14. Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Demetrius
Maddie was right. My grandmother is as stubborn as a mule.
The waiting room at Elven Mercy stretches around us with its rows of plastic seats bolted to the floor.
The antiseptic reek of cleaning products hits the back of my throat as a pixie child circles near the window on restless wings until her mother hauls her back with a few sharp whispered words.
A troll man on crutches labors toward the front desk where a gnome in scrubs works through a stack of paperwork with all the urgency of geologic time.
The overhead lights are the fluorescent kind that flatten everything they touch.
Agatha surveys the room with the air of someone conducting an inspection. And not liking what she sees.
I spot it the moment she decides to stand by herself. Again.
She puts both hands on the armrests of the wheelchair, jaw set. I know that look.
"Grandmother." I fix her with a stern look. "Do we have to go over this again?"
"I'm perfectly capable of walking to the desk myself," she says, already levering her weight forward.
"We're here for your follow-up appointment so the surgeon can tell you whether you're cleared to walk without support or not.
Which is precisely why you're supposed to use the chair until then.
" I take one step and rest my hand on the armrest beside hers.
She looks at my hand. Then at me. "Stay down. " Then I think better of it.
Her snout flares and she narrows her eyes at me. I know that look. It's the look that used to send me cowering in my room whenever I did something pigheaded, which happened often enough.
"I'll call Maddie if you try again," I warn.
"You wouldn't dare." But Agatha settles back in her seat as she gauges my commitment to the threat. Because this is a threat, make no mistake. "You gave that girl a day off. You're not going to call her back to work just because I want to walk on my own two feet."
"Try me and see if I'm bluffing." I can't quite suppress the smirk that pulls on my lips as Agatha glares up at me from her sitting position.
The fight drains out of her. Then she scoffs, slams the armrest of the much-hated chair and settles back down, bracing her chin in her hand like a pouting schoolgirl.
I straighten up.
"I'm surprised you're taking time off work," she says.
"I'm not always working," I protest.
"Mm." She doesn't look up from the room. "Your grandfather said that too."
I pull out the chair from the row beside her and fold myself into it. It is not designed for a minotaur of my dimensions. The armrests dig in my sides and my knees stick out at an angle that the ergonomics of this chair simply did not account for. I settle into it as best I can anyway.
"I take time away from work whenever I want," I say.
She gives me a sideways look that makes clear the distinction is not landing the way I intended.
"You're just like him," she says. "Cornelius was always buried in his work.
Always one more call, one more deal, one more meeting he couldn't miss.
" Her voice is mild, but her weathered face wears a sad, almost longing expression.
"I used to sit across the dinner table and watch him have three conversations on the phone while we were eating.
He was there with us but his mind wasn't, you understand. Always half somewhere else."
For a moment I don't answer.
All my life, I have held a particular picture of my grandparents' marriage: Cornelius at the center of it, driving, building, relentless, and Agatha beside him, proud and steadfast, the foundation he could always come back to.
It has never occurred to me that she might have wished for something different.
"But you were always so proud of him and what he accomplished."
She smiles at me and I feel like a fool, a child who doesn't understand the intricacies of the adult world.
"I was proud of him," she says, still with that smile. "But one can be both proud and lonely at the same time."
I hold her gaze. I get the distinct feeling she's not telling me this in a random kind of way. Agatha is a Thornwood and Thornwoods don't wear their feelings on their sleeves. If she's telling me this, she has a reason.
"I didn't know you felt that way," I say and it's true. "You didn't look lonely."
"Of course I didn't look lonely to you. You were just a little boy and little boys take the world as they find it.
" She looks across the waiting room toward the front desk, where the gnome is now on the phone.
"Cornelius was a good man and we had a good life together.
I only want you to understand that a good life costs more than most men want to admit it does.
And the ones who realize it late are the ones who spend the last chapter of their lives finding out what they missed. "
The pixie child escapes again. She zips between two rows of chairs before her mother catches her, wings spinning like a trapped hummingbird.
"I'm not missing anything," I say.
Agatha turns and looks at me the way she used to when I'd argue myself out of admitting I was wrong. My phone rings.
I look at the screen.
"I have to take this," I say as I bring it to my ear and lean back in the chair that is still too small for me. "This is Demetrius."
"Demetrius." Marcus Webb's voice is warm and happy. "I hope it's a good time?"
"Marcus." I make no effort to lower my voice. "I take it you have news for me if you sound so chipper?"
"I do. I put Madison Berwick's name in front of the chief nursing officer myself. Top of the stack." A pause. "She's going to get a very compelling offer from us, Demetrius. Meridian Pacific looks after its own and anyone you vouch for is someone we want."
"That's what I was hoping to hear." I sit forward in the chair. "And the timeline?"
"We'll put everything together for the offer by Friday. We'll want to move quickly once she's had a chance to review the terms."
"I'll make sure she gives you an answer fast." I straighten up. "I appreciate this, Marcus. I won't forget it."
"That's what the favor bank is for." The warmth in his voice has nothing to do with the favor bank and we both know it, which is one of the reasons I respect him. "She's a lucky woman."
"It's me who's the lucky one," I answer. "I'll be in touch."
I hang up to find Agatha watching me.
"What was that?" Agatha's face is closed and her eyes are unreadable.
It is not quite a question.
"Business." I put the phone in my jacket pocket.
"What kind of business?"
I consider deflecting, but not for long. Agatha is not going to give me any way out of this. The old minotaur matriarch is as shrewd as ever. More, even. Like the years honed her mind to a razor-sharp edge.
"Windemere Maritime," I say. "I'm almost done with the acquisition."
"Your grandfather spent the last decade of his life trying to close that deal." She tilts her head. "It never came together the way he wanted." She pauses. "You finally managed it."
"Yes." A tightness settles behind my ribs. "But Adelaide threw me for a loop. She required me to agree to a relocation clause. A personal relocation. I'll be on-site in Long Beach for the next five years."
The waiting room is quiet enough that I can hear the sound of a name being called somewhere in the back corridor, a door swinging open and shut.
"Five years," she says. "It's a long time away from home."
"It's not what I wanted, but it was that or let go of the deal." I straighten in the chair. "It's fine. I'll come back every month to visit you."
"And Maddie."
The way she says it, this is not a question.
"So you know about me and Maddie." I pause. "I don't even know why I'm surprised. You always found a way to know more than people let on."
She gives a short, quiet sound that is not quite a scoff. "I've known Maddie was your mate since you were both in high school. The rest of it was a matter of time."
"Then you understand why I'm finding her a nursing job in LA. I'm not going to repeat the same mistake I made the first time."
"Boy, you better come to your senses and quick. You're making a huge mistake."
I sit forward, bracing my forearms on my knees. The chair protests.
"Meridian Pacific is the most prestigious hospital in Los Angeles.
Best ICU in the state, nationally ranked.
I called in a favor with the chief of medical staff to put Maddie's name in front of the right people.
" I frown at Agatha, but she doesn't change her expression.
"She loves her work. She's had to stop because of her mother's illness, but that's over now.
Maddie can go back to her career. She can have the position she deserves. She can come with me to Long Beach."
I am proud of this. I want her to understand that. This is not the impulsive certainty of an eighteen-year-old who thought money was the solution to every equation. I thought it through. I found the variable and I solved for it.
Agatha is quiet for a long moment.
In the row across from us, an elderly naga couple is sharing something from a paper bag, passing it back and forth without looking at each other.
"Demetrius." Agatha's voice is low and she speaks slowly. "You have everything. More than most people will see in a lifetime. The money, the company, the power." She glances toward the phone in my pocket. "Don't you have enough already?"
"There's no such thing as enough when your name is on the company."
"That's Cornelius talking."
It lands harder than I expected.
She doesn't let up.
"What you can never have too much of is love," she says.
"That's the one thing you don't get back when it's gone.
You know that better than most. I am asking you honestly: have you asked her?
Have you sat down with that girl and talked to her and told her what's coming and asked her what she wants? "
A lump settles in my throat and I swallow, hard.
"She's going to have a position any nurse in the country would compete for."
"That's not what I asked."
Again, Agatha's shrewd gaze rips right through me and for a moment, I get the distinct feeling that she could be right about this. Then I remember that I have no choice, not if I want this deal.
"I'm taking care of her. Maddie will have everything she can wish for."
"Does she know?" Agatha's eyes do not leave me. "That you are leaving at all?"
I don't answer. Agatha reads the answer to my question off my face as easily as from an open book.
"I see," she says, and the two words are more cutting than any knife.
"Demetrius." There is no edge in her voice.
That is somehow worse. "Your grandfather took care of me too.
He made every decision he thought was right for both of us and he made them with his whole heart and there was never a cruel intention in any of it.
" She pauses. "But he never once asked me what I wanted.
Not really." Her hand rests on her knee, very still. "The decision was always already made."
The overhead lights hum. Somewhere near the front desk, a child cries briefly and then goes quiet.
"Maddie is a heart person," she says. "She has always been. You will not sway her with prestige or money, I promise you that. Her heart isn't for sale, and you're a fool if you think the right job description will cover for not asking her the question you should be asking."
Neither of us says anything for a long moment.
I know exactly what question she means. I have known since the moment the words left her mouth. It's the question I knew I should be asking, but to be honest, it's also the question I don't want to ask her. Because I may not be afraid of much, but I'm afraid of the answer to that question.
A door opens at the far end of the corridor and a pixie nurse appears, young and efficient, with wings a bright lime green that flutter at her back as she scans her clipboard.
"Mrs. Thornwood?" She steps into the waiting room. "We're ready for your X-rays."
Agatha presses her hands to the armrests. I stand and put one hand on the push bar before she can try anything. She relents without a fight, which tells me the morning has cost her more than she will admit.
"Behave," I tell her, as the nurse takes the handles.
She makes a sound that is not an agreement.
"I always do."
The nurse wheels her through the door and it swings shut, leaving me alone with my thoughts. My thoughts are not good company.
Maddie's heart isn't for sale. I know that. I've always known that.
I sit back down in the inadequate chair. Around me the room goes on: the gnome at the desk, the naga couple, the empty row where the pixie child was orbiting twenty minutes ago. Everything exactly as it was.
I put my elbows on my knees.
The question I should be asking Maddie hovers at the back of my mind like a wasp around a sugary treat, dangerous and relentless.
Are you willing to leave everything else behind and come with me?
I have not asked it. I know I have not asked it because I already know the answer. Or I think I do.
What will I do if she says no?