One Way or Another

by Rhonda Bowen

  “She’s alive.” Adam rested a hand against his friend’s back. “But she’s not conscious. We’re waiting for the doctors to let us know what’s going on.”

  “Jasmine Shields?”

  They all looked up at the tall, slim woman in a lab coat with a chart in her hand. “Are you here for Toni Shields?” the woman asked.

  “Yes, I’m her brother, Trey, and this is my wife, Jasmine, and our friend Adam.” Jasmine peeled herself off Trey long enough for him to shake the doctor’s hand.

  “Dr. Mornan.” She smiled warmly and Adam’s first thought was that nobody delivered news that someone was dead with a smile. He released a breath.

  “Please, have a seat,” she said, motioning to a circle of chairs nearby.

  Like obedient family, Trey and Jasmine claimed chairs, but Adam was tired of waiting. He needed to know what was going on.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “She’s stable, but unconscious,” Dr Mornan said. “Physically everything looks promising, but we are waiting for her to wake up.”

  “Do you know what happened?” Jasmine asked, leaning against Trey.

  Dr. Mornan clasped her hands and paused. “We’re not sure,” she said carefully. “But we think she has stress-induced cardiomyopathy, which led to sudden congestive heart failure.”

  Jasmine gasped.

  “She is very young and there is no history of heart disease in her records, which is why we think that it may be a temporary stress-induced condition,” Dr. Mornan continued. “Our guess is that the weak condition of her heart affected the blood flow and lead to her loss of consciousness. We did an angiogram and we did not see any blockages in her heart, which is good. However, she is not out of the woods yet.”

  “Is she going to be okay?” Adam asked.

  “We want to do some more tests to confirm,” Dr. Mornan said. “But yes, she should be okay. Her condition is not deteriorating and we think with rest she should improve. We will have to observe her for the next few days to be sure.”

  “Can we see her?”

  Dr. Mornan nodded. “Follow me.”

  Within moments Adam was standing inside Toni’s hospital room. Tighter knots formed in his stomach as his eyes fell on her tiny frame, surrounded by white hospital sheets and connected to IVs and a heart monitor. Her dark hair spread out around her face like a halo, a stark contrast to the white pillow on which she lay. It had been barely two days since the last time he had seen her but somehow her face looked drawn and hollow. She looked like she was fading away.

  Trey and Jasmine continued to talk to the doctor while Adam slipped into the chair by her bedside. He pulled her limp, cold hand into his, closed his eyes, and said a silent prayer. Her hand jerked and he opened his eyes to see if she’d miraculously awakened. If the intensity of his emotion could revive her, she’d be on her feet and doing a dance. But she had not stirred. He realized it was probably just an involuntary muscle spasm or something like that. He sighed heavily and forced words through the lump in his throat.

  “I’m sorry, Toni.”

  “This isn’t your fault,” Jasmine said gently as she and Trey came to stand on the other side of Toni’s bed.

  “It is,” Adam said, knowing better. “I knew something was wrong. I should have made her go home.”

  “No, this is my fault,” Trey said. “I should have been taking better care of her. I should have been watching her. After the thing with the house ... she wasn’t okay.”

  “What thing with the house?” Adam asked.

  Trey sighed. “With our parents’ house. When she found out we were buying it, she freaked.”

  “Trey,” Jasmine said, rubbing his shoulder, “I’m sure that wasn’t the reason—”

  “Yes, it was,” Trey interrupted, his voice shaking. “You don’t understand. That was the house our parents died in. That was the place they were killed. That was where Toni almost died.”

  “What?”

  Adam’s eyes opened wide as he looked up at Trey. Jasmine raised her eyes at her husband’s. They were equally shocked.

  “She never told you, did she?” Trey looked between Jasmine and Adam.

  Trey sunk into the chair beside him, rubbing his hands over his face tiredly. It seemed as if he aged several years right before Adam’s eyes.

  “I barely know what happened. She only told me once and then refused to talk about it again, but from what I know, all three of them were home,” Trey began heavily.

  “Our dad was a parole officer for the state. He testified against some guys and because of his testimony, the guys ended up in prison serving extended sentences. When they got out, they came looking for all the people who were responsible for putting them away—including our father.”

  Adam watched the pain that marked Trey’s features as he told the story. He knew talking about it was hurting his friend, but Adam wanted to know that truth. He needed to know what was going on with the woman lying in the hospital bed in front of him.

  “Somehow they figured out where he lived and showed up. They got into the house, shot both our parents, and then shot Toni. She fell down the stairs into the basement.”

  Jasmine gasped and covered her mouth, tears springing to her eyes immediately.

  Trey paused, and Adam could see it was becoming difficult for him to breath. Jasmine squeezed his shoulder.

  “She lay ...” Trey closed his eyes. “She lay at the foot of the stairs in the basement bleeding out for two hours before the police showed up. They said if she had been there even an hour longer she would have ...”

  Adam squeezed Toni’s hand tighter and blinked back the mist in his own eyes. He turned to look at her, lying peacefully in the hospital bed. The long lashes of her large beautiful eyes rested gently against her cinnamon-colored cheeks. Her pink flushed lips, which were usually shaped into a pout of some kind, lay silent and relaxed, as if she had a lot to say but chose not to. Adam was learning that there was a whole lot that Toni didn’t say.

  “She was in the hospital for about a week,” Trey continued after he collected himself. “Then our aunt came and we stayed in a motel for a while. We couldn’t go back to the house because the police were investigating, and then when we finally could go back we didn’t want to.”

  “So what happened?” Jasmine asked. “Where were you? Where was Toni living?”

  Trey shrugged, then looked down. “I’m ashamed to say I went back to school. Our aunt took care of Toni for a couple months but she didn’t stay either. But at least she helped keep Toni from ending up under state care.”

  Trey shook his head. “She was only seventeen.”

  “I can’t believe she never told me,” Jasmine whispered, her eyes clouded with sadness. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, Trey.”

  “She never talks about it,” Trey said. “After it happened she pretty much shut everyone else out.”

  He looked up at Jasmine. “I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t talk about it,” his voice wavered. “Because then you would know the kind of person I am—someone who would abandon his baby sister when she needed him most.”

  “Oh, honey, you didn’t abandon her,” Jasmine said softly as she wrapped her arms around Trey, who buried his face in her middle. “You didn’t know how to handle it. You were dealing with your own grief.”

  “I should have been there for her,” Trey said, his voice muffled with tears. “I was her brother. I should have taken care of her.”

  Adam didn’t say anything. He agreed. Trey should have been there for Toni. And even though it would be years before he met Trey and Toni, Adam wished he had been there for her. She should never have had to go through that part of her life alone.

  Trey kept talking. It was as if he had carried around the truth long enough and he needed to let all of it out. “After our parents died she was the one who took care of everything. She was the one who cleared up everything with the lawyers, got them to take care of selling the house. Most of the money paid
for the rest of my tuition.”

  He laughed humorlessly. “According to her, both of us couldn’t be dumb and broke.” Trey shook his head. “You would have thought she was the older one the way she handled business.”

  He pressed his fist to his mouth and rocked back and forth a little. “I should have talked to her about the house. Even after the fight, I should have talked to her. Maybe if I had ... Who knows?”

  Adam looked at Toni and felt like he was seeing her for the first time. He was starting to understand her—the independence, the mistrust, the unhappiness. Trey was right. She wasn’t over it. Not by a long shot.

  The heart monitor seemed to beep too loudly in the room as they sat watching Toni breathe in and out slowly. Adam rested her fingers against his lips and closed his eyes. He felt Jasmine grab his arm. And then they did the only thing the three of them knew how to do. They prayed.

  Chapter 15

  “Okay, I’ve got Premiere Pink, Satin Sheets, and Shine On,” Camille said, walking into the hospital room and emptying a small pharmacy bag filled with manicure supplies near the foot of Toni’s bed.

  Toni looked up from the morning’s edition of the AJC at her friend, who began setting out supplies on what was supposed to be Toni’s lunch table, but which had now turned into a cosmetics counter. “You know I’m not into the nail polish thing but, girl, your nails look a hot mess. What were you doing in Mississippi? Crawling through the mud?”

  “Well, good morning to you too,” Toni said with a laugh.

  Camille slipped around the side of the bed and gave Toni a quick hug. “You know it’s all good. So which one is it gonna be?”

  Toni opened her mouth to answer but the words never made it out.

  “Can you believe they wanted to search me out front?” Afrika asked, stomping into the room. Camille and Toni exchanged a look and bit back smiles.

  “Asking me if I got any weapons in my purse, just ’cause the metal detector went off.”

  “Afrika, did you forget to leave your box cutter in the car again?” Toni asked with a grin.

  Afrika narrowed her eyes at Toni and put her hands on her hips. “You know, for your freshness I ought to make you stay up in here with your unibrow.”

  Toni’s eyes widened in horror as she slapped her hand to her brow line. Camille burst into laughter.

  Toni turned her alarmed eyes on Camille. “You couldn’t tell me that I looked like a werewolf?” she screeched, grabbing the mirror Camille had set out on the table earlier. “What kind of friend are you?”

  She scowled when she realized that Afrika had been exaggerating. She should have known. “You know you wrong for that,” she said, pursing her lips at Afrika.

  “Hmph.” Afrika grinned as she came over and gave her friend a hug. “I got you good though, didn’t I?”

  “Whatever,” Toni said, rolling her eyes. But as she looked back and forth between Camille, who was pulling out cotton and acetone, and Afrika, who had retrieved three different tweezers and thread from her purse, she couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You guys are crazy,” Toni said, shaking her head. But she wiggled her fingers gratefully at Camille, glad to be pampered for a bit.

  “So what’s the deal anyway?” Camille held out all three bottles of nail polish to Toni. “When are they letting you out of here? It’s been like what, a week and a half?”

  Toni picked a bottle and Camille put the other two away.

  “They say in a day or two I should be good to go.” Toni pulled herself into a sitting position. “They’re just keeping me a bit longer for observation.”

  Camille opened the windows to let out the smell of the polish and then sat on the edge of the bed across from Afrika, who was already using a tiny comb on Toni’s thick eyebrows.

  “Ouch!” Toni squealed as Afrika’s thread pinched her skin. Afrika had recently learned to thread eyebrows. She wasn’t perfect yet, but she insisted on using Toni as her crash test dummy.

  “Shush,” Afrika chided. “You didn’t feel a thing.”

  “So I guess I must have imagined the pain a second ago,” Toni said dryly.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Afrika said. “Just like Camille and I imagined a certain guy who doesn’t wear suits, leaving as we were comin’ in.”

  Toni bit her lip but said nothing.

  “Was he here all night?” Camille asked casually, as she finished off the first coat of polish on Toni’s left hand.

  Toni sighed. “Yes, he was,” she said wearily. “With Trey and his wife, and Naomi and a bunch of other people.”

  “I didn’t see them this morning though,” Afrika said slowly as she pretended to think back. “Did you, Camille?”

  “Uh-uh,” Camille said, shaking her head. “I don’t think I saw them either. I think I would have remembered so many people.”

  “They came and went,” Toni said defensively. “I was so drugged up last night, I barely remember who was here.”

  “And what’s with this Trey-and-his-wife business?” Afrika asked as she got up and switched sides with Camille. “You still got a beef with Jasmine?”

  “She’s still buying the house my parents were killed in, isn’t she?” Toni snapped back.

  “Look, I know Jasmine has passed her place a bunch of times,” Afrika said. “And you know that usually I would be right behind you calling her crazy behind out on all the mess she pulls, but she’s still your brother’s wife. And you don’t want to make him have to choose between the two of you. No matter which way that goes, it ain’t gonna end well, you know?”

  Toni shrugged. “He’s already chosen her. So let them have each other and leave me out of it. Jasmine and I don’t have to love each other for her and Trey to be together.”

  Camille and Afrika exchanged a look.

  “You know she’s the one who found you, right?” Camille asked quietly. She had been silent for a while, and even after she had spoken, she didn’t look up at Toni. “Do you even remember what happened?”

  Toni bit her lip and shook her head. She felt her stomach tighten as she watched Afrika and Camille exchange a look of concern.

  Camille put the cover on the nail polish and let out a slow breath. When she finally turned her gaze on Toni, the fear in her eyes told Toni exactly how serious the situation had been.

  “She had come to see you, to work things out,” Camille said. “She buzzed and knocked for fifteen minutes. She was gonna leave, thinking you just didn’t want to talk to her. But then you opened the door and collapsed right in front of her. She tried to wake you but you wouldn’t respond. You weren’t breathing, and they couldn’t find a pulse. She thought you were ...”

  Camille swallowed and looked away. Even Afrika had ceased threading, and was holding on to Toni’s other hand tightly.

  “Jasmine called Adam screaming,” Afrika continued. “Then she called me. Trey was on a flight so they couldn’t reach him.”

  “T, she was so scared,” Afrika said, shaking her head.

  “We were so scared,” Camille added, blinking back tears. “We didn’t know if you were going to make it. I couldn’t believe I got my friend back for a minute and was about to lose her again.”

  Toni blinked back the moisture in her eyes as she tried to forget those hours of misery.

  “What happened to you, girl?”Afrika asked incredulously after a moment. “Was it something in Biloxi?”

  Toni shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about what had been happening to her over the past couple weeks. She had never told anyone. And why should she? She could take care of herself. That’s what she had been doing since the day her parents died.

  “I’ve just been dealing with a lot lately,” Toni said, looking down at her newly polished fingers curled in her lap, but barely even seeing them.

  A beat of silence fell among all of them before Toni spoke.

  “It was the anniversary a month ago. I can’t believe it’s been ten years since they’ve been gone. It feels like yesterday.”


  She told them about her parents’ deaths and everything that happened after, even about Trey’s betrayal. When she was done, both of them looked like they needed a Hoyer lift to pull their jaws back up.

  Camille was the first to speak. “I can’t believe I never knew all of this.” She shook her head. “I knew your parents died and that it had been bad. It was all over the news. But I thought your aunt had been taking care of you. And then Trey wasn’t around... .”

  “How come you never told me any of this before?” A mix of sorrow and anger molded Afrika’s features as she interrupted Camille. “Dang, Toni, we’ve been close for a couple years now. And I feel like I don’t even know you.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  All three women looked up to find Trey leaning against the door frame.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Of course you can,” Camille said. Toni pinched her hard and Camille jumped and snatched her arm away.

  “I’m glad I finally caught you awake,” Trey said, taking a few steps into the room, but not coming much further. His eyes looked relieved and sad all at the same time as he stared at Toni.

  She felt something tug at her heart. She loved her brother so much. He was the only real family she had left, and she would do anything for him. But sometimes she felt like the feeling wasn’t mutual. It hurt to give so much of yourself to someone and not have it returned.

  Camille cleared her throat and slipped off the bed. Afrika quickly followed suit.

  “We’re, uh, gonna run down to the café, for a minute,” she said, kissing Toni on the cheek. “We’ll be back in a bit.”

  “Catch you later,” Afrika said, squeezing Toni’s hand before she followed Camille out of the room.

  Toni and Trey watched them leave. And when they could no longer avoid it, they both turned to look at each other.

  Trey sighed. “So I know you’re mad at me. And you have every right to be.”

  He came and sat in a chair near Toni’s bed. “But you’re my sister. And I hate knowing that we’re fighting. You gotta know that I never thought buying the house would hurt you. You always acted like you were over everything. Like it didn’t matter anymore.”