by Margaret Kay
“I will,” she texted back. “I wish I was there. My sister is getting on my nerves.”
“Just don’t shoot her,” his reply came before she had even looked away from her phone.
Madison laughed out loud, earning her questioning gazes from both her mom and sister. “Sorry,” she said aloud with a smile still on her face. “My boss thinks he’s a comedian.”
“He must be,” her mother said. “He did sound very nice though when I talked with him.”
“You talked to her boss?” Megan asked.
“Yes, he took the phone from Madison when she was telling me why she couldn’t come, and he said she would be here.”
“I would never have asked for time off only being on the job a month, I didn’t even know he was behind me in the break room when I called you back.”
“Oh, and what does this boss look like?” Megan’s words were heavy with inference.
“Oh please!” Madison’s exaggerated voice argued. “Don’t even go there, Megan. He’s my boss and they are all so nice there. Anyone would be given the time off for something like this.” She glanced back at her phone. “I can’t make any promises,” she typed out.
Madison glanced back up at her mom and sister. “Anyway, Mom, I saw the pork roast in the fridge. I thought I’d put it in the crockpot tomorrow morning with some potatoes and carrots before we leave for the hospital, so we have a good meal when we get home.”
“That’s a great idea, thank you Madison,” her mom said. “I’m just not capable of thinking about anything right now. I’m so glad you both came in.”
After dinner Madison’s mom asked the girls if they were okay with her putting her pajamas on. She wanted to lay in bed and watch TV. She was beat and would probably drop off quickly. Madison assured her they were before her sister had a chance to speak. Her mom hugged them both goodnight and then disappeared down the hall.
“Megan, please clean the kitchen up, since I cooked. I have a work call I have to make.”
Megan began to protest but Madison didn’t listen. She grabbed her phone and stepped away. “Hi,” Madison said quietly into the phone. She was outside on the back patio, had stepped outside to call Cooper.
“You sound upset. Is everything alright?” Cooper asked.
Madison appreciated his voice on the phone, a voice she could tell the truth to. “My mom felt my gun when giving me a hug. I had to tell her I now work for the FBI. It’s been a rough trip down missing in Iraq memory lane.”
“I’m sorry,” Cooper said.
“Yes, me too, but it’s out now and at least I don’t have to worry any longer how that conversation will go. How’s everything there?”
“It’s fine, we’re adjusting timeframes for the Van Joosten Op and will be ready to finish prepping you for it when you’re back. It can wait. It’s no big deal,” Cooper said.
“Well, thank you, again. I did need to be here. My mom looks exhausted from worry, and my sister’s annoying.”
Cooper laughed. “How’d your dad look?”
“Ashen. I hated seeing him lay there with tubes coming out of him and all the electronics monitoring him. Every time his heartbeat spiked or dropped, I just held my breath.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. When Shepherd was shot last year, I spent the first few days in his room, just watching him. I told everyone I was on guard duty, but the truth was I just had to be there. Medical equipment never bothered me, IV lines, catheters, you name it. But seeing them all over him was sobering, reminded me how fragile life is. It was touch and go for a while with him. You never knew him before. To see such a big man down like that was tough.”
“I bet, and I do understand. You and Shepherd are close, aren’t you?”
“Yes, very. Anyway, Doc said to tell you to call anytime if you need more info you’re not getting from his doctors.”
“I will keep that in mind. Thank him for me.”
“You bet,” Cooper said.
“And thank you for encouraging me to come. I need to be here.”
“Yeah, I knew you’d never have asked.”
“I’ll have a few hours tonight if you needed to push anything through to my laptop.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it tonight. Take the time and catch up with your family.”
“My mom has gone to bed and Megan is, well, she’s Megan. We don’t see things the same way often. There won’t be any great girl talk. And after I set her straight about a few things, I’ll be the last person she wants to talk to.”
“Go easy on her,” Cooper said, much to her surprise. “You’re her sister, not her mother. At least that’s what my brother has told me enough times.”
Madison giggled. “She has always been irresponsible and acted entitled.”
“And that bugs the crap out of you, doesn’t it?”
“I’m sorry, am I talking with Cooper or Lassiter?”
Cooper laughed out loud for a good fifteen seconds. “You know, because we served, it makes us different from those who haven’t.”
“Trust me, I know that very well.”
“All I’m saying is that you cannot hold your sister to the same high expectations you do of yourself because of that. Talk to her, see what she thinks, what’s important to her. Offer her an olive branch.”
“Thanks, Doctor Lassiter, I’ll try that,” she said sarcastically followed by a chuckle. “Anyway, thanks for everything today. I should let you go.”
“Let me know how his surgery goes tomorrow,” Cooper said before his good night. Then he sat his phone to his desk and thought about Madison seeing her father that way. Memories of Shepherd after he was shot, flooded his mind.
Madison reentered the house to find her sister sitting on the couch with the television on. Thinking about what Cooper said, she sat beside her. “How are you doing, Megan? It sucked seeing Dad like that today.” Olive branch offered.
Megan barely looked at her, her eyes on the TV. “Yeah. I don’t do well with this kind of thing.”
Madison wrapped her arms around Megan. “I know. I’m sorry my flight was late. I’m just glad we are both here for Mom now.”
“All she really needs is you. Madison, the one who will take care of everything, like usual.”
“That’s not true. You can take care of anything you choose to. You just need to step up and be there, Megan.”
“I can’t be you, Madison, can’t ever be as good as you,” Megan whined.
“Whoa, Megan, no one expects you to be me.”
Megan’s outraged stare debated that. “Seriously, you’ve never heard it? Our oldest, Madison, she’s an Army officer, graduated top of her class, you know. Earned her master’s degree and speaks four foreign languages. You speak Arabic, fucking Arabic, Madison?”
“Mesopotamian Arabic, actually. It’s a specific regional dialect.” She shut up when she saw Megan’s outraged facial expression. “Yeah, and I made Mom cry tonight with the news of my new job.”
“That’s actually kind of cool,” Megan said.
“What, that I made Mom cry?”
“No, that you’re in the FBI. What made you take the job?”
“The salary, the benefits, and four weeks paid vacation time-off is attractive,” Madison said sarcastically.
“Really?”
“No, not really. It’s what I’m good at. If Iraq hadn’t happened, I’d still be in the Army.”
“Yeah, I suppose the whole almost getting killed thing wasn’t so great.”
Madison breathed in and then out to keep herself from slapping her sister for being stupid. “No, it wasn’t at all. It sucked as a matter of fact, almost as much as Dad having a heart attack, sucks.”
“Yeah, it does big-time,” Megan agreed.
“Look, we need to be here for Mom, but I’m here for you too if you need me. I’ll always be there for you Megan.”
Madison bit back the lecture she wanted to give, the one in which she told Megan she needed to grow the fuck up and be respons
ible for herself, get her education and a good job so she would stop sponging off Mom and Dad. She knew Megan was capable of it but was just lazy and had made one bad decision after another.
“Are you still with Kent?” Madison asked, speaking of a bad decision.
“Kind of, he’s not the guy I thought he was though, so we are on and off. How come all I seem to attract are losers?” Megan lamented.
Madison laughed. “I don’t think there are many Prince Charming’s out there any more, at least I haven’t met many. Look at me, single without even a date in almost two years.” Though she wouldn’t say it, she thought pretty highly of all the men at Shepherd Security, was sure there were more than a few Prince Charming’s in the group.
“Two years? Seriously, beautiful Madison without a guy?”
“Yep, seriously,” Madison confirmed.
As Madison lay awake that night thinking about everything, she was glad she hadn’t let her sister have it with both barrels. That was another thing she was grateful to John Cooper for, today. She wasn’t sure what had happened in Megan’s life to put her on the track she was on. For the first time she considered that maybe her little sister had lived in her shadow, that maybe her parents had held her up as the successful one. She also knew though that the time for blame was over and Megan needed to pull herself up and get past whatever her issues were. She’d do all she could to help her, starting with helping Megan realize she deserved a guy better than Kent, who Madison knew didn’t treat her right.
The morning was a rushed blur. The three of them quickly got ready, Madison made a quick breakfast for them, and out the door they went. Madison drove all three of them in her rental car to the hospital. They waited during the agonizingly long procedure, all of them pretty quiet. Madison brought coffee and snacks up from the cafeteria several times through the morning as her mother refused to leave the Cardiac OR waiting room.
She also text messaged with Cooper and Lassiter several times. She appreciated that they both checked in with her. Doc also messaged her, and she was surprised when later she got a message from Garcia. She knew he had to be busy, so the effort really made her feel accepted by the team. Shortly thereafter, the messages from Angel, Michaela, and Yvette popped in.
After she typed out replies, she met her mother’s stare. “Who are you chatting so much with?” Her mother asked.
“My friends at work.” Madison didn’t even think about what she said but realized after the words passed her lips that was what they had become in such a short time. She had more friends at Shepherd Security than she had since she was in the Army. “They’ve all checked in, asking how Dad is.”
Megan’s face showed jealousy and hurt. She hadn’t gotten a single text, not even from Kent, who she thought would have at least asked how her dad was. He’d met her parents several times. “You’ve only been there a month. Are they really friends already?”
Madison smiled warmly at her sister, recognizing that her sister’s jealousy was flaring. Their conversation the previous evening was eye opening, otherwise she may just have thought Megan was being petty or a bitch. “Most who work there have served. It puts friendships on a quicker path than most workplaces, and even those who haven’t, the work we do creates these bonds that I can’t explain, makes us all pretty tight, pretty fast.”
Just then they were called to the consultation room. The surgeon was there. Both girls held their mother’s hand as they entered, too nervous to even sit across the table from him. The surgery had started four and a half hours before. They had been warned it could be up to six hours before the surgeon met with them. Madison prayed his early arrival didn’t indicate something bad.
The surgeon beamed a pleasant expression. “It all went very well. He’s in recovery.”
Madison’s mother burst into tears. Madison let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. The women hugged each other. They waited until he was moved to a room as they would be allowed a short visit. In the interim, Madison texted those at the office who had reached out to her earlier and let them know he was through surgery and doing well. Warm wishes flooded her phone.
Finally, they were called by the duty nurse as they waited in the cardiac post-surgical waiting area. They were escorted to his room. He was awake but wouldn’t be for long. He was quite doped up. It was a short visit but served to put them all at ease that he would be okay.
They left the hospital and were home several hours before dark. The wonderful aroma of the roast cooking in the crockpot greeted them. Their moods were quite a bit better than they had been the previous evening or all day for that matter.
Even so, Madison was exhausted. She stepped out onto the back patio again and sat in the late afternoon heat with the waning sunlight at her back. She had a glass of wine and her phone. First, she called Doc. He assured her that her father was in good hands and he seconded the surgeon’s confidence that the survival rate of coronary bypass surgery is in the high ninety percent range. He also set her mind at ease that three to five days was indeed the normal hospital stay following bypass surgery. They would not be kicking her father out too soon.
She thanked him, feeling better about it and then placed a call to Cooper.
“Is everything okay?” He asked answering her call.
“Yes, we’re home and I’m sitting out on the patio with a glass of wine. I just wanted to check in.” She honestly wasn’t sure what she was checking for. There was no reason to. If she were to be one-hundred percent honest with herself, she just wanted to hear his voice.
“I’m glad you did. You sound tired.”
“I am. I didn’t do a damn thing all day but sit around the hospital, but I am beat. I didn’t sleep very well last night.” She took a drink of wine to shut herself up. Her thoughts were rambly, all over the place.
“Hopefully you’ll sleep better tonight.”
“Yes, I hope so too. He’ll be released in three to five days. I called Doc to check with him that they’re not kicking him out too soon. He confirmed that with no complications that’s standard. I can’t believe that, open heart surgery and they send him home that soon.”
“He’ll be more comfortable at home, I’m sure.” Cooper remembered how Shepherd couldn’t wait to get out of the hospital when he’d been shot. He knew he’d be the same way, would want to get home as soon as possible. He believed most men felt that way. “Why don’t you plan to stay all next week? Your mom could probably use the support of having you there. We’ll push the Op off another week. We can do conference calls and I’ll send material to your laptop, so you are ready to roll when you get back.”
“Are you sure?” She hated that she was holding this operation up.
“Completely. Don’t worry about it.”
“Thank you. I’ll take you up on that. I know my mom will feel better with me here. I know my sister won’t be able to stay long. She’s taking work off unpaid. I appreciate the understanding,” Madison said, feeling emotional.
They talked for another few minutes about nothing important. Madison ended the call, feeling better than she had before. She thought again about this group of coworkers and how fast they had become trusted friends, something that she had not felt about anyone at her last place of employment.
The next week flew by. Megan left to return to Seattle the day after their father was released from the hospital. Madison was glad for the time with Megan and the conversations they had every night after their mother went to bed. Madison felt closer to her sister than she ever had. She was also glad she was there to give support to her mother while her father recovered. She studied the information Cooper pushed through to her laptop each night. She knew more about priceless antiquities than she ever wanted.
Cooper and Madison had twice daily phone calls as well, in the morning and usually later at night after her parents were in bed. The phone calls were something she found herself looking forward to. The calls always began focused on business and the upcoming Van Joosten mission, but th
e last half hour always strayed to different topics. During the evening calls she often laid in bed while they talked. Then she would turn off the light and go to sleep. It didn’t escape her realization that hearing his voice before she fell asleep was becoming a habit that she liked.
The morning before she was due to leave Arizona, he brought her up to date on Anthony Garcia and his mission at the Silo, but he never disclosed any details of Garcia’s past undercover assignment that he was revisiting with this mission. Madison didn’t press. Whatever had happened for Anthony to have considered himself in a dark place when it was over, wasn’t her business, unless Anthony shared it. She hoped someday, Anthony would feel comfortable enough with her to tell her about it.
