6. Kennedy
Kennedy
CHAPTER SIX
Days later
Gardening has become a way to control my anxiety. I've been reading a lot about babies—yes, I still refer to King that way, even though he's a toddler now—and I've learned that they absorb everything we feel. Children are sensitive and capable of picking up on our emotions, so to avoid obsessively hovering over him even while he sleeps, which is the case now, I divide my attention between researching the criminal case I'm facing, taking care of my boy, and gardening.
The uncertainty about every aspect of my life has stolen my sleep.
The fear of not being able to raise my son tops the list of my nightmares, but there are other enormous fears as well, like finding out that Hades Kostanidis is his father when I don't even remember us having a relationship.
What will become of my little boy, whose mother, aside from possibly being convicted, is hated by his father?
What if it's proven that Hades is King's father, but he still denies his own son?
I don't realize I'm gripping a flower's thorn until blood starts dripping from my finger, staining the pink petals.
I close my eyes, feeling its texture as I try to calm down, but then suddenly, I hear footsteps behind me, and somehow I know it's him.
How is it possible that even though I don't remember the man, I can feel Hades Kostanidis' presence so intensely?
For a brief moment, I don't turn around. I don't know what to do or why he's here, but I force myself to remember he's not a friend or even a neutral bystander. The man hates me.
I turn to face him and take a few steps back, unable to hide my fear. "What are you doing here? You can't enter our property. It's private, and if you lay a finger on me, I'll scream."
For a second, I see surprise in his eyes. Then something I can't define, something that resembles pain, but of course, it must be my imagination.
Hades Kostanidis wants to lock me away, if possible, forever.
God, he had to show up today when Ernest is away and said he won't be back until tonight?
"I'm serious. Leave. If you harm me, you'll go to prison. The same place where you want me to spend the rest of my days."
Hades
I know I shouldn't be here, but from the moment Ares told me Kennedy is a mother and questioned whether there's a chance I could be the father, I knew I'd come.
Not because I think the child is mine. There's no way. We never got that far. But maybe, as part of the hell I'm living, a masochistic side of me wanted to confirm that everything Pam said about Kennedy being with Ryan, even though she herself denied it, was true.
There's no explanation for how insane I went imagining her giving birth to someone else's child, carrying them in the belly where mine should have been, but nothing prepared me for the fear in her eyes—fear of me—as if she believed I could harm her or the boy.
"I don't hurt women or children."
I see her eyes widen. "How do you know about my son?"
"What difference does that make?"
"You're right. It doesn't matter. Now leave, or I'll call the police. I don't believe anything you say, just like you don't believe I've lost my memory and think I helped kill your ward. As far as I know, you want me dead. Maybe you won't stop until you get what you want. I don't trust your word, Hades Kostanidis. I found out you've been paying that psychiatrist since I woke up from the coma to evaluate me. You wanted to catch me lying, to confirm my amnesia was a sham, but know that I'd give anything to remember because I can't even defend myself from what—” She stops speaking and screams. Her face, still as beautiful as before, contorts in pain. "Oh my God!"
"What's wrong?" I ask, taking a step closer.
"I think . . . I was stung by a bee," she says, bending over and grabbing her ankle. Despite clearly suffering, she extends her other hand, trying to push me away. "Go away, I don't need your help. Stay away from me and my King."
For the first time in my life that I can remember, I feel lost. "King? Is that his name?"
"Yes, now please leave, sir. I don't know what you expected coming here, but I still don't remember anything. I'm sorry I can't give you answers, but . . .ohhhhhh, Jesus! I'm having an allergic reaction."
I notice her arms, legs, neck, and face are starting to turn red and swell. Ignoring the fact that we hate each other, I pick her up and start walking towards the house.
"I'll call an ambulance," I say, laying her carefully on the sofa.
As I grab my phone, I hear a child crying.
I have nephews; I know how they sound when they're upset.
"Where is he?" I ask Kennedy, noticing her allergic reaction is worsening, but seeing from her look that she doesn't want me near her son. "I won't hurt him, Kennedy. I'll wait until the ambulance arrives and stay with him until you return from the hospital."
"No!" she says, crying, but her eyes are unfocused, and I think she doesn't even know what she's protesting against anymore.
The child cries again, and she points to a hallway.
As I walk there, the response I get on the phone is that the ambulance won't arrive for at least half an hour. Judging by Kennedy's condition, she won't be able to wait that long. I decide I'll take her there myself.
I open the door to a room and come face-to-face with the little boy, standing and staring at me. The crying stops instantly, but he doesn't smile.
"Hey, buddy, we need to take your mom to the hospital."
I pick him up, and he rears his head back, still looking at me intently. Something in his expression feels familiar, but perhaps that's because I've memorized every feature of his mother’s face.
"Does he have a car seat?" I ask Kennedy when I return to the living room with her son in my arms.
She points to a door, this time in the opposite direction of the hallway. "Yes," she groans, her forehead covered in sweat. "There, in the coat closet."
King struggles to go to his mother and starts crying when I don't let him.
"I'm sorry, little man. Your mom can't hold you right now."
When I return to the living room, already holding the car seat, Kennedy is standing, though she seems to wobble on her feet.
"Help me," she asks. "And don't lose sight of King. Ernest won't be back until tonight. Hate me for the rest of my life, Hades Kostanidis, but please take care of my son until I'm well again."
"Nothing will happen to either of you."
"I can't take your word for it, but I'll do this," she says, seeming on the verge of passing out.
"Mommy!" King cries out.
"Don't close your eyes, Kennedy. I'll secure him in the car and come back for you."
Less than two minutes later, I'm back, picking her up in my arms. When we reach the car, she says almost in a whisper, "Let me sit in the back with him."
The vulnerable Kennedy wasn't what I expected when I came here.
"You'll be fine." I sit her next to her son and fasten her seatbelt.
I get in the car and type the address of the nearest hospital into my phone. I look in the rearview mirror and notice that despite her condition, she's trying to calm her son down.
I drive like a madman. When I finally leave the car haphazardly at the hospital's entrance, I don't wait for a stretcher or wheelchair. I take King out of the car seat and put an arm around Kennedy's waist, practically carrying them both as I enter the hospital.
"She was stung by bees and is having an allergic reaction," I say, and the receptionist picks up the phone and calls someone. Soon, two nurses approach us.
"I forgot the insurance card Ernest got for me."
"Don't worry about that," I say as I watch a nurse inject something into her.
"I don't want any favors from you. I'll be eternally grateful to you for bringing me here, but now I need you to let Ernest know to come take care of my son. He'll worry if he comes home and doesn't find us."
Ernest Wich, her protector and a kind of father figure to her. I researched him as soon as he became a constant in Kennedy's life, after she moved to New York to be with Vina and Pam. For years, he was a senator's driver, and then, suddenly, he moved to Louisiana, into the house next door to Kennedy, and started monitoring her every breath.
Ernest disappeared around the same time Kennedy did, and I have no doubt he was with her. When she woke up from the coma, the elderly man was the first person I tried to talk to, hoping to get information to help the prosecution, but it didn't take me long to realize I was hitting a concrete wall because even though all evidence pointed to Kennedy helping Ryan kill Pam, Ernest Wich was a staunch defender of her.
"I'll let him know."
"Do you have his number?"
"I still remember everything about you, Kennedy."
She looks at me with fear, although my intention wasn't to threaten her.
"Sir, are you her husband?" one of the nurses asks. "Someone needs to fill out the admission paperwork."
I hope Kennedy will deny it, but when I look at her, I see she has lost consciousness. "Will she be okay?"
"We believe so. We've given her an injection to neutralize the venom."
Consciously, I know Kennedy is not my problem, but I still can't move. I don't want to leave her side.
"Sir, about the paperwork?"
Instantly, and for the first time, King wraps his little arms around my neck and lays his head on my shoulder.
"I'll do it," I say to the man.