DISCONNECT (The Bening Files Book 2)

by Rachel Trautmiller

  Amanda bit back a laugh. She doubted Rupert would know her humor stemmed from the delivery of his words and not the sad picture he’d described. “Please, tell me you don’t start with that line.”

  “No.” His eyes widened. “No. You guys must think I’m an idiot.”

  A blonde woman, with a child in tow, walked past them and gave a small smile before entering. Rupert tracked their movements until the door closed behind them.

  “I better get in there before I'm late.” He said.

  “You should tell them. You shouldn't be doing this all alone.”

  He shrugged, then started forward and stopped. Turned toward her. “Why don't you come in with me? You can talk to the doctor.”

  No. She couldn’t hijack a moment he needed to discuss a serious condition. “That's okay.”

  “She's usually pretty busy. You might not get in otherwise. One time, I was five minutes late and they made me reschedule.”

  She’d wait all day if she had to. Except…

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her forward, toward the door. “Come on. Jordan would kill me if I didn't help you. And since I'm on his hit list all the time, I don't want to add to the grievances.” He opened the glass door and ushered her inside.

  While Rupert checked in, Amanda found a free seat near the blonde, who'd entered in front of them. The other woman smiled at Amanda, and then returned her attentions to the child, in the chair next to her. He had a game boy in his hands.

  To be a kid, with no worries.

  Amanda opened her phone and scrolled through her contacts until she found Jordan's number.

  Need you at the Blue Ridge Neurological Center. She hit send.

  Jordan's response took seconds. Okay. Why?

  It's Rupert. He’s sick.

  Rupert sat next to her. The sole of one shoe tapped a hasty beat against the carpet. He clasped both hands between his knees and leaned forward.

  Her phone buzzed. On my way.

  A year knowing he might die young, leaving his son fatherless.

  She shifted forward in her chair and affected the same posture as Rupert. “Have you told anyone?”

  His foot increased tempo. He shook his head.

  “Not even a support group?”

  “No.”

  What a secret to bear. “If this is too personal, I'll see the doctor on my own terms.”

  “It's okay. Turns out, I'm a little more nervous than expected. And I remember what meeting a biological parent is like.” He met her gaze then. “You'll find something you share. You won't want to, but you will. And you'll have to remember that it might change your history, but won't affect your future. Unless you let it.”

  True. She sat back. Did tangoing with death give Rupert this new, profound outlook?

  If he could face his uncertain future with calm. She could do the same with her past.

  ***

  This wasn’t the first time Jordan wanted to clobber Rupert. And it wouldn’t be the last. For once, it didn’t have to do with his wife.

  That was new. A little foreign. Scary. Because this brother he didn’t want to claim, was sick. Maybe worse. And suddenly, all the barriers between them didn’t make sense.

  Without Amanda’s text, he still might not know.

  “If Mr. Dillon doesn’t want you in there, you’ll have to wait back in the reception area.” A woman in pink scrubs led him down a hallway and stopped at the last door, offering a soft knock before she opened it. She motioned for him to pass by.

  Amanda stood nearby, her gaze moving from the various, colorful diagrams on the wall, to him. She gave a small wave.

  The spacious room held two cream-colored, leather reception chairs and an exam table. Abstract paintings brought tones of maroon, buttercup yellow and blue into the space. Rupert stood next to a wooden magazine rack, on the far side of the room, his back toward Jordan. One hand flicked through the reading material until snagging Women’s Day. He flipped through the pages at a pace that would set records for fastest reader.

  Jordan stepped all the way inside and shut the door behind him. The soft click snapped the other man’s attention toward him, the magazine still hanging from his hands.

  Rupert’s gaze flicked from Amanda to Jordan, his expression jumping from shock to annoyance.

  Fine. Jordan could deal with that, because he was both of those things. Shocked Rupert might be dying. Annoyed the other man hadn’t bothered to tell them, in all the times he’d hung around the house.

  Jordan headed for the chairs, next to Rupert. He snagged the other man’s, now closed publication. “Seriously, dude? Women’s Day?” After riffling through the choices, he brought back Car and Driver and shoved it in Rupert’s hands.

  As if this were a normal day, he sat.

  “What are you doing here?” Rupert didn't move, his hands clenched around the glossy pages.

  Jordan flipped through his own copy of the magazine, the lettering a blur. “Thinking how to best kick your butt. You are super lucky I made McKenna stay at home. She wouldn't think it over. Would have come in swinging.” Jordan tossed the magazine aside, closed his eyes and blew out a breath. “What are we dealing with?”

  Rupert opened and closed his mouth. One hand flicked to the back of his neck. “It's called Hydrocephalus.”

  He stood and shoved his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “Can I get that in English?”

  “Water on the brain. Cause is unknown.” The words came out as if the other man had rehearsed them in front of mirror.

  “When do they operate? I mean, I assume they can operate. What are the risks?” Jordan ran a hand through his hair. What if Rupert didn’t make it? His son would be parentless. The sudden, intense need for family clicked into place. The way he clung to anybody resembling that motto, in the last year.

  “How long have you known?”

  Rupert darted a glance at something on the wall to Jordan’s right. “A while.”

  Frustration, always on the back burner where Rupert was concerned, bubbled forward. An image of McKenna telling him he hadn’t been fair, brought the simmering to a manageable level.

  Sure. He hadn’t been. Hadn’t taken any of his calls. Barely spoke to him. So, when was Rupert supposed to announce this Hydrocephalus thing?

  “Have you set up a power of attorney? Shawn can stay with us for a while or we’ll stay with you.” Oh, no. That wouldn’t work. What was he saying? “Or we’ll get you a live-in nurse.”

  “Dude.” Rupert dropped his magazine on the vacant chair. “Slow down.”

  “Were you ever going to tell us? Or did you plan to disappear for a while and hope we wouldn't notice? Just drop Shawn off one day and not come back.”

  Rupert folded his arms across his chest. “Come off the high horse for a while. Live like us mere mortals once, Jordan.”

  He ground his teeth together. Would everything he did be a constant joke to Rupert? “I'm going pretend you didn't say anything.”

  “Why? Because you're the only one who doesn't make mistakes?”

  Amanda turned from the wall, her eyes tracking their conversation. Rupert stepped into Jordan’s space.

  Always in his face. Even when he wasn’t. Had they actually grown up together, they would have come to blows a long time before last spring. Would have bloodied each other’s faces. Teased and stood up for one another. All the things siblings did.

  The chance had been stolen. That was someone else’s fault. A decision neither of them had consented to. Jordan had done the rest himself. Kept Rupert at arm’s length on purpose.

  “That’s your perception. I’ve made plenty. The difference between us, is that I own up to mine.”

  And this was one he needed to follow through on.

  A haughty laughed pierced the quiet. One that reminded him of another man. Another time. But this was Rupert, the obnoxious thorn in his side, which he couldn’t remove for fear of bleeding out. So, Jordan swallowed the past, because he had to.

&nb
sp; “That’s great.” Rupert rubbed a hand over his brow. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all year.” He slapped his thigh. “Let me cry in my cup for you, Jordan. I’m so sorry you are the only one who has ever lived and lost. But don’t worry. I know you atone for every single mistake. The all-powerful Jordan Bening would never misstep.”

  Rupert shoved him back a step.

  When everything inside Jordan ached to fight back, he held still. A headache he’d been holding off all day, bloomed behind his right temple.

  “What’s the matter?” Another shove. “Am I calling you on your bluff?”

  Another push.

  His back met the wall. He closed his eyes. Tried to breathe through the pain making him want to curl in a ball. Every fiber of his being wanted to get away from Rupert. Away from the constant reminder of things they couldn’t change.

  What would that do, but put them back in this same loop of hatred?

  You’ll want to punch him, but instead, you walk away.

  The choice was always there. Hidden among all the self-justified reasons he’d built to cover the truth. He had a brother he didn’t know what to do with.

  Jordan blew out a breath and opened his eyes. Sometime during their argument, Amanda had slipped out of the room.

  A mask of annoyance sat on Rupert’s face, anger and an I’m-ready-to-rumble tucked close behind.

  “For a guy who prides himself on having an answer in almost every situation, I find myself at a constant loss around a brother I didn’t ask for. So, the easiest solution was to ignore you.”

  Rupert’s gaze flicked to Jordan’s head and then their close proximity as if he had no recollection of getting there. He took a step back. “It’s not like I asked Santa to bring me you.”

  “That’s good.” Jordan tried not to snicker and failed. “Because that would be weird. And I don’t know about you, but we have enough of that already.”

  A smile perched at the edge of his brother’s face. His brother. Huh. The sky wasn’t falling.

  “Oh, come on. You know you want a spot on Jerry Springer.”

  Jordan shook his head. “If you drag us on the show to announce how you still have feelings for my wife, you’ll still go home alone. Tough break, Dillon.”

  “No worries, man.” The smile on his face died. “I’m here for my family. Not to claim yours.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Amanda backed out of the room Rupert and Jordan occupied. Jordan’s face was pale and drawn as Rupert shoved him toward the wall. Not hard enough to do any damage, just throw him off balance.

  They’d either figure it out or come to blows. Since both had a handicap involving their head, and were only a few months apart in age, the match should be even.

  Like her and Beth.

  “What are we watching, dear Amanda?” The crisp voice had Amanda’s back straightening. Her heart took a hike north. She closed the door and turned.

  Sandra Porterville stood behind her, a pristine white jacket covering a peach blouse and a dark pencil skirt. A pearl necklace added a classy mix to the ensemble. Manicured nails—sans polish, connected to hands that held a clipboard. Not a speck of gray lined the blonde hair, pulled into a sensible knot at the base of her neck.

  Amanda wanted to pull the tie from her own hair. “You might want to give them a minute.”

  Sandra’s hazel gaze flicked to the scene beyond the door, not an ounce of emotion on her face. “They aren't going to destroy my office, are they?”

  “No. Each other, maybe.”

  Sandra stared at her. “I was wondering when you would show up.” She turned and started down the hall, her pace that of practiced elegance.

  What? Amanda hurried to catch up. “Why?”

  She turned to a door labeled Private and opened it. “You're young gentleman. He seems quite protective of you.”

  The items in her hands hit the mahogany desk, in the center of the room. The only things on top of it were a laptop, which was closed, and a nameplate. No pictures. No work-related clutter. Awards and diplomas hung with neat precision, on two of the four walls.

  An overstuffed chair and ottoman was in one corner, a lamp and end table next to it. A mini-fridge sat near where she stood, the clear door displaying Evian water, orange juice and Pellegrino seltzer.

  “I don't have all day, Amanda, so come in and shut the door.” Sandra sat behind her desk and clasped her hands in front of her. An opal ring sat on one finger. “Have you ever heard of delayed interval twins?”

  Amanda moved toward the woman who looked nothing like her. So far, they shared height and slender bodies. That was it. She sat in a plush chair, facing the woman who'd given birth to her. A sickening staccato beat filled her chest.

  She's nobody to you.

  “Can't say I have.”

  “Most commonly, the first twin dies due to premature birth. Weeks or months later, the second twin is born at full gestation. Nowadays, we have wonderful advancements in medicine that let us know so much more about what's going on inside a woman's body during pregnancy. In nineteen seventy three, dear Amanda, this was not the norm.

  “So, I gave birth to you. I went home to parents that were against the idea of me having you, but ever so thankful I'd given you up. I was still fat. I swore I could still feel you moving inside me. Four and a half weeks later, I'm back in the hospital. Ever given birth twice in a month? I don't recommend it.”

  Amanda might have laughed if she weren't sitting in front of this woman. Height, slender build and now, humor. No big deal. “I'm sure your parents were thrilled.”

  A sardonic smile lit the other woman's face. “Ecstatic. But I'd seen and held Beth. And for the first time in my life, I understood all of Eileen’s medical ramblings. The division of cells was pretty amazing. I was holding the proof. It seemed like the perfect second chance.”

  “Or a really bazaar take on The Parent Trap.” Or a trap in general. “Did you ever try to tell my dad?”

  Sandra went to the mini-fridge and pulled out a seltzer water. “Would you like one?”

  Amanda shook her head. “No, thanks.”

  Sandra shrugged, grabbed a glass from a cupboard to the right of the door and poured the liquid inside. Then she came to sit back down.

  “I'm not really a rose-colored person, Amanda. Deep emotions don't belong in the world I've created for myself. With all the bad news I deliver, I'd probably end up killing myself. Your friend next door.” She pointed one well-manicured finger toward the room Jordan and Rupert were probably still arguing within. “He's got a forty percent chance of making it through this second surgery. Without it, his odds are even worse.”

  Amanda's stomach lurched. Rupert was a general pain in the backside. Not having him around, annoying Jordan and McKenna, was wrong. “There's nothing you can do?”

  “With his permission, I'll fight alongside him until his body gives out. Most people don't like the odds. Chance of death on my table or by uncontrolled symptoms. The fluid on his brain, will continue to build. Left untreated, it will cease vital function.”

  She was right to have called Jordan. Even if they fought for the rest of the time Rupert had left.

  “My point is, before Beth, I might have spent a great deal of time wondering about a faceless child—I hadn't even asked if you were a boy or a girl. After Beth, it was as if you'd never existed. I went back to school. My parents weren’t pleased with the idea of an unwed daughter, a child they couldn’t pretend didn’t exist and a faceless man who’d never come forward to own up for the deed.”

  Amanda bit the tip of her tongue. Defending the actions of her father, wouldn’t keep Sandra talking. This wasn’t about the he said, she said battle. “You never told them who fathered your children?”

  Sandra smiled as if she were proud of the progression of events. “I didn’t want to marry Walter. He didn’t want to marry me. A name wouldn’t given my parents lease to find him and force him into it. Besides, by then, he was already married t
o Eileen.”

  Not a hint of hurt lined the other woman’s face. No malice.

  “They pressed for details, but, in the end, gave up. I agreed to go to med school, which is all they ever wanted from me. Ignoring two children—one not even in the picture—wasn’t hard. Not with a constant nanny around.”

  Amanda ignored the slicing motion in her chest, which summed up her entire morning. This woman's words didn't matter as a whole. “So, you never told him?”

  “No. He never knew until you were both almost eleven.”

  Amanda blew out a breath. At least that part of the story matched her parents.

  “He might never have known then, but Beth had a vivid imagination and had started disappearing at random intervals. I was in the middle of a grueling residency.” A knowing smile lit her face. “The first two times, the cop who picked her up had been gracious enough to forget he'd done so.”

  Amanda bit back the foul taste in her mouth and ignored the insinuation in Sandra's smooth words.

  The other woman sipped her seltzer. “The next time, she wasn't so lucky. She spent three weeks, in a hovel of a home, while they investigated the situation.”

  Amanda wasn't hearing any overtones of shame, regret, or sorrow. Maybe this woman didn't experience those things. Perhaps, there wasn't any rose-colored feelings for this situation, either.

  “What about when she was twelve, fourteen, fifteen? Why was she removed from your home, then?”

  Experience had taught her these types of parents viewed it as the child's fault, never their own shortcoming. It was always someone else’s failure. Never a choice they had to live with.

  There’s always a choice.

  Sandra smiled as if they discussed a fond memory, now. “If you know anything about the system, you know repeat offenses aren't given any leniency. At twelve, Beth packed a bag and ran away from home. At fourteen she started skipping school. By the time she was placed in your home, she'd missed so much class, she was almost a full grade behind.”

  Amanda scrubbed a hand over her face and forced herself to remain sitting. “Did you ever try to find out why? Children rarely go from no problems to many, with no provocation.”