Chapter 16 Calum
Calum
I ride the elevator upstairs to the twelfth floor of Memorial Hospital, brooding as the floors tick by. The doors open to reveal a white block that serves as a desk and runs to my right and to my left.
One of the nurses looks at me, her eyes narrowing. “Are you family?”
My lips curl up in a sneer. I’m certainly not a blood relative, but Lucas and I are all that Anita has. She’s driven away everyone else.
“She wants to see me,” I say. I can see the door on the right side of the hall, labeled 1201. Starting toward it, I flap a hand at the nurse. “I got it.”
“Sir?” Another nurse calls after me. “Sir, you need to check in—“
Picking up the pace, I turn the corner and walk down the eerily quiet hall. Everything but the doors is white; the doors are antiseptic seafood green, most closed for privacy. Here and there, placed at staggered intervals, are odd numbered doors.
1213… 1215… 1217.
I find the door, turning and facing it. The same nurse has followed me down the hall, her expression uncertain.
I realize my heart is thumping in my chest as I suck in a deep breath. Before I can make a move to open the door, it swings open wide. I see my brother’s dark hair first as he turns from saying something to the room’s occupant.
“I’ll get—“ Lucas sees me and his eyebrows rise. “You’re here.”
I squint at him. “I am,” I agree. “You said it was an emergency.”
He moves forward, closing the door behind himself and puffing out his cheeks. “Yeah.” He checks the hallway, waving to the nurse. “Hey, can you call Dr. Stein? She is complaining that the pain medication is making her nauseated. We need to try another one.”
The nurse slows, looking between us. It takes too long for Lucas, who pulls out his phone. “I’m going to call the head of medicine. What’s your name again? I want to make sure I get it right.”
She swallows. “Sandra! I’m Sandra. And… no need to call Dr. Baker again. I’ll call Dr. Stein right now.”
She hurries away, her thick soled shoes squeaking on the floor. I arch a brow.
“How many times have you called Dr. Baker already?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “For what we pay in charitable donations, I’ll call Dr. Baker every ten minutes until Anita is out of the hospital.”
I take a deep breath. “What happened?”
“She said she fell getting out of the shower.” He screws up his face. “She hit her head pretty hard and bruised her left hip.”
I narrow my eyes at him, calculating. “Are you saying that you brought me all the way across Manhattan in rush hour traffic because Anita has a bruise?”
He rolls his eyes dismissively. “She asked for you.”
“Uh huh.” I fold my arms across my chest. “Where is Manuelo?”
Lucas heaves a sigh and sticks his hands in the pockets of his dark slacks. “She wouldn’t say. It seems like they had a spat, I guess. She kept saying that he’s been gone for a while.”
My upper lip curls. “Manuelo works for us, Lucas. Why didn’t you just call him?”
He pushes his cheek out with his tongue. “Don’t take your distemper out on me, Calum. I tried his number; it has been disconnected. So Anita was my only source and she was less than forthcoming…”
“Lucas?”
Her voice comes faintly through the door. The sound of her nasal tone sends a wave of nausea through my whole system. It also causes me to break into a cold sweat.
Lucas turns around and pushes the door open. “Look who is here, Anita.”
He grabs me by the forearm and tows me into the room. Anita is sitting on the hospital bed, her tiny body surrounded by pillows and smothered in blankets. She sits up a little and pats the back of her dyed black hair, her mouth pursing. Whether she is displeased or not is impossible to say.
“Oh, Calum,” she says, tearing up. She speaks English heavily inflected with a Spanish accent. “Thank god you’re here. I keep telling everybody to wait until you get here to make my medical decisions.”
My mouth thins. “I’m not interested in having any say in what happens to you, Anita. I think I’ve made that clear as a bell.”
Lucas gives me an alarmed look, but I’m not worried about that. Anita does exactly what I expect of her, which is that she bursts into full-fledged tears.
“Why do you treat me as if I was some street trash, Cal? After I raised you, after I fed and clothed and sheltered you out of my own pocket?!”
She starts sobbing brokenly. I check my watch; it took her less than two minutes to start guilt tripping me about having basic needs as a child.
Lucas shoves me. I roll my eyes up at him, scowling. “What?”
“Be nice to her,” he mutters. “Jesus, Calum. She’s in the fucking hospital.”
I glare at him. He glares right back.
“You shouldn’t have called me here,” I say simply. “You know better.”
The nurse coughs gently behind us to alert us to her presence. “Excuse me, but could I please borrow you, Mr. Fordham?”
Lucas stiffens. “Yeah, of course. Coming.”
I scowl at him as he leaves the room, stalking down the hallway. Anita has progressed to full blown howling by now; I blow out a breath as I cast a glance her way.
“You treat me so terrible!” she wails.
I lean against the closest wall, tilting my head. “What happened to Manuelo, Anita? Hmm? Lucas said that he changed his phone number.”
Her thin shoulders shake with the force of her sobs. “Se ha ido! Como tu. Ya no es especial para mi!!”
“Yeah, I still don’t speak any Spanish.” I glance behind me, wondering when Lucas is coming back.
She cries for a minute. When she yells again, it’s accentuated with hiccups. “I. Don’t. Know. Why. You. Don’t. CARE about me!”
“Yes, you do.” I look at my fingernails, pursing my lips.
“No!” she shrieks.
“Well, the second my mother died, you offered to take care of me and Lucas.” My lips twitch.
“And before she was even buried, you came onto me. I was fifteen. My mom had just died.” I smile at her, the expression turning mean.
“And if I’m remembering correctly, you made me fuck you in a closet at her funeral. ”
“What!?” she cries. “No, you were older than that when we made love! You said you were in love with me, mijo.”
I exhale a long breath. “No, I didn’t. And I wasn’t.
Should we call a few of the nurses in here and ask them if they think that was an okay thing to do to a boy who’s mom had just died?
” I narrow my eyes. “Or how about I finally tell Lucas that the whole time we were with you, the whole time we were enrolled in ballet school and living a life of luxury… you were fucking me every single chance you got. Hmm?”
She suddenly stops crying, her sniffles making her sound even more pathetic. “I don’t think other people can understand, mi amor. What we had was a soul connection.”
Anita grips the blankets, pulling them closer.
I snort. “Whatever you have to tell yourself, Anita. Just remember that I can tell everyone that little bit of gossip anytime I feel like it.”
She sniffs, wiping at her nose. “You’re hateful. You always have been. Ever since you were little, you always would cause a problem.”
“Let me ask you something. How old was I when you first looked at me and thought, I want to fuck him. Fourteen? Thirteen?”
She glares at me. “You were born like this, mijo. You were born ruined like trash in the summertime.”
Her words don’t even prick me. I just laugh. “So younger than thirteen, then. That’s disgusting.”
“You are a pig of a man,” she fires back.
I put my hands to my heart, playing as if she’d wounded me. “Tough words, coming from a pedophile.”
I’m not sure how she even reached over and flung her water bottle at me so fast, but it sprays the entire lower half of the wall near me. I look down at the few drips of moisture that hit my shins.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I goad her. Laughing, I point a finger at her. “Take me off your contact list. I don’t want to be called back here for you.”
Lucas pops his head back in the room. He takes a breath, sensing the tension in the air between us. Anita is glaring at me; I still wear a half smile.
“O…kay. Calum, can I talk to you for a minute out here?”
I shoot Anita one last cold smile. “Gladly.”
Walking out of her room is heavenly. Closing the door on her sniveling face is just the cherry on top of my fucking sundae. I turn to my brother, squinting.
“If you’re about to ask me a favor, the answer is no,” I tell him. “I’m not helping you help her.”
He takes a step toward me, his face twisting into a sneer, and pushes me so that my back hits the wall. “What the hell is your problem, Calum? Can’t you have a little compassion? That woman in there was basically our second mother.”
That sick feeling washes through my stomach once again. “Don’t say that, Lucas. I know our mom had her problems—“
He pushes me again. “Mom was a drug addict. Okay? And a prostitute. And Anita stepped in, though she didn’t have to, and took really good care of us.
She spent like a hundred thousand dollars to make sure we were accepted at the best ballet school and we would both go on to have our own careers in ballet. And she’s nice, on top of all that.”
My lips twist in a grimace. “There are things you don’t know,” I warn.
He shakes his head in disbelief. “Tell me! If she really did something that terrible and I somehow missed it, tell me right now! Come on, we’ll go to the police together, since it is obviously a terrible crime that must be punished…”
I glare at him. My hands ball into fists. As much as I want to tell him, want to rub it in his smug face, I won’t.
I can’t tell him that I slept with Anita to keep a roof over our heads and food in our mouths. Part of me is too proud and another part of me just… doesn’t want him to live with that kind of guilt.
So I stonewall him. “It’s none of your business.”
He laughs. “That’s what I fucking thought.”
I lean in close to his face. “You don’t know her like I do, Lucas.”
“Can you stop? I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I called you to come help me handle this situation.”
That gives me pause. I would do anything for Lucas. He’s the one person in the world that I would walk through fire and crawl on my belly over shards of glass to help.
I compose myself, shutting down the emotions I’m feeling. “Just tell me what you need, Lucas.”
He blows out a breath, taking a step back. He tilts his head to the side. “All I need is the names and phone numbers of some replacements for Manuelo. And maybe some second opinions, just to check Anita out and make sure that she’s really okay.”
My lips twitch. He could’ve asked one of our personal assistants for those numbers. But I won’t get into that right now.
“Fine.”
He narrows his eyes on my face. “Fine.”
I repress an eye roll. “I’m going to go. I’ll have Jane reach out to you within the next hour.”
He purses his lips. “Okay.”
I turn and stride down the hall. He calls, “Thanks!”
Without looking back, I wave a dismissive hand, heaving a silent sigh.