“I want you to admit the truth!” I was screaming just as loudly as he was at this point. He slammed his fist against the wall, leaving a huge hole.
”You just pick, pick, pick until I say what you wanna hear, isn’t that right?”
“Great,” I said. “Just go around breaking everything—that’s what you’re good at. You ruin everything, including relationships.” I picked up the suitcase and dumped his clothes on the floor
Jamie’s face got even redder, and he held his fist up to my face. “You know what I think, Lily? You just want to sabotage me so that I really mess up this film. You’re pissed ‘cause you haven’t gotten a damn movie offer in over two years.”
“What? That’s pure crap!” I shouted back
“Crap? No, I’ll tell you what crap is,” he yelled. “Crap is that you are your mother’s little puppet and you do whatever she tells you to do—you don’t have one fucking original thought of your own when she’s around. And when she’s not, you become her clone and feel you have the right to say whatever you want about every fucking thing I do! I can’t make a damn move without you telling me what direction I need to go!”
“You are so full of shit, Jamie. You’re just pissed and scared because I busted you!”
He stood in front of me, grabbed both my wrists, and through clenched teeth said, “You listen to me, Lily. If I wanna fuck someone, I’ll fuck them. And you can’t do shit about it!”
That was the closest thing to a straight answer Jamie was going to give me. I ran into the bathroom, dropped to the floor, and cried. After about thirty minutes, there was a faint knock at the door.
“Babe, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean those things—you just got me really angry.”
I didn’t open the door. I sat there and knew, in my heart of hearts, that he had lied to me and that, much as I hated to admit it to myself, was the “real” Jamie.
At that moment, I knew there had been many other times in the last couple of years when I’d ignored my gut feelings.
“Jamie, I don’t want to talk to you or see you. Sleep on the couch. Leave me alone. I mean it.”
“Whatever,” he said. I heard the bedroom door slam.
I lay face down on those cold ceramic tiles and cried for hours. Around 1:00 a.m., all cried out, I walked out to the landing and saw him in the living room, sleeping on the couch like a baby who didn’t have a care in the world.
I finally fell asleep in our bed at about 3:00 a.m. At 6:00 a.m. sharp, the doorbell rang. I jumped out of bed and looked out the window. I saw the limo driver putting Jamie’s suitcase in the trunk. I panicked; I wanted to run downstairs to stop him and give him a chance to say the one thing that would make this all better. He walked to the car, got in, and never looked back. The driver took off.
That’s when I called my mother in New York.
“Wait,” she said. “What did that actress say to you?” I was crying so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. Sweetheart, take a deep breath, relax, and tell me what she said. I don’t think I understood you.”
I tried to stop crying and hiccupping so she could hear me better.
“She told me that whenever she has a love scene in a movie, she has to sleep with the actor beforehand to bring real chemistry to the scene.”
“What a little whore. I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life! Did you tell Jamie what she said?”
“Well, she said she and Jamie talked about it and that he agreed with her—to have sex, I mean,” I said between hiccups.
“That piece of shit—did you confront him?”
“I did, and we had a big fight. He called me terrible things and punched a hole in the wall!” I sobbed.
“He punched a—Lily, honey, did he hit you?”
“No, Mom, he just got really mad. Then he said that if he wanted to sleep with someone, I couldn’t stop him. And he left this morning without saying goodbye.” I was bawling again.
“Honey, listen to me. Better you should find out before it happens than read about it in the tabloids. What a major bastard he is. And what a slut that girl is. I’d like to call her mother and let her know the type of daughter she raised.” She was on a major roll; I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
“Lily, if I were you I would pack all his stuff—put it in storage. When he gets back from shooting, let him find another damn place to live. How dare he? The gall of that little piece of crap.”
“Whaat?” I asked. She was talking way too fast.
“This is unbelievable! For three years now you’ve introduced him to everyone in the industry, and when you didn’t know someone, you asked me to introduce him. What a little slimy shit! If I hadn’t called Pete and begged —yes, begged—him to meet with Jamie for this movie, he wouldn’t even have gotten the damned audition, much less the part.” I pulled the phone away from my ear, since she was yelling so loud.
“Mom, slow down, calm down, and relax a minute, please. This is not about you.”
“Not about me? Not about me? If it has to do with you, Lily, then it has to do with me.” She started to cry but quickly managed to pull herself together.
“Lily, I’m going to say this only once: I’m flying out there tonight, if I can get a flight, and I’m going to help you pack his stuff. We’ll get it out of there and I’ll stay with you, honey, until you feel better.”
“Wait,” I shouted. Things had gone too far too fast. “Mom, I didn’t say I was going to break up with him. I mean, I don’t know what I want to do yet. I haven’t even had a chance to think about it. He just left, for Chrissakes. Give me some time to think about it.”
“Think about it?” she shouted. “What is there to think about, Lily? He’s making a fool of you. That’s not how I raised you. You need to have respect for yourself. He shows you zero respect. It’s time to kick his ass out of that house!” she said adamantly.
This was not going well. I should have waited a few hours and called my friend Emma instead. My mother was on a mission and she was taking no prisoners.
“Jesus Christ, Mom. I’m not like you; I don’t dump men because they screw up once.”
“What? How dare you say that to me?” she yelled. “I’m trying to help you!”
“Mom.” I tried to keep my voice low and calm. “I don’t need you to help me. I just needed to vent, that’s all.”
“And then what, Lily?” she asked. “What happens after the venting is through? Are you going to take him back with open arms? So maybe next time you can give him the chance to punch you in the face instead of punching the wall? So that they’ll find you sprawled out dead, like Nicole Simpson?”
Now she was going overboard. “Mom, it’s not like that. Jamie’s not like that!” I couldn’t believe I was defending him. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have pushed him. I should have let it be and talked about it with him another time.”
My mothered lowered her voice and said, “Lily, I have told you time and again, we teach people how to treat us. Over and over again, you are teaching him to treat you with disrespect. You have to move on. He’s no good. I know you; you’re going to pine away for him. You’re going to cry every day. Meanwhile he’s going to be shacking up with that tramp for the next month and a half and not giving you a second thought. You have got to break up with him. You have no choice.”
“Mom, slow down. Stop telling me what to do.” I was screaming by this time. “I do have a choice! I’m a grown woman, Mom. Stop trying to control me.”
“Lily, you are better than this. You don’t have to compromise. You can have anything in the world and do anything you want —”
I cut her off. “Stop saying that; I hate when you say that!”
“Lily, listen to me.”
“No, I don’t have to listen to you. I’m so sick of all your controlling shit and everything you tell me. I’m sick to death of you!” I slammed the phone down hard.
That was the last time I spoke to my mother.
A knock at the confere
nce room door almost causes me to jump out of my chair. The door opens and a group of doctors, clad in white coats and holding an assortment of clipboards and files, file into the room.
I stand up. The oldest man in the group introduces himself as Dr. Niptau. He is a tall, overweight, has oily skin, and sports a comb-over hairdo. He has a slight Indian accent and does not make eye contact with me.
He tells me that he’s a neurosurgeon and that the team of twelve is made up of various residents and interns. He takes a seat at the table opposite me and looks through his files. Following his cue, the rest of the team members either sit around the table or stand against the wall behind him. It is clear Niptau is going to be doing all the talking.
This might as well be a scene from an episode of St. Joe’s. When everything is back to normal, when Mom is back to normal, I’m going to sit down with the writers and describe everything I’m seeing here, so they can use my experience as material.
Dr. Niptau looks up at me and says, “Miss Lockwood, I don’t know how much you have been told about your mother’s condition.”
“Not much,” I reply. “I flew in late last night from LA. The nurses told me that my mother had had a terrible accident, had hit her head on the windshield, and was now unconscious. Oh, and that she’d had some tests done. That’s all. They said I had to wait for you to find out the rest.”
He shakes his head and says, “When your mother was first brought into the hospital, she had what we call a closed head injury. She was unconscious. Our teams worked quickly and effectively to stabilize her.”
One of the interns taps her pen on the table. Niptau shoots her a look. The tapping stops.
He continues. “There is a method used to diagnose the symptoms of Traumatic Brain Injury (aka, TBI) called a Glascow Coma Scale, whereby we assess motor response, verbal response, and eye opening. The numbers determine if the patient is in the mild, moderate, or severe category. The lower the score, the more severe the injury. Your mother was assessed at a five, which places her in the category of severe TBI.”
I feel a wave of dread flood through me. I want to scream at him and tell him to stop speaking. I don’t want to hear anything more. I glance at the door. I want to run. I can’t deal with what he is telling me; I don’t even know how to start to deal with it.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
He continued in the same robotic way. “It was an emergency situation. She was given medication and put on a ventilator to stabilize breathing and also to help keep the cranial pressure down—cranial pressure is a huge concern. She was immediately sent for a CT scan.
Soon after, we inserted an Intracranial Pressure Monitor into her brain through a very small hole that was created in the skull. The ICP monitor is small plastic tube connected to a bedside monitor that continuously displays the pressure surrounding the brain. The CT scan revealed that your mother had a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is an abnormal and very dangerous condition in which blood collects beneath the arachnoid matter, a membrane that covers the brain. This area, called the subarachnoid space, normally contains cerebrospinal fluid. The accumulation of blood in the subarachnoid space can lead to stroke, seizures, and other complications.”
He speaks so matter-of-factly, as if he’s talking about the weather. The room spins. I’m going to faint.
I take a deep breath to try to steady myself.
“So what can be done about the bleeding?”
“We need to make sure that she is stable before we can do an angiography to locate the damaged blood vessel. Once it is located, surgery is necessary to remove the damaged area of the blood vessel to prevent a second hemorrhage.”
“You’re going to operate on her brain?” I am stunned.
“Correct,” he responds. “As I said, we need to insure that she is stable, which hopefully she will be in the next few hours.” He closes his files and looks relieved. “That is all we have for now. Do you have any other questions?”
There are probably lots of questions I should be asking, but I truly don’t know what they are. I wish that Aunt Donna or someone experienced were here with me.
I ask him only one question: “Is my mother going to be all right?”
“Subarachnoid hemorrhages may cause permanent brain damage and can frequently be fatal. We don’t know what possible damage she may have sustained until we operate.”
He glances at his watch. “Miss Lockwood, Dr. Grippi has the consent form for you to sign. Do you have any other questions for me?”
“If I need to speak with you, or if my aunt has questions, how can I get in touch with you?” My eyes well up and I blink back tears.
“The nurse on duty will be able to page the resident on call. They’ll track me down.” He stands up and walks to the door.
“Dr. Niptau,” I say. “My mother is the only family I have. She’s a wonderful person and everyone loves her. She’s special. She does tons of charity work and is always kind to everyone. She’s an author who writes incredible children’s books.”
“Yes, I know who your mother is,” he replies curtly.
“But what you probably don’t know is that she donates all the money she makes on those books to fight hunger. Did you know that?” I ask.
“No, I didn’t.”
“I want you know all this before you operate. You have to know what a great Mom she is and what a loving, giving person she is. Please do everything you can to make sure she gets better.”
I lose it and start sobbing.
Dr. Niptau looks extremely uncomfortable, but dutifully puts his arm around me. “You have my word,” he says quietly. Then he leaves the room.
Like sheep, one by one, the team follows him, one white coat after another. Not one of them makes eye contact with me.
The gravity of my mother’s condition is alarming. I don’t know what I had imagined the doctor would tell me, but in my wildest dreams, I never thought it would be this serious. I realize at this moment what I’m sure most people in my life already know about me—that I do not have the capacity to deal with any situation that is remotely serious, much less matters of life and death. That’s not who I am. I wonder if everyone in the conference room also saw that. I feel vulnerable, exposed and lacking.
Dr. Grippi stays behind with the consent form for me to sign. I wonder how many times a day she has to go through this. How many tears from distraught loved ones does she witness on an average day? How can a person tolerate witnessing that much pain without going crazy?
She hands me a pen and gives me the clipboard that holds the consent form. She points to what I need to read and where I need to sign.
As I read, I can tell that the procedure is extremely dangerous. There is a laundry list of terrible things that can occur, including death.
I flash back to the first TV series contract I ever read. I must have been about fourteen or so. The contract was for an ABC show, which ended up being short-lived. When my agent called my mom to tell us that I had booked the show, I ran around the house screaming at the top of my lungs. My mother called me into her office.
“Lily, you have to go through this contract with me, line by line.”
“C’mon, Mom, that’s so boring.”
She continued as if she hadn’t heard my whining. “Lily, it is extremely important that you always know exactly what you are signing. If you don’t understand any of the language in the contract, you must ask me.
I rolled my eyes. All I wanted to do was run from the room and get on the phone to call my friends and tell them the good news.
“Lily, even if you have an attorney, you must know what’s in your contract, to protect yourself.” She was persistent; I had to give her that.
“Mommy dear, that’s why I have you! You’ll do it. Everyone knows you’re great at this stuff.” I gave her a kiss on the cheek.
She smiled, hugged me, and said, “Lily of the Valley, I won’t always be around to do this sort of thing. You must learn how to be self-suff
icient.”
“Gimme a break, Mom. You’re going to be around forever. You’re Daisy Lockwood—one tough cookie.”
She grabbed me, sat me on her lap, and tickled me.
“Now listen, flattery will get you nowhere, young lady, when I’m trying to teach you something, even if you are absolutely right.” She smiled and we both laughed. Then she stood me up and patted me on the butt. “Now go get the law dictionary from the book shelf, please, so we can look up this phrase in the contract.”
“We have a law dictionary? When did that happen?”
I ran over to the bookshelf, figuring that the sooner we got through the boring contract, the faster I could be on the phone with my friends.
“I bought a law dictionary when I thought we might need one.”
“Okay,” I said, eager to get the show on the road. “Give me the phrase.”
“Force majeure,” she replied.
“Huh? Can you spell it?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, looking through the contract to find the phrase again. “The first word is spelled f-o-r-c-e and the second word is spelled m-a-j-e-u-r-e.”
“Okay, here it is.” I read the meaning to her. “Force majeure is a common clause in contracts that essentially frees both parties from liability or obligation in the event of an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties, such as a war, strike, riot, crime, or situation described by the legal term ‘act of God’ (e.g., flooding, earthquake, volcano). The occurrence of such an event or circumstance excuses one or both parties from fulfilling their obligations under the contract.”
“Ah,” my mother said, “now it makes sense. Come over here, Lily, and let’s figure out how it pertains to you. Then we’ll go through the rest of the contract.”
“Miss Lockwood, your signature please,” Dr. Grippi says sternly, bringing me back to reality.
“Sorry for being spacy. I’m very tired.”
So here I am, not even reading the single most important document of my mother’s life. I’m ashamed to say that I can’t even force myself to look at the words. I sign and quickly hand the papers to Dr. Grippi. I can’t get rid of them fast enough.
The Seeds Of A Daisy: The Lily Lockwood Series: Book One (Women's Fiction) Page 6
