Chapter 8 #2
And it had been a gift sent at the eleventh hour.
Susan had probably been chewing Darnell’s ear about all that had come to pass since Dom had bought Remember Me.
Harvey pulled up one of the wire chairs to sit in front of her. “You own the facility? Why didn’t you mention it?”
Her shoulders, sore and in need of a good massage, lifted. “I dunno. I just didn’t.” Dom didn’t want praise for doing what she’d done. She’d had an ulterior motive—her grandfather and his best interests, a comfortable journey toward the inevitable end of his life.
”Because our girl Dominique isn’t one to toot her own horn. But had she not swooped in and done what she did, Remember Me was as doomed as our future foes will be once she gets her hands on them,” MC crowed.
It figured MC knew all about last year. He knew everything else about her, right down to the appendectomy she’d had in sixth grade and the broken toe she’d suffered her sophomore year from a rousing game of dodgeball.
Harvey nudged her knee with his, giving her a teasing glance. “Toot your horn,” he encouraged, with a handsome smile that left her knees weak.
Looking down at her work boots, Dom shrugged.
“I guess Susan must have told Darnell all about it. It’s not a big deal, really.
Long story short, my grandfather had been at Remember Me for about a year and a half.
It wasn’t the best place, the government-run facilities are always kind of a gamble, but it was all his social security afforded, and even then, it took me forever to find him an even halfway decent place that would actually take him. ”
Nina grunted, making a face with a wrinkle of her nose. “The fucking state of affairs when it comes to the elderly is a load of bullshit. All that hard work for all those years and they just shit on ’em when they can’t take care of themselves.”
Wanda gripped Nina’s hand. “Nina knows a little something about nursing care facilities because of her Nana Lou, but we’re lucky that money didn’t figure into the equation.”
Dom noted the way Wanda used the word “we.” Wanda and Nina weren’t related. None of them were, but that didn’t appear to matter. They really were all for one and one for all. With their lives, with their children, with access to their homes. It fascinated her to watch them together.
Sighing, she took a long gulp of her hot chocolate. “Well, for me, money was a problem. A big problem, and the worse Papa got, the more I had to call in sick, which meant the more my employment teetered on the brink of extinction.”
“You managed a cosmetics counter, right?” Marty asked, her blue eyes twinkling.
Dom snickered, pointing to her clothes and mop of hair.
“You’d never know it now, but yes, I did.
And keeping track of my grandfather with his Alzheimer’s progressing rapidly while trying to work twelve hours a day became almost impossible.
I’m all he has…he’s all I have,” she whispered, fighting the tears that always came with the idea she’d lose him not too far in the future.
Nina latched onto her hand and squeezed it hard. “Nobody gets that better’n me. My Nana Lou is everything to me. Fucking everything. I’d kill a bitch for her.”
Marty barked a laugh. “Who are you kidding, you’d kill a bitch for the fun of it.”
Everyone laughed except Dom. She went pale. Had she killed someone? Had any of them?
Wanda reached over and patted her knee. “Marty’s kidding. Mostly. I won’t lie to you and tell you there hasn’t been a death or two cross our paths, but it was always in defense and fear for our own lives. Now finish your story. How did you come to own a memory care facility?”
Dom nodded, taking a deep breath. “One day, after Papa got out and walked almost twenty blocks from home and the police contacted me to come get him, I knew I didn’t have a choice but to find him somewhere he could be cared for twenty-four-seven.
I spent a full month battling with Medicare and social security until I found Remember Me, and he was doing pretty well there for a while.
He made friends, he participated. It was… fine.”
Harvey leaned into her, his cologne wafting to her nostrils, as Fletcher landed on his shoulder and nuzzled his ear. He’d really taken to Harvey. Again, a surprise from her crow, who was usually so reserved. “For a while… I’m guessing something pretty bad happened?”
Man, did it ever. Dom nodded, looking down at her feet.
“It sure did. It was so poorly understaffed to begin with, there had been complaints and fines for some time that I wasn’t made aware of.
When one of the nurses abused a patient and left her in a closet for almost two days, the press got wind of it and it was full-on chaos.
Then the state got involved, and Medicare, and it all went to hell in a handbasket. ”
“Two days?” Harvey said in disbelief. “Jesus, that’s awful.”
Rubbing her eyes, the fear she’d felt after they’d found Verlean still left her weak.
“It was awful. I spent almost all my free time there because they’d missed Papa’s medication a couple of times.
They even forgot to feed him more than once.
But when they found Verlean, someone my grandfather spent a lot of time with, dehydrated and almost comatose, I was beside myself.
Verlean was as much family as my papa. Anyway, that night, I swore I’d figure something out. ”
“Wait until you hear how she figured it out,” MC chirped, with what she’d swear was pride in his cultured voice.
Even now, Dom herself still couldn’t believe how she’d figured it out.
“I was gutted, leaving Papa there that night. But I had to secure somewhere else for him to go before I took him out of there, and I knew Susan would keep an eye on him. I went home that night, terrified of what came next, but I stopped at the convenience store down the road from my place because I needed some milk for coffee. I knew I had a long night ahead of me. I didn’t really want to stop, because it was raining and I felt like death warmed over.
My boss had left me a few messages about calling out again.
I felt like my head was poised under the guillotine. ”
God, that awful night when the world felt as if it were crumbling around her.
“And then,” Wanda encouraged with a hopeful expression.
“Here comes the good part!” MC said with glee.
Marty clapped her gloved hands together. “I’m dying here! What happened next?”
She laughed, still in shock at the choice she’d made that miserable rainy night. “I stopped. I don’t know what the heck possessed me, but there was a line to buy lottery tickets, and I figured…what could it hurt, right? I had to wait in line anyway. So I bought one. My first and my last.”
“You won the lottery?” Harvey said in awe. “Holy cow, that’s amazing!”
That surge of adrenaline, that feeling of euphoria, washed over Dom again the same way it had when she’d found out. “I did. I still can’t believe it.”
Nina clapped her on the back with a whistle. “Holy fucking shit, Thor’s weird replacement. How much didja win?”
“A lot,” she murmured. She didn’t like talking about it. That kind of money had brought lots of people out of the woodwork she’d rather forget.
“Eight-hundred-million dollars’ worth of a lot,” MC said with a laugh.
So he’d known all along? Crazy. She didn’t question it as much anymore, but it was still crazy.
Dom clapped her hands on her thighs. “Yes. Eight-hundred-million dollars, though, after taxes…not quite as much, but it saved my papa’s life. It saved Remember Me. It saved the people who needed somewhere to go. It saved jobs. It was a miracle I never even thought to pray for.”
Harvey shook his head in obvious wonder, his eyes warm and glowing. “So you bought Remember Me.”
“Originally, I was going to bring Papa back to my apartment and hire full-time care, but despite the hurdles, he’s thrived being with people like him.
They were like a gang of aging troublemakers.
I couldn’t separate them, even if they don’t always know each other’s names.
So I got a financial advisor and set about renovating the place and hiring reliable, credited staff, so no one would ever be left in a closet again. ”
“You’re forgetting to tell them the part that makes your heart as big as all of Asgard, Dominique,” MC softly reminded.
Flapping her hand, she waved him off, but he wouldn’t be thwarted.
“What this fine up-and-coming warrior is remiss in telling you is, not only did she renovate and recreate her papa’s home in his room, but she created an entire village for the seniors to roam.
There’s a café and flower shop, a bookstore, a tiny Italian bistro, a small grocery store, a hair salon, and even a bus stop so they can hop on the bus and ride to the park, where there are fountains, lush gardens and places they can all enjoy a lovely sunny day.
” MC paused before he finished with, “Though, let us not forget, she also accepts only what people can afford for their loved ones to enjoy all these luxuries, on top of the best medical staff money can buy. Sometimes, that means very little profit in the bank.”
She held up a finger when everyone stared at her in awe, uncomfortable with that kind of praise.
“But the profit in my heart, the peace of mind my papa’s in good hands, that they’re all in good hands, is better than any big bank account could ever be.
Besides, I do a lot of fundraising, and my financial consultant has made me more than enough to last a hundred lifetimes with some pretty smart investments.
Don’t let anyone tell you money doesn’t make things happen. It was life-changing.”
“What she also fails to mention is that our Dominque didn’t buy fancy cars or a big house with all that money, she didn’t even take a trip around the world.
She gave back instead. She bought the well-being of others and the gift of security for the children of seniors who otherwise couldn’t afford a place as wonderful as Remember Me. ”
Tucking her cold hands into her sleeves, Dom shivered.
“Not entirely true, MC. I did buy a pretty sweet townhouse, and every last bit of makeup at the cosmetics counter I used to manage, from the boss who didn’t believe I had a sick grandfather and who made me feel like a lazy piece of garbage for having to take so many days off. I wasn’t entirely selfless.”
Everyone had gone silent as the leaves swirled at their feet and the hedge maze bent in the rising wind.
“What an incredible human being you are,” Wanda whispered, wiping a stray tear from her cheek before she rose from her seat and hugged Dom tight. A warm, floral-scented hug that made Dom tear up, too.
Marty joined her, throwing her arms around them both and squeezing. “Get in here, vampire. Don’t pretend you don’t want to,” Marty ordered, pulling Nina into their circle.
“Hey,” Harvey said, towering over them with his devastatingly handsome smile, his cheeks ruddy from the chill. “I want in, too, guys.”
As the women surrounded her with their special brand of affection, Harvey managed to get an arm around her, and Dom couldn’t help but feel that thrill he evoked when he hugged her with his broad arm.
He made her feel…anchored…and she didn’t understand it. She didn’t understand its suddenness. Call it trauma bonding or whatever Nina had described, but it existed, and it had become as much a part of this new life she was heading toward as MC had.
Taking a deep breath, Dom felt better. Pulling from their embrace, she looked at them all under the darkening skies and smiled.
“Okay, enough of the fuzzy-wuzzy, as Nina would say. Let’s try one more time before we call it a day.”
Nina flicked her fingers under Dom’s nose. “I would not either call it fuzzy-wuzzy. Now go handle your shit and quit putting sissy-ass words in my mouth.”
Dom tipped her head back and laughed before she positioned herself in the clearing in front of the hedge maze, widening her stance and planting her feet firmly into the ground.
With a deep breath and a flex of her fingers, she held out her hand, bunching the muscles in her thighs to prepare for impact.
“Hammer!” she shouted, with as much confidence as she could muster.
And then it happened.
She felt the breeze MC stirred lifting the loose tendrils of her hair when he launched himself at her, the hum of electricity in the air when his handle slammed into her palm.
And this time, she clamped her fingers around the cool metal and held tight.
The force knocked her back a few steps, but Dom held her ground and strengthened her stance, digging her heels into the earth.
The deafening silence held her in its steely grip for a moment before, almost against her will, she hollered, “Thooor!” raising MC high into the air.
When the sky cracked its acknowledgement, when thunder rolled and the frosted grass beneath her feet shook, everyone began to cheer.
She’d done it…
She’d done it!
Her elation, her sheer euphoria, left her forgetting the lecture she’d given herself only earlier today.
Without thought, the first face she saw—let’s face it, the only face she saw when she realized she’d actually caught MC—was Harvey’s, as she dropped the hammer and ran toward him, launching herself into his unsuspecting arms.
Wrapping her arms around his neck in her complete elation, she yelped, “I did it!”
Before she promptly laid one on him, pressing her lips to his until her eyeballs crossed.
And until she realized what she’d done, anyway.
When she became aware again, Dom tore her lips from his luscious pillows with a gasp, sliding down his body to the ground in shame and guilt.
But to her favor—and okay, okay, to her delight—Harvey had kissed her back.
So there was that.