake you if
there’s any activity. I know you won’t want to miss anything, and the Rixton
Falls Herald will be here in the morning to interview us.”

“Oh. I didn’t know anything about an interview. What if he’s
not awake by then?”

“It’s just an update,” she says. “That Afton has taken a
very keen interest in Brooks’s story.”

I find that impossible to believe. The girl’s questions were
trite and unoriginal, and she looked like she was two seconds from dying of
boredom when I saw her.

“Oh, okay.” I unfold the chair and make myself a little bed.
Not sure how much sleeping I’ll be doing tonight, but I’m going to try.

Something tells me tomorrow’s going to be a long day.

Royal

“Mona, open up.” I pound on the front porch door of my
biological mother’s saggy-roofed house. For as long as I can remember, she’s
lived in this hellhole, rotting floors and all.

We were extracted from her care when I was in first grade.
Misty was still in diapers. And ironically enough, when shit went down seven
years ago, Mona was the only one there for me. She came to my trial and visited
me in prison.

It’s the only reason I’m standing here, pounding on her
door, or giving her the time of day.

“Royal? That you?” The creak of her front door is followed
by the stench of cat piss and dirty litter boxes. “Hey, baby, come on in.”

I show myself in. Mona’s in a yellow mu mu with Hawaiian
flowers. She waddles to the living room and plops down, all five hundred pounds
of her, and lifts her remote to pause her show.

“Ain’t seen you in a good while, Son,” she says. Mona grins
with a mouthful of pearly whites. Those are new. Must’ve finally gotten those
dentures.

I hate when she calls me Son. Like we’re family. I mean, we
are, by blood, but where was she all those years I was shipped around from
foster family to foster family? I’m convinced the only reason she reappeared in
my life at nineteen was because she’d finally gotten cleaned up and realized
she had no one left.

She had no choice but to try to make amends.

Out of everyone, she believed me when I told her I was
innocent. Or at least, she said she did.

“Did you tell Misty where I live?” I stand in the middle of
her living room. Every time I sit for too long, I leave here smelling like
death and can’t get the smell out of my nose for days.

Mona’s moon-shaped face scrunches, and when she shakes her
head, her chins flop.

“No, baby,” she says. “Misty knows better than to ask me
that.”

“She showed up at my place,” I say. “Wanted me to take her
in off the streets.”

Mona rolls her eyes. “What’s she doing on the streets? Rick
kick her out?”

“She said Rick died.”

Mona’s small mouth hangs, and she lifts a pudgy couple of
fingers to her lips like I’ve just delivered tragic news.

“Your sister is troubled.” Mona states what we both know to
be the indisputable truth. She hasn’t had much to do with Misty since
everything went down seven years ago, but I think she wishes she could bring us
all together again. One little, happy family.

Never going to happen.

“Where’d she go?” Mona asks.

I shrug. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

She clucks her tongue, tilting her head and exhaling. She’s
so loud when she breathes. The doctors want her on oxygen, but she’s refusing
until it’s absolutely necessary.

“Might be time to start forgiving and forgetting, Royal,”
she wheezes. “How long you going to hold onto that night?”

I stare into her beady eyes, my shoulders heaving with each
drag of a breath. The fact that she has the audacity to suggest such a thing is
infuriating.

“That night,” I say, “cost me everything. I’ll never
forget.”

I’m not sticking around.

I move to the door, turn back, and look at Mona one more
time.

“I wish I could,” I say.

“Baby, people change all the time. You two are both young.
I’m not going to be around forever, and someday when I’m gone, all you’ll have
is each other,” she says. “I’m just saying, don’t write your sister off forever
because of one little mistake she made at fifteen.”

“Little?” I spit the word at her. “
Little
?”

“You know what I mean, Royal.”

With that, I’m gone. I don’t trust myself to not say
horrible things, hurtful things I can never take back. How fucking dare Mona
lecture me on family? Of all people. The woman who left her kids to feast on canned
cat food after a four-day casino binge. The woman who let CPS remove her
children and didn’t once try and stop them.

She’s lucky I’ve forgiven her.

But I’ll
never
forgive Misty.

Never.