My grandmother grabs my coffee mug and plate. She heads to the kitchen and places both in the sink. She always did this. She loved her home and had an immense amount of pride with it. You could never walk into her home without its being clean and smelling fresh. I envy it as my house is always in a state of perpetual mess.
“You need to figure your own way now. You can’t live in the past and let it run you around like a battered dog on a lease. You have to let us go.”
“What?” I say, the emotion in my voice betraying my stoic face. She stops the running water. Her hands begin to shake, wrinkled and thin. Her body once straight upright, slowly curves to the shape of a C. Her face, ashen and frail. Her smile, weak. Her eyes, old and tired. This was how I remembered her.
“Oh, Jasmine there is a time and place to remember us. When you have a cup of coffee, think of your mother. When at a baseball game, think of your brother. When the flowers bloom in spring, think of me. Sweetheart, when we needed you most, you were always there. Now, be there for you.”
“I know I’ve used my past as an excuse not to move on, but I have reasons.”
“No, my dear girl, it was never a valid reason. You knew what to do when we needed you. Now you don’t have us to guide you. You are paralyzed by your fear.”
“I have a gun. People are afraid of me, not the other way around.”
“In all my years, I never thought I would be sitting here trying to explain to you the meaning of life.”
“What did you think you’d be doing? It’s the order of things, grandma. You live, you pass along your feelings, emotions and lessons. Then you die.” I say trying to change the subject onto something else.
“Your father never understood either. Your mother, sometimes she understood but other times she would forget her ass if it wasn’t attached.” I smile at her using a curse word. My grandmother rarely cursed so when she did it had meaning. Looking at her now, I’m reminded of her classic Hollywood beauty. Even in this ever shrinking state of age, I never once doubt her beauty or love for me. Age just makes it harder to express one’s emotions as your mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be.
“Your grandfather and I saved our whole lives to give our children something. You give up the hours of the night when your child is sleeping or the day at the park with friends. You miss things when they grow and sometimes you make decisions you will never forgive yourself for. In the end you have to say you have lived life in order to make those mistakes. I have lived.”
Slowly, she shuffles her feet over to me. She staggers a bit, her balance giving her troubles. With every step she takes, she ages further. Her hands shake violently and her eyes turn sad. Her body a shrunken and defiant shell of what it used to be. She holds my face in her hands, her height shrinking along with her life span.
“You have everything you need to make mistakes and make good decisions. Trust yourself.” She kisses my forehead and my chest constricts in more pain than before. Tear form in my eyes as I look up at my grandmother.
“I don’t want to die.”
“Then don’t.” She simply replies to me. Tears roll from her eyes as she wipes away mine with her thumb. She smiles at me and pulls my head to her chest. Another wave of pain scorches through my chest igniting every pain receptor in my entire body. My grandmother hums a song I remember from my childhood. Instantly, it calms me.
“What’s going to happen to me?”
“I don’t know, you closed your eyes.”
“I just wanted to rest.”
“My love, living people keep their eyes open. They stay awake.” She pulls my head away from her chest and looks into my eyes. “Dying people close their eyes for a little rest.”
“So, I’m dying.” I conclude matter-of-factly.
“That’s up to you.” Another shot of pain in my chest causing me to dig my nails into my skin.
“Tell me what to do?”
“I can’t. You say you don’t want to die, but you don’t want to live either. Choose.”
“But if I choose,” my hand touches my grandmothers face for the first time, “you go away.”
“Sweetheart, I’m already gone.”
Everything stops around me. My tears, my mourning period, it floods out of me as tears roll down my face.
“What happens now?”
She pulls me back to her and hugs me tightly. “That’s up to you. Just know we all love you very much.”
I pull her into a hug as tightly as one could humanly manage until the pain in my chest forces me away. I fall to the floor and enjoy the cool tile on my skin.
Chapter Twelve
The burning in my chest calms and an odd peacefulness washes over me. I hear someone humming the same tune as my grandmother, but the voice is different. All I feel is pain, mind numbing, overwhelming pain. Someone holds my hand, but I can’t squeeze their hand in response. My body feels like a bag of rocks and I’m trying to move it in quicksand. I can hear more voices around mumbling to one another in the distance but the humming is close to me and louder than before. I focus on that turn, that voice as I try to move any part of my body.
My leg twitches and I feel it being restrained by a contraption. That reminds me of the boot in my dream, hard plastic and a broken ankle. It’s then that the memory of the bullet shattering it flashes in my mind. My hand can barely move, must be in a full cast.
The pain is back and the beeping in the room gets faster. I hear the voices talking over me and the humming is softer now, further away. Using everything in my power, I force my arm in the direction of the humming. A small hand grabs me and I squeeze with everything I have.
I try to talk but I feel the tube in my throat. I fight to mouth anything or whisper something but I have no ability to. I try to force my eyes open, but they feel so heavy. I hear those voices again but nothing is clear. Just the humming, that’s clear. I try to pull the sound closer to me. I hear metal moving, things clicking and I lose grip on the hand for a minute. The humming stops. The bed dips slightly, and I feel a head on my shoulder.
“Don’t go away, okay?”
I hear Chase whisper, his emotions showing his utmost fear. Fighting with everything I have, I force my left eyelid open a sliver of the way. The light is beyond bright and I squint to adjust. I feel like I’ve been doing that a lot lately. When my pupil adjusts, I see a mat of hair in front of my face, a hint of a small black cast and figures all around my bed.
“Ms. Steele, can you hear me?”
I try to focus on the voice next to me. I nod in understanding.
“Do you know where you are?”
Hearing all the beeping machines and feeling all the needles in my arms, I must be in a hospital. Once again I nod in response.
“You have a breathing tube in your throat. Based on your levels, I see no reason why we can’t remove it. It’s going to hurt a bit.”
The doctor leans over and I can feel Chase move slightly.
“You’re fine honey, just don’t move.” The doctor says to him.
“Now, take a deep breath.”
I do what I’m told and take a deep breath. I feel the tube being pulled from my chest like a bulldozer destroys building. It’s beyond painful. I cough the minute the tube exits my mouth. My chest hurts with every spasm. I feel Chase wrap his arm around my stomach trying to help. I feel fingers place ice chips in my mouth, instantly soothing my coughing fit. Looking up, I see Frankie smiling back at me. The doctor says something to her before leaving.
“How are you feeling?” The lump on the bed asks me.
“Like someone punched me in the chest,” I manage to scratch out.
“Uncle Victor said they had to cut your chest open. He told me to be careful laying on you. Touch the belly, not the chest.” He squeezes my waist a little tighter. It hurts slightly, but I ignore the pain. “You died.”
“I came back.”
“Yeah. Don’t do that again okay? Aunt Frankie, she was a mess. Girls cry a lot.” I stifle my laught
er and use my right hand to take hold of his. I look over to the other side of my bed and see Victor trying to look tough and Hadley, her arm in a sling. I look up at Hadley who smiles at me, her eyes red and puffy.
“Hey, Chase, why don’t we go downstairs and get some ice cream. It will help your hand heal faster and the doctors can tell your aunt what happened.”
He looks up from my shoulder and studies me. I smile at him and nod.
“Promise me you won’t go anywhere?”
“I promise.”
He kisses my cheek and carefully slides off the bed. Hadley places her hand on my shoulder and squeezes it gently. I wait for them to leave the room before turning my attention to Victor.
“Give it to me straight, doc.”
Victor walks up to the side of my bed, he runs his hands through his hair and swallows hard. I can see he’s struggling.
“We tracked your cell phone to the film shoot. Will tried to call James a few times, but we got no answer. He managed to find Hadley, cowering in a corner shaking outside her film trailer. She filled him in on everything. We called for backup, an ambulance and Will went in there like any Marine would.”
“That’s great and I really appreciate the play by play, but what about this gaping hole in my chest. Dumb it down for me okay, doc?”
“Okay, umm you were shot in the ankle. Messed up the bones pretty bad. Doctors rebuilt it with various metal and donor bones. Your hand was a mess and you needed surgery to fix that as well. You had one bullet in the thigh, but other than the obvious you were lucky that it missed anything that could have done more damage. You following me so far?”
“Yeah, fixed hand and I’ve got a biotic zombie ankle. Fat helped my thigh not be obliterated, so much for thin and frail models.”
I giggle a bit, but Victor fails to see the humor in my words. He stares at me and waits for me to stop. He looks very serious. I feel Frankie take hold of my good hand as Victor clears his throat.
“You have lacerations on your forehead due to a pistol being violently moved across the skin. Nothing major, few stitches.” He pauses, rubs the back of his neck and for the first time I see how truly tired he is. “You were shot in the chest. Will blames himself for it, figures if he hit the man at a different angle then the bullet would have fired and missed you.”
“I thought only grandmothers have that kind of guilt. He did everything he could.” I look up at Frankie and Victor, neither one of them meeting my gaze. “You both told him that right?”
“The bullet nicked your heart and considering your heart murmur, it was bad. You wouldn’t stop bleeding. Coded once in the ambulance. Once in the trauma room and one more time in surgery. That last one was the longest. Doc’s said to call it, but you came back. Heart’s been fixed but it’s going to take you a few months to get back up and running.”
“Lasting damage?”
“Unknown.”
“In your opinion, unknown or based on facts unknown?”
“Jasmine, you died three times. You have no idea what the work it takes to bring you back does to the human body. I have no clue as to what could or might be the future issues. All I know is you better start taking care of yourself because a lot of people fought damn hard to keep you alive. Don’t fuck it up.” Victor looks up at Frankie and completely ignores me. “You got this?”
“Go get some rest. I’ll call you if anything happens.” Frankie smiles at Victor and he leaves the room.
“He needs a nap.”
“We all do.” Frankie pulls a chair over to the side of the bed. She sits down, staring at our entwined hands.
“You should go home, get some sleep.” I say sincerely. She ignores me and continues to stare at our hands.
“Hadley was screaming when they brought you in. She was in full hysterical crying, freaking out mode when your bloody body was rolled in. I remember thinking, how could so much blood come out of one person? You flew by me and I couldn’t hold you, touch you – nothing. They were doing CPR and all I could do was watch you fly by.”
“The doctors were doing everything they could. You weren’t supposed to see that.”
“Victor jumped up and followed the doctors into the OR. He didn’t care about protocol or procedures. A Medical Examiner jumped in when they needed help. A person who is supposed to deal with death made sure you lived, even when they wanted to call it. He begged for more time. His hands were in your chest, squeezing your heart begging for time. He’s tired, Jasmine. He stepped in where I couldn’t and I will forever be grateful to him.”
Her voice cracks a little bit as she stops talking. I want to say something but am unsure what to say. I was not awake. I had no idea what was going on when I was dreaming about my grandmother. I have no idea how to feel with this new information.
“I’m sorry,” it sounds so weak coming out of my mouth. She looks up at me and I can tell my words have fallen short of their intended mark.
“Sorry… I wish I knew how to reply to that. I want to be rational and tell you that you have nothing to be sorry about. I want to be an adult and rise above all this, but inside I want to say some really not nice things.”
“You’ve earned that right.”
“You left me. You didn’t wake me up. You never said goodbye. You just got up and left. You knew the dangers and the risk you were taking, but you never once thought to wake me the fuck up? Are you that stupid? You must be to think you could just put yourself at risk now that you have a family.”
Her face is turning red and tears flow down her face. I can all the fear oozing out of her pores as she lets me have it.
“It’s not just about you anymore! You didn’t once think about leaving Chase behind. Fuck, Jasmine you are his mother.” I open my mouth to protest but she raises her hand to shut me up. “You didn’t give birth to him but he slipped and called you his other mother to the doctor. He cried his eyes out all three nights you were asleep, asking why God hated him so much. Why everyone he loved dies?”
She spits a bit of her tears at me as they fall faster down her face. Her mind so focused on her rant, she does nothing to wipe them away.
“The first night you were here, your lawyer shows up and says that you have a will giving me guardianship of Chase. So, not only do I have doctors asking me what your wishes would be, I have a lawyer asking if I could take care of Chase.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
“They asked me if you wanted to be on life support. They asked me what your wishes for end of life were.” Her voice breaks as she struggles to verbalize all her pain. “They asked me things… things I never thought I’d have to answer. I signed papers. Legal fucking papers. They have a judge here, did you know that? Upstairs, in the criminal ward, they have a judge. He approved emergency papers you had put in your will. I signed legal papers, Jasmine.”
She pulls her hand out of mine and stares at the floor. Realization sinks in as to the papers she’s referring to. If I was ever incapacitated, I wanted Frankie to adopt Chase as soon as humanly possible. I had all the papers drawn up and my lawyer knew it was something I wanted done before my body was cold. It was one of my last wishes, to know that Chase was adopted before I passed away.
“You didn’t have to sign them.”
She turns her head sharply to face me. Anger piercing through the tears.
“Of course I did. I always wanted to, but you never asked me. He was always ours, regardless of how he came to be there. You can’t just leave us like that, okay?”
I use all my strength and lift my hand to hold hers. Sliding perfectly together, I smile at how much a small gesture could mean so much to me.
“So, where do we go from here? Where is Chase staying?”
“I’ve put my house on the market.” Once again I go to protest but Frankie stops me. “It’s too far away and doesn’t have enough bedrooms. Your house is a bit of a mess, but the insurance paid out a lot of money. So, we are going to rebuild. In the m
eantime, we are renting a three bedroom apartment. Chase has his, you will have yours and I will have my own. You never truly made it into an office anyway.”
“You don’t have to stay in that room, you could…”
“No, I can’t. This isn’t going to be a get back together, move in and go back to where we were. We have to learn about each other. We’ve both changed. You’re seriously hurt and have a long road to recovery. We both have to learn how to parent together. You don’t get to shut me out this time. He’s legally ours.”
“What about my gym in the basement?”
“You can keep your video games in the living room until the house is finished. Then you and Chase move that stuff into the basement.” She smiles at me and holds my gaze as the door opens up revealing Chase with Tyler.
“Auntie Jazz, did Frankie tell you she moved in with us?”
“Yes, buddy she did.”
“Some guy in a suit let her be my mommy on paper too, in case something happened to you. Aunt Frankie said you would be fine and here we are.”
“I thought you were with Hadley getting some ice cream?”
“I saved the young man from a very lovely little girl from the pediatric ward.”
Chase blushes and I ruffle his hair as much as I can. “Girlfriend, yet?”
“Nah, I have to take care of your Aunt Jazz. Besides, girls are still yucky.”
“We’ll let you rest and come back in the morning.”
Chase hugs me gently and kisses my cheek. Frankie leans forward and softly kisses my lips. She smiles at me and I see she truly wants to stay. She takes Chase’s hand in her own and pats the captain on the shoulder before leaving.
“Everyone’s coming to visit me today.”
“I’ll be leaving soon. I just wanted to let you know that you will be on desk duty until further notice. You will no longer be on this case, nor will you pursue this case any further.”
“You know this goes higher than Garrison. Someone gave you the orders.”
“Yes, they did and I wish I knew who gave them the order. Either way, it’s for other departments to handle now. Your only concern is getting healthier so we can get you behind a desk. Then you work your way back into the field. You’re one of my best and you are a friend, just follow the doctor’s orders please.”
Steele Resolve (The Detective Jasmine Steele Series Book 1) Page 15
