Chapter 13 #2
“Mr. Wyatt,” Dr. Aoki said, “Your wife had a serious myocardial infarction, a heart attack caused by a blockage in her coronary artery, which led to cardiac arrest. We put a stent in to open up the blocked artery. Although she’s stable now, with mild damage and no a-fib, she’ll need to remain hospitalized for a few days.
We’ll watch her and take further tests to check for additional blockages and make an assessment for future surgery. ”
“What’s her prognosis?” I asked, tensing for the answer but needing to know. It seemed like my entire family held their breath.
“It’s good. She’s relatively young and her heart was strong. With some diet and lifestyle changes, she should do well and live a long, full life.”
I breathed out
My father said, “Thank you so much, doctor, for saving my wife.” There were murmurs of gratitude from everyone. I kept my eyes on Mia.
“I can’t take all the credit. Mia’s quick and expert actions saved your wife before I got to her.”
Watching Mia blush as my father hugged her in thanks, my jaw clenched and the reality of the situation came crashing down on me. Mom almost died. And Mia saved her.
After the others were finished with their hugs, drying their tears and allowing smiles of hope to shine, I zeroed in on her.
She came toward me, unsmiling, eyes on mine.
“Can we find a private spot to talk?” She spoke quietly. I nodded, giving her a hug, not trusting my voice.
As Mia led me to a separate space, not too far from the waiting area and her official role, I breathed, deep and long, letting go of some of the fear and anxiety and allowing myself to appreciate the idea that Mom was stable and being cared for now.
That she was all right. That she would be all right.
Taking a quick glance at my family, I saw that they were more animated, relieved.
Dad was talking with the doctor as my brother Joe stood at his side, my two sisters were on their phones, not happy, but no longer crying.
Turning away from them, I faced Mia where she stood against the pale green wall near a water fountain.
“You were great today, amazing,” I said. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough.”
She waved a hand, looking uncomfortable. “I have something to confess to you,” she said. “I know this isn’t the best time.” She paused to gather herself. In spite of my curiosity turning to concern, I waited.
“It’s not about your mother. She’s through the tough part.” Mia put a hand on my arm. “It’s about us,” she said.
My heart picked up on the idea there was an us, but she didn’t look happy, so I held back, cleared my head and nerves of anticipation.
“Something’s been weighing on my mind. I can’t have you thinking I’m some hero or saint or—” She waved a hand around again, flustered.
“What is it? How bad could it be?” I smiled at her, wanting to steal another kiss, wanting a hell of a lot more but knowing all of it was a dead end, unhealthy. Knowing I should let her go.
“The kiss,” she said, lowering her head. I took her chin and lifted it, seeing the trouble in her eyes.
“It’s okay—”
“No. It’s not. I-I lured you—”
“Believe me, Mia, I was willing. You didn’t—”
“Denise put me up to it.” She blurted the words, then watched me with a pained expression. I felt suspended, not getting what the hell she was talking about.
“What?”
“I mean Denise asked me to kiss you, to tempt you into kissing me. She wanted to make you feel guilty, knew you would. Wanted to prompt you into buying her a diamond.”
I went cold, felt the betrayal squeeze my chest, churn my gut. But it wasn’t Denise’s betrayal that made me feel ill, it was Mia’s. The same kind of sick feeling I got the first time we lost in the playoffs—times a hundred.
A damn kiss shouldn’t make a grown man get tied up in knots, but it did. Maybe it was too much added to the shock of my mother’s heart attack. But I knew, we both knew what the kiss meant, that we were crossing a line, changing our relationship. Or at least that’s what I’d thought.
“So the kiss meant nothing to you but a plot to help Denise trap me. Is that it?”
She blanched at my accusation and I felt mixed between going for the jugular, pressing my advantage to destroy the opponent or, instead, pulling her into my arms to hug her, to erase the hurt and worry I saw on her face. I did neither.
“I was just going to call Denise,” I said. “It should be an interesting talk.” I turned from Mia, walking away without touching her, my hands shaky with the effort. She didn’t stop me.
I went farther down the corridor toward the elevator and stood in a recess in the wall that probably housed pay phones back in the day.
Heart thudding, maybe I should have worried about a heart attack myself.
The day had stressed me more than any day I could remember for a long time.
But I didn’t go searching my memory too hard to find one.
Instead, I took a deep calming breath, focused on the task at hand, and pulled out my phone.
Denise’s number was the first on my favorites list, the only one with a photo icon next to it. I stabbed at her face, allowing the one spike of anger before tamping down, knowing I wasn’t blameless. After three, then four rings, when I was about to swear aloud, Denise answered.
“Hi, honey—”
“I’m at the hospital, Denise.” First things first. I had to tell her about my mom. “My mother had a heart attack at dinner.” I paused to allow her to process the news with a screech of concern and words of consolation and the main question.
“Will she be all right?”
“She’s stable now. Mia was at dinner. She saved my mother’s life, Denise. She did CPR until the ambulance got there.”
“Oh my God. I’m so glad she was there for you.”
“Are you really?”
“What? Never mind.” She paused and I heard a shuffling as I prepared myself to tell her what I needed to tell her. She continued, “I can be there tomorrow. I can catch a flight at—”
“Don’t bother. You don’t have to come. Your good friend and accomplice Mia will sub in for you.” There was a beat of dead air. She paid attention this time, maybe registered my unfriendly tone of voice.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she finally said.
“Mia told me about your plan—that you wanted her to tempt me into a kiss, to cross the line, purposely wanted to guilt me into buying you a diamond, as she put it.” The pause was shorter this time.
“Don’t pretend you’re all hurt about it, Gabe, because we both know all you really care about is playing football. If I’m going to put up with that the least I deserve is a diamond ring to show for it.”
I had to give her credit for not trying to deny anything. But as the bitterness in her voice registered, I took in a long breath. Knowing she was right about my part in the demise of our relationship, my anger at being duped vaporized in one exhale.
“A fine pair we are.”
She was silent for a beat and then said, “It’s not that I don’t care about you, Gabe.”
“I know. I care about you too. Always will.”
“It’s Mia, isn’t it.” She wasn’t asking.
“No.” I was lying to myself more than her. “You know it’s football.”
She sighed. “Not forever, hon. Someday, some lucky lady will pry you loose from that dried-up piece of leather you’re so faithful to.”
I laughed. She was back to her sassy self. “You have a way with words.”
She laughed, more relief than humor in it.
“I’ll send a card and flowers to your mom. Please let her know I care.”
“I will.” Ending the call, I couldn’t say more. The tightness in my chest stopped me from talking. I could barely breathe, so I took the stairs and went outside when I reached the first floor.
It was a hell of a way to end a four-and-a-half-year relationship. And I knew that was the end. I waited for the sadness, for the bottled-up emotions I had inside me to pour out. But most of the tension I felt right now was about my mother.
I refused to think or feel anything about Mia.
And Denise, her sex appeal aside, had become more of a friend than anything.
I had a feeling she still would be a friend after some distance between us, time for any residual resentment on her part to fall away.
I would work at it, wanted her friendship.
I’d started out on my way to this big life with her at my side, relied on her cool common sense as much as anyone’s when signing my first deal with the NFL, setting up my life.
We’d been good for each other for a while.
Not anymore, not side-by-side. We’d be good, see-you-once-in-a-while friends.
An empty ache settled in my chest, like the kind of hollow feeling you got from hunger when your stomach was empty. Only this was in my heart. My mom was hurting. My girl was gone.
But I still had football. The team was playing well. I was playing well. Funny how this pep talk to myself wasn’t cheering me, wasn’t loosening the grip of tension my emotions had on my chest, still made it hard for me to breathe. I forced the cool air in and out, started the self-examination.
It was unnatural for me, not something I was prone to do.
Not a soul-searching introspective kind of guy, the discomfort, like I was wearing new cleats in the wrong size, had me in knots worse than before.
My life was fine. I had everything I wanted or needed.
Mom would get back on her feet. I’d call Denise now and then. Everything would be cool.
What about Mia?
She would go her own way. She had no reason to stick around me without Denise’s insistence, did she? Without Tate to keep her around.
Without me asking her to stick around.
I wouldn’t do that. I needed to maintain the football focus. It was who I was, what I did, the single-track mind that made me the best—or on my way to being the best. But I’d never get there if I got distracted, if I put Mia ahead of football in the pecking order of my life.