Just Jada

by Anna Cove

  "Well, have her call me when she's ready to work again." He hung up the phone.

  I nodded at Erika. "All set."

  Her jaw working, she looked toward the doors through which they had brought her father. I couldn't imagine what she was thinking. I tried to picture finding my father like that, lifeless. What would I have done? Probably not flown to his side as Erika had done with her father. I probably would have stood there and thought thank God, at first. I'd like to think I would do the right thing eventually, but it was possible I wouldn't have. That was just the type of person I was.

  Why had I gone down that path? If I wanted to be here for Erika, I would actually have to be here, just like she'd been telling me. I walked up to her and wrapped my arm around her shoulder. "Come sit down. You must be exhausted."

  Erika nodded, her eyes still attached to that door. What if he did die? What would I do then? Could I put my practice on hold for her? Perhaps take a few extra days off a week?

  What was I thinking? If I remained here with her, I would lose everything. The Calver. The trust fund.

  Stop making this about you.

  I settled us on a pair of chairs and guided Erika's head onto my shoulder, stroking her hair. From the corner of my eye I could see her wide-open gaze.

  "Sleep, sweetie," I said.

  "I can't," she whispered. "What if..."

  "I have a feeling you would say there was no point in what ifs. What if? You'll deal with it just like you have everything else."

  Erika's shoulders collapsed. She turned her face up to me, her eyes dry and empty. "I should have been there. If I had been there... maybe..."

  "You can't spend your whole life in that trailer watching over him."

  Erika sat up straight, her hair falling out of her ponytail. "Yes, but I could have not been in jail when it happened."

  Had it been only hours ago that we were lying in one another's arms, not caring that we were on a steel slab masquerading as a bunk bed in the middle of a goddamn jail? What would I give to bring us back to that moment? What would I give to enjoy it for a second longer? Just one single second. I would lock it away in my heart and go back to it every time I needed to find strength. Why hadn't I done that?

  "I'm sorry." It was all I could say.

  Erika shook her head and pulled away from me, crossing her arms over her chest. She slid down, her body bent at an odd angle. I had never seen her slouch, never mind whatever position this was.

  Why couldn't I find the right thing to say? I never knew the right thing to say or do.

  Before my mind went too far to the dark side, the doctor came out, pulling a mask from her mouth. She looked as tired as I felt, but I couldn't read her face. Erika hopped up onto her feet and ran to the woman. "Please tell me he's okay."

  "He's alive," the surgeon said quickly.

  "Thank God," I said, catching up to Erika and slipping my hand into hers. I squeezed. Maybe we would be okay after all.

  "But he's not out of the woods yet. We're going to have to do at least one more surgery to finish fixing the damage."

  "What do you mean?" I asked, glancing at Erika and seeing her struggle for words.

  "Well, he had a heart attack, but while we were in there, we found he had a heart defect. This whole thing is a blessing in disguise."

  Some blessing. "But his heart is going to be okay?"

  "His arteries are fragile. He had some fluid building up around the heart. I'm hopeful..."

  I could see Erika holding on to that hope like a piece of debris in a shipwreck.

  I nodded. "Will his body tolerate multiple surgeries?"

  "We hope so. We're going to let him rest and recover for a couple of days and take it from there."

  "Can I see him?" Erika said, her voice reedy.

  "Not yet. He's in ICU. We'll let you know when you can see him," the doctor responded.

  "What can I do?" she whispered.

  "Nothing, really. Pray. Wait. Be here for him when he wakes. I've got to go. We'll talk soon, okay?"

  Erika nodded and kept nodding long after the doctor had gone.

  I guided her back to her chair once again where she stared into nothingness. I stared with her. We weren't alone. The nothingness was almost palpable in this place. An elderly woman clasped a purse in her lap and stared into the fog. A man with his hair standing on end did as well. Only a mother avoided the nothingness, and only because she distracted herself with tending to her child. And me, the odd one out. What should I do? Where did I belong? In the nothingness, or in caretaker-land?

  "We'll never be able to afford all the surgeries," Erika said.

  "Oh," I said, pulling myself back to her. "Don't you have health insurance?"

  "Yes, but they only pay a percentage."

  "Oh," I said again. Then I realized how I could help. "I can... I can give you the money."

  Erika twisted and stared up into my face. Pillowed puffs of dark circles rose under her eyes, which were closer to brown today. "I can't accept that," she said. "But thank you."

  I didn't exactly have the money to give in that moment, but I would find a way to get it. I would convince my father to release the funds, or I would somehow get Mom to convince him. "Then I'll just have to insist."

  She sat up. "No. This is a family thing, and we're going to work it out."

  "Why? When I'm offering you a chance—"

  "Please," Erika said. "I don't want there to be any weirdness between us because of money."

  "It would be a gift."

  "No," she said.

  "Okay."

  Erika settled against my shoulder, her head like a rock. Why wouldn't she let me help? And if she wasn't going to let me help with money then what did she expect from me? Emotional support? Right. Eventually, I would fuck it up.

  Plus, emotionally supporting Erika would require my presence, and presence meant removing myself from the life I'd created in the city. Could I do that for a woman I'd slept with once when I wasn't even sure I was gay?

  I stood. "I need some air." I tried to smile.

  Erika's eyes opened wide, her body leaning over the space I had just occupied.

  "I'll be right back," I said.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ERIKA

  After Jada left, I paced the hospital floor as if my feet would scuff away the surface and locate buried treasure underneath. It was hard to hear Dad was in such bad shape. I should have seen the signs and brought him in. It was so clear now. The yellow around his jowls. The labored breathing. But it had happened so slowly I'd barely noticed the change until it was too late.

  That alone would have crested the walls of my inner peace, but then there was the money. Every minute a machine supported Dad's life, we went more and more into debt. Each surgery would cost thousands of dollars. Sure, we paid an arm and a leg for insurance, but it wouldn't cover it all. We would have to match some of those funds and, as it was, I couldn't match two pennies together.

  Then there was Jada. I shouldn't have reacted like that. She was just trying to help. The problem was, this wasn't her problem to solve. This was my family, my responsibility, our problem.

  There was really only one thing I could do.

  Dad was in recovery and wouldn't wake for hours, so I stepped out of the hospital. Tentatively, I pulled my phone from my pocket. It was almost dead, but I wouldn't need much for what I was about to do. The conversation probably wouldn't last long.

  I pressed the down button to find my mother's number, hesitating only a moment before I clicked dial. As the ringing sounded, I squeezed my eyes shut. My stomach knotted into a ball.

  "Hello?" a woman's voice answered, distant on the other line.

  "Mom? It's me, Erika."

  "Oh, Erika." She sounded vaguely disappointed, like always. "This isn't really a good time. Can I call you back later?"

  "No." My voice strained with the effort of standing up for myself. "I really need to talk now."

  She sighed. "Hold on."
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  Children shrieked in the background, probably my little sisters. When they were first born I was in my early twenties. We had made plans for visits, but every time the trip approached, Mom delivered some excuse about why it suddenly wouldn't work.

  After about the third try, Mom called less and less, until finally she only called on my birthday. Mostly, I didn't think about it. Mostly, I didn't think about her. Tended to ruin my zen. Zen-kill, I thought, the joke rising in my mind. It was something Jada might say, and the moment I thought of her, I almost drowned under my fresh guilt.

  "What's wrong?" she said, her voice clearer.

  "Your husband is an anesthesiologist, right?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "That means he makes a lot of money."

  Silence on the other end of the line.

  I had to do this, and I had to do it before I lost the courage. "Dad's sick. Really sick. He needs surgery and I don't have the money."

  "Oh, sweetie."

  I swallowed down the tears. "No. Don't oh sweetie me. I can't do that right now. I can't play your game. Just... I need some money."

  Silence again. I could almost hear her brain trying to find ways to get out of this. Trying to find a way to let me down—again—without me actually realizing it had happened. Might have worked when I was a kid, but it wouldn't work now. I could see through every one of her lies because I knew what was on the other side. I had just never acknowledged it before. It left me feeling empty and cold.

  "Don't you have insurance?"

  "It's not enough." The hoarse words ripped through my throat. "Come on, Mom. You owe us after what you did."

  "It's not as simple as you think."

  "Explain it to me."

  "Not today. Not while you're like this."

  "Like what?"

  "Listen. You're grown. You're an adult. You should be able to take care of yourself," she said.

  "Fuck, Mom. I've had a job since I was twelve. I've been taking care of myself and Dad for as long as I can remember. I couldn't help this. It's not like I made him sick."

  "I'm sorry, baby."

  "Don't call me that if you're going to say no."

  "I'm so sorry. I just—I have the girls' college educations to think about. And the mortgage on the house and—"

  I jammed my finger into the red phone symbol. I didn't need to hear any more crap from her. She wasn't going to help me. No one was going to help me. Jada still hadn't returned from wherever she had fled. I wasn't stupid. I knew there was something going on with her. I should have known this would be too much.

  I wanted Dad. I wanted to sleep. I wanted everything to be okay.

  I walked back into the hospital and into the waiting room. The nurse looked up. "Erika? Your father is awake and asking for you."

  ...

  JADA

  It was warm enough to sit in the car and not freeze. So I did. I sat in the car with no music or podcasts—only my mind to keep me company. As I sat, I tried to think of a way to help Erika without her knowing I was helping her.

  Maybe I could sublet my apartment, sell my business, and anonymously donate money to the hospital. Maybe I could convince my father's accountant to send me some of the money.

  It was crazy. I had only known Erika two weeks. But she needed this. Money was the only way I knew how to help. Otherwise... what support could I provide her? I could barely support my house plants.

  I breathed in and out. Oh boy, she was rubbing off on me.

  I picked up my phone and absently scrolled through my Facebook wall. Then, I remembered I still hadn't answered Julia's text. This was much easier to fix.

  I scrolled through my contacts, found Julia, and typed her a message.

  Sorry I couldn't respond to your messages.

  My father called before I could text anything more. I didn't answer. He called again. I didn't answer again. Rosa called and I didn't answer.

  She texted me.

  You better call your father. He's about ready to kill you right now. I've never heard him so upset.

  If he was already upset, the longer I put him off, the angrier he would get. I took in a deep breath, breathing into my belly like Erika taught me, loosening tendrils of the tension balled in my chest. After another breath, I dialed him.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing? Where are you? You should have come right back to the city," he said without preamble.

  "You know... a night in jail gave me some time to think."

  "And?"

  "I'm pulling out of the running for the Calver," my voice was even and calm. A proud warmth blossomed in my chest.

  "Don't joke, Luisa."

  "I'm not joking." I was done with all of this. Done with the lying, done with the competition. It was exhausting, and there were more important things. Like the health of Erika's father.

  My father let out a hard laugh. "That mountain air has really done a job on you—"

  "I don't want to be lectured by you any longer," I said, thinking back to my conversation with Erika. What kind of life did I want to live? A brave one. A free one. It was clearer to me now in a way it never was before. Freedom meant freedom from my father.

  "Well, you should have thought of that before you decided to break into a hotel pool."

  I froze. I'd never told him what I'd been arrested for. I don't think I'd told him where I was either, now that I thought about it, but if the "mountain air" comment was any indication, he knew. "How do you know that?" I asked, my words slow and deliberate.

  "I have my ways. If anything, you should be thanking me for getting those charges dropped."

  My pride turned to battery acid in my chest. What could I do? He knew where I was, or roundabout where I was. It wouldn't take him long to look up Erika, to find her father was sick and in the hospital, then to find me. My only hope was that he didn't know about what was going on between us.

  "You were naked in that pool with her."

  I closed my eyes. My denial failed before it reached my lips.

  "Luisa?"

  "I wasn't naked."

  "She was."

  "Not exactly."

  "Don't split hairs with me." My father's voice boomed through the phone and echoed in my ear. "Why were you in a hotel with her? Give me one good reason because I can't think of one."

  "We were... watching TV."

  "Ah, you're friends now."

  "It's part of my—"

  "Don't bullshit me, Luisa, I can read you even when you're not here. You're lying to me."

  I bit my cheek until I tasted blood.

  "You know what I'm capable of, right? I've played nice so far, but I don't have to play nice."

  I swallowed. I knew. I'd seen it in action before.

  Once, a fellow psychologist had challenged my father's views on his new book. It was a tepid challenge, but my father doesn't let challenges lie. He dug into the psychologist's past, found an instance where he'd had an affair with a client, and leaked it to the media.

  "Return to the city immediately," he said.

  This wasn't fair. I wanted to scream and throw my phone. The effort of keeping it all reeled inside was making me shake. What could he do to us if I stayed? So far, I hadn't really done anything to ruin Erika's chances of winning the Calver. I'd only plotted to do so. But if I stayed, he would find a way to ruin her. We would have no money. Worst of all, she would discover I'd lied to her. It was inevitable. When she saw how bad I truly was, what I'd tried to do to her, she would turn her back on me, and I would have to retreat to the city.

  All roads led back to the city.

  "That's a good girl," my father cooed before I said anything. "I'll see you in three hours at your apartment. Don't even try to make other plans."

  I threw my phone to the floor of the passenger side of the car. Fine. He wanted me there, he would get me. But I was no longer going along with his plan. It was time to come up with a plan of my own.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ERIKA
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  "Dad, I'm so happy to see you. I didn't think you'd be—" I swallowed, sitting on the empty sliver of his bed and caressing his hand. "I thought I'd lost you there."

  "Can't get rid of me that easily, kid."

  I took his hand and brought it to my lips for a kiss.

  "How was that date... was it last night? You didn't come home which meant it must have been good."

  I half-laughed, half-sobbed. "You're never going to believe where I spent the night."

  "Where?" His voice was soft, airy.

  "It would probably give you another heart attack."

  Dad frowned, coughing. I took a tissue from the bedside table and dabbed at the sides of his mouth.

  "Where's Jada?"

  Good question. "Jada? Why?"

  "When I was passed out on the floor at home, I could hear her. That woman can certainly take charge of a situation. She's like an angel."

  I raised my eyebrows, flashing to an image of Jada's passion in our jail cell the night before. "I wouldn't describe her like that."

  "Well, she was mine."

  "I was there, too." I squeezed his hand, trying to focus on the moment. "Remember me?"

  "You're always there." He took in a short breath and let it out. "You've been there for years and years and the one night you stay out I have to go and have a heart attack."

  "It's not your fault."

  Dad looked away. "Once I'm better, or if..."

  "Don't. Don't say it."

  "You need to move out. To get a life of your own. If I need help, I'll find it somewhere else."

  "I'm here to take care of you. That's my job. We're family." Somehow I spoke these words past the lump in my throat.

  He shook his head, slow and methodical, like it was something that hurt but that he needed to do. "No, it's my job to take care of you."

  I dropped his hand and cleared away a few tears that had fallen on my face. Then I brought my shoulders up and dropped them in a shrug. "What do you want me to do? Leave you? I'm not Mom. I'm not going to do that. I love you too much for that."