Chapter 10
Jaxon woke up the next morning, not sure if he should feel optimistic that Keisha had called him yesterday or depressed that she had only called him because she needed help with Kelly.
At least Keisha had called him, but, on the other side of things, it didn’t seem to help his situation as her husband much.
Still, he wouldn’t sit here and get angry when she had needed somebody and when he had been the one she called.
Plus, he had been available, so he’d gone.
At the same time, it had been good to see her and good to talk to her, just as normal human beings.
It also let him see a little bit of her side of the story.
What he did see was what he’d seen before, and the fact that she was completely stressed over Kelly was an untenable situation and would be long-term, but he hadn’t approached it very well, not realizing just how strong that sisterly bond had been.
Yet it wasn’t so much a bond as much as it was guilt, at least that was his fear.
Something was eating Kelly over this whole thing, and it wasn’t an easy subject to broach with Keisha because she’d never been willing to talk to him about Kelly.
When Keisha had given him the ultimatum to move out, he’d been devastated, but, in the typical fashion of those in his world, he had grabbed his few belongings and had gone quickly without a word.
The divorce papers had followed almost immediately.
As he left, he hadn’t seen Kelly at all, but he could almost hear her cheering the demise of his marriage as he left the house.
And yet, when it came to Keisha calling and requesting help, he hadn’t even hesitated because that’s just who he was.
Not necessarily a good thing at this point in time, what with the divorce pending, but he was happy to help.
It was hard though. How did you not help people whom you loved?
And he still loved her; that wasn’t the question.
He’d come home to her, thinking this was his home, only to find out that it wasn’t his home at all.
It was her home—and her sister’s home. It had never been his home, not really.
It was all about Kelly, and that wouldn’t be something Keisha liked hearing either.
It was a tough situation, and he hadn’t handled it the best way himself.
He got up, his thoughts heavy as he walked downstairs to the kitchen. He immediately tucked up to the big dining table, realizing that everybody seemed to be here already, and a meal was already being served. “I guess I slept in,” he muttered, looking around. “Sorry about that.”
Timber looked over at him and shook his head. “No need to apologize. We’ve all been on the go, no matter who and where we are,” he noted, with a laugh.
“Yeah, and there seems to be no end to it.”
“That’s true. So how is her sister doing?”
Jaxon frowned. “She had apparently fallen, and they kept her at the hospital for quite a while, for observation and some treatments. … I’m not sure I even want to know what those were. I’m sure it was nothing good, since she’s paralyzed.”
“Yeah, particularly if she’s not maintaining her medications,” Timber added. “I’ve seen more than a few people do that, either as a way to get attention or because depression had set in. All because they just didn’t see any way out of the situation they were in.”
Jaxon nodded. “Kelly’s definitely not a happy person. I’m just not sure that anybody can do anything to change that either.”
“Nobody can make her happy if she is not willing to try it herself,” Timber noted immediately.
“I understand that too,” Jaxon replied.
“Like most of us here already know, when people get so down and so depressed that they need specialized help, they’re usually the very ones who won’t go get it.”
“In Kelly’s case, I don’t think she would allow anybody to help her. I don’t think that’s really what she wants.”
“You don’t think she wants to be helped?” Timber asked curiously.
He was surprised at the instinctive response inside himself. “I think she just wants all this to go away. I think she wants to be back in the world that she had had before the accident. She hasn’t been willing to even try to come to terms with the fact that this is her reality now.”
“We’ve all seen that happen too,” Dwight interjected, as he sat down beside him, with a plate of his own.
“I’m glad you’re eating at least,” Timber joked.
“Every time I come in, it seems as if you’re the last one to get food,” Jaxon noted.
“I often am,” Dwight confirmed, with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter to me. If you guys are all fed, then you get out of my hair sooner, and I can clean up and go on about my day.”
Jaxon smiled at that. “As soon as I grab some coffee, I’ll be out of your hair.”
Timber looked at him when he came back from refilling his cup. “You think she’ll be okay?”
Jaxon pondered that. “Kelly or Keisha? I’m hoping Kelly will be okay,” he shared.
“It’s an odd question to answer regarding Keisha.
I feel as if Keisha’s at the end of her rope and isn’t sure how to progress from one step to the other.
She’s unsure of everything in her world right now, with no idea how to proceed. She’s just majorly overwhelmed.”
“I would agree with the overwhelmed part,” Dwight added. “I saw her when she was here. Although she was everything that everybody needed her to be,” he began, “it was obvious that what she needed was something completely different.”
Jaxon nodded. “She seemed incredibly stressed, and I tried to stay out of her way. I didn’t want to add to the problem. But my just being here was adding to the problem,” he pointed out, with a sigh.
“That’s her problem then,” Dwight said in a neutral tone of voice.
“I get that too, and we did talk yesterday. It was nice, calm, and peaceful, and she mentioned a couple things that absolutely shocked me. One being that she wasn’t quite sure why she started the divorce proceedings.”
Both men looked at him in surprise.
“I think it goes along with the fact that she’s completely overwhelmed,” Jaxon suggested, waving his hands. “I feel as if she doesn’t know how to move forward with anything, and she’s drowning in the role as her sister’s caregiver.”
Both Dwight and Timber winced at that and nodded. “And, boy, have we seen that before,” Dwight muttered.
“Yeah, I have too, and I don’t like to see it in her case. Yet I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”
“And yet she was fine to talk to?”
“Yes, she was fine, and it was good to talk to her,” Jaxon stated, with a smile.
“It wasn’t the same, and I do understand a little bit more about how this all came about.
I do know that I won’t sign those divorce papers,” he shared, staring off into the distance, “because I don’t think that’s the answer. ”
The men gave him an approving look.
“At least don’t sign them yet,” Timber clarified. “I’m sure she’s dealing with other things in her world right now, and that would be her sister.”
“Exactly, and I feel for her. I really do. I’m not sure how to help her though.”
“I think at this point in time,” Timber suggested, “just be there for her. If she calls again, you go. If she doesn’t call again, you contact her and suggest maybe going out for a meal, getting back to the reason why you two came together in the first place.”
“I was thinking about that,” Jaxon admitted, with a nod. “I was not blameless before or even when I got back. In fact, I found it very difficult to be in the same house with Kelly.”
“Why is that?”
“She’s …” He frowned. “I know it’ll sound terrible, but she’s not an easy person to be around, let alone get along with. It was obvious that she didn’t want me there, and because I felt I wasn’t wanted …”
“It became a fact,” Timber noted, with a groan.
“Yep.” Dwight whistled. “I’ve heard that a time or two.”
Jaxon sighed. “It’s just frustrating. Keisha asked me to leave. So I left. She sends me the divorce papers, which is the last thing I want,” he admitted, looking from Dwight to Timber. “It’s absolutely the last thing I want, and yet that’s where I’m at.”
Timber asked, “Does she want to go through with the divorce?”
“It doesn’t sound like it to me,” Dwight remarked.
“No, I don’t think she does,” Jaxon agreed, “but we’ve just not gotten anywhere yet.”
“No, you’re everywhere,” Timber noted. “You’re not in a bad place at all, especially since you’re talking now.
Give her some time. I can see how you coming home made things between you and Keisha already different.
Then you’re having trouble with the sister, and the sister’s having trouble with you, and it’s quite possible that Keisha was caught right in the middle and didn’t have a clue how to handle the strife between the two of you. ”
“And that’s very possible too,” Jaxon acknowledged, thinking about it. “I’ll just give Kelly some space.”
“I think space is the perfect answer,” Timber replied. “So now you can just settle back here and be available in case anything else happens. It’s a really good sign that Keisha reached out to you when she needed someone.”
As he got up, he turned to Timber and added, “There is one more thing. She’s also in some sort of mess.”
“What kind?”
“The online kind. Apparently, it happened just as I was deployed last time,” he explained.
“She started getting an awful lot of really nasty social media stuff and was being plagued by nasty spam phone calls, that kind of thing. I’ve just recently started getting them myself, and I learned today that she is too.
Even though she no longer has social media accounts, she’s getting that same nasty mocking computerized voice that comes on when she answers her phone, just like me. ”
The two men frowned at him, and he nodded.
“The fact that it’s both of us? … That’s not random. It can’t be. Not if it’s both of us at the same time. It makes no sense.”
“And she has no family?”
“No, just the sister.”
“Do you know the circumstances of the car accident?”
“It killed her parents. I know that much,” Jaxon clarified, “but I don’t know any more than that.” When Timber frowned, Jaxon noted the look on his face. “Why?”
“I just wondered if something else was going on with that accident, and somebody just can’t leave you guys to live your lives.”
He shrugged. “I don’t even know what to say to that, but I can tell you that I don’t have any answers, and neither does Keisha.
In fact, I got several of the spam phone calls while I was at the restaurant with her, which is what brought up the conversation for us. ” Jaxon shrugged. “It’s just so weird.”
“Yeah, … that’s past weird,” Dwight noted.
“How many of these are you getting in a day?” Timber asked.
“At the moment, I would say a couple, and sometimes it’s worse.
Sometimes it’s steady, and I just shut off my phone because what else do you do?
” he asked, with a wry look. “It’s almost impossible to sort out who it is, but you know that it’s got to be somebody.
Hopefully it won’t be anybody we know.” Timber frowned at him, and Jaxon shrugged.
“I just can’t help getting past the feeling that because the two of us are getting the same type calls, it has to be somebody who knows us both, which is incredibly unnerving,” he declared, staring at him.
“And what would be the motive?” Timber asked.
“I don’t know. I’m at a complete loss. Unless it’s connected to Kelly’s accident. Maybe someone feels she has no right to more. To be happy.”
Timber added, “As her husband it would make sense to target you too.”
Dwight asked, “Have you considered what would happen if anything happens to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like your assets, benefits, your estate.”
“Oh, yeah. Everything goes to Keisha.”
“And what happens if Keisha passes on?”
He winced. “I don’t know. I presume in her world everything goes to Kelly, and, because we’re divorcing, that’s what it would look like anyway, so …”
“Right …”
“Why? It’s not as if anybody killing us will benefit anyone.”
Dwight nodded. “I get that. It was just a question.”
Jaxon stared at Dwight. “It’s just a question, but it doesn’t feel random.”
He smiled. “It’s just that old suspicious nature of mine.”
“I hear you, but, if you have any suggestions or anything that would make any sense of this, please speak up.”
“I will,” he said immediately. “Yet, for the moment, I don’t have anything, so let’s get our asses back to work.”