CHAPTER THIRTY
JJ was airlifted to Birmingham, underwent two surgeries in the span of two days, and after stabilization was flown to Jacksonville where over the next three weeks he slowly began his recovery. Tish remained at his bedside day and night: she never left the hospital that entire time. She fed him. She bathe him. She combed his hair and sung to him until he fell asleep again. He had been shot four times. His body had to heal. It was a long slog.
Her mother and father came to see him the day after the horrific incident, and they came to see him again after he was transported to the hospital in Jacksonville. Although her father returned to Alabama the very next day as he had to tend to their mom-and-pop grocery store, her mother remained with her for an entire week. She and Tish became closer, but it was too sad to be joyous. They both knew, had it not been for the heroics of JJ, they wouldn’t be there. And that was a lot to process.
By the end of the week, when Earl returned to pick up his wife, whom he’d never been away from for that long in their entire marriage, JJ was still too sedated and too ill to say anything more than hey and bye to Earl and Viola as they headed back to Coal.
Artie Kramer also came by daily, and the deputy chief judge of the fourth circuit, a friend of JJ’s, coordinated with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s office for around-the-clock security for their chief judge. The gunman who put JJ in that hospital still had not been apprehended. Tish was pleased to see that the judiciary was taking the threat to his safety seriously.
But unbeknownst to everybody, Tish was taking that threat seriously too. When she briefly took an Uber and went to JJ’s house to get change of clothing for the long haul, she also got his loaded Glock and kept it on her person. The fourth circuit wasn’t taking any chances with JJ’s security, and neither was she. She wasn’t relying on anybody to protect JJ but herself. Because she felt protective of him. This man, who had done everything a human being could possibly do for her, including risking his own life, deserved nothing less from her. Anybody with any ill intentions toward JJ would have to go through her to get to him.
Even his friends and colleagues applauded her devotion to JJ. And one by one they would drop by the hospital to pay their respects. And every one of them, to a person, was very respectful of Tish. Even that country club crowd that looked at her like she was trash the first time they saw her, saw how committed she was to their friend.
Reeva Lindsey also came by often, which didn’t bother Tish at all although her mother, before she went back to Alabama, was suspicious of Reeva. “She acting like she own you, him, and this hospital,” her mother had mentioned. “Watch out for that one.” But Tish figured JJ had probably been kind to Reeva, too, and she felt a sense of protectiveness for her boss as well.
But by week three, when Reeva began coming around morning, noon, and night and began behaving as if she was in charge of that room just like Tish’s mother had warned, she became a serious problem. Even to the point of Tish waking up one evening after dozing off and finding Reeva about to remove JJ’s gown so that she could bathe the sleeping judge. “What do you think you’re doing?” Tish asked, her expressive face frowned, as she jumped up from her chair. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to sponge him off,” Reeva said. “Go back to sleep. No big deal.”
Tish found her so offensive and dismissive that it just angered her. But she maintained her composure, even as she began walking over to the older woman. “Let’s get something straight right now,” she said as she walked around the bed to where Reeva stood. “You may run his chambers and tell everybody else on his staff what to do and what not to do, but you don’t run him. If he needs to be sponged off, then I’ll sponge him off. If he needs anything at all, I’ll do it. That’s my job. Not yours.”
But Reeva fired right back as if she’d been waiting for a while to tell Tish a thing or two. “I don’t think you understand what it means to be a judge’s law clerk. I’m a board-certified attorney. A Princeton law school grad. You, on the other hand, is nothing but his fluky. A convict he took pity on. You don’t run him either. Now get out of my way so that I can properly take care of my judge.”
The street side of Tish emerged when Reeva attempted to dismiss her as a nobody. And she defiantly moved into Reeva’s personal space, her face within an inch of Reeva’s face. “I don’t think you understand what it means to be a judge’s lover,” Tish shot back. She didn’t want to go there, but she felt pushed. And she knew Reeva would be pissed when the word lover dripped from her lips. “It means that I have privileges you can only dream about. I know him in ways you can only wish you knew. Now get out of this room and don’t come back unless he sends for you!”
Hatred dripped from Reeva’s gorgeous face as she looked at Tish as if there was no human being lower. And then she smiled a smile that felt reptilian. “I guarantee you I know exactly what it means to be a judge’s lover,” she said. Then she laughed. But although she knew she’d just said a mouthful, she still left his hospital room.
After she left, Tish took her usual seat on the edge of JJ’s bed and looked at his handsome face. She’d be lying if she said Reeva’s words didn’t sting. They stung like hell. Because Reeva was a very attractive woman and knew it. Because she clerked for the judge for a long time. Because Tish already knew how badly Reeva had the hots for JJ. Maybe it wasn’t just a dream, or a wish. Maybe Reeva did sleep with JJ before. Or maybe Reeva, Tish thought as she took JJ’s hand and began rubbing it, was just full of shit.
But time would tell that story because Tish was nobody’s fool. She loved JJ dearly, and JJ professed his love for her even before what happened in Alabama. But she was keeping her eyes wide open. She was still treading cautiously.
But by the time the fourth week of JJ’s hospitalization rolled around, good news came. He finally turned that corner from still recovering to being on the mend. He was able to feed himself and get in the shower. Constant sedation was no longer required. He was able to hold long conversations without falling asleep, and he talked Tish’s head off. And by the end of that fourth week, his doctor approved his discharge.
JJ sat in the chair and watched Tish as she sat on the floor and methodically tied his shoes. He knew how closely she stood by him. He had been sedated for three weeks straight, but every single time he woke up, kind of panicky when he realized where he was, he would look over and see Tish sitting right there by his side, or somewhere else in his room. A few times he woke up and she was in his bed asleep right beside him, which were the best times for him. He asked her if she had gone home at all. She told him only once: she took an Uber to go and get some clothes. That was love. She was the embodiment, he felt, of what true love looked like. And acted like. It made him love her so much more, and so much more deeply, that he felt as if he was a bag of emotions. He had to constantly wiped his eyes. He had to constantly fight back tears.
“What’s the game plan, Boss?” he asked her when she finished tying his shoes.
“Home and plenty of rest,” said Tish as she stood up.
She wore a pair of shorts and a jersey, with her hair in a ponytail pulled back, highlighting what JJ saw as the perfection of her face. “When will I be able to get back to work? My physician says as early as tomorrow. What says you?”
“I think tomorrow will work,” Tish agreed. “As long as it doesn’t involve any strenuous activities.”
JJ pulled her down onto his lap, causing her to laugh, and he held her in his arms. “You mean strenuous like this?” he asked as he kissed her.
At first, he kissed her playfully. But she tasted so good to him that he couldn’t stop. And a playful kiss became passionate.
Until Tish pulled away. “I am not getting hot and heavy in no hospital,” she said, and JJ grinned.
Then he got up and he stood up, but gingerly. She looked at him. He wasn’t a hundred percent yet, but he was a long way from that day, a month ago, when he covered her body with his body, and saved her life. And every time she tried to thank him, he would wave it off with a flick of his hand. “That’s my job to look out for you,” he said to her. “Just like you’re looking out for me.”
“Ready?” she asked him.
JJ still had shooting pains throughout his body, and he had to walk with a cane until he got his equilibrium back, but he was grateful. “Absolutely,” he answered her.
And it was Tish who put her arm around his waist this time, and escorted him out of that dreadful place they’d called home for an entire month.