Chapter 22
Jaxon held Keisha in his arms, the antiseptic smell of the hospital permeating everything around them.
He didn’t say anything. He just held her.
He felt her trembling all the way down her body, as the realization hit and slowly sank in.
She hadn’t yet started to cry, but he knew that would be the next thing, if she could let herself.
What was happening right now was painful to see and made everything else so much worse.
He looked over at Richard, who nodded at the two of them. “I gather at least some of that was news to you.”
Keisha just nodded but didn’t lift her head off Jaxon’s shoulder. Then she spun and looked at Richard and asked, “Did you know?”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. … I’ll stay in touch.” Richard turned and walked away, leaving them in Kelly’s hospital room, with the nurse attending Kelly.
Jaxon continued to just hold Keisha until the tears came. And finally, when she had her fill, she tilted her head back. “Let’s go home.”
He nodded, then led the way back out to his vehicle, and, within a few minutes, he was parking outside her house. She looked at him and asked, “Could you please come in?”
He immediately turned off the engine, walked her up to the front door, and led her inside. “Want some tea?” he asked, sitting her down.
“I don’t think tea will fix what’s wrong in my world,” she noted.
“No, it won’t, but it might bring a few moments of comfort,” he suggested, patting her cheeks. “Your world has been flipped upside down, but it’s merely adjusting to a change of news. It’s not starting the process all over.”
“Rehashing the accident, finding out the truth of it all? It feels raw, as if the healing I had done is gone, and it’s all been exposed again.”
He didn’t say anything, just nodded, and added, “I’ll make a cup of tea.”
She nodded. “Make me one too, and I’ll give it a try.”
He made them each some tea, and, when he brought it out, she was sitting on the deck outside, the dogs at her feet. He put her cup of tea beside her, pulled the other chair a bit closer, and sat down next to her.
As they sat quietly, she finally spoke. “I didn’t even ask.
I was so concerned about her and so traumatized by everything that went on, it didn’t even occur to me to ask.
And I didn’t want a copy of the police report.
I didn’t want anything.” She looked over at him and asked, “Do you think I knew? Even if just subconsciously?”
He looked at her and shrugged. “Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t.
It doesn’t matter. Either way, Kelly didn’t come clean about what happened, and it was ruled an accident, so you all moved forward in a really difficult situation the best you could.
Now some years have passed, and obviously something was interfering with her healing, and now we know what it was. ”
“The guilt,” Keisha declared, with a headshake. “It was crippling her far more than her physical injuries.”
“Yes, it was, and now maybe, with some long-term professional help, she’ll move forward and deal with this.
” Jaxon hesitated before adding, “You do know that she will most likely end up in a psychiatric hospital in lieu of a prison, right? And, with the growing amount of her fraud, she may be there for years. Although she’d have to be assessed for that.
Still prison is on the table too and that could be much harder on her. ”
Keisha sighed heavily again. She reached out a hand, and he immediately linked his hands with hers. “I’m so sorry for everything I put you through,” she muttered. “That was so not fair to you.”
“No, but I think we’re in a better place for it.”
She smiled. “You always were way too understanding.”
“I was, except for when I came home and realized how much everything had changed, including you,” he shared. “That was a shock for me.”
“And not a good one, I’m sure.”
“I was still glad to be home, but it was certainly a huge wake-up call to realize that you had changed, that I had changed, and that Kelly? … Well, that was definitely a change, and nobody was really capable of moving forward at that point.” He took a deep breath, looking out into the darkness.
“We’re all in a very different space right now, and hopefully good things will happen now. ”
She smiled at him. “I don’t even know when I decided that a divorce was a good idea,” she admitted. “I think I was just so overwhelmed that I couldn’t see a way forward. I needed to clear away things that were causing me stress and pain, and according to my sister …” She gave a broken laugh.
“Yep, per Kelly, that was all on me.” He smiled. “And you can see why she didn’t dare have anything in her world change, fearing that all this would come out or that she would be put out on her own because, in her mind, she felt she deserved it.”
Keisha groaned. “I know that all of this will make sense somewhere along the line, and, over time, things will improve, and it won’t be quite so painful,” she admitted. “But right now? … Wow.”
“Do you blame her for your parents’ deaths?”
She hesitated at that and then sighed. “No, I don’t really blame her for that. While she made a terribly foolish mistake, it was an accident. And I guess since they’ve been gone for a few years now, everything just feels very disconnected.”
“And maybe that’s a good thing,” Jaxon noted. “You can look at it a little more dispassionately because it did happen a few years ago. It’s still like having the scar ripped open, yet you can also see how much damage it’s done to her.”
Keisha swallowed at that comment. “You’re right. … That’s a good way to look at it. I could see everything she was going through, but I didn’t know how to get through to her.”
“You also knew that she needed help, but she wasn’t willing to participate.”
“Exactly. I could take her to see a therapist or a shrink or even to the grocery store or to the clinic, but she would clam up or act out or flat-out be rude to everybody. I couldn’t do anything about it.
That was a hard thing because the help was there, but she was unwilling to take advantage of it. ”
“Because she didn’t think she deserved it.”
“That and she was terrified the truth would come out.” Keisha took a deep breath, picked up the cup of tea, and had a sip, then smiled. “This was a good idea, and it is a comfort. It was something that my mother used to do when there were times of trouble too,” she added, with a smile.
“How do you think your parents would want you to handle this?”
“They would tell me to help her, to let all the bad feelings go, and just help her because she’s the one who really needs it.”
“Did you ever feel as if you didn’t count and that she was more important?”
“No, … gosh no,” she said. “We were all very close, but she was much younger than me and in a more rebellious stage. I have no idea what the fight at the restaurant would have been about.”
“She probably doesn’t remember either.”
Keisha gave a broken laugh. “That is probably quite true. She always had this capacity to forget everything and to get over being angry very quickly. It took me much longer to get over things,” she admitted, with a headshake.
“It just makes you wonder how any of this could have happened, you know?” He sat and just let her ruminate.
Then finally she added, “I don’t know what will happen with her. ”
“I don’t know either, but, because of the attempt on her life, I would presume they’ll take her someplace to evaluate her mental state and to give her the assistance that she needs,” he suggested.
“And my credit cards,” Keisha wailed, suddenly putting down the cup. “God, … I can’t pay that all off.”
“We don’t know what will happen with that. I think, as Richard noted, it’ll depend on the credit card companies.”
“It’s a terrible thing to have to deal with,” she murmured.
“And maybe that was all about punishing you too,” he said, “because Kelly really was unable to come to terms with the fact that her world had changed to the extent that it had, so she lashed out, punishing you for not even being in the situation.”
“And yet, if I had been here and if I had been the one driving, it could just as easily have been me who was paralyzed—or dead.”
“Would you have sped up if your father had told you to slow down?”
She looked at him, then immediately shook her head. “No. I would never have gone against my father like that. He was a good man, and, if he told me to do something, I did it. And it wasn’t hard because it was always the right thing to do.”
“In this instance Kelly didn’t do the right thing, and she lost control of the vehicle. That is something she’ll be dealing with for the rest of her life. So the real question is, can you forgive her?”
“Yes, absolutely,” she stated, looking at him. “I won’t have a problem forgiving her for that. I think she’ll have a problem forgiving herself.”
“I think she already is,” he pointed out immediately.
As they sat here for a long moment, she added, “I guess, if the credit card companies can see their way to count this as fraud and to not hold me accountable, I wouldn’t press charges.”
He was silent for a long moment. He wasn’t surprised by her decision, and he wasn’t even sure how he felt about it.
Had Kelly suffered enough for what she’d done?
He didn’t know, yet it wasn’t in him to judge her when he and many of his friends had very difficult times coming to terms with changes in their worlds too.
She looked over at him. “I guess that makes you disappointed in me, doesn’t it?”
Surprised, he shook his head. “That isn’t even on the table,” he declared.
Keisha nodded. “I guess the question is, will she learn something from it, or will she just fall back into the same pattern down the road?”
“I tend to doubt that she will because there’ll be help for her now,” he noted, “and she doesn’t have to protect her secret anymore.
I would like to think that, at some point in time, she would make some restitution to you over all this, but, if not, and you can let it go, then more power to you,” he shared.
“And you won’t hold it against her?” He frowned at that. She nodded. “See? It’s not quite so easy, is it?”
“She’s not my sister,” he stated, “but she hurt somebody I love.”
“Ouch,” she muttered.
“She’s your sister, so, for me, the forgiveness comes from a very different space.
Can I find it? Yes. Will it be today?” He watched her closely.
“No, but can I get there? I can,” he replied.
“Life is too short for that kind of problem. She caused me a lot of grief and nearly caused me to lose the one thing in my life that I absolutely adore. However, she’s also the reason that we are much closer again. ”
She stared at him, then started to laugh. “That sounds very much like a you comment.”
“It is a me comment,” he agreed, with a grin, “because that’s exactly what’s happened.”
“It is,” she confirmed. “Although she isn’t responsible for us getting back together. Yet I do understand how it might feel that way to you.” He just smiled and didn’t say anything. She sighed heavily. “I just want everything back the way it was.”
Then she stopped. “I guess that means wanting my parents back, wanting the accident not to have happened, wanting my sister healthy and on her feet, and none of that will happen,” she noted, with a shrug.
“I know that. It’s just that, if there were such a thing as wishes, and I could make that come true, that would be what I would want. ”
“And I would want that for you too,” he said. “So, where are we at, as a couple?”
“I want to think that we’re together,” she replied.
“And the divorce papers?”
She laughed. “They’ve been sitting on my desk because I haven’t signed them.”
He stared at her. “Wait. I thought I was the one who hadn’t signed them.”
“Maybe it’s a case of both of us had things that needed to change, and both of us were looking for reasons to not have to sign,” she shared, with a smile.
“I realize now that divorce was never what I ever really wanted. I just needed space. I needed a chance to figure out what the hell was spiraling out of control in my world and how to stop it.”
“And I don’t object to that,” he noted, with a laugh. “As long as it means there is room for me in your life.”
“Of course there is,” she confirmed, with a smile. “You were never intended to be out of my life.”
“Good, then no more talk about divorce,” he declared immediately, “and no talk about where we are. We’re married. That’s where we are. You probably need to accept that your sister may still have some issues with that.”
“Yeah, she probably will,” she said, “but that’ll be her issue, not mine.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he noted, with a smile.
She looked over at him, squeezed his fingers, and said, “I really am sorry.”
“Hush,” he whispered. “We are where we are meant to be, and, other issues aside, that’s a good place to be.”