Underestimated Too (30 page)

‘She’s dead?’ I asked, feeling like the wind had
been knocked out of me.

‘I don’t know. The bus driver got the fire out with
an extinguisher, but I heard the paramedics call for the
jaws of life.
’

‘Where the fuck are you?’ I knew I was close. I
could hear sirens.

‘North end of the boulevard, just south of East
Lake.’

‘I’m almost there.’ I hung up. This was what I
wanted all along. I always wanted Morgan to die. Morgan dying would solve all
my problems. Callaway couldn’t blame me. I wasn’t even with her. This was what
I wanted. Why the hell did I feel like I’d just lost a vital organ?”

I wanted to interrupt. I was the vital organ. Drew
was talking about me.

“The only thing showing in the little red Honda was
maybe two feet of the trunk,” Drew continued, staring blankly out the window,
ignoring me. “There was no way she survived. I slammed on the breaks, shut the
car off, and ran down the middle of the stopped traffic. I ignored the call
from the police officer, telling me to stay in my car.

Running right up to the rubbish, I was held back by
two more cops. ‘That’s my wife!’ I screamed, trying to get to her. Why was I so
adamant about getting to her? I didn’t care. Or so I kept telling myself.

‘You can’t go any closer. Let the paramedics do
their job.’

I watched as the car was cut in two, knowing for
sure she was dead when I saw the blood. There was so much blood. Nobody could
survive that. The two police officers asked me a million questions that I
didn’t know the answer to.

I hadn’t seen her in almost two years. I couldn’t
answer anything. Luckily, they took it as I was too shook up to comply. I
really couldn’t answer the questions. Why did she have a rental car? Was she
just visiting? She wouldn’t come back there to visit. She wasn’t that stupid. I
had just as many questions that I wanted answers to.

Morgan was in surgery for nine straight hours. I
still had my doubts that she’d pull through, and if she did she couldn’t be
right. There was no way. I saw the car. I saw the blood, and I wasn’t extremely
hopeful that she’d even pull through surgery.” Drew paused and swallowed
heavily. “I should have let you go. I shouldn’t have told Derik to chase you,”
Drew said with a shaky voice. He was really shook up by all this.

“I’m glad you didn’t
let me go,” I smiled. “Finish, Drew,” I beckoned, wanting to hear now.

“Callaway accused me,
‘You should have been with her.’ He was waiting right beside me for some news.

‘I tried to get her to come with me. She wanted to
wait until today. She wanted me to go ahead. I never would have let her had I
thought something like this would happen.’

‘Why are they speculating that she was running? Who
would she be running from?’

‘I have no idea,’ I lied, running my fingers through
my hair.

Callaway stayed right there until the doctor came
out looking exhausted. He explained that they managed to stop the bleeding in
her brain, but the swelling was rapid. He didn’t know her prognosis. It was too
soon to tell.

‘The next twenty four hours are going to be tricky,’
the doctor explained. ‘We’ll see what we’re dealing with tomorrow. I wish I
could give you more, but I can’t. We just don’t know yet,’ he apologetically clarified.

‘Can I see her?’ I asked.

‘They’re transporting her to ICU. Someone will let
you know when you can see her.’

I wasn’t sure how I’d react when I saw her. Waiting
alone after Derik took Callaway and left, I was sure time had stopped. I sat
there for another hour, waiting to see my wife for the first time in almost two
years. Would I feel sorrow, anger, remorse? I really didn’t know how I felt,
not until I was finally shown to her room.

The room smelled so clean, ozone lurked in the
sanitized air. Beeping noises filled the room, and she was wired to every
imaginable medical equipment you could think of. She didn’t even look like
Morgan. Beside the fact that she had a tube down her throat and her chest rose
and fell in unison with the sound of the machine breathing for her, she looked
dead. Her head was bandaged all the way around and her eyes were swollen shut.

‘There’s probably going to be significant swelling,
it’s part of the healing process,’ the nurse explained. I didn’t respond.
Walking closer to Morgan, I couldn’t speak. I wasn’t sure how I felt. It was a
mixture of emotions, but one that I did pick up on was anger. I was pissed off
at her. She shouldn’t have been there, laying there like that. She should have
been with me all along. She wouldn’t be in that predicament had she been with
me, where she belonged. What the hell was I saying? I should be happy she was
there. I should be praying for her death and jumping for joy at the thought of
burying her next to her father. She probably wouldn’t even make it through the
night.

I never left her that night. For whatever reason, I
didn’t want her to leave this earth alone. She’d always been alone. I felt the
need to stay with her, make sure if she did go, she wasn’t alone. Did I play
the concerned husband, holding her hand, kissing her, telling her how much I
loved her? No, I didn’t do that. That emotion was never really a part of me. I
don’t think I was born with an empathy trait.” Drew paused, lost in his own
head.

I couldn’t help it. I wiped the falling tear,
escaping from my right eye with the back of my hand. Drew was staying with me,
afraid I’d leave my life alone. It was the most beautifully saddest thing I’d
ever heard.

“I sat in the reclining vinyl seat in the corner.
The nurses demanded time and time again that I needed to leave. Intensive care
didn’t really allow twenty-four hours visitors. I didn’t care. I wasn’t
leaving.”

Sniff

“I sat quietly in the dark room, contemplating my
life. Hours passed while I listened to the sounds of medical equipment, having
an eerie feeling with death lingering in the air. If Morgan died, I could
pursue my life with Skyler. I was sure she’d be right there if she found out
that Morgan passed.

How would Morgan’s life have been, had Michael cared
enough about her to help her, take her or maybe even pay some child support so
she wasn’t forced to live the way she’d lived? How could any man leave his
child to be raised like that? I didn’t get it. For the first time, I wondered
what Michael’s life was like growing up. Was he abused by someone too? Was that
why he chose to abuse me?

I did more soul searching that night than I ever had
in my life, contemplating things I refused to think about, my mother for one.
Why did she allow Michael to treat her the way he had? What would she have done
had she found out what he was doing to me? I snickered and shook my head. She
wouldn’t have done anything. I remember being thirteen and begging her not to
make me go out of town with him for the weekend. I hinted every way I could
about being afraid of being alone with him. She scolded me, telling me to never
ever speak of such a thing again. That wasn’t even anything too sexual. He’d
just come to my bed in our hotel and fondle me. I always fell asleep on my
stomach, hoping he’d leave me alone. He didn’t.

I thought about how it made me feel to see my mother
broken and bruised because of him. I did those things to Morgan because of him.
I did unthinkable things, broke her, bruised her, and worst of all, I put her
here, struggling for her life.”

“Let’s wrap it up till next week,” Deidra softly
spoke.

Drew turned, like he was being pulled from a daze. I
stood when he walked to me, taking both my wrists. “I’m going to call you a
cab,” Drew said.

“No, Drew. I want to be with you,” I insisted I
didn’t want him to push me away. I wasn’t worried about him snapping. This
wasn’t that kind of emotion. This was pain. Drew was hurting, and I wanted to
be with him.

“Morgan, I just need to be alone for a bit. Please?”

“I have a suggestion,” Deidra interrupted. “How
about a drive? How about you don’t go to work and hide behind exertion? Take
Morgan for a drive, out of the city, somewhere quiet?”

I turned back to Drew, hoping he’d say yes. He
smiled a weak smile and ran the back of his hand down my cheek. “You want to go
for a drive?”

“Yes, I’d love that.” I smiled, feeling like we were
getting somewhere for the first time since we’d started seeing Deidra.

I couldn’t have been happier with my life. Well,
other than that stupid key hidden in the bottom drawer in my jewelry box. I
still couldn’t get that out of my mind. Drew knew the key was at the estate.
Why would he hide it there? There was something very mysterious about the whole
thing.

“You’re not leaving this house while I’m gone,” Drew
demanded, pulling me from my investigating mind and taking Nicky from my arms.

“Uh? Yeah, okay, I won’t,” I promised, watching
Nicholas giggle when his daddy tossed him to the air.

“What are you going to do?” Drew asked,

“I don’t know. Stick around here, I guess. We’ll
stay busy, uh, Nicky?”

“I’ll take you to the beach house when I get back on
Wednesday.”

“We have to see Deidra Thursday, but I would like to
go there.”

“We can miss one appointment.”

“No, we can’t. You were getting to a good part.”

“That’s not a good part. I’ve got to go. I’ll call
you later. Stay here,” Drew demanded again while handing me Nicky and pulling
close to rub my ass in a warning to heed to his commands. “I love you and you,”
he added to Nicky, kissing us both.

“I love you too,” I sighed, bored already, thinking
about him being gone for three days again. I couldn’t wait until he was down to
enough stores that kept him home. I didn’t want him running all over the world
anymore, and I didn’t want to be in bed without him.

Nicky and I sat on the shiny floor and shopped online
for some new clothes. I swear that boy grew every day. I hated it. I didn’t
want him to grow up. “You like that?” I asked him when he left the red truck
for the keyboard, pressing a whole line of letters. “Daddy wouldn’t like that,
he says that color makes you look like a sissy,” I said, removing him from
crawling across my keyboard.

My days were filled with Nicky and trying my best to
keep him on all fours. He was so closed to walking and I didn’t want him to. I
wanted Drew to be there to see it too. Every time he let go of whatever he was
holding onto, I grabbed him. He was ready, I could have easily gotten him to
take a couple steps. As much as I wanted to do that, I wanted to wait for Drew
more.

Drew actually saw him take his first step before I
did. I was running him bathwater when my phone rang. Nicky was standing by the
tub, trying to reach the water. I walked to the other side of the bathroom to
get him a towel when Drew stopped me.

“Morgan! Turn around.” I turned just in time to see
Nicky’s little naked butt move from the tub to the toilet in three wobbly
steps. Of course, his hands went right to the toilet water.

It wasn’t the memento I wanted of his first steps,
but at least Drew got to see it too.

***

I anticipated Thursday morning for days, thinking
about Drew describing my return, anxious to hear his feelings and thoughts
about my reappearance.

I talked first, explaining to Deidra and Drew about
coming out of the coma not knowing who anyone was, including myself.

Drew stood and walked away from us to face the
dumpster alley, resting his head on the windowsill. Drew began his story, “Five
weeks, I waited for this day. Five weeks I waited for her to wake from a coma.
Staring myself down in the mirror, I thought about how I was going to feel when
she was finally awake. The last few weeks wreaked havoc on my sanity. I was
feeling emotions and thinking about things I’d never thought about, ever. Could
I hang onto it when she opened her eyes and saw me? Did I want to?

‘You ready? Callaway is coming up the lane now,’
Derik asked, tapping on the door.

‘Why the hell is he even going? He can’t even be in
the room when they wake her,’ I complained, straightening my tie.

‘She’s his granddaughter. He wants to be there.’

‘Great. And we just have to arrive in a limo,’ I
grumbled again as the car pulled to the front door to pick Derik and me up.”

“Derik was there when I woke?” I asked,
interrupting.

“Yes, that was when I thought he was my friend,”
Drew replied without stopping. “I felt like I was waiting for my first born,
twisting my fingers, anticipating Morgan’s reaction when she saw me. What if
she freaked out? What if she blurted the whole truth and disclosed our hidden
past?

The remorseful feelings were asphyxiated quickly.
Morgan gagged and choked as the tube was removed from her throat. That was the
last stage of her being woken from her medically induced coma.

‘Maybe you should come a little closer. It might be
good for her to see a familiar face when she wakes,’ Dr. Tharp coaxed, as he
watched her confused expression.

Taking a step closer, I wasn’t sure what to do. I
didn’t know how to play this role, nor did I know what Morgan was going to do
when she woke. I wasn’t feeling sorry anymore, that’s for sure. Was she really
going to play this card? I wasn’t buying it for a second.