The Sweet Under His Skin (26 page)

He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose at the onset of a headache. The kind of headache that you get because of an urge to beat your head against a brick wall just to reset your circuits.

The doctor that had been checking on Calvin's mom saw them coming, finished talking to a nurse and set her on her way before facing him.

"Mister Bayle," she said, instantly on edge from his constant pestering. "I can't tell you anything. You know this. I can only release medical information to a family member."

"I don't want details," he nearly cut her off. "This is her kid. He wants to see her."

The doctor blinked a couple times, eyes sliding down to Calvin, who pushed his broken glasses up his nose to look back at her, holding Quentin's hand right close to his body.

"Oh," the doctor said, taken by surprise.

"And her sister is here now, too. You can fill her in on what's going on."

The doctor nodded business-like. "All right. Let's go. Uh…I'm Doctor Sarin," she said brightly, hands on her knees as she stooped down eye-level with the kid. "What's your name?"

"I'm Calvin," he said with a sniffle, and Quentin squeezed his hand to let him know it was all okay. The doctor saw it as she straightened up. Something in her face got a bit softer, but Quentin wasn't in a mood to stew on that. They followed the doc down the corridor to Calvin's mom's room, and now Aunt Arielle was standing next to Thelma, who was quite surprised to see Quentin.

"Okay," Doctor Sarin said, getting into bedside manner mode. "Who would like to see her first?"

"Calvin," Quentin said, pushing his way into the role of authority figure. With the way that little hand was gripping his he'd be damned if the kid was waiting a single second to see his mom. He looked down to Calvin's up-turned face. "You want Aunt Arielle or Aunt Thelma with you, buddy?"

"You," Calvin said pathetically, clutching his hand tighter again.

"Nah man, they're family—"

"You," he repeated sternly, his tone sounding a lot like Aunt Arielle when she way laying down the law.

Quentin checked with Thelma and Arielle silently. Arielle's eyes were watering up, but Thelma was nodding. "Go ahead, Quentin. We'll wait right out here."

Quentin was cool with the idea right up until that door closed behind them. One look at the form on the bed and he had a really bad feeling. A machine was breathing for her. That was never a good sign. A monitor was beeping along with her heart, and a huge tube was taped to her mouth, shoved down her throat to force air into her lungs. Wires were running into the hospital gown all over. And it was quiet in that room. There were no chairs. The only thing the family could really do in this situation was say a few words, pray, and leave, because there wasn't a lot going on with the person taking up the space.

Quentin had been hanging outside the room on and off the past day and a bit. Calvin's mom only got here because Colton called in an anonymous 911 on her, the rest of Dead Men taking the dealer-shit stain with them. Then Quentin started hanging out, wondering if this Reuben bastard was the kind to kill to collect on a debt.

He heard the doctors; he knew she was pretty fucked-up. They were worried about brain function. And like he'd noticed, she wasn't breathing on her own. To Quentin it seemed like they were basically keeping her around to ask the family if they should yank the power cord. Quentin wasn't going to say that, though.

Calvin let go of his hand and approached the bed, on the side his mom's face was sort of tilted towards. He was taking careful steps and made no noise, he just stood against the rails, hands resting on them lightly, chewing his lip.

"Mom?" the kid whispered, and Quentin had to turn around. He pressed his finger and thumb into the corner of his eyes, fighting down the sting that had suddenly kicked in. What was this now? Christ. He should check a calendar and see if he was getting his period or something.

"It's okay. I know you love me. I love you, too. But I'm going to be okay."

Nope, jamming up his eyes didn't help. Quentin's nose prickled, and he felt water squeeze around his fingers despite his attempt to stop it. He took a few steadying breaths, jumping a bit when he felt Calvin take his hand again. He wiped his eyes and sniffed a couple times, swiping at his nose, too.

"You all right, kid?" Quentin asked, like he wasn't the one springing leaks all over.

Calvin nodded, his lip trembling. "I feel bad," he shared on a whisper. "I wasn't even worried about where she was."

Quentin crouched down to his heels, turning Calvin to face him. "Listen Charlie, I don't know what to do here. I don't know what to tell you. All I know is, you're right. You're gonna be fine. You got two ladies outside who'll tear down walls to keep you safe. They care about you so much."

"And you?" the kid whispered next.

"Of course, little man. I'm absolutely, hundred percent here for you. I know, sometimes the girls can be tough to be around."

Calvin nodded. "This is going to be bad for Aunt Arielle."

Quentin put his hand on the kid's head, giving his hair some rough treatment. "You know what though? Aunt Arielle's a grown up, so you don't worry for her too much, okay? She's tough. And the thing about being a kid is the adults that care about you are worrying about you. That's our job, okay? You don't have to worry about us, buddy." Calvin nodded and pushed his glasses up. Again, Quentin was pissed they were still broken. "You need to talk, you come see me, okay?" Quentin said, reinforcing what he'd been telling Calvin all along.

"I will," Calvin promised, taking his hand again. Quentin figured he was okay and stood, letting the kid lead the way to the door. He wasn't going to force him out.

When the door opened Quentin realized Calvin wasn't the one he really had to worry about.

The look on Arielle's face struck him deep; she was not going to be okay. At all.

Chapter
Seventeen

Cyclophosphamide. Kills T-cells. Also causes nausea, vomiting, bone marrow suppression, diarrhea, darkening of the nails and skin, hair loss and lethargy.

Doxorubicin is an anthracycline antibiotic, also known to cause heart damage.

Fluorouracil causes cancer cells to commit suicide. It can also screw up your liver.

Arielle knew the names of the poisons making up the cocktail being drip-fed into her arm. Somehow none of it mattered, because somewhere in this hospital her little sister was in a coma, maybe even a vegetable. And Arielle couldn't make it better.

Arielle had wept to see the state Jolene was in; skin and bone, bruises all over. Quentin told her Jolene was handcuffed to a radiator on a mattress in a nasty apartment. She owed drug dealers money, and she'd OD'd on heroin. No one could confirm if Jolene had been raped. Apparently there was bruising, but no way to know for sure until she opened her eyes and said the words. Arielle was nearly sick at the thought of her little sister being hurt that way.

It all came back to the little sister part. Arielle was supposed to take care of Jolene. And she hadn't.

Undergoing her sixth visit to the chemo room, Arielle was struck by how depressing the place was. They tried to make it nice. There were flowering potted plants everywhere, the drugs were administered while you sat in big, comfortable recliners. Contemporary music was playing on the speakers. But it was all room spray over a big stink. Everyone here was dying.

Thelma and Calvin were up in Jolene's room 'visiting'. Thelma would talk to her for their 'drop-in', Calvin would silently hold Jolene's limp hand. Everyone was on standby, waiting to happen, paused like they'd been dipped in concrete and were now stuck this way.

It made Arielle insane. At first, yes, she'd been distraught but now she was pissed off. This was Jolene. This was so Jolene it almost made Arielle laugh. But she couldn't, because she was sick all the time and exhausted and basically resigned to the fact that all this chemical torture was actually going to kill her. And the two people who still cared about her were almost unreachable now. Calvin shut down because Arielle was sick and Aunt Thelma was beside herself with worry for Jolene. Arielle felt she had no right to make them look at her and demand that they feel sorry for her.

And Arielle wanted Quentin.

She closed her eyes, feeling tears well up. The neighbor was still Calvin's best friend, and as the women in his life fell apart Calvin basically lived at Quentin's. The 'no going inside the house' rule was completely dissolved by this point, and many times the two of them just spent an evening watching TV. Arielle trusted that they weren't watching anything past a PG-13 rating, but…what the hell did she know? The only time she saw her neighbor was when he'd carry a fully-asleep Calvin back to her house, tuck him in bed then leave with just a quiet and indifferent "Goodnight."

Quentin didn't come over and say hi. He didn't tell her she was beautiful anymore. He never leered at her or gave her those blatant physical appraisals. He was a polite and cordial man living next door, and it hurt her.

Arielle could all but see the walls going up around herself. She'd done a great job cutting everyone out of her life. And a big part of her was waiting, or hoping, that Quentin was going to just tell her she was being a self-pitying idiot and needed to smarten up. But he wasn't around. Not around her anyway. She missed him; with an ache she missed seeing him, garnering his attention.

Thankfully Arielle had these dates every two to three days to look forward to. Just her and her IV drip. Good times. At least this was the end of a course and she'd have a couple of weeks to recover now.

When she was done and ready to curl up in a ball and mope for a good ten hours, Arielle wandered to ICU and found Thelma and Calvin. Thelma gave her shit for not waiting, but Arielle was willing to bet her aunt didn't even know how much time she'd spent there hoping for a sign that Jolene was home and the lights might be coming back on.

Thelma took them both back to Arielle's house, then decided Calvin needed a treat. Ice-cream. So Arielle headed straight to bed, pulling on flannel pants and a T-shirt, curling up in a ball and waiting to get sick. It happened every time.

She could tell by the way her clothes fit she was losing weight alarmingly fast. Even her elastic-waist flannel pajama bottoms slid down her hips. When she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at herself and forcing herself to accept the missing breast, she noticed that her ribs were showing. Even her shoulders looked bony. It had started during radiation and hadn't stopped. She was shrinking. Fading.

That very morning when she'd been washing her hair it was the first time she noticed the clumps coming away from her scalp on her hands. She'd stared at the proof as the shower washed her hair away, tears filling her eyes. That was it. The beginning of a very quick slope downward.

She couldn't even muster the energy to get worked up over it. Half the time she felt bad she was taking up manpower and materials at the chemo ward, wishing she could donate them to someone with no coverage who actually wanted to live. Not that Arielle was wishing for death: she just wasn't so attached to life most days, just haunting through life.

Like a ghost.

She never told a soul about this. For a day after treatment Thelma and Calvin would just give her a wide berth out of respect for her side effects, then she'd make herself smile and carry on the best she could.

Arielle heard cars outside, and she wished for the first time in a while that she was back at Thelma's. She could live the rest of days there, out in the nature of silence. Even midday was incredibly peaceful on the farm. But once Jolene was found and admitted to the hospital they'd packed up and came back to Portus Felix. They'd lived around the construction workers who got the bathroom completed in admirable time, and Arielle wished she was more excited to have a bathtub again. Since then she'd started the chemical treatments and life kept flying by without her. In her more piteous moments she would sulk and think to herself that Thelma was more worried about the comatose drug-addict than Arielle, but that was ridiculous. She was just being selfish.

Arielle squeezed her eyes shut and breathed evenly, hoping if she was very still she might just be able to sleep and maybe not get sick on this one. Like the radiation; she got used to that over time. Maybe chemo would be the same.

Shouting voices could be heard through the single-pane windows of the house. When they didn't stop, she got up with quite a bit of annoyance and stomped, sort of, down the hallway to the living room. Through the picture window she saw a car pulled up haphazardly to the curb in front of her house. She recognized the uniform of the four guys out front—white tank tops, saggy jeans and a lot of tattoos—as what the guys Quentin had fought outside their houses had been wearing.

Her stomach clenched up when she realized the four men were clustered around an older man on the sidewalk, his arm still holding onto the car door that had obviously been wrenched open to pull him out of the vehicle. The four men were taking turns kicking him. In the ribs, in the chest, and when she saw a kick connect with his face she cried out, then covered her mouth.

Of course they didn't hear it, but she bit her lip anyway as she dove for the cordless phone. She was about to call 911 when her fingers froze.

Where you're living now, the cops only come to one out of three calls. We have a way of dealing with this kind of thing.

Quentin's words came back to her.
He
always came back to her. So instead of dialing 911 she grabbed the phone directory and flipped pages, thankful Calvin was so inquisitive about Quentin's life. She found the number for Hell Raiser’s bar and dialed. It rang four times and she was losing hope before she heard a familiar voice.

"Hell Raiser’s bar," a familiar voice answered.

Arielle frowned. "Is this…Mandy?"

"Who is this?"

Arielle shot a look outside. The man was on the ground, not moving to defend himself. "It's Arielle. There are drug dealers in front of my house beating a guy up."