by Liza Kendall
Besides, it would be the last time he’d ever see the old man. There was no friggin’ way he was going anywhere near any of the Nashes again—and especially not near Charlie. She could walk her own damn self down the aisle at her cousin’s wedding. And the rest of them could all drive off a cliff, for all he cared. Especially the psychotic firebug of a bride.
Jake took the elevator to the second floor and walked down to room 217, his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans. He was determined to give Kingston only a ride, and not a piece of his mind.
“Hello, old-timer,” he said.
Kingston turned his head and eyed him sourly. He had the grace to flush a bit pink, but not enough to apologize for siccing his granddaughter on Jake’s livelihood. “What are you doing here?”
Jake smiled pleasantly. “I’m here to take you home.”
“The hell you are. Where’s Charlie?”
“I’m not sure. Nobody seems to be able to reach her. So the nurses called me to give you a lift.”
“I ain’t goin’ anywhere with you. Bad enough that I let you torture me after surgery.”
“Aw, King—don’t be like that. Besides, thanks to you, I no longer have a paying job. So I’m starting up a local taxi service.” He winked.
“What?”
“You haven’t heard? Charlie did a bang-up job presenting your case, and the town council finally sided with you. Congrats.”
Kingston’s head retracted a little into his pillow, so that he looked like a turtle pulling toward its shell. His rheumy eyes searched Jake’s face from under those bushy gray eyebrows. What was he feeling? Triumph? Guilt? Both?
What was he looking for in Jake? Resentment?
Jake refused to show him any. “C’mon. You’ll be my first fare. It seems fitting. Don’t deny me the pleasure.”
“I ain’t givin’ you a plugged nickel.”
“Fine. Then it’s a practice run, and you’re my crabby old guinea pig. How’s that?” He entered the room, unfazed by the lack of a warm welcome.
“You got some nerve . . .”
“That I do. It comes in handy.” Jake looked around for the old man’s belongings. There didn’t seem to be any.
On the opposite wall from the bed stood a tall gray cabinet with narrow doors. Jake opened one of them.
“Hey! Get out of there,” Kingston said.
Inside, there were a few personal things and items of clothing: a blue chambray shirt, some ancient frayed khaki work pants, an even more ancient brown leather belt, and a pair of beat-up brown lace-ups.
“Get out!” the old man hollered. “You trying to steal my watch?”
Jake nodded. “That’s it exactly,” he said. “I’ve always wanted a battered Timex,” he added with a mischievous grin. “Plus your wallet and this flip phone. But what I covet most of all is the huge bug-eyed sunglasses that make you resemble a giant fly. That’s a look that I’ve aspired to for a very long time.”
Kingston glared at him. “Sure, get your jollies at my expense, you smug bastard.”
“Aw, Kingston. Don’t be like that. Think of it this way. Thanks to you, Silverlake now has an all-volunteer fire department. Well, I’m your volunteer.” Jake opened the other side of the makeshift armoire and found two clear plastic bags with drawstrings hanging from a hook. He took one and began dropping Nash’s things into it.
“What are you doing? Stop that!”
“King, I’m going to take you home. So that means your things, too.”
“I told you, I’m not goin’ anywhere with you.”
“Your choice. But the hospital needs your bed, and the next patient needs a place to put his stuff. So . . .” Jake closed the doors of the cabinet and headed for the bathroom next, to pick up any toiletries the old man had in there.
He scooped up a razor, a travel-sized can of shaving cream, a travel-sized stick of Right Guard deodorant, a toothbrush, and a half-used tube of Sensodyne toothpaste, adding them all to the bag. His gaze fell next on a box of Depends. Poor Kingston. It couldn’t be easy for a man so proud to rely on such a product.
“Get out of there!” King hollered. “Leave that stuff alone.”
He was probably mortified that Jake had seen the disposable underwear. How could this be handled sensitively? Jake took the opaque liner from the trash can and dropped the Depends into it, concealing the packaging from the glance of a casual observer.
“Okay, you’re good to go,” he said, emerging from the bathroom. “Ready?” Jake stepped over to where Kingston’s discharge papers lay on a counter with a speckled laminate top. He put out a hand for them.
“Don’t you touch those!” the old man barked. “Those are none of your business, you hear?” Something close to hysteria had bubbled close to the surface. “They’re private.”
“All right,” Jake said calmly, holding up a hand palm out. “I’ll let you take those yourself, then.” He set down the bags and pushed the wheelchair closer to Kingston’s bed. “Let’s get you into your chariot.”
“Let’s get you outta my face.” Kingston’s eyes blazed with hostility.
Jake met his gaze coolly, with as much compassion as he could dredge up. “You want to call a cab from Austin or San Antone? You want to roll yourself home along the highway? Okay. So be it. I’ll drop off your belongings.” And he turned on his heel, exiting the room with the plastic bags.
“Get back here! You . . . you . . . thief! You’ve been thieving taxpayers’ money for twelve years now, and now you’re thieving my things!”
Jake ignored him.
“Stop! Thief! Help!”
Jake, standing just outside, heard a squeak of bedsprings, a scuffle with the bedcovers, and then muttered curses. Then there came an oof as Kingston toppled into the wheelchair, followed by more mumbled curses.
As Jake walked toward the nurses’ station, Kingston yelled “Thief!” again, and Mia emerged, looking half-worried, half-exasperated. “What’s going on?”
“Just a little motivation,” Jake said with a wink. “Do me a favor and make yourself disappear.” He started walking.
Kingston Nash bellowed like an angry bull.
He emerged from room 217 wild-eyed and wild-whiskered, rolling himself in the chair and spitting like an angry alley cat.
“I’ve had it with your impudence, young Braddock. Strutting around town, playing the hero, playing everyone for a fool . . .”
Jake stopped, turned, and waited for the old man to catch up to him. “Great,” he said. “Now we can get going.” He headed for the exit.
“Get back here! Give me my stuff, or I’m gonna kick your ass.”
“Gotta catch me first, King.” Jake picked up the pace.
Cussing, Nash rolled after him, right out the sliding doors and into the parking lot.
“Look at you go! What a trouper.” Jake approached him, dropped the bags in his lap, and then grabbed the handles of the wheelchair.
“Hey! Stop that. I never agreed to go with you.”
Jake ignored him and rolled him right up to the Durango.
Like a little kid, Nash stomped one of his feet on the ground, then the other.
“Hey, those hips seem to be working perfectly now.”
“Don’t patronize me. And I ain’t gettin’ into that truck. Don’t even think about manhandling me, or so help me, I will—”
“What? Gum me to death?” Jake opened the passenger-side door, then rolled Kingston up close to the running board. As the old man opened his mouth to protest, Jake shocked him into silence by picking him up bodily and dropping him onto the seat. “Think you can handle strapping yourself in?”
“How dare you? This is elder abuse! This is—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“This is kidnapping!”
“It’s no such thing, and you kno
w it. This is a friend giving you a ride home.”
“I’m no friend of yours,” Kingston snapped.
“Only if you want it that way,” Jake said.
Because he knew that no matter how much it hurt that Kingston had taken everything away from him, the only way Jake would really lose was if he let it break him.
And Kingston would never break him.
Kingston Nash was still shouting as Jake turned into the driveway of his apartment complex.
“I’ve had enough of your accusations,” Jake said, throwing the Durango into park and turning off the ignition. “You’re writing quite the potboiler there, King. High drama. But total fiction.” He got out, slammed his door, and rounded the hood to open Kingston’s. “C’mon. Let’s get you inside and settled.”
“Get away from me.”
Jake sighed but stood aside.
The old man unfastened his seat belt, twisted, clapped his blue-veined left hand on the vehicle’s door, and then swung his legs out. Grabbing the seat with his right hand, he inched down out of the truck while Jake prayed silently that he’d make it safely to the ground.
Thank God.
Kingston eyed him balefully, the breeze stirring the unruly hairs of his eyebrows, tickling their severity. His chin bristles glinted against the sunset, and though the skin underneath them was loose, the determination in his jaw defied age.
All the chips on the old bugger’s shoulders seemed to clack together as he and his bony old hips took a step toward his front door, and then another and another—refusing any help from Jake.
He made it. Jake’s mouth twisted in unwilling admiration as Nash produced the keys from his pocket, all the while trying to maintain the illusion that he didn’t need to hang on to the doorknob to stand up.
As Jake followed with his bag of things, he tried not to see as King hesitated, casting a dour, hopeless glance at what waited for him inside. A television instead of a wife. A case of Ensure instead of a home-cooked meal. A silent silver-framed facsimile of a family.
Nash walked down the narrow hallway to his bedroom, using his hands on the walls to steady himself. Charlie’s suitcase stood next to the closet. Jake averted his eyes from it, put the plastic bag on the couch, and placed the Depends discreetly in the bathroom as the old man got into bed, fully dressed, without a word.
On his nightstand was a picture of a smiling Babe Nash. Jake averted his eyes from that, too.
“You want to put on some pajamas?” he asked.
“No. Why are you still here?”
“I figured I’d wait for you to break out some floral paper, spray some cologne on it, and write me a thank-you note.”
“Ha. Good one.” Kingston rolled over and faced the wall.
“You hungry?”
“Go away.”
Jake closed his eyes. He opened them to see Babe still smiling from the photograph, and he retreated to the kitchen. In a cupboard, he found a can of something advertised as hearty beef stew. In another, he found bowls.
He nuked the stew in the microwave, made some instant coffee, and popped a vanilla pudding free of its plastic yoke. He piled everything on an old black tin tray with a faded red rooster on it and added a paper towel and a spoon. Then he walked it all into Kingston’s bedroom and set it down next to him.
“You need to eat something, old-timer.”
“You need to buzz off. I can’t believe you’re still here.”
“I can’t, either. But here’s the thing: I really need some lessons in how to be rude.”
Kingston rolled over. “Is that so? Well, watch and learn, boy.” His left eye twitched. It seemed involuntary, couldn’t have been a wink. His stomach growled audibly. With a sigh, he struggled to a sitting position.
The old man said nothing as Jake adjusted the pillows behind his back for him. Then he set the tray on his lap.
“Why?” Nash asked him simply. “Why are you doing this? For revenge? Because it makes you happy to see me on the verge of helplessness?”
Jake’s chest tightened. He shook his head. “No.”
“Because it amuses you?”
“No.”
“Are you here out of guilt, Braddock?”
Jake looked him squarely in the eye. “I have nothing to feel guilty about.”
Nash held his gaze for what seemed like an eternity before he dropped his own to the beef stew. “I know.” His hands shook.
So he knew? That it must have been Brandon at fault? He was finally going to admit it?
“I know you don’t have nothin’ to feel guilty about, son.”
That word again. That word with its serrated edges.
“But I surely don’t know why it is that you’re here.”
“I’m here, you old curmudgeon—” The word came out of the farthest reaches of Jake’s subconscious. It was Babe’s word for Kingston, and it seemed to startle both of them. “Because I . . . care . . . about you, and I always have. Always will. Whether you like it or not. Whether you’re a jerk about it or not. Maybe you and your family took me in out of casual pity, not thinking about it too much. But it meant the world to me—” His voice broke, and he hated himself for it.
“It meant the world to me, to have a grandfather like you. I guess you never understood that. Maybe you don’t give a rat’s ass. Maybe you’re just focused on everything you lost that night, and that’s your God-given right. You can be as sour and crotchety and ungrateful as you want. It doesn’t change how I feel. And I felt the same way about Grandma Babe. Still do. Even if I didn’t love you for your own sake, I’d love you for hers.”
Kingston had hunched himself over the tray. His face was silhouetted by the lamplight. He remained utterly silent.
“I know you’ll never forgive me for not saving her—” Jake broke off.
One by one, droplets were falling from the darkened, craggy landscape of Kingston’s face, right into the stew. The old man was crying.
“It ain’t you I have to forgive, son. It ain’t you. It’s me.”
Jake stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
King’s shoulders shook silently.
“Hey, don’t do that, old-timer.” Jake set his hand on Kingston’s back, rubbing uncertainly.
“I knew I needed to repair that lamp cord. I knew it. Dang thing was frayed all to hell. But I had better things to do . . .” He pushed away the tray and sank his face into his hands. “Better. Things. To. Do.”
Utterly shocked, Jake didn’t know what to say.
“And now I got all the time in the world to do ’em. Until the grim reaper snatches me off this earth and drops me into hell for killing my own wife.”
Jake sat down heavily on the mattress next to the old man. “Kingston. I don’t know where you got that idea, but it’s not true.”
“It is.”
“No. It’s not. Look, I don’t know how to tell you this . . . and it’s not as if it matters, especially not after all this time. But I’ve seen the report. The one Old George wrote up at the time.”
Nash made a hacking noise in the back of his throat. “Yeah. The one that said ‘Inconclusive. Accidental.’ I know he was just sparing my feelings . . .”
“Except it didn’t.”
“What in Sam Hill are you talkin’ about?”
“King. You weren’t at fault. I wasn’t at fault, either. But George gave you a doctored report. Because he didn’t want you to see who was. And he didn’t want anyone in your family to see who it was, either.”
Nash stared at him, his jaw going slack. His mouth worked, and it took him a while to get the words out. “Why not?”
“Why do you think, King?”
The old man just shook his head.
“Because he couldn’t have handled knowing the truth. And neither could you.”
There was a pause that stretched for an eternity.
Then Nash closed his rheumy eyes. “No . . . no . . . no. Not Brandon.”
“It was an accident. He was smoking out back,” Jake said quietly. “He tossed the butt into a pile of leaves near the kitchen door.”
“No.”
“He was a kid. A sixteen-year-old kid. George was worried about what it would do to Brandon, having his grandmother’s death on his conscience. He was afraid it would destroy him, and his relationships with you and his parents . . . And with Charlie.”
“That wasn’t George’s call to make!” Kingston shouted. “How could he? I’ll wring his wrinkled old neck!”
“He did it because he thought it was for the best, King. Because he’s got a big heart. That’s the only reason.”
Nash’s fists twisted in the sheets. His legs twitched. Jake was afraid he’d dump the bowl of stew onto his bedcovers.
“He did it,” Jake continued, “because he was your friend. And he felt terrible, too, that the Fire and Rescue crew didn’t get there in time. He felt partially responsible for Babe’s death.”
The old man cursed a blue streak that had his beige curtains blushing before the end of it.
“Why do you think Old George has never said a word when you’ve gone on your rampages at the town council meetings?” Jake said. “Never defended us. Always let someone else do the talking.”
“I’m-a kill ’im.”
Jake nodded. “Okay. You do that. But you might want to buy him a beer first.”
“Brandon. That boy . . . he’s done his best to screw up his life. He knows. He didn’t need anybody to tell him.”
Jake sighed.
“But all this time,” Kingston said, “he’s let you take the blame. That I do find hard to forgive.”
Jake waved a hand at him. “Oh, c’mon. He hasn’t been here. How was he to know?”
Nash looked up at him from under his bushy gray eyebrows. “He knows.” His mouth flattened into a thin line. “I’m sorry, son. For what we’ve all put you through. Real sorry.”
“It’s . . . it’s in the past. It’s done. Let’s lay it to rest.” Jake looked at the photo of Babe, smiling from the nightstand. “It’s what she would want. You know that.”
