by A. M. Burns
14
DILLON BRIGHTENED for a moment as a hawk flashed down past the waiting room window. It made him think of Scott and Return to the Sky. His phone buzzed with an incoming text message.
He glanced at it.
Scott> Hey, where RU?
Dillon pursed his lips and stared at the phone for a moment.
“Who is it?” Uncle Bryan looked up from the magazine he’d been staring at.
“Scott. What should I tell him?”
“I’d advise the truth.” Uncle Bryan set down the magazine. “But that’s up to you. If you don’t want to tell him that your mom’s in here, tell him we had to come into town.”
Walking to the window, Dillon hoped to see the hawk again. There was nothing in the sky except a few pigeons. His fingers shook slightly as he keyed in his response.
Dillon> Dallas. At the hospital. Mom was shot last night.
As he waited for Scott’s reply, Dillon continued to watch the sky. The large buildings on the horizon blotted out a good portion of blue. He’d never realized how much the buildings of the city seemed to crowd out everything but themselves. In the few weeks he’d been out in the country where the only crowding was green and growing, he’d already grown accustomed to a brighter world, and with his mother barely clinging to life, he wasn’t sure what to do.
His phone vibrated in his hand.
Scott> Shot? Do u guys need us there?
Dillon looked at Uncle Bryan. “He wants to know if we need them here.”
Uncle Bryan hadn’t returned to staring at the magazine. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t say no to a little more support. I guess. But I don’t want to interrupt their day. It’s up to you.”
“Me?” Dillon sighed. A flock of pigeons flew up in a great flurry of gray-and-white wings. He’d never had a friend offer to come help him through anything. He wasn’t sure his mother had friends who would do that either. When his grandpa died, it had just been him, his mother, and his uncle on the cross-country ride.
The phone vibrated.
Scott> Alex and I can be there in a few. Where RU?
A glimmer of hope sparkled in Dillon’s chest. The hawk flew up from the ground. It landed on a phone pole. For the first time in hours, the barest hint of a momentary smile tightened Dillon’s lip. Then he told Scott how to find them.
WITH FALTERING steps, Dillon returned to the waiting room. They’d stayed the fifteen minutes the nurse allowed for that hour. His mother still lay in the bed, pale and unmoving. He’d give anything for her to open her eyes and look at him, or to squeeze his hand and let him know she was still with them. He’d never felt so helpless, not even when Kareem held him still as the other two Shanks robbed the store. For a moment he wondered when the blood would splash on him again.
“Dillon.”
Unexpectedly, Scott’s arms were around him and a strange, happy warmth filled him. He didn’t say anything at first. It felt good being held, and Dillon just clung to Scott. In the distance he caught bits of words between Uncle Bryan and Alex.
Scott turned loose of Dillon first. He looked Dillon over for a moment before he said anything. “I’m sorry.”
Dillon nodded.
“Why don’t you sit here?” Alex gestured to the center seat in a row of cushioned chairs against the wall across from the vending machines.
Seconds later he had Scott on one side of him and Uncle Bryan on the other. A huge part of Dillon wanted to keep hugging Scott, or at least hold his hand. Until their adventure the previous night, it had been years since he’d held anyone’s hand. He swallowed hard. The last hand I held was Mom’s and now she’s not even holding me back.
“Do we know what happened?” Alex asked.
“No real details. I’m hoping for a call back from Detective Graham. All I could get out of the couple of people I’ve talked to so far was the time and location and that doesn’t tell me much, except it was on her way home from work last night.”
Alex put an arm across Uncle Bryan’s shoulder. “And what are the doctors saying?”
He shook his head. “The nurse doesn’t sound real hopeful. The doctor’s not supposed to be around until later. I’m not her power of attorney, but as her closest adult relative, they should talk to me. If Dillon was a couple of years older, they’d talk to him.”
“Well, we’re here for you guys.” Alex’s voice sounded reassuring. “Paul would’ve come too, but we figured we didn’t need too many people clogging the waiting room, and he’s going to take care of all the critters, ours and yours.”
“Thanks. I owe you guys.” Uncle Bryan sounded sadder than he had before Alex and Scott got there.
Dillon studied his uncle, but couldn’t make out anything on his face except sadness, a feeling he was fairly sure was reflected on his as well. He turned from his uncle and leaned against Scott’s shoulder. For a second tears threatened again, but Dillon took a slow deep breath and forced them back.
In the distance an alarm rang. Seconds later several people in scrubs ran past the open waiting room door. Dillon wanted to get up and go see what was happening, but he doubted it involved his mother.
Scott put his arm over Dillon’s shoulders and squeezed slightly. “Hey, I’m here for you. So are Bryan and my dads.”
“I know.” Dillon’s voice was dry and scratchy as he spoke. “It’s my mom. I don’t want to lose my mom.”
The nurse appeared in the waiting room door. A new splatter of red decorated her blue scrubs. “Mr. Smith?”
Uncle Bryan and Dillon stood in strange unison and walked toward her.
“What’s happened?” Uncle Bryan asked.
A stoic mask covered the nurse’s face as she shook her head.
As his head swam, Dillon reached out and found Scott’s hand. Seconds later Scott’s arms were around him and his world imploded into tears.
15
THE PREVIOUS night, the distant firecrackers yanked Dillon out of a restless sleep. They sounded too much like gunfire. He’d lain awake for hours, but they’d never come closer to Uncle Bryan’s house and eventually he returned to dreams where his mother was still alive and telling him that her death had all just been a bad dream because he thought he might be gay.
There was no moonlight shining through the curtains, but the light from the fireworks down near the main road cast momentary bursts of brightness and color. It reminded Dillon that it was the Fourth of July. Nearly two weeks since his mother died.
He lay there playing with his knife. The blade gave him a strange feeling of security. Even out in Kerens, he didn’t really feel safe. The Shanks took Mom. I know they did, even if the police can’t find any real evidence to tie them to the shooting. At least with my knife, if they show up, I have a little bit of a chance to do some damage before they kill me.
An overly loud explosion caused him to jump and his finger slipped along the knife’s sharp edge. The pain stung. For the first time in days, he felt something other than fear. He sucked on his finger and the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. Shit, that’s deeper than I realized. Dropping the knife on his bed, he glanced around for something to stop the flow of blood. He knew there were some tissues somewhere in the boxes Uncle Bryan and Paul and Alex had brought in from the apartment, but he had no idea where they were.
He hurried to the bathroom with his finger still in his mouth.
Uncle Bryan was coming down the hall at the same time. “Something wrong?”
Dillon shook his head and closed the bathroom door behind him. He hadn’t felt much like talking since she passed. Yanking several pieces of toilet paper off the roll, he wrapped them around his finger and looked through the medicine cabinet for Band-Aids. He didn’t find any. The blood soaked through the tissue fairly quickly. After closing the lid, Dillon sat down on the toilet and pulled off more paper to wrap around his finger. He sat there for several minutes as the blood soaked through the new paper. This isn’t going to stop easily. Maybe Uncle Bryan has Band-Aids somewhere els
e.
As Dillon hurried into the living room, Uncle Bryan was just settling into his chair.
“Where are the Band-Aids?” Dillon asked, holding a third application of toilet paper around his finger.
“Band-Aids?” Uncle Bryan blinked at him. Then his gaze came to rest on Dillon’s hand applying pressure to his paper-wrapped finger. “Oh God. You cut yourself.” A frantic look colored Uncle Bryan’s features as he surged to his feet. “I think there’s some in the first-aid drawer in the kitchen.” He hurried Dillon to the kitchen. “What happened? How did you do this?”
“My knife slipped when the fireworks startled me.”
For the first time ever, Uncle Bryan looked at him with a suspicious glint in his eyes. “That big bowie knife of yours?” Then he pulled out a drawer and rummaged through it.
Dillon nodded.
Uncle Bryan came up with a couple of wrapped Band-Aids. “I don’t know what happened to the box of them I had. Let’s take a look at it.” He reached for Dillon’s hand.
Reluctantly Dillon extended his arm.
When Uncle Bryan unwrapped the toilet paper, he blanched. “Is this the first attempt at stopping it?”
“No.”
“Let’s wash it off.” Uncle Bryan turned on the water in the sink and pulled Dillon toward it.
The water stung a bit as it hit the cut.
Face still white, Uncle Bryan shook his head. “This is deep. You might need stitches.”
“Stitches?” Dillon stared at the cut, which had already poured more blood over his finger, and his blood dripped into the stainless steel sink. A wave of nausea washed over him, and he gripped the marble countertop with his uninjured hand.
“A Band-Aid isn’t going to do much for this.” Uncle Bryan grabbed a dish towel and wrapped the finger. “If we run to the hospital in Corsicana, it will be about half an hour before we get this looked at. Alex might be able to fix it for you. If that’s okay.”
“Sure.” Dillon had a sudden flash that Scott might be with his dad when Alex came down. He hadn’t talked to Scott much since the funeral. He just hadn’t felt like talking about anything. He knew it was rude, but the loss of his mother overshadowed everything, and the darkness of that managed to eclipse even the light Scott brought into his life.
“You sit down.” Uncle Bryan took his elbow and led Dillon to one of the kitchen chairs before he pulled out his cell phone and called Alex.
BY THE time Alex, Paul, and Scott arrived, the nausea had passed, but Dillon still felt light-headed.
Alex shook his head as he walked toward the table. “Gotta be more careful with sharp knives, Dillon.”
“The fireworks down the block startled me and it slipped.”
Scott came around the table and hugged Dillon from behind. “Those guys shoot off stuff every year. New Year’s too.” He put his mouth next to Dillon’s ear. “I’ve missed you.”
Dillon patted Scott’s arm around his chest but didn’t say anything. Part of him wanted to admit he missed Scott too, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to try and make it out of the darkness his mother’s death had left him in, and he knew Scott would try and pull him out of it and into the light. Do I deserve Scott’s light? If I’d joined the Shanks would Mom still be alive? Am I really responsible for her death? Might they kill Scott too? There was the true depth of his darkness, his fear that he’d been the ultimate cause of his mother’s death. He didn’t know what to do about those feelings and didn’t want to drag Scott down with him.
“Okay, you two, let me get a look at Dillon’s hand.” Alex pulled a chair closer as Paul set a backpack on the table.
Dillon held his hand out to Alex, who carefully unwrapped the dish towel. His bushy, rusty eyebrows rose. “Dillon, are you a free bleeder?”
“Not that I know of.” Dillon tried not to look at the amount of blood that colored the boots, hats, and horseshoes of the dishcloth.
“If your blood pressure’s up, that might also cause extra bleeding.” He looked at Paul. “Get me the TAO and the superglue.”
“What?” Dillon asked but held his hand still.
“TAO, triple antibiotic ointment,” Scott explained.
“But superglue?” It sounded really strange.
“Superglue is better than stitches in a lot of cases.” Alex accepted the first tube from Paul. “It helps stop the bleeding and acts almost like new skin until the wound has a chance to heal. Luckily this one isn’t too long, but it is fairly deep.” He smeared a glop of ointment into the cut. “Now, you’re going to have to be careful for a few days until this has a chance to heal.” He used the dish towel to wipe across the top of the cut, then applied the superglue. Sticky fire spread through Dillon’s hand and it took all his willpower to hold still while Alex continued as if he didn’t notice Dillon’s discomfort. “Paul, a midsized Band-Aid please.”
Then he had everything wrapped up and the blood stopped. “Okay, young man, you should live. Just be more careful with knives in the future.”
Dillon glanced at his finger, now with a flesh-toned bandage on it. “I’ll try.”
“Will you guys stay for a bit of cake?” Uncle Bryan asked. “I baked it earlier since Dillon and I weren’t going to do anything else for the holiday. He wasn’t interested after dinner.” His gaze settled on Dillon for a moment, and Dillon shrugged.
“Sure, sounds good to me.” Alex handed the tubes back to Paul. “It’ll go well with the burgers we had. You guys missed out on a nice cookout, but we understand.”
Dillon stood. “Thanks for patching me up, Alex. I’m still not in the mood for cake.” Not waiting for a response, he shuffled from the kitchen, heading for the hallway and his bedroom.
Scott was right behind him. “Hey, wait up.”
Dillon slowed. Inwardly he didn’t want to talk but couldn’t think of a polite way of getting out of it, and he didn’t want to hurt Scott’s feelings. It wasn’t Scott’s fault Dillon felt lost and lonely.
When the door was closed, Scott hugged Dillon again. Dillon weakly returned the gesture.
“Still not doing well?” Scott asked, then maneuvered through the stacks of boxes so he could sit on the bed.
“I guess.”
“I’ve heard it helps to talk about it.” Scott patted the bed in a sign that Dillon should join him.
“I don’t know if I can. Scott, my mom is gone.” Dillon willed himself to stay strong as he seated himself next to Scott.
Scott put his hand on Dillon’s leg. “I know. And believe it or not, I understand.”
Disbelief filled Dillon. “How? Your dads are still alive.”
“My dads are, but my mom isn’t. You know I’m adopted. But unless Bryan said something, you don’t know how I ended up in the foster care system. My birth parents were both killed in a car accident. I was in kindergarten at the time. They had just dropped me off at school and never came back for me.”
“You lost them both at the same time?” Dillon couldn’t help himself; he felt a stronger connection to Scott building with the idea of similar losses.
“Yeah. It was hard. They were both only children. My biological father’s parents had died and my mother’s mother was the only living relative I had. She lived in an assisted living facility and couldn’t take me in. I didn’t understand any of it at the time. Alex and Paul explained it to me a few years ago, when they figured I was old enough to understand. At the time, I understood that my parents were dead, but it took months of being in a foster home with strangers before I really grasped that they were never coming to get me. Right after that, about ten years ago, Alex and Paul found me and adopted me.”
“Are you saying you kept thinking your folks were going to come for you even after they were dead? That must’ve been hard.”
“I don’t remember a ton of it now. I do remember living in a maze of boxes.” Scott gestured around them. “Like this. I kept thinking that if I didn’t unpack, then when they came for me, it’d be easier to go home.”
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“That must’ve been really scary. You were what, six?” Dillon put his arm across Scott’s shoulder and hugged him. He felt the warmth he always felt when Scott was there.
Scott nodded. “That’s it. And it was. When I came to live with Alex and Paul, that’s when I really started accepting they weren’t coming for me. But even then, particularly when I was upset, I’d still hope they’d show up out of the blue and take me back to the house I grew up in. But I know that’s not going to happen.” Scott swallowed hard. “I don’t have any family now, outside of Alex and Paul, and to be truthful, I couldn’t ask for better parents. They’ve given me almost everything I wanted, and the stuff I didn’t get, I quickly realized I didn’t really need.”
“They do act like they love you a lot.”
“I’ve never really doubted their love. You need to remember you’re not alone. You’ve still got people who love you.” A heavy pause filled the air. “You’ve got Bryan. I know he wasn’t expecting to be a father, but I can tell he loves you like his own kid.”
“I know. He’s always been a substitute father figure for me.” Dillon hugged Scott tightly. Then jumped slightly as more fireworks started down the street. “What the hell? They’ve been quiet for a while.”
“I bet they went and bought more at the stand right before the Kerens city limits.” Scott chuckled and pulled Dillon back into his arms.
“I didn’t even think about that.” Dillon leaned his head onto Scott’s shoulder. He finally started to relax after weeks of being depressed and stressed. “Thank you for coming tonight. I’m sorry I’ve been distant.”
