Chapter 9
Knox
December is fast winning the designation as my least favorite month.
Fate—if I adhered to the concept—was doing its best to resolve the issue when Mom’s phone call dealt another blow.
Honey collapsed at church this morning and has yet to regain consciousness.
The family’s group text has kept me apprised of her condition throughout my mad dash to the airport, my flight, and now my racecar drive to the hospital in a sluggish, underpowered rental.
So far, the news isn’t good. Her hip is broken and she remains unconscious.
The doctors aren’t sure if the hip caused the fall and she hit her head on the way down or if she collapsed and the hip shattered in the process.
Both my grandparents were precious and integral parts of my childhood.
Following careful consideration, Honey chose her grandmother name before Rand was born, but my grandfather, Gampy, became so named by Rand’s inability to say the r sound until he was seven.
Losing him two years ago rocked me, and I’ve been dreading this phone call ever since.
No. I’m going to believe my grandmother will recover.
Yes, she’s eighty-something years old, but there’s too much life left in her, too much life yet to live.
She’s talked for ages about wanting to be a great-Honey.
Last year at this time, my impending marriage gave her reason to hope that blessing was within reach.
The piling on of my least favorite topic to my plateful of angst further agitates my gut and ratchets up the pounding in my skull.
I turn the satellite radio on at a high volume, reserving zero headspace for her tonight.
Honey is what matters—who matters—not an indecisive, faithless, heart-stomping ex-fiancée.
Like the stiff wind pummeling my cheeks, memories of Gampy’s passing in this same place assail me as I cross the dark parking lot to the main entrance of the sprawling hospital in my home city. I murmur prayers with every step.
Sadly, I know well the route to the third-floor ICU.
A nurse in blue scrubs steps onto the elevator as I exit.
There’s a cluster of people at the far end of the long corridor, and also a woman much nearer, back turned, talking on a phone.
Her flowing blonde hair is too thick and perfect to be natural.
I know this thanks to Becca. That woman spent more on colors, cuts, and extensions than my monthly auto insurance’s auto-debit to cover my late-model pickup sitting neglected in my garage most of the year.
The lady turns. My jaw drops. The nerve…
“Knox.”
Becca?
My muscles tighten, caught on the line between fight mode and flight. Meanwhile, my brain stumbles about, feeling around for something that makes her presence make sense. “What are you doing here?”
Collagen-injected lips lift at their ends, although regular injections of poison into her face prevent other features from moving. “Honey, of course.”
I jerk back. There’s no of course about it.
“I’m sorry Honey’s ill.” She lays her hand on my wrist, the pointy nails I always disliked pricking my skin. “I know how much she means to you.”
I blink several times, a poor substitute for spoken words, and clear the clutter from my throat.
“You shouldn’t have come, Becca.” She and my grandmother were never close, Becca always complaining Honey didn’t like her.
Does she think her presence here will be a help?
A comfort to me? If so, her calculations hit far from the mark.
I don’t have to dislodge her touch. She removes it quickly enough, probably reading my lack of appreciation of her presence.
“Knox…” Her unnaturally white teeth sink into that artificial lip.
“You should go. I need to see my grandmother. But thanks anyway.” As I turn, the doors on the nearest elevator split and Rand steps off.
It might be a Sunday night, but, as always, he’s in professional attire that peeks from beneath a sophisticated wool coat.
Absorbing the sight of me and my ex, his eyes flash.
Yeah, me too, bro. I tip my head toward Becca.
“Sorry, man, this wasn’t my idea. I didn’t know she was coming.
” My family doesn’t need extra drama at a time like this.
“It’s not a problem.” His always-shaved cheek jerks and his hand comes out, bringing a cloud of his ubiquitous cologne with it.
“Good to see you, bro. So…Knox…” His smile is as tight as the perfectly coiffed wave atop his head.
He releases my grip and drops his hand to his side—where Becca weaves her fingers through it.
Time freezes. I dash my head to clear the vision that has to be an illusion brought about by fatigue on the heels of a marathon day.
What’s left of Rand’s expression resembles a grimace more than the original smile, but there’s pointed intent in his gaze. “So, bro, we’ve been meaning to talk to you…”
We? My stare splits between the pair. Still holding on to my brother’s hand, Becca lays her free palm on Rand’s arm, pressing into him.
One of my feet edges backwards.
“Becca and I started seeing each other this summer. I’ve been meaning to talk to you—”
The fragmented pieces of the reality before me finally congeal into a modicum of unwelcome sense. “Yeah? When?” I spit the words,
Rand’s Adam’s apple dips. “I thought when you came back for the holidays—”
“Merry Christmas to me? And Honey’s illness ruined the surprise?” Wonder what kind of bow they were planning to slap on that gift.
I pinch the top of my nose. The fiancée who chewed me up and spit me out…and my brother?
My gut churns like a nor’easter along the coast, whipping up a melee of nauseating emotions. By my side, my palms are itchy, fingers curling just shy of a fist.
My feet, making wiser decisions for me, inch another step of retreat.
Rand shoves his hands into the probably silk-lined pockets of his flashy coat. “Let’s talk, Knox.”
Not the time, not the place. Mentally, I blow out a breath. “I’m here for Honey.” I point myself in a new direction, waving off my brother’s call as I take fast strides and seek out the only reason for my visit home.
When Honey wakes up, she is going to be thrilled that her episode, whatever its cause, occurred with her full face on and her hair freshly styled from Saturday’s visit to the beauty salon.
Resting against the white sheets, she looks pretty and peaceful.
Were it not for the wires and tubing poking from her, I’d mistake her rest for sleep.
I lift one of her hands with its short fingernails painted a dainty pink, and wrap my fingers around hers.
Across from me, wearing an endearing expression, my dad watches his mother, gently stroking her arm beneath the blanket.
My father is a good man and a great dad, but we’re very different people.
He and Rand are two peas in a pod. But ironically, Dad’s parents have always drawn me.
Gampy and Honey and I clicked from day one, and as I grew, the three of us bonded in ways I never attained with Dad or with my grandparents on Mom’s side.
I visited often and even lived with them one summer when I was home from college.
I helped Gampy tend to their twenty-acre property and had a blast doing so.
Gampy let me drive his tractor, build things, shoot at skunks, and fish in the small pond at the rear of the property.
Honey stuffed me full of homecooked food.
“They ran tests earlier. Brain activity looks good. They’re letting her rest and hoping she wakes up soon.”
I nod. “I’m sure the hip hurts, so maybe it’s good she’s sleeping.”
Dad nods, but we both know a coma—let’s call it what it is—isn’t a good thing.
I would stick to Honey’s side if hospital policy allowed overnight stays in the ICU, but eventually, Dad and I are bumped. I’m forced to surrender my slot to Rand and…Becca. We slide past each other in the doorway. I avert my eyes and ignore my brother’s pat on the shoulder.
Mom, who wasn’t in the waiting room when I arrived, embraces me.
I bundle her up in a giant bear hug, setting my chin atop her head.
She’s another thing I most miss when I’m on the road.
When I was a teen, she owned the patience of a saint.
Tired after long days, she’d sit up until all hours, listening to my pathetically weak philosophical ramblings about the world I was discovering.
Man, I thought some of the dumbest stuff back then.
Nonetheless, she smiled, yawned, and nodded along until I finally wore myself out and let her shuffle off to bed. Those times were priceless.
The next few hours pass with family coming and going and no change in Honey’s condition. At nine, the end of visiting hours, Mom leaves her chair next to Dad and hugs me again. Her palm lingers on my sleeve. “Can I get a ride home with you, sonny?”
I glance toward the double doors separating Honey from her loving family. “I don’t want to leave her.”
Mom’s smile is gentle. “I know, sweetie. The nurses said that if she wakes up they’ll allow a quick visit, and Dad and Aunt Linda want to be here for that.”
Makes sense, they are her children.
“I rode here with Dad, so…”
So she doesn’t have a car at the hospital.
“You know your father will call the moment anything changes.” Her lips tip on one end. “And I don’t doubt Dozer has a present waiting for me at home by this hour.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
“No worries, but while you’re there, I’ll let you do the honors.”
Fair enough.
“Why don’t you spend the night? You don’t want to drive across town to your place so late, and Dozie would enjoy a visit.”
Dozie, huh? “Sure, Mom. I can stay with you tonight.” And I suspect I’m in for a mom talk once she and I are alone.
Sure enough, the car’s tires are barely out of the hospital lot when she readjusts her seating and settles her gaze on me. “How are you, Knox?”
We had a lengthy phone conversation a few nights ago, covering multiple topics.
Other than Honey’s fall, of course, there’s been only one material change in my life since—at least that she’s aware of—so I know to what she refers.
I feel my mouth flatten into a stiff line, and I allow the silence to settle like the wintry haze that’s challenging the defrost function on my windshield.
“Why wasn’t I told sooner?” Seems like I, of all people, had a right to know.
“We were afraid of how you’d react.”
I snap around. “How I’d react? What, you guys thought I’d explode all over everyone? You know that’s not my way.”
“Of course not.” She rests an elbow on the door. “Your father and I have been hounding Rand to tell you. It wasn’t our place.”
My heart processed Becca’s abrupt cancellation of our relationship—not to mention the elaborate wedding everybody and their dog was invited to—as a giant betrayal. Now, my own brother has, well, betrayed me, too. Am I wrong to see it this way? When did their relationship start, really?
“Knox?”
My hands massage the wheel. “It hurts, Mom.”
She squeezes my arm. “And that is the real reason you weren’t told. No one wanted this for you. Rand and Becca have been sick about it.”
I snort and huff—two or three times—as my brain mucks through the situation. I’m doing my best to moderate the ugliest thoughts before they can exit my mouth.
A kernel of understanding pops. Mom’s tone. I snatch a peek from the highway. “You support their relationship.”
The shift of her expression answers me so she doesn’t have to.
Talk about betrayal. Mom has too much restraint to have ever told me she wasn’t a fan of my relationship, yet some things can’t be hidden. Dad too. But now this? What? Rand is good enough for Becca, but I wasn’t?
“You’re wrong about what you’re thinking, Knox. No, I was never thrilled about the idea of you marrying Becca, but that was only because I knew she wasn’t right for you. With Rand…they’re good together.”
Of course. Because my brother is the star of the family.
“So they’re serious?”
She nods once. “Yes.”
My hands squeeze the life out of the steering wheel.
When my fingers cramp, I move them in circles around the building thrum in my jaw before it creeps its way up my temple and into my head.
Insult piles upon injury. Surely I won’t be expected to throw a bachelor party.
Offer a toast. Not when every eye in the room will be telepathing the poor loser message as I lift my glass.
A pat on my sleeve ends with a parting squeeze. “Sweetheart, you’ll find someone too.”
Platitudes suck, although, from the lips of a beloved mother, the most dubious source of all, sometimes they’re almost believable.