Chapter 6
six
MAC
I watch Naomi sleep.
I’ve watched her angelic face in her sleep for nearly twenty-two years. In her cradle. In her first “big girl” bed. In her dorm rooms, first at private school and then at college. In four different hospital beds.
The first hospital bed was when she was four and a doctor thought she had heart arrhythmia, which turned out to be nothing but a fear of her second MMR vaccine, but they kept her overnight until a pediatric specialist could see her in the morning.
I remember lying on a cot the nurse made up next to Naomi’s bed and watching her little face in the dim ward lights.
Thinking that my heart was lying outside my chest, curled between white-on-white sheets, and so very vulnerable.
Not much has changed. Her baby fat’s melted away and left her cheeks gaunt, her eyes sunken, her jaw and nose too sharp.
But the sooty lashes lying on her cheeks are the same.
The shape of her bow mouth. The sweep of pin-straight, jet-black hair she gets from her mother across her forehead.
She still looks like my little girl. My heart’s still lying outside my chest, in a white-on-white bed, and so very vulnerable.
All of the other hospital beds she’s been in have been the result of overdoses. This time the doctors say its speed. Her heart’s arrhythmic again, only the machine pinging away in the pre-dawn silence keeping it beating regularly, from the damage the drugs have done.
I’ve never even tried pot, but my daughter’s heart, my heart beating outside my chest, is damaged because of the drugs she’s taken to stay awake, to keep up with her classes, to keep her body model skinny.
The room lights up and I glance down at the phone in my lap.
Another text from Amy. She’s been calling or texting me every hour since I called to tell her Naomi was missing, a little over forty hours ago.
I’ve had maybe ten hours of sleep during those two days, but as far as I can tell, Amy hasn’t had any.
Which means she’s probably on the same drugs that have damaged her daughter’s heart.
I text her back.
No change. She’s resting. Please get some sleep.
She sends me another link. Another residential rehab clinic she wants me to look at, because the one I’ve already found and booked Naomi into isn’t good enough.
I tip my head back and rest it against the back of the chair.
Closing my eyes, I let my mind drift back forty-eight hours.
Brenna was curled around my back. She probably thought I was asleep, but I lay awake a lot of that night, enjoying the sensations of her body against mine.
It’s been a long, long time since I slept with a woman.
Now that the divorce is behind me and I don’t feel like I’m cheating on Amy anymore, I’m eager to have a woman in my bed again.
Not any woman. A smart-mouthed woman with blue hair and shadows in her eyes.
I lift my head and thumb on my phone. It’s much too late to call her, but I can send her a text she’ll see in the morning.
I was so preoccupied finding Naomi and getting her treatment that I barely acknowledged Brenna’s kind words.
And although she encouraged me to go, I still feel like an ass for abandoning her the morning after our first scene.
I type and retype the message a couple of times before I send it.
I want to check in with her and make sure she’s not sore about the way I left, but more, I really want to see her again now that I’ve got Naomi squared away.
The boys in the platoon would rip me for being too eager, but I’ve never been one for playing games, and Brenna feels much too important for that.
My daughter’s taken care of. I should be back in the City tonight. Any chance of that rain check?
Horrifyingly, the three gray dots start bouncing. I check the time in case I fell asleep and it’s closer to morning than I thought. No, still two-thirty. What the hell is she doing awake?
Sorry, Master Mac, working tonight. Maybe another time.
I run my free hand through my hair. Maybe another time? I don’t like the sound of that.
Working at your shop or working at the club? And why are you awake?
The club. Long night. Long story. I’m really glad your daughter is okay. Good night.
Fuck, I haven’t felt so dismissed since my C.O. signed my discharge.
Good night, bold girl. Sleep well.
I leave it at that. I want to say more, but I fucking hate texting. Well, except with Amy. Texting is by far the best way to communicate with my ex. But with Bren, I need to be face-to-face, to look into those big, brown eyes and see where the shadows lie. Because I have a feeling they’re back.
But I don't need to push her. There’s a better way. She told me when we met that she does scenes with club guests. All I have to do is ask Logan to take me to their club tonight. He’ll probably jump at the chance. He didn’t like the way I had to leave any more than I did.
More settled now that I have a plan, I take one last look at my sleeping daughter before I tip my head back in the chair again and close my eyes.
Naomi inherited more than Amy’s hair and addictions. She also inherited the manipulative brand of submission that her mother used to twist me around her finger for decades, and it is out in force this morning.
“Dad, of course I’ll go if that’s what you want.
I know I fucked up.” She steals a glance under her lashes at the man in the white coat standing beside her bed who is taking her blood pressure and making notations on an intake chart.
“But a residential facility? I mean, I’ll lose so much time at school. ”
“We’re accustomed to liaising with your college,” the man murmurs, never taking his eyes off what he’s doing. “We’ll make sure you keep up with your class work. You’ll have plenty of time each day to study between sessions.”
Naomi’s pink, bow lips twist before she smooths them into a smile. “It’s all the way in Poughkeepsie, Dad. It’ll be so inconvenient for you to visit. Mom’s recommended several that are closer.”
“Patients aren’t allowed visitors for the first seven days anyway,” the doctor says smoothly.
I let him field Naomi’s passive-aggressive objections while I shave in the room’s tiny sink.
Her college health services were able to provide her a private room, but the shared full bathroom is down the hall.
I’m not complaining. They were able to start treating her within fifteen minutes of me finding her unconscious in one of the frat houses, rather than the long wait we might have faced at an emergency room.
And her college medical insurance covers her month of rehab at this affiliated facility as well as her overnight stay here.
I haven’t told Naomi, or Amy, about this motivation for my choice of program, because neither of them care about spending my money, but I’m also not going to let Naomi talk her way out of going there.
Fortunately, the staff doctor who drove down this morning to admit her to the program and take her back to the facility is on the same page I am.
“Miss McNally, I’ve been doing this job for fourteen years.
I’ve heard every excuse there is. I’m going to give this chart to the duty nurse and then we’re ready to go, so I suggest you take this time to say goodbye to your father,” he says, kindly but firmly as he gathers up his tools and papers.
He’s already brought a wheelchair into the room for her and Naomi’s college roommate’s packed the bag that’s sitting on it.
I’m still wearing the same clothes I was in when I left Logan’s two days ago, but I feel fresher after a wash and a shave. I can have a real shower and change at my apartment on my way back into the City.
Naomi waits until the doctor’s out of the room before she turns her midnight blue eyes on me.
Amy’s always said Naomi looks more like me than her.
I don’t see it, personally. Admittedly, all Naomi gets from Amy is her hair and the shape of her face.
Everything else definitely came from her father’s side.
But I’m not her father, not biologically.
The blue eyes that turn to me are not my family’s shade, but they do look an awful lot like the blue of my old base commander.
He got the same look, too, right before he laid the guilt on thick.
“Dad, is there something going on that you want to send me this far away?”
I sink back into the chair I spent the night in. “Yeah, Nomes. The thing that’s going on is that you’re out of control and if you don’t accept help this time, you’re going to kill yourself. Is that what you want? Do you want to die?”
“No, of course not.” But her eyes flicker, and if I was topping her instead of being her father, I’d say she’s lying.
“Then accept what this place has to offer you. I don’t really care where it is, or how prestigious a name it has.
I care that they have seventy percent success rate after five years.
That’s as good as anywhere I’ve looked at.
Better than most. I want you to be alive and healthy and with me in five years.
This place gives you a four in five chance. That’s what’s going on.”
She glances away, then back, looking up at me through her lashes. “Dad, this was a wake-up call. I promise, nothing like this will happen again.”
“Nomes, listen to yourself. You’ve told me that before and here you are.
I love you, kid, I really do. But I don’t believe you anymore.
You’re twenty-one. I can’t force you to go with Doctor Wagner.
But I’m telling you, I can and will get you committed as a danger to yourself if you don’t get some treatment. So what’s it going to be?”
She blinks and a fat tear rolls down her cheek. “Daddy—”
“This is tough love, kiddo. Sorry, it’s all I’ve got left.”
She wipes her cheek and sniffs. “I’ll go.”
I lean over her and kiss her forehead. “Thanks. I don’t want to fight. I just want you to get better.”