45. Will
WILL
After a chaotic, sleepless night, I finally had the waiting room to myself.
Well, aside from Janice, whose twin sister was having a pacemaker put in.
Mom was off dealing with her dog, and Andy and Nandi were back at the hotel getting a change of clothes.
Miles was still here, but he was down in the cafeteria, fetching more coffee and scones for Janice and me.
He kept insisting everything would be fine, but if he actually believed that, he wouldn’t be buttering the scones and adding cream and sugar to the coffees.
The head nurse entered, and Janice wilted in disappointment when the nurse’s gaze landed on me. “Your father is awake and asking for you,” she said.
Growing up, Dad had seemed larger than life, a giant of the big screen.
Now, he was small and pale, his skin the bluish-gray of death.
Once upon a time, he was Grandma Chapman’s baby.
It was a childish thought to have—obvious to the point of being stupid.
Yet, seeing him so close to his end made even that simple truth feel profound.
His eyes found mine, and he smiled. “I was doing some thinking”—his speech was only slightly slurred from his stroke—“and if we shoot the death scene now and rewrite the script to focus more on the brothers, we can still salvage the movie.”
“Would you just forget the fucking movie already? It doesn’t matter.”
“They need to see it. They need to see you. Once the studio sees . . .” He trailed off as his eyes followed a shadow on the wall, like a cat chasing a laser.
I let out a long breath. “I’m not in the movie, Dad, and they’ve already decided to postpone the shoot for a while. You’re in the hospital, and Derek has to wear an eyepatch for the next six weeks.”
“What? No.” His voice was hoarse. “We don’t need Derek. It’s you. It’s always been you.”
I set my hand on his. “No, Dad, it’s never been me, and I’m okay with that.
I know you had all these hopes for me, and I appreciate that.
I really do. But you’re the movie star. You’re the legend.
You and Mom and Andy, and that’s good enough for me.
” I reached up and wiped the drool from his mouth.
“And you don’t need an Academy Award for everyone to know how great you are. ”
Tears slid down his ashen face. “You deserved better. Better than me. Better than your mother. I shouldn’t have stood. I don’t know why I stood.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but the doctor had warned me he might be muddled and confused. “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”
“I should’ve fought harder. I should’ve found another way. I should’ve made your mother tell me everything. But I just let it happen. I just let her take care of everything.”
I squeezed his hand gently. “It doesn’t matter.”
He turned his head away from me, the tendons in his neck straining. “You have every right to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Dad. Why would you think that? I don’t hate anyone. This isn’t your fault. My fucked-up life isn’t your fault.”
James hadn’t set out to destroy my life.
He just needed money, that was all. Stories about me paid well, and since he wanted to be on set when they filmed his brother’s movie, I was an obvious target.
It was the same with Dad. He hadn’t been trying to squelch my comeback. He’d just been chasing his own dream.
I wasn’t the subject of some coordinated attack, as much as it sometimes felt that way. I was just collateral damage. It was nothing personal.
“Why does Derek have to wear an eyepatch?” Dad asked through heavy lids.
“His girlfriend tried to claw his eyes out.”
“Really? Wow, he certainly has a type, doesn’t he? No wonder he was screwing your mother.”
He slipped into unconsciousness, leaving me reeling. Mom and Derek? No way. This was just the stroke talking.
Or was it?
Memories descended upon me like a flight of arrows: Mom dashing upstairs to put on her bikini the time Derek dropped by unannounced to rehearse; Derek lounging shirtless on the couch in my trailer, detailing the perks of fucking older women; Mom’s phone left on the edge of the hot tub, showing three missed calls from Derek.
Jesus Christ. How could I have been so blind? Fuck, what if that’s why I did it? What if I found out and . . .
I backed toward the door, bile rising in my throat.
Miles was sitting in the waiting room talking with Janice when I returned. He stood and offered me a scone, this one drenched in strawberry jam and butter. “How’s he doing?”
I wasn’t hungry, but I took the scone. I wanted to tell him about Derek and Mom, but couldn’t with Janice there.
“He still wants to finish the movie,” I said instead. “I told him they’re postponing the shoot. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it’s over.”
The studio was going to recast Dad’s part and try again when Derek recovered.
“Can they do that? What if he’s fine by tomorrow, or in, like, a week?”
“They can do whatever they want.”
“So that’s it, then, no more movie?”
I felt something wet on my cheek and reached up, thinking it was butter or jam. But it wasn’t. I was crying again.
Miles wrapped me in a hug, and I let my body go limp, the scone falling to the floor with a splat. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” I mumbled into his chest.
“Do what?”
I screwed my eyes shut to stem the flow of tears. “I’m not trying to be dramatic. I just don’t want to do this anymore. I just . . . I don’t know.”
Miles squeezed me tighter. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I just want to be enough for someone, anyone.”
“You’re enough for me.”
I scoffed. “No, I’m not, and you’ll fuck anything.”
“Don’t be like that. You know you’re my best friend, my brother,” he said, rubbing circles on my back. “I love you way too much to ever fuck you. But I suppose we are married, so . . .”
“He didn’t say anything. He just stood there. He just fucking stood there.” I wasn’t even worth an excuse.
“And he still hasn’t called or texted?”
I shook my head and wiped snot from my nose, leaving a shiny smear on my sleeve.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Miles said in his I-have-all-the-answers trainer voice. “I’m going to take you back to the house and put you to bed. Then, when you get up, we’re going to go for a run, a really long one. We’re going to run all the way around the lake.”
“I don’t think that’s possible. It’s a very big lake.” I pushed away from him and bent to clean up the scone.