Mr. Imperfect

by Karina Bliss

  They hauled him up. Still nursing his affected parts, Christian leaned against the car and looked first at Luke, gingerly massaging his ass, then Jordan, wincing as he rubbed his scalp with one hand and clutching a handful of long golden strands in the other.

  And he began to chuckle. The chuckle turned into a laugh that combusted, until all three men were roaring.

  “That was pathetic,” Christian managed, cradling his aching ribs with one hand, his balls with the other. “These days, we couldn’t fight our way out of a pair of Levi’s.”

  Jordan was nearly sobbing with laughter. “You pulled my hair,” he accused Luke.

  “Hey, it was your idea. I just used it.” Rolling his head helplessly, Luke tried to sit, which set them all off again. “What the hell was that kick up the rear?”

  Tears streamed down Jordan’s cheeks. “I was trying not to hurt you too much.”

  “Forget your ass,” Christian interrupted, “how am I supposed to keep Kezia satisfied after what you did?”

  Jordan gave a whoop. “You’re going back?”

  “Guess so.” The thought sobered Christian. He cast a doubtful look at Luke, who shook his head.

  “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not using my problems as an excuse. Jordan will cover for you another few days.”

  “Yeah, go ahead.” Jordan opened his hand, regretfully watched the strands of his hair fall. “You’ve been useless to me this past week anyway.”

  “And despite you two clowns doing the musketeer act,” Luke warned, “I’ll fight my own battles.” Christian exchanged glances with Jordan again and, sighing, Luke added, “Tomorrow.” He pushed away from his car in a concession of defeat. “Tonight I’m getting drunk with Jordan.”

  “I’ll watch,” said Christian.

  Jordan snorted. “If I ever let a woman reduce me to his state,” he told Luke, “shoot me.”

  Christian threw an affectionate arm around Jordan, his mood buoyant. “And I’ll watch that, too,” he promised. “Got any cocoa?”

  DAWN WAS CHILL AS CHRISTIAN drove the last twenty kilometers into Waterview, but he had the top of the sports car down anyway. Happiness rose in him like cream on new milk.

  A cattle truck rumbled past and he laughed out loud. Jordan was right. He had to be certifiably crazy if even the smell of cow shit added to his sense of well-being. Who would have thought commitment could feel this good?

  Okay, he and Kez still faced hurdles—he had no intention of baring his soul. But hell, his heart was no mean gift and he’d bare his body as often as she liked. Oh, baby, please still be in bed and not up and about do-gooding. Let’s do some do-badding first.

  Six on Saturday morning and the main street of Waterview was deserted as the car purred through. Only the bakery showed signs of life, its open door shielded by a fly screen. Driving past, Christian breathed deep the aroma of baking bread. It smelled like home and hope.

  On an impulse he did a U-turn, parked outside and bought six warm apple donuts, fragrant with cinnamon sugar, and a couple of sausage rolls. He still had a kid’s taste for baking and he knew it, but damn, this represented wealth to him—money to buy what he liked at the Waterview bakery. At least he’d resisted the gingerbread men with their raisin eyes. Next time.

  The hotel looked just the same, which surprised him. Scaffolding still framed the southern side of the building, some of the window frames didn’t have even an undercoat. Surely the painting could have been finished by now? Maybe Kezia was concentrating on the inside renovations.

  Parking the car, he smiled as he made his way to the entrance. It would be just like her to work from the inside out, saving the best till last. He would have done it the other way ’round but then, as she’d once told him, he was all style and no substance. Well that was about to change.

  Whistling, Christian used his key to let himself in. The hall was stuffy with stale air. Nothing had been done here, either. What the hell was going on?

  His footsteps slowed as he approached the stairs and saw yellow tape printed with Danger! Hair prick-ling on the back of his neck, Christian lifted his gaze. Close to the top, the banister hung at a crazy angle. In one place a section was missing.

  He jumped the tape, took the stairs two at a time. “Kez!” The shout echoed off the wood paneling. “Kezia!”

  Shoving open her bedroom door, he scanned the room. Bed made. Empty. There was a sound from the guest bedroom; he spun around with relief but the person who peered out, bleary-eyed from sleep, was Don.

  “Well, well,” Don said, tying the cord of his dressing gown. “The prodigal returns.”

  “What are you doing here? Where’s Kezia?”

  After the briefest hesitation, he replied, “There was an accident. Marion injured her cervical vertebra.”

  “God, no!”

  “Kezia’s been staying near the spinal unit in Auckland since Sunday with John Jason.”

  “That’s six days ago! Why the hell wasn’t I told?”

  “You tell me.” Don sounded like the lawyer he was. “Kezia got hysterical at the first mention of it. Something about the banister giving way.”

  “The banister…” Realization dawned on Christian, as gray and ominous as an impending cyclone.

  Watching him, the old man’s face softened. “You’d best sit down, son, I haven’t told you the worst yet.”

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER CHRISTIAN walked back to his car. His fault. Not again. He pressed his palms against the smooth, cool metal of the bonnet until the sensation of falling receded, then caught sight of the baking lying forgotten on the passenger seat.

  Bile rose at the sight of the luminous grease spots on the brown paper bag. In one movement he picked it up and hurled it over the fence into the fields.

  In the car he gunned the engine, then sat, hunched over the steering wheel, staring sightlessly.

  Marion had loss of function in her hands and legs, which could be permanent, Don had said. “The banister gave way when she tried to stop her fall, but she knew it was broken…. One of those things and nobody’s fault…Kezia will come around.”

  No. She won’t.

  If Christian knew anything, he knew that. They were finished. The low rumble of Consolation’s engine vibrated into his consciousness. He shot the car into gear and reversed onto the road.

  A horn blasted and an SUV swung past, narrowly missing a side mirror. The wake-up call sobered him. What the hell was he doing mourning a future with Kezia while Marion’s still hung in the balance?

  Selfish, you’ve always been selfish. His father’s words rang clear as the past blurred with the present. Your mother would have lived months longer if you’d stayed away from her. I don’t care what she said…. Don’t you shirk responsibility for killing her, you little bastard. Don’t you dare!

  The guilt brought it all back. The helplessness, the grief and loss. At the end of Waterview’s main street Christian turned north, struggling to contain his emotions with logic.

  A child gave his dying mother influenza and became a scapegoat for a grieving man. The child accepted the burden unquestioning, until he grew into reason. He’d been twelve years old, for God’s sake. Twelve. His mother had asked for him, he’d gone. He’d needed to see her, to be hugged and comforted. He’d known she’d come home to die.

  The speedometer crept up; ten kilometers flew by. Except pneumonia killed her, not cancer. Her death certificate had reiterated the bald, unpalatable truth ten years ago when he’d received all her things, boxed up and sent to him on his father’s death. The old man had been right all along. Selfish. Selfish. Selfish.

  Christian’s hands were shaking on the steering wheel so badly he had to pull over. The car skidded in the loose gravel, swung to a stop in front of the wrought-iron gates of Waterview’s cemetery. The perfect place to abandon hope. The song of a skylark rose and quivered in the morning air.

  Why hadn’t he repaired the damn stairs? Why had he pawned safety to score points against Kezia? What kind of l
oser kept hurting people he cared about?

  The same loser rushing back to help where he wasn’t wanted, that’s who. If he really loved Kezia, wouldn’t he respect her wishes and stay away? Or would that be ducking the judgment he so richly deserved?

  And what about his responsibility to Marion and John Jason? Sending money felt like a cop-out. Or was he trying to salve his conscience by forcing a sick woman to acknowledge his culpability?

  In his agony he got out of the car and paced the tree-lined avenue that led through the graveyard. His mother was buried here, among the soft shady green. Many more graves had joined hers since he was last here, yet he still knew where to find her—if he had the guts to look. Maybe confronting an old guilt would help him deal with this new one.

  He began walking in the direction of her grave and the years fell away with every step until his grief was so raw and new he ached with it. A nameless terror stopped Christian in his tracks, turned him blindly back toward his car, a sinner desperate to leave hallowed ground. He knew now why he cried at funerals…because he wished he’d cried at hers.

  He sat in the Ferrari for a long time before coming to a decision. He could never make amends with the dead but he had to try with the living. The engine roared into life as he pulled out onto the empty road. With nothing to gain and less to lose Christian headed north.

  “WHAT’S THAT ON YOUR HEAD?”

  “It’s called a halo. It keeps my head still while my back gets better.”

  “Like angels have?”

  Supine in the hospital bed, Marion smiled at her son through a mirror set up for the purpose. “Yes, except theirs isn’t made of metal.”

  “They’d be too heavy to fly,” John Jason said, an authority since the emergency helicopter flight.

  He moved in for a closer look and Kezia threw out a restraining hand. The other was useless, in a fiberglass cast from hand to elbow. “Not too close, honey, remember what I said.”

  He scowled at her. “You go ’way.”

  “Don’t talk to Auntie Kez like that.” Marion’s voice revealed the strain of the visit, John Jason’s first since the accident. Kezia held the little boy’s mutinous gaze, her own flashing a warning, a plea. Please, please, please be good for your mummy’s sake. Hate me later all you like.

  He turned away and buried his face in his aunt Sally’s skirts. “This is my real auntie,” he muttered.

  Marion’s sister, Sally, three hours off the plane from Australia, looked over his head at Kezia. “I told you it was counterproductive to let him see her like this.”

  “Who’s her? I may be flat on my back but I still have an opinion and this was a great idea.” The forced cheer in Marion’s reply made Kezia ache for the effort it must be costing her. Surely, Sally could see her sister needed things made easier, not harder?

  “Besides—” Marion reached out a clumsy frozen hand, feeling for her son’s soft hair “—I wanted to see my boy.”

  John Jason grabbed her hand and held on. “I thought you were dead, Mummy.” He wailed into Sally’s skirt.

  Over the previous week none of Kezia’s reassurances had carried any weight. To John Jason she was still the monster who had dragged him away from his unconscious mother, shoved him into the bar and locked the door. Abandoned him to terror. To save Marion’s life, she had forfeited her godson’s trust.

  “No, baby.” Marion’s voice was tender. “Not dead, just too sick for visitors.”

  “I want to go home,” he cried. “I want my rat.” He and Kezia were staying at a motel within walking distance of the spinal unit.

  “Hasn’t Roland been writing every day?” In the mirror Marion smiled at Kezia, who forced herself to return it. Don’t thank me for small favors. Not when I’m the reason you’re lying here. But all that mattered now was shielding Marion from every anxiety.

  So her friend didn’t know that her son loathed his godmother and accepted her ministrations under sufferance. She didn’t know that Kezia was using the money Christian had left for the hotel’s renovations to pay for a private room and the best specialists. And she didn’t know her partial paralysis might be permanent.

  The only reality Kezia had allowed into that quiet hospital room, redolent of the jasmine she’d entwined around Marion’s pillow, was that John Jason needed to see his mother.

  “Roland is having bad dreams,” he told her now. “He wants me to go home and play with him.” Roland’s so-called nightmares had helped Kezia to finally persuade Marion to let her son see her hooked up to drips and monitors with a traction halo drilled into her skull and her right ankle encased in plaster.

  “But, honey, Auntie Kezia said you liked the hospital day care.” Kezia stiffened, knowing the mention of her name would provoke resistance. It did.

  “I hate it,” he said, and glowered at his nemesis, who bit back a denial. It would only stoke the little boy’s opposition. Instead she opted for guerrilla tactics.

  “Let’s go to the vending machine,” she suggested brightly. “You can have whatever you want.”

  John Jason cast her a hostile look but the lure was too strong. “Two things,” he demanded. At her nod, he skipped to the door with a wave to his mother.

  “He’s fine,” Kezia reassured Marion in a low voice, but though her friend smiled, her eyes were full of anxiety. “Really. He likes day care and the staff spoil him at the motel.”

  “How can you look after him with your arm in plaster?” Sally challenged from the other side of the bed. She’d been like this at school, too, verging on antagonistic.

  “We manage.” Kezia kept smiling at Marion, giving no hint of how difficult that managing had been while her arm still needed a sling. Only when her smile was returned did she face Sally. “And this is fiberglass—much hardier and lighter.” Holding up the arm encased in virulent flourescent pink, she tried to break the tension. “John Jason chose the color. Like it?”

  Sally wouldn’t play. “Now that John Jason has family here to look after him, there’s no reason for you to manage any longer. In fact, the sooner you leave, the better off we’ll all be.”

  Marion gasped. “Sally!”

  “She’s the reason you’re in this state.” Sally eyed Kezia with contempt. “And she’s terrified you’ll sue so she won’t let the doctors tell you you’re facing permanent paralysis. Well—”

  “Shut up, Sally.” White-faced, Kezia stared at Marion.

  “It’s all right,” her friend said quietly. “I already suspected, so you can stop trying to protect me.”

  “Protect you!” Sally’s tone was incredulous. “Are you crazy? Her negligence is responsible for—”

  “Auntie Kez!” John Jason swung impatiently between the double doors. “Come, come, come!”

  “—you being here. And if you think I’m going to let someone with her safety record look after my nephew—”

  Marion interrupted the tirade, her face tight and drawn. “Don’t force me to choose, Sally. You won’t like my choice.”

  “Come with the money,” called John Jason from the door. “Mun…e…e. Mun…ee.”

  “You don’t have to choose, Marion,” Kezia said, forcing herself to speak calmly. “We’re both here for you, aren’t we, Sally?” No answer. “Aren’t we?” Put your sister first, now.

  “Yes,” Sally conceded, but her eyes promised retribution.

  John Jason flew back into the room, seized Kezia’s good hand and towed her to the door.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming. I have a few errands, so I’ll come back later,” she called as cheerfully as she could over her shoulder.

  Marion murmured her assent; Sally said nothing.

  When they reached the vending machine, Kezia’s hands trembled so much, she had to give her purse to John Jason. As she watched him press his face against the glass front, trying to make his choices, she wished her own were as simple.

  Sally was right. It was Kezia’s fault. Yet she knew she could be of most help to Marion and John Jason i
f she stayed and weathered Sally’s antagonism.

  Pulling up a greasy green vinyl chair, she sat, exhausted by the cumulative strain of the previous week. Had it only been—she glanced at the date on her watch—six days since the accident?

  In this intense limbo of fear and hope, she couldn’t even recall her old life. An image of Christian flashed into her brain; viciously she tamped it out. The collaborator in her crime.

  One of the specialists walked by on his rounds and smiled in passing. On impulse, Kezia reached out a hand and stopped him. “You said the spinal swelling should have gone down enough by now to determine—” she glanced at John Jason, but he was absorbed in the vending machine “—whether Marion’s condition is permanent?”

  To her surprise, his eyes shied away from hers. “I’m sorry,” he replied formally, “but Marion’s sister has instructed us to restrict our briefings to family. Why don’t you ask her for information?” With an embarrassed nod, he strode away.

  John Jason motioned her over. “I want a packet of M&Ms and a Coke.” He paused, obviously waiting for her to veto the Coke, but still dazed, Kezia helped him put the money in the slot and punch the right buttons.

  She was being pushed out and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it without embroiling Marion in more unpleasantness.

  They walked back to the motel where Kezia made John Jason eat a sandwich and fruit before she opened his chocolate. Lost in thought, she patted his head as she gave him back his treat. He jerked away, reminding her that two people hated her guts. If she included herself, that made three.

  Their room in the Ambassador Motel was on the ground floor. Sliding doors opened onto a trellised concrete patio and Kezia flung them wide, suddenly desperate to release the pungent odor of motel cleaning products and breathe fresh air.

  The trellis was overgrown with jasmine, lending a welcome dimness to the room’s seventies decor of tangerine, tan and purple. She picked a fresh replacement for Marion’s pillow, knowing she’d hate the smell by association for the rest of her life once this was over, then put a protesting John Jason down for a nap and made herself a coffee.