Chapter 30
He spent only a few minutes gathering up more clothing, books, and toys for Andrew’s indefinite stay with him.
As he moved around the room, Andrew stayed on his heels, as though afraid Mitch would disappear.
His boy appeared to be all right, but it had been a sideways morning. He had to be feeling some insecurity.
To reassure him, he knelt down and clasped Andrew to him and tried to devise a way to tell him how much he loved him, how essential he, his well-being, his happiness, were to him, but Andrew wouldn’t understand the concepts. Dylan’s concepts, he realized.
So he set Andrew away from him and whispered conspiratorially, “Hey, want to see my boo-boo?”
Andrew nodded.
“Are you sure you’re ready for it? It’s a doozy.”
Andrew nodded even more enthusiastically. Mitch raised his shirt, being careful not to lift the back of it to expose his holstered pistol.
As expected, Andrew was awed and impressed by the incision. “These are bandages, see?” Mitch said. “They’re holding my skin together. You can touch one, but be easy.” Andrew barely made contact with the closure.
“What I need,” Mitch said gravely, “is for you to help me get it healed up. Remember when you cut your finger, and I had to keep medicine and Band-Aids on it?” Andrew held up the formerly injured finger. “Right. See? It got well. Now it’s your turn to help me get my tummy well.
“And while you’re helping, it’s Froot Loops every day for breakfast. Do we have a deal?” Mitch raised his hand, and Andrew high-fived it. “Good. Now, grab that bucket of cars, and I’ll get the suitcase, and let’s go find Dylan.”
They found her in the living room, standing in front of the fireplace, looking at pictures lined up on the mantel: Angela as a baby, as an adolescent in a soccer uniform, kneeling with him at the wedding altar, and beside him at the baptismal font holding Andrew in her arms.
Andrew, distracted with retrieving all the cars that had fallen out of the overloaded plastic bucket, didn’t see Dylan’s poignant expression as she turned to Mitch and said gruffly, “What a beautiful woman. What a beautiful family.”
He walked over and looked at the pictures, although he had spent hours staring at them while steeped in sorrow and pledging revenge. “They robbed her of our family, stole her from us, ended her life. Can you understand now why I want to see them suffer and die?”
“I’ve always understood the why of it, Mitch.” She glanced over at Andrew, who was in conversation with one of the semi trucks in his collection. Coming back to him, she said, “But are you willing to pay what getting vengeance may cost you?”
He held her troubled gaze until Andrew announced that he had to pee-pee.
Mary was sitting in a chair by Hank’s bedside in the cardiac ICU when Mitch walked in. Hank was asleep. His right hand was crisscrossed with tape to hold in the IV shunt. Mary held it in her palm while, with her other hand, she was stroking his arm.
Sensing Mitch’s presence, she turned her head. “They let you in? It’s only supposed to be one visitor at a time.”
“I talked my way.”
She gave a weak smile. “I’m sure. Thank you for coming.”
“As if I wouldn’t.” He walked over, she turned up her cheek to him, and he kissed it. As he straightened up, he kept his hand on her shoulder. “It had to have been scary for you.”
“Oh, Mitch,” she sighed. “I thought he was going to die right there on the kitchen floor.”
He pressed her shoulder. “But he didn’t. Give me the skinny on his condition.”
She gave him a rundown of the standard tests. “The cardiologist suspects several arterial blockages. If he’s right, and since Hank has already had an ‘episode,’ the doctor recommends that they be corrected as soon as possible.”
“Surgery?”
“The procedures haven’t been fully explained to us yet.” She looked up and behind him. “Please turn that down. It’s so irritating.”
She’d referred to the TV mounted on the wall, where the King of Cash was sermonizing on the merits of his law firm. “You can’t escape that jerk,” Mitch said as he reached for the remote control lying on the bed tray and muted the TV.
To his surprise, Hank said, “I was watching that ball game.” He opened his eyes and smiled up at Mitch. “But it’s a replay of last night’s game, and the Astros lost by five, so it’s just as well.”
Mitch pretended to be stunned and affronted. “All the drama you caused, I thought you’d be a lot sicker.”
“He is sicker,” Mary said.
“I didn’t even stop for breakfast,” Mitch said. “Busted my ass to get here.”
His performance got a smile out of Hank, who said, “You put Mrs. Gibbons in a right tizzy.”
Mitch looked at Mary, who said, “She called, said you took Andrew without so much as a how-dee-do.”
“I didn’t owe her a how-dee-do. I owed her my thanks, which I extended more than once. But I wanted to get Andrew out of there and make sure he was okay. He had to have been confused, possibly even frightened, by all that was going on and the suddenness of the two of you not being around.”
Mary sighed. “I tried not to show how frantic I was. But I’m sure he picked up on it. I did my best, Mitch.”
“I’m confident of that. But Andrew needs me now.”
“Betty Gibbons is very capable.”
“I’m sure she’s capable of getting on and off the commode without assistance, but I doubt she’s capable of chasing an energetic little boy around that greenhouse she lives in.”
Hank said, “Please, don’t you two start. And, Mary, you know he’s right about Betty’s house. If only her disposition was that warm,” he added under his breath.
Mitch said, “Forgive my remark about the commode. Last thing y’all need is me spouting off. I wasn’t questioning your judgment, Mary. You did what you had to do in an emergency situation, and it was kind of your neighbor to take on responsibility for Andrew.”
Mary acknowledged his apology with a nod. “She told me you had someone with you.”
He hadn’t seen that coming, and it threw off his timing.
“Uh, yeah. Her name is Dylan Reede. She’s a psychologist.” Usually so glib, he could think of nothing to say unless they wanted to hear about Dylan’s last orgasm in the shower.
“I… I didn’t know what all Andrew had witnessed or how traumatizing it might have been, so I thought Dr. Reede could be helpful. ”
“She’s a child psychologist?” Mary asked.
“Uh, no. Just regular. But real smart.” He hitched his thumb over his shoulder. “She’s looking after Andrew downstairs in the lobby. When I left them, he was acquainting her with his new Nikes.”
“You’re taking him to Auclair.”
“Yes, Mary, I am.”
“How will you handle having him underfoot?”
“How will you? You can’t while being here with Hank around the clock as I know you want to be.”
“But your work—”
“I’ll figure it out. I’m sure Beth will volunteer to help. I’m taking him,” he said with finality.
Looking resigned, Mary stood up. “I want to tell him goodbye, and I had better do it now before they come to take Hank for the angiogram.”
Mitch shook his finger at Hank. “Cooperate. Do what they tell you. Don’t be a pain in the ass. Honey always attracts more flies. And pretty nurses.” He winked, and his father-in-law winked back. “Anything I can do for you before I go?”
Giving Mitch a meaningful look, he said, “Stay for a minute longer.”
Mary, who had already walked toward the door, turned back and hesitated. Mitch said, “I’ll be right down. Andrew pitched camp there by the aquarium.”
She nodded and said to her husband, “Have the nurse text me if they come for you.” Hank gave her a thumbs-up. She left them.
Mitch sat down in the chair she’d occupied and asked bluntly, “Okay, gloves off. How are you doing?”
“I feel like shit.”
“Well, you scared the shit out of us.” Then, “Hey, all this…” He gestured to include the cannula, the IV pole, the blinking, bleeping monitors, “… is nerve-wracking to us. But these ICU people do this every day. So what intimidates the hell out of us is routine for them. Do you trust your cardiologist?”
“Seems okay. He might be old enough to shave.”
Mitch smiled. “Better that than some old fart.” Mitch clamped him on the shoulder. “If you have to undergo some corrective procedures, this scare will have been worth it. You’ll feel a lot better. The episode this morning will have been a blessing.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in blessings anymore.”
“For you, I’m hedging my bets.”
Hank smiled before turning serious again. “Listen, son, Mary puts up a strong front, especially around you. But she’s a lot more fragile than she lets on. Losing Angela…” Tears filled the older man’s eyes, and Mitch took pity on him.
“You don’t have to say anything more, Hank. If something happens to you, be it tomorrow or twenty years from now, I’ll be there for Mary. You don’t have to ask me.”
He paused to consider how he was going to say what he felt needed to be said.
“Also, just so you know, I’m never going to give over guardianship of Andrew.
As recently as this week, Mary led me to believe she’d been thinking along those lines.
It’s not gonna happen. For as long as I’m alive, Andrew is one hundred percent mine. ”
“She gets crosswise and may throw out hints to that effect, but she would never go through with it. She knows, just as I do, that Angela would want him with you.”
“I’m certain of that, too.” Mitch held out his fist, and Hank bumped it with his. “Hang in there. Mary will keep me updated, and I’ll be checking in. See you soon.”
As he was stepping out of the elevator on the ground floor, he met Mary about to board. They moved aside and gave up the elevator to others who were waiting. Mary looked weepy. “I hated saying goodbye.”
“I’ll try to keep Andrew so busy he won’t miss you too much.
” He looked beyond her to where Andrew and Dylan were methodically picking up the cars he’d been playing with and replacing them in the bucket.
Andrew held one up for Dylan’s inspection; she smiled approvingly and pointed to one of the model’s features and asked him a question.
“Mrs. Gibbons told me she was pretty.”
He shifted his gaze back to Mary and dropped his smile when he realized how sappy it must look. “Pardon?”
“Is it serious?”
He glanced at Dylan, then came back to Mary. “What? Her and me? No. Hell, no. We really just met a few days ago.”
Mary gave him that look that a woman gives a man when she knows he’s being less than honest. He said, “You need to get back to Hank.”
She nodded. “Give me a hug.” As they hugged, she said, “We love you, Mitch.”
“I love you, too.”
“We worry about you.”
“I worry about me, too,” he said, then cracked a smile.
She sighed and flapped her hand at him. The elevator door opened, and she stepped inside. Then, as though suddenly remembering, she said, “Andrew said something about a boo-boo?”
“My neck.” He touched the red mark left by the cut from the broken gin bottle. “You saw it on Sunday. It’s almost gone now.”
As the elevator door slid closed, she gave him another one of those looks.