Guilt washed over her again at the thought that this all happened because Chad had been searching for her. She squeezed her eyes shut, giving herself a second to pull herself together. She opened them again, and saw clearly that neither Jillian nor Elaine intended to respond to Hayden. Looking at him, it didn’t seem he expected anyone to. He’d already gone back to staring down the hallway.
Another bout of tense silence plagued them, and Katie glanced sideways at Jillian. “Where does Liz fit in all of this?”
“Funny, we’re still trying to figure out the same thing about you, my dear.” The amusement was hidden from Elaine’s face as Katie whirled around to view her, but the older woman’s eyes shone with a determined pleasantry that made her face heat up.
“That’s enough, Mother.” Jillian’s mouth turned upward at the remark.
“It’s all right. I think I’m still trying to figure that all out myself.” Katie tried to make the comment sound light, but she couldn’t meet Elaine’s stare.
Jillian didn’t push the issue, and she promptly eased the tension by offering some semblance of an answer. “Liz knew, if that’s what you’re asking.”
She’d figured as much, having picked up on the fact that she’d said only a matter of minutes ago that someone other than the four of them knew the truth now.
“Liz kept our secret for us, all these years,” Elaine said softly. “Only God knows why.”
The awe in his mother’s statement wasn’t lost on Katie.
“She wasn’t in with the same crowd Chad was,” Jillian explained, folding her hands in front of her. A tinge of a smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. “Honestly, sometimes I think the only thing those two had in common at all was their obsession with country music. Even now, I can say that Liz and Chad were so different from each other, right from the beginning. Sure, they loved each other—I think they did, anyway—but that only goes so far. Liz did everything she could, despite their differences, to keep him safe. She was the one who was with him, even when she didn’t want to be, and she was the one who was able to level him out and calm him down when he was strung out. She made sure to bring him home on the nights he’d let her bring him there, and she stayed with him on the nights he wouldn’t. We’ve all got a lot to thank Liz for.”
Jillian’s gaze was set on her own hands in front of her. The distance in her voice was obvious; she was remembering. Katie wondered what kind of memories she had of him, and what it was like growing up with a brother like that. It was no wonder Liz was on such a pedestal in their eyes.
“Liz saved him when we couldn’t.” Elaine’s voice was so quiet now, Katie wasn’t sure she’d actually heard her clearly. But as the woman’s words registered in her brain, she comprehended another very real fact. If Jillian’s got Liz on a pedestal, then it’s pretty obvious that, according to Elaine, Liz is at the very top of the damn totem pole.
That was fine. By the sound of it, she’d been good for Chad back then. The two of them had been through so much. Katie’s thoughts wandered to visions of the man who’d clambered onto her front porch at the farm only a matter of months ago, vying for a job and a way to outrun the heartbreak he’d left behind in Nashville. She thought maybe she understood a little better now why he’d been desperate enough to cross the border and hide from the life he’d built.
And yet he’d ran straight back to Liz’s hometown, not his own. Why would a devastated, heartbroken man do that?
Because Liz’s hometown held the countless memories and reminders of what Chad and Liz had once had together, not Liz herself.
For the first time, it occurred to Katie that Chad might have mourned the loss of the idea of his relationship with her far more than the loss of Liz herself.
“I’ve often wondered about her.” Elaine’s voice cut through her thoughts sharply, and she turned to Chad’s mother to see that she was wearing the same distant expression Jillian had been earlier. Elaine’s head snapped up, her eyes meeting Katie’s as though she just realized she’d spoken out loud. “The secret, I mean. I always wondered if keeping the truth from Chad about that night would become too much for her. And maybe they’d stayed together as long as they did because she felt obligated. To him. To us. Oh, poor Liz.”
It was everything Katie could do not to arch her brow and tell Elaine how Liz had actually treated her son as of late, but she bit back the urge. Instead, she struggled to control her breathing and focused on Mason. He had scooted away from her and begun to sift through the box of worn, donated children’s books sitting in the corner of the waiting room.
“Maybe I was right,” Elaine added, but one look in her direction proved she hadn’t said it to anyone in particular.
That was good, because Katie had no intention of responding. She looked away from Chad’s mother, pulling her cellphone from her pocket in order to set her attention elsewhere and remove herself from the conversation. In her peripheral vision, however, Jillian was watching her. Katie didn’t meet her gaze, but from what she could tell, it was a look of...what? Interest, maybe. Or uncertainty.
Either way, she didn’t have the chance to decipher it. The ringer was still turned off on her phone, but the lights on the display screen were blinking rapidly, indicating an incoming call.
It was Jay.
Katie sighed. Damn it, she couldn’t avoid his phone calls forever, no matter how badly she wanted to. But if she was going to take his call, it was going to be now, when it could save her from having to sit with Liz’s fan club.
“Excuse me for a minute. I have to take this.” She held up her phone as she rose from her seat, crouching down to tell Mason she was just going outside for a second, and then she pushed her way through the double glass doors into the mid-afternoon sun.
The sunshine was deceiving. While it looked warm and welcoming from the other side of the windows, the air was chilly and brisk. She immediately wished she’d grabbed her jacket.
“Jay?” She pulled her phone to her ear hastily, wondering if she’d taken too long to answer and he’d hung up.
“Are you ignoring my phone calls?”
The entitlement in his voice immediately irked her. “If I were ignoring your calls, you wouldn’t be talking to me right now.”
“It’s not you I want to talk to, anyway, Katie. It’s Mason.”
There it was; the truth. Jay had nothing to say to her. He only wanted to talk to their son. Unfortunately, his definition of talking to him would resemble more of a strategic game than a loving conversation between father and son. “Don’t even think about involving him in our conflict anymore than he already is, Jay.”
“Don’t ignore my phone calls, Katie.”
“Don’t treat him like a pawn in one of your games.”
“I’m his father, for God’s sake!” He let out a breath of air loudly. He’d allowed a crack to form in his composure, and he didn’t much like it. “Just let me talk to him. Please.”
She hesitated, letting the silence loom between them. “I mean it. If you try to—”
“I won’t, Katie.”
She reluctantly went back inside and got Mason, checking to make sure no news had come regarding Chad’s condition. She gave Mason the phone once they’d made their way back out into the cool breeze. He plunked himself down on an old rickety picnic table situated on the edge of the hospital property, and if Katie had to guess, it was probably the spot where the nurses and other staff went to smoke their cigarettes and check their cellphones during break times.
She didn’t want to, but she moved herself out of earshot of Mason’s conversation. She didn’t want her anger at Jay to somehow make it difficult for her son to speak openly with his own father. She was well aware that there was going to be a time in the not-too-distant future when he would have a hard enough time dealing with whatever family dynamic the three of them created out of this mess.
The four of them, she mentally corrected. Chad was a part of this chaos as well, and she held tight to the hope
that someday even this medical catastrophe would be behind them and they would be able to start over properly, like they should’ve done so many times before.
Mason appeared in front of her, holding out the phone, and she flinched, startled.
“Dad wants to talk to you. I’m going back inside. It’s cold.” With that, the little boy turned and raced back toward the entrance, disappearing so fast it seemed that the doors had swallowed him whole.
“I have to go,” she stated into the phone. “I’m still at the hospital.”
“Don’t do this, Katie.”
His tone stopped her. He obviously wasn’t talking about hanging up the phone. “I’m not discussing this right now, Jay.”
“Don’t do this,” he repeated. “You don’t know what you’re up against if you try to get full custody of him through the court system.”
Was he threatening her? “Interesting. I don’t think you would be offering up veiled threats if you thought you could win without a doubt.”
“Don’t taunt me. I’m just asking you not to go through with this.” There was an edge in his voice, and for the first time in all the years she and Jay had spent together, Katie didn’t know how to read it.
“You’re not asking me. What you’re doing sounds a whole lot like telling me not to do this. Which, again, is interesting because it was originally your idea to take me to court, wasn’t it? You threatened me with losing the custody of my son, Jay. And now that I’m prepared for it, now that I’m not backing down and letting you win, you’re not liking it so much, are you?” She sounded more confident than she felt, but a weight lifted from her shoulders just by standing up to him. I’m not scared of you, Jay. Not anymore.
“Katie, I—” He was speaking through gritted teeth now, each word measured, and each syllable enunciated. “Don’t play this game. You’re playing with fire.”
She let out a hollow laugh into the phone. He could call it what he wanted. She didn’t care anymore. She was tired of the manipulation. Sick of the fear tactics. And fed up with his lies and self-righteousness. She had a million things she could have said to him, some including curse words and others admonishing him for helping to create the sordid mess they were now in.
Instead, she simply hung up the phone.
If this was fire, let it burn.
CHAPTER FIVE
KATIE
Katie, still reeling from the conversation with Jay, was paying little attention to what was going on around her when she pulled open the entrance doors and made her way back into the sterile atmosphere of the waiting room. That’s the only reason she could come up with for being so dumbfounded at the spectacle going on in the middle of the room when she got there.
Hayden was still perched in his spot nearest to the ICU hallway, but he no longer craned his neck to stare toward Chad’s room. Elaine had moved over to the vinyl chair closest to the corner filled with toys and books, and she was reading a story to Mason, who’d curled up on the chair next to her, leaning over the arm of it to see the pictures in the book a little better. One of Elaine’s hands held the book in place, the other tucked Mason closer under her arm. Jillian sat in the chair next to him, leaning in to see the book, too. Mason’s eyes were sporadically fluttering; he never could stay completely awake during a story.
As she took in the sight before her, her eyes grew wide. It was mostly because the scene wasn’t something she’d expected to see, but it stopped her in her tracks, nonetheless. The sudden halt of motion at the entrance of the room caught Jillian and Elaine’s attention, and both women grew still as they watched Katie cautiously.
It only took a moment, then her brain finally caught up with her thoughts. “No, please. Keep reading. Mase loves that story.” She smiled, choosing to lower herself into a chair near Hayden to listen.
It was the truth; she’d read Chicken Little to him too many times to count. It was probably the reason he’d loved having chickens so much when they’d lived at the farm, and once had even asked her jokingly which one of them she thought would be most likely to be convinced the sky was falling.
Elaine and Jillian both offered matching faint grins, and Chad’s mother continued to read.
“Dr. Vale was just here. Chad is stable again, but we can’t see him yet.”
She was so surprised by Hayden’s announcement—not that Chad was stable, but that he’d chosen to speak to her at all—that she could only nod, her heart pounding in her chest with relief that Chad was still fighting. Hayden must not have seen the need to say anything further, because he turned away from her again, content to watch Elaine read to Mason.
“Thank you,” Katie whispered belatedly. He didn’t acknowledge it, but that was fine. She wasn’t sure whether she was thanking him, anyway, or maybe whatever entity or higher power had let her keep Chad for a while longer.
She had to keep her hopes up for him. He was strong, and he was determined. He could fight his way through this; she was sure of it. She was also sure of one other thing.
She needed him.
Katie knew she would never measure up to the standards Chad’s parents and sister had set. She would never make it onto the pedestal in which they’d placed the almighty Liz. But that was okay.
As long as she had Chad, there was someone out there who believed she was enough.
***
The following day, each hour rolled into the next with very little in the way of eventfulness or brightness. The weather seemed to be matching the atmosphere within the hospital, with its dreary cloudiness and chilled air. Nothing seemed to be happening outside, the tree branches jutting motionless from the tree trunks and the sky so dark and inert.
The people in the waiting room were much the same. Jillian was curled up in the chair closest to the corner, asleep, her feet propped up on the chair adjacent to hers and her jacket tossed over her body as a blanket. Elaine had purchased a Sudoku book from a nearby convenience store, tapping her chin lightly with a pen that read Bowen Accounting and Bookkeeping Services as she stared intently at the pages she had draped across her lap. Hayden, surprisingly, had taken up Katie’s position across from Mason, currently on his third round of Crazy Eights. Katie had already played five rounds of it herself, but when Mason was on a winning streak, it was difficult to get him to give up.
After visiting hours the evening before—she’d been surprised when they were permitted to see Chad, who harbored no telltale signs of the scare he’d given them the day before—she’d taken Mason back to Jay’s apartment for a quick bath and to get his Nintendo DS, but not before calling the Mercury Records offices and asking for Jay, hanging up when his secretary attempted to put her through to him. She wasn’t hiding from him, exactly, but she wasn’t in the mood to see him, either.
When they returned, in fresh clothes with their teeth brushed and Katie’s hair still wet from her shower, she was pleasantly surprised to find the nurses had moved a worn, threadbare armchair into Chad’s room, offering it up to one of them to catch some shut eye if they so desired. Obviously, the staff realized that none of them had any intention of leaving him alone.
Katie sure didn’t; she’d left him one too many times already.
It wouldn’t happen again.
Elaine took her first chance to sleep for a few hours in the chair beside her son, then Hayden—and this time, Chad remained stable, the monitors quiet. It was nice, the armchair being there, because whoever inhabited it got their own one-on-one time with Chad, and Katie wondered to herself a few times what his family members were saying to him when they had their turn. Were they gushing with all the things they wished they’d said over the past decade, or content to be so optimistic and hopeful that they chose to sit in silence with him, holding his hand for comfort, keeping their innermost thoughts to themselves with the belief that they would have the chance to speak them out loud to him someday soon when his eyes were open?
She chose to wait until everyone else had the opportunity to take up residence in the armc
hair before she did, mostly out of respect for the members of Chad’s family, but also because she knew Mason would want to come in with her. He asked to accompany her every time she made her way toward Chad’s room, but as bad as it made her feel to keep him and Chad apart, she wasn’t sure he was prepared for that just yet. Chad’s condition wasn’t something that a grown adult could face without fear and sadness burning acidly in the pit of their stomach, so she didn’t quite know what to do about her seven-year-old son.
Instead of sleeping, as the sun disappeared, leaving the parking lot beyond the window enveloped in darkness, Katie had been content to sit in the cafeteria with a cup of hot coffee and enjoy the solitude. No one else had taken up refuge there, but Barry had come by, offering to pick up takeout food for everyone. Mason had accompanied him to pick it up, leaving her in the unexpected silence.
The room may have been silent, but her mind was the farthest thing from it. She didn’t know which train of thought to attempt to untangle first. There was the matter of Jay, and she knew all too well that she would have to come face to face with him soon. They needed to talk, really talk, but right now she was just too angry and too emotional from what was happening with Chad. Surely, he could realize that? But he wouldn’t realize, because someone like Jay didn’t understand that he didn’t always come first.
There was also so much to think about regarding Chad, but it hurt too much. And just when she thought it hurt more than she could handle, visiting hours would roll around and she would be faced with the trauma and injury that her mistakes had caused him, which made her throat constrict and her mouth go dry all over again. It was all too much to bear.
As for his family, there was so much that needed to be dealt with there as well. They wanted answers—who she was in relation to Chad, what their story was—and she couldn’t blame them for that. Hell, she had some questions of her own for them.
My Kind Of Country: The Complete Series Page 32
