by J. D. Dexter
Mom’s not doing much better. Her white hair is shaggy, full of finger grooves and as frizzy as when she worked a double shift in the ER. Her knit dress doesn’t show the wrinkles that dad’s suit pants do, but her face is drawn and tight. The lines around her eyes look like they’ve been carved into her delicate skin.
I’m glad they’re here, but I wish they hadn’t been so worried. I wish the boys had left me alone to fix myself instead of causing all of this ruckus. But, I guess since I was three pints low on blood, they didn’t really have a choice.
Sometimes being well-loved can be a pain in the butt. But I am glad that I have people who care about me. I wouldn’t trade them for all the time to heal myself privately. It breaks my heart that I’m the cause of my mom and dad’s worry though. This is one of my worst fears come to life.
“What in the world was Cynthia thinking, Mark?” Dad asks gruffly, a low growl barely suppressed.
“Somehow she got it into her head that she needs to protect me and the boys from Finley,” Mark says lamely, his shoulders shrugging. He still looks confused by how this all happened.
Mom’s huddled around me like a protective barrier. I’m not sure how well she’ll take the news that something about me is of clinical significance. I never got the chance to ask them about the special gene markers, so they have no idea that something about me is different. I look at Josh and raise my eyebrows at him.
He raises his back at me. What do you want me to do?
Do you think I should tell them? I try to ask with small head tilts and eyebrow wiggles. We mastered the silent conversation a long time ago.
Josh gives a decisive head nod, with an eyeroll. Of course, I do, idiot!
I glare at him for the idiot part. His wide smile is my only answer.
Taking a deep breath, I dive in. “Mom, Dad, there’s something I need to tell you. Well, actually it’s what we were discussing at Mark’s before all of this happened,” I begin.
Mark’s head whips around, his eyes scared and blazing. “Finley, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He sounds a little freaked out.
“Too bad, Mark. I’ll keep your involvement to a minimum, but I’m not lying to my parents.” Anymore, I silently add.
I’m unwilling to leave my parents in the dark about all of this. They have a right to know that one of them might also be a carrier for the ANK-23 marker.
“What’s going on?” Mom snarls, a lioness protecting her cub.
“Through some genetic testing that Mark has done for his job, he found that I have a special genetic marker, ANK-23. This is a brand new piece of the genome puzzle, so no one’s really sure what it means. However, right before it was necessary for me to come to the hospital, I was going to get my phone to call you both.” I look at Dad over Mom’s head.
“Okay. What do you need us to do?” That’s my dad; straight to the point with no time for silliness.
“Well, apparently the only way I could have this gene is from one of you—obviously. So, if you and Mom would give Uncle Mark a DNA sample, he can run it through his data points to see which of you I inherited it from. This could help not only his research, but also me in understanding myself a little better.”
Both Mom and Dad look at each other, their expressions terrified.
This was not the reaction I had been expecting.
“Can you guys let us chat with Finley privately, please?” Dad says, his voice gruff.
All eyes swing to me.
Crap, crap, crap.
Chapter Nine
All the guys head for the door; Brian and Josh looking at me over their shoulders as they cross the threshold, their expressions tense. I give them a weak smile. I feel like I did when Mom told me she had cancer all those years ago. The bottom of my stomach getting ready to drop out, along with the need to vomit.
“What’s up?” I turn to face Dad. Mom’s sitting up in the bed, no longer the fierce protector. Now, she looks diminished somehow. Her eyes are tortured and unsure. I’ve never seen my mom look so insecure.
“Finley…” Mom began. Her eyes fill with tears that slide silently down her cheeks. “We never thought we would need to tell you this. You’ve always been ours, and we would fight tooth and nail against anyone who thought to say otherwise.”
I swallow the tang of bile that creeps up my throat.
“I had no idea Mark was doing genetic testing. I never would have allowed him to do that if I had known,” Dad growls.
“What is going on?” My voice shaking, my belly trembling.
“We just want you to know that we love you, first, last, end, period. Nothing will ever change that.” Mom’s shaky statement sends my heart rate through the roof. The machine behind me sounds like it’s spitting out rapid gunfire. I feel like I should be running for cover.
“You are our daughter, and you are adopted.” My dad, in his typical way, gets right to the point. No more tiptoeing around.
My thoughts freeze as fully as my body. I can hear my pulse in my ears. My mouth fills with the briny taste of bile.
The high pitch squeal of the alarm sounds in my room as my heart rate jumps into terrified levels. Nurses and Dr. Jamison race in, but I barely register their presence through the haze that has captured my mind.
Everything I’ve known about my life is wrong. The foundations of my world have crumbled. A set-back from Mark and Cynthia was one thing, and left me feeling adrift in a sea of fractured reality. Hearing this from my parents is like a stab through the soul with a barbed knife, tiny pieces of me pulled from my body to land unnoticed in the ether—beyond a fractured reality into a chasm of unbecoming.
This possibility never even entered the fringes of my mind when I found out that I had the ANK-23 marker. I’ve had a couple of friends growing up who were adopted. They always said they felt out of sync with everyone around them, a small piece recognizing that they didn’t belong. I’ve never felt that way, at least not with my parents or my boys. They’ve been the ones that I’ve always been sure of, the ones I could run to for belonging, comfort, acceptance, and love. I feel like that has been ripped away.
I’m adopted.
Mom’s face crumples and she curls in on herself. She’s barely rescued by Dad before she collapses to the floor, falling off the bed. One of the nurses gets her a chair before they both end up admitted to the hospital.
Dr. Jamison stops at the end of my bed, his face dark, eyes concerned.
“What’s going on in here? Are you okay?” he asks me, warily eyeing my parents before turning an eagle eye to the machines monitoring my physical health. I don’t know that they have machines to track the rapid decline of my mental health.
I just stare at him, not really sure how to answer that. Am I physically fine? Oh, you know, just the little matter of my heart breaking. I’m not sure I could classify my mental health as being top notch at the present moment. Searching my mind, I can’t find any words to share how I’m doing because I don’t actually know. I’ve never had the world ripped away from me in quite this way before.
“We’re having a delicate family discussion, Dr. Jamison. I’m keeping an eye on my daughter’s vitals,” Dad states firmly.
Dr. Jamison keeps his eyes on mine while Dad’s talking, watching my face like he’s looking for some kind of sign from me. I’m still trying to figure out what happened to my ordered life.
“I respect your relationship, Dr. Tindol, but I’m going to need you to step out of the room for a second. I need to talk to Finley privately.” Dr. Jamison insists. I’ve not known Dr. Jamison very long, but he looks unmovable, he looks more like Mount Everest than a doctor at the moment.
“We are her parents, we are entitled to stay in this room during any discussion you have with our daughter,” Dad growls at him.
“Be that as it may, I would like to speak to your daughter privately. Please.”
This doctor has got some titanium cajones. I would laugh at the expression on my dad’s face if my mind weren�
��t so wrapped in padding.
“Dad, Mom, please. Just give me a couple minutes,” I manage to whisper, my voice thick. It feels like it’s scraping the insides of my throat with barbed wire.
Mom dissolves into sobs, Dad’s face looks carved from stone. But they leave the room, pulling the door closed quietly behind them.
Dr. Jamison pulls up a chair to the side of my bed. Just watching me for a few silent moments. Quietly, he says, “I’m not sure what happened, but if you want to share, I’m here to listen. If not, I’m good just to sit here while you do your thing. I can also leave and just let you be by yourself.”
“I have no idea what I want right now. Can we just sit here without talking for a bit?” I ask him, feeling small and battered.
“Of course.” He turns the chair, using my bed as a make-shift desk. I watch him as he does some charting. He could be filling out his grocery list for all I know.
My head is reeling, my emotions feel like they’re swinging from one end of the pendulum to the other, like kids playing hot potato and my emotions are the potato they’re throwing around. I can’t pinpoint one feeling long enough to give it a name, which is something I’ve never experienced before. I have nothing but questions, and no interest in hearing what the only people with answers have to say about them.
I blink a couple of times, aware that my eyes have gone dry. It feels like I have sandpaper on the inside of my eyelids. Dr. Jamison’s blond hair comes back into focus.
He’s squinting just a little bit, scrunching his nose as he reads. His handsome face looks so boyish.
“How long have you been a doctor?” I ask him.
“I finished my residency five years ago.” He scribbles a couple more times before flipping the tablet facedown. He turns and gives me his full attention.
Something about this guy feels like he sees more of me than others do. When he looks at me, I feel a little bare. Like my regular shields are non-existent. I’m not sure if I like it or not.
“What prompted your entre into emergency medicine; if you don’t mind my asking?” I watch his eyes, not wanting to intrude on his life, but needing something to distract me from the overwhelming inner turmoil.
I use my regular people-reading skills: how eyes darken or sparkle, how faces pinch or brighten, how hands clench or splay, how words shoot from mouths or drip like syrup. A person can tell a lot about others if we would listen with more than just our ears. I use the same skills listening to Dr. Jamison. I don’t want to even think about using the Spectrum right now. I just want, more than anything, to be normal.
“I dislike routine in my professional life. There’s always something happening that pushes my skills in the ED.” He looks like a high achiever: always seeing how far he can push himself to better and bigger goals. He would fit right in with my guys. They’re all highly ambitious in their chosen fields. I would put myself into that category as well.
“Gunshot wounds do it for you, huh?” I raise my eyebrows.
“If I say yes, does that make me sound crazy or creepy?”
“Nah, just means you enjoy diffusing crises, in my opinion.”
“I’m trying really hard not to make inappropriate jokes right now. So, I’ll just go with, I’m glad I got to stitch you up.” His smile is full of self-deprecating humor.
“Don’t hold back on my account.” I give him a wave to bring it on. “I’m a lover of inappropriate humor and jokes of all kinds. That’s how my brain works. Usually I get myself into trouble,” I admit, a smile pulling on my lips.
He groans, “Come on, help me out here.”
“Sorry.” I shrug my shoulders.
“No, you’re not.” He points his finger at me.
“Nope, not at all.” I laugh at him.
“Anything you want to chat about?” he asks.
I open my mouth.
He holds up a hand, “Besides inappropriate humor and jokes.”
“Dang, you’re good.”
He groans again, a small smile pulling slightly on the side of his mouth.
“Okay, okay. What’s been the best day you’ve had here?” I ask him, moving us back to safer ground.
His head tilts, looking like he’s remembering something from the past. “I got to save a little girl’s mom after being in a head-on collision. The little girl only had a couple of bumps and bruises and was sobbing in the next TR over. She was shrieking for someone to save her mommy. I turned to her, looked her right in the eye, and said I would save her mommy if she could be quiet for me. She pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, put her mouth against her arms and didn’t make another peep until we got her mom stable.”
“Sounds like you’re a savior for girls of all ages.” I smile softly at him.
Shaking his head like he was coming out of a daze, he refocuses on me, giving me an answering smile.
“I’m not sure about savior, but it certainly makes those times when I lose patients easier to deal with.” His honesty strips away the levity I’m trying to achieve.
“Loss is heart-wrenching.”
“Any loss you want to talk about in particular?”
“My parents just told me I’m adopted.” I smile through the tears that are gathering in my eyes. I’m convulsively swallowing to hold them back for as long as possible.
“I’m guessing it was a pretty big blow.”
“You could say that.” My sarcasm drenches the small room.
“Does it change your feelings about parents? Do you love them any less?”
“Of course not! Why would you think that?” I snap at him. My anger lights up at his ridiculous question.
This guy…he’s something else to ask that.
“Well, if it doesn’t change how you feel about your parents, and I doubt it changes how they feel about you, what has really changed?” His eyes steady are on mine.
“Everything!” The tears dry up, sorrow replaced by anger.
“Okay. What has changed?”
“What part of ‘I’m adopted’ did you not understand?” I sneer at him.
Maybe he has hearing issues?
“I understand that you are not a biological offspring of your parents,” he answers patiently.
“No, I’m not.” I can feel the sorrow creeping back in.
“Stick with me here. You consider ‘your boys’ to be your family. Is that correct?” He smiles as he uses air quotes.
“Yes, of course.”
“You’re not biologically related to them, but you don’t love them any less. Also correct?”
“Of course, I don’t love them any less.” I nod tiredly. “I see what you’re doing there. Dr. Sneaky Pants.”
“Good, I was out of examples.” His wink is mischievous.
“I bet not. But you’re a good man not to shove it in my face.” Placing my hand on his, I give it a squeeze, appreciating him.
“You’re certainly good for my ego.” He returns the squeeze on my hand. “How did you get into doing what you do? What do you do, by the way? Other than cause people pain for fun.”
“I’m a massage therapist who specializes in correcting muscular dysfunction.”
“What does that mean, exactly? It doesn’t sound like something people use for relaxation. And don’t most massage therapists specialize in that?”
I snort at his assumption; he’s not alone in thinking all massage therapists are created equal. “Certainly not used for relaxation.” I chuckle.
“That was a scary laugh.”
“Sorry, I get that a lot.” I shrug my shoulder negligently, not really bothered by the idea that I’m scary. “The type of corrective work I do is more closely related to physical therapy. Yes, I do cause pain, on purpose, but it’s nothing my patients can’t handle. I aim for that ‘hurts so good’ level of pain. I do a lot of work on Piriformis Syndrome, Thoracolumbar Fascial Stripping, Gait Analysis and Correction.”
“So, you are literally a pain in someone’s ass?” he asks, his
face struggling to remain straight.
“Rather my elbow is, but yes. Although, let’s be honest, saying I put my elbow in people’s butts sounds icky, for all parties involved.” I scrunch my nose.
His head tips back as his laughter roars out.
I smile, his laughter soothing the ache in my heart just a little bit.
As his laughter quiets, “How did you get into elbowing butts, then?”
“I started massage classes when I was in high school. I hated high school so wanted to do anything that would get me out of there. I took college classes in massage therapy. I fell in love with it. I’ve been doing it now for seventeen years. I’ve gone from straight relaxation to corrective work, with a stop for just about everything in between. Corrective work is my passion.”
“Are you good at what you do?”
“Yes, I am. Are you good at what you do?”
“I like to think I am.”
“Well, I can attest to at least part of your abilities. Your gunshot wound repair skills get an A in my book.”
“I’ll be sure to put that in my resume.” He smiles.
We sit in companionable silence for a couple moments. The ragged edges of my frayed heart starting to mend.
“Ready for your parents to come back in?” His voice is so gentle, I feel the prick of tears.
I squeeze his hand as I clench my eyes closed. “Can I have two more minutes?”
“You can take as much time as you want.” The answering pressure on my hand calms my heart.
“Thank you, for so much more than just sewing me up.” I say quietly, needing him to know how much he has helped me.
I close my eyes, clearing my mind. I focus on taking a couple more deep breaths, and I remember all of the good times I’ve had with my parents. How they’ve comforted me, supported me, encouraged me. I try to think of a time in my life when my parents weren’t there for me. I draw a complete and utter blank.
They’ve always been there for me. Not being related by blood doesn’t change how much I love them. In fact, it makes me love them more for choosing me. Thank you, God, for knowing what I needed before I knew I needed it. I send my thoughts, prayers, and ragged emotions to God.
