Blissfully Blindsided

by Robin Alexander

  Ronnie shook her head. “No, but when I take Blaze back there on a leash, I’ll clip one on you too.”

  *******

  Caleigh was lying on her side when she was wheeled into the emergency room bay and smiled at Edie. “Hey, Gram, I’m fine. I have a mild concussion, and they’re gonna let me go home.”

  “Your nurse will be here in a minute,” the tech said and patted Caleigh on the shoulder. “If you need anything, press the call button.”

  “Thank you.” Caleigh waited until she and Edie were alone and asked, “Did you call Mom and Dad?”

  “No, not yet. I didn’t want to scare them, so I waited to see what the results of your tests were.”

  Caleigh blew out a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad. I don’t want them to come here. This isn’t serious, and I just want to go home and sleep. Is Blaze in jail?”

  “I’m sure you know you can’t go home alone.” Edie gently stroked Caleigh’s hair away from her face. “Blaze is in the waiting room.”

  “Is she allowed to come back here?”

  “I think Ronnie said yes, but she has to be with her. She’s probably gonna have to be with your Gramp too. I saw a security guard dragging him down the hall. I just hid and let her take him because I didn’t want to be thrown out too.” Edie sighed. “I don’t know what happened, but you can be sure he went somewhere he didn’t belong.”

  “I’m almost certain I heard his voice in the room where they stuffed my head in a machine.” Caleigh gently pinched the skin of her brow. “When I feel better, I am so gonna laugh about all this.”

  “Are you queasy?”

  “Not really. Not like the time when I got my bell rung playing soccer.” Caleigh yawned. “I’m okay, so you can stop looking so worried. Would you let Blaze and Gramp know I’m fine?”

  “I’ll call your Gramp, but I don’t wanna leave you.” Edie tucked the covers around Caleigh. “I need to be in here when they give the instructions on how to take care of you.” She noticed the slight frown that appeared on Caleigh’s face and disappeared quickly. “You want to go home with Blaze, don’t you?”

  Caleigh smiled apologetically. “I just like her a lot.”

  “Well, good gracious, Caleigh. Y’all just started dating.” Edie looked stunned for a moment and sighed. “She must like you a whole lot too, because she’s an emotional mess. Then again, she never did handle a crisis very well. Iona fell and twisted her ankle one time, and Blaze ran for help. She ran past the phone, the neighbor’s house, and every other house between theirs and the fire department.”

  “Please don’t make me laugh.” Caleigh bit her lip and whimpered.

  “Okay, Ms. Caleigh, Dr. Carter is expediting your release,” a nurse said as she walked into the room. She smiled at Edie. “Hello, I’m Tammy. Will you be taking care of this lovely lady with the large fan club?”

  Before Edie could answer, Ronnie walked into the room and patted Tammy on the shoulder. “Thanks for the heads-up, girl.” She smiled at Edie and Caleigh. “There are two people who should never be together in a stressful situation, Blaze and Dean. They took a chair apart in the waiting room to fix its squeak. I let them do it. They’re like two hyper children who needed something to occupy them. I didn’t bring them back here because I want to kill them both. I’ve got Chantal in the car, and I know the back way out of here. Let’s just leave Blaze and Dean here. I’ll drive y’all home.”

  “Caleigh wants to be with Blaze,” Edie said simply.

  Ronnie blew out a breath as she gazed at Caleigh. “Either you’re really crazy about my sister, or you’re just straight-up crazy.”

  *******

  Chantal sat at the kitchen table with Caleigh, who sipped from a cup of tea while listening to Edie, Dean, and Blaze discussing their care plan for her. “I am not a baby or an invalid!” Caleigh yelled suddenly. “If I have to go to the bathroom, I will walk in there. I’m sure as hell not using a bedpan. Stop being so ridiculous!” She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “Ow.”

  “We made her kaboom,” Dean said and the room went silent.

  “Has the tea done anything for your nausea?” Chantal asked after a moment or two.

  “It has.” Caleigh looked surprised. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. All I did was dig around in Blaze’s collection of teas, you had to make it.” Chantal sighed. “If I could stand on my own two feet, I would be changing the sheets on Blaze’s bed right now. I could’ve made something for everyone to eat…if I knew how to cook. I feel so useless.”

  “You might not be able to do household chores, but you have been helpful, especially to Ronnie with what she’s going through. You’re a help to Blaze too, because she loves her sister, and I know she appreciates you being there for Ronnie.”

  Chantal smiled slightly. “Thank you. It has taken me a lifetime to realize that life is mostly about choices. We can be sorry for the horrible choices we’ve made, but that doesn’t change the effects they’ve caused to those around us. I know I can never fix the damage I’ve caused, but I have an opportunity to give something to my girls. I want to help them with whatever I can. What can I do for Blaze to make her life easier?”

  “I think the first step of making things easier for her is to tell her what you just told me.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that,” Chantal admitted with a pained expression. “I figured with your head injury you might blurt out something easy like buy a case of her favorite cookies.”

  “Okay, buy me a case of cookies.”

  “I changed the sheets on Blaze’s bed downstairs, then that heifer told me she’d already done it yesterday,” Ronnie said as she walked into the kitchen. “The health conference has moved to her office, where they’re making copies of your care instructions. Are either of you hungry?”

  “I’m not. This tea Chantal found is all I need,” Caleigh said.

  Chantal shook her head. “I had a snack, but thank you.”

  “I’m gonna go home then and take one of those amazing sleeping pills. I slept so hard last night that I didn’t notice the demons playing with my internal thermostat. I awoke to a sweat-soaked T-shirt and sheets, and I think I may’ve lost a pound.” Ronnie held up a thumb. “Yay for me.”

  “I’m so glad to hear you finally had a night of decent rest,” Chantal said with a smile. “Have you noticed any positive effects from the other pills?”

  “I do feel better, but I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve gotten sleep or if it’s because I yelled at Clint so much yesterday he’s hiding from me. I appreciate you telling Blaze to pick up that stuff for me, even though I balked at trying it. Thank you.” Ronnie walked to the back door and opened it. “Call Rosie if y’all need me during the night. She’d jump at the chance to wake me up with her air horn. Goodnight.”

  “See, you are helping,” Caleigh said when the door closed behind Ronnie. “You helped me with this tea too. It’s delicious, I may have another cup just for the flavor.”

  “Good, I’ll get you another teabag,” Chantal said happily.

  Chapter 17

  Blaze walked Edie and Dean out after they said good night to Chantal and Caleigh. As Dean got into his truck, Edie took Blaze’s hand. “I know now is not the time to talk about this, but I just want you to know the remark I made to Iona long ago about sending you to reform school was a joke. Dean was difficult back then, and I used to make Iona laugh when I’d tell her I wanted to send his old butt to reform school. I made that same joke to Caleigh’s parents too. I would’ve never seriously suggested she send you away.”

  “There are a lot of things I wish I could go back and change, and talking to you the way I did is at the top of my list. I’m very sorry.”

  Edie smiled. “Don’t we all wish we could go back and rewrite the past? I wish I would’ve handled that situation differently too. Let’s leave it behind us and start fresh. What do you say?”

  “I would love that.” Blaze smiled as she and Edie
hugged.

  Dean poked his head out his window. “Don’t be hugging on that baby-stealing thing, Edie! Get in this truck.”

  “He still has a place in his heart for you. He’s just jealous right now,” Edie said with a chuckle. “Goodnight, honey.”

  “Goodnight.” Blaze smiled and waved at Dean, and he switched on his headlights and half-blinded her. When she walked back into the house, she found Chantal in the kitchen alone. “Where’s Caleigh?”

  “She went to the bathroom, and she didn’t look well. I was about to go back there and check on her when you walked in.”

  “Okay.” Blaze rushed out of the kitchen. Caleigh wasn’t in the hallway bathroom, so Blaze went to the one in the master bedroom and found the door locked. She knocked and said, “Please tell me you’re not about to take a shower by yourself in there.”

  “I’m not. I’m…uh…a little sick. You shouldn’t be around for this.”

  “This is gonna sound crazy, but the sight of blood makes me light-headed, but someone puking doesn’t bother me at all.” Blaze shrugged with a grin. “I volunteer to hold your hair back or put a cold cloth on your neck.”

  “This is something you never want to experience with someone you’ve just started dating. I’m just gonna put it bluntly. I feel like my rib cage is gonna fall out of my butt.”

  “That’s not on the symptom sheet they sent home with you. Should I call—”

  “Get away from the door! Run! Oh, God, please go!” Caleigh yelled.

  “Gone,” Blaze said quickly and ran, empathizing with Caleigh’s need for privacy. She returned to the kitchen and consulted the papers Edie left on the table. “She’s supposed to have nausea, not diarrhea.”

  “She said the tea I gave her had helped with the nausea,” Chantal said with concern. “Should you call the hospital and see if this is normal?”

  Blaze nodded. She pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and set it on the table slowly. “What tea?”

  “I found it in your pantry. There’s a picture of a stomach with a sad face on the box.”

  Blaze went into the pantry and grabbed the box of tea she figured Chantal was talking about. She stepped out and held it up. “Is this it?”

  “Yes,” Chantal said, sounding certain.

  “That isn’t a stomach, it’s a flower.”

  “Oh. I’ve misplaced my reading glasses, and that’s why I thought it was a stomach. Do you think the tea is what made her sick?” Chantal asked hesitantly.

  “I bought it when I had a severe sinus infection, and the medicine I took caused constipation. I only drank it once because it made me feel like I was going to shit out my soul.”

  Chantal stared at Blaze in horror. “She said it was delicious, and she drank two cups.”

  “She should’ve gone home with Edie.” Blaze tossed the box over her shoulder into the pantry. “We are dangerous people. She’s not safe here.”

  Chantal opened the refrigerator and started throwing water bottles into the basket of her scooter. “Maybe she can flush it out if she drinks these.”

  “That might help with the dehydration she’ll probably have, but she wants privacy.”

  “She may be worried that something is wrong with her. I have to tell her what I’ve done and help if I can.” Chantal started out of the kitchen and stopped. “I wanted to be of help. I’m very sorry.”

  Blaze saw the misery on Chantal’s face and couldn’t be angry with her. “To be fair, the flower really did kind of look like a stomach with a frown. I need you to give her a message for me. Tell her I said I’d still be as crazy about her if she’d had the shits the night we met on Old Dump Road.”

  “Do you want to take a moment to decide if that’s really what you want to say?” Chantal looked at Blaze as though she was crazy. “If you were going for romantic, I would strongly suggest you reword.”

  “With what? ‘I’d be cool if you defecated on the street?’ Please tell her what I said, how I said it. Don’t try to be eloquent. She’ll get it.”

  “There really isn’t a way to say that eloquently. I’ll do my best to quote you correctly,” Chantal said as she rolled out of the kitchen.

  “Tell her I would drink the tea too, so we could suffer together. Right now, I just need to be able to take care of her,” Blaze whispered as she followed Chantal to the hallway and stopped.

  Chantal rolled up to the bathroom door and knocked softly. “Caleigh, I need to make a confession.”

  “I’m not Catholic, but I’m pretty sure you’re at the wrong place for that. Shouldn’t there be a priest listening to you instead of a woman on a toilet?”

  “You still have your sense of humor, that’s good. I hope you’ll find humor in what I’m about to tell you. I didn’t have my reading glasses on when I found that tea. As it turns out, it wasn’t for an upset stomach, it was for constipation.”

  There was a long moment of silence before Caleigh said, “If it’s not called Prompt Poo, they should change the name.”

  “I’m so very sorry.”

  There was another period of silence. “You were doing something nice for me, so I can’t be mad at you. Shit happens,” Caleigh said with a weak laugh.

  “Blaze wanted me to tell you…I’m quoting here, ‘I’d still be crazy about her if she had the shits the day we met on Old Dump Road.’ She also wants you to know she’d be willing to drink the tea, so she could suffer with you, but she wants to be able to take care of you.”

  Caleigh cracked up. “She already knows just what to say to me. For years, I’ve dreamed about the woman I wanted to be with, and here she is in the flesh.”

  “People never measure up to dreams.”

  “I know. My eyes are open. We’re going to learn things about each other we don’t like, but I believe we’ll deal with it. If she can make me laugh while I’m confined to the toilet, I’d say we’ve got something good going here.”

  Chantal balanced on her scooter and leaned against the door. “I’m relieved to hear you say that. You and I are getting to know my daughter at the same time, but my vision of her isn’t clouded by the desires you have. She’s compassionate and loyal. She’ll set her needs and wants aside for others. Like all of us, Blaze has her faults, but you don’t find many people like her. I want to make sure you know that.”

  “I do, and I appreciate that you wanted to make sure I did.”

  “I suppose if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here right now after she put you in the hospital and I gave you a colon cleanser,” Chantal said with a chuckle.

  “I couldn’t leave right now if I wanted to,” Caleigh said with a laugh.

  “I’m dropping bottles of water here by the door. Perhaps if you drink all of them, the water will help flush the effects of the tea out of your system faster.”

  “Thank you for that. Would you give Blaze a couple of messages for me?”

  “Gladly.”

  “Please tell her I’m sorry I yelled at her, I just didn’t want her to be in the blast zone. Also, tell her I want to know if she eats rocks or wood and that’s the reason she keeps drain cleaner in her pantry. Oh! And tell her I was touched by her message, and I’m crazy about her too.”

  Chantal pursed her lips. “I think you two are well suited for each other.”

  *******

  “She’s so awesome,” Blaze said with a laugh after Chantal delivered Caleigh’s message.

  “A dream come true?” Chantal rolled over to a basket Blaze kept on the counter and took a protein bar from it.

  “Absolutely.”

  Chantal returned to the table and set the bar in front of Blaze. “You should eat this. I can hear your stomach growling.”

  “Thanks.” Blaze toyed with the bar but didn’t open it while Chantal sat down. “I know you’re tired. You don’t have to keep me company.”

  “Blaze, may I ask if you’ve you ever fallen in love?”

  “Once, when I was in my late teens, but that was really just a time of fi
rsts. First feelings of desire for someone, first feelings of love, and I was high on them,” Blaze said with a laugh. “The next time, the high wasn’t as powerful. It took me a long time to realize those first feelings make us feel like we’ve fallen into something. I don’t think we fall in love. I think it’s like opening a series of internal doors. Once someone begins to prove they can be trusted with what’s inside of us, we start opening doors. If the other person is opening their doors, as well, the deeper trust builds, the deeper the access becomes, until both are basically one.”

  “That’s a fascinating insight,” Chantal said in awe.

  “Yeah, I wish I would’ve had it when Ronnie met Clint. She threw open all her doors and let him in when he should’ve just stayed on the porch. I think she’s closed him out, and that’s where he is now, but I’d really prefer to see him at the curb on garbage pickup day.”

  “You don’t believe he could be put in the recycling bin?”

  Blaze laughed. “No, he’s proven himself to be made up of things that can’t be changed into something useful. If Ronnie says anything to you about divorce, don’t bring up recycling,” she said seriously. “Clint has a house-painting business, but he’s at home on the couch more than he is at work. Ronnie’s job is the reason they can pay their bills. She takes care of the kids, the house, and everything else while Clint sits on the couch. She’s carrying everything and him too.”

  “That paints a clearer picture.” Chantal sighed.

  “I appreciate the way you’ve helped Ronnie. I know I couldn’t have helped her with the menopause stuff like you have. I’ve never seen her so…not herself. She’s the strong one. I’ve seen her deal with things before that would’ve driven me out of my mind, but she just shrugged it all off and said, ‘That’s life, I’ll deal with it.’ She needs me to be the strong one now, and I feel out of my league.”

  “You’re wrong about that. You and Ronnie are very strong women, mentally and emotionally. You’re also very strong physically. I saw you defend yourself against two women who were violent and obviously unstable.”

  “So Ronnie told you about that,” Blaze said dryly.