by Jae
"I'm... I'm just not ready, Ray." Aiden leaned her shoulders and the back of her head against the wall and rested her gaze on Ray, waiting for his reaction.
Ray shrugged. "Then tell her," he said. "She's a very understanding woman. I'm sure she'll give you all the time you need. She'll wait for you."
Aiden didn't want Dawn to have to wait. She wanted her to be happy and have what she wanted now, and she was angry with herself for not being able to give her that. Her anger only made matters worse, and she tried to shake it off and think clearly. "I'm not sure time is the issue here," she finally admitted.
"Now I'm confused," Ray mumbled. "Then what is the issue? She loves you. You love her. In the last few months, you've been happier than I've ever seen you."
"That's just it – why change things if they're perfect just the way they are?" Aiden looked at him for an answer even though she knew it was not a reasonable question.
"Aiden," he said in the tone of voice she had heard him use with his kids. "You don't mean that. You're just afraid of moving forward and getting hurt."
That was only one of the things Aiden was afraid of, but she nodded and pushed off from the wall. "Come on, let's get back. We have a case to solve."
* * *
Del looked at the sliding doors of the hospital. With the dangers of her job and with her best friend being a nurse, she had been in hospitals a lot, but never had they seemed as intimidating as this one was now.
"Do you want me to wait in the car?" Kade asked beside her.
Del turned to look at her. "No." She honestly couldn't imagine a situation where she wouldn't want Kade's company. Even after driving the three hundred miles to Sacramento without stopping, pale from lack of sleep, and with creased clothes, Kade was a sight to behold. She was not too proud to accept the support if Kade was willing to give it. "As long as you're comfortable being seen walking in there with me, I'd love the company."
Del knew her family had hammered it into Kade how important appearances and what people thought were. It wasn't an easy thing to overcome after all these years. It seemed as if Kade had finally come to terms with being attracted to women, at least when it was just between them. Making a public announcement, even when it was just walking into a hospital where nobody knew them, wouldn't be as easy for her.
"I'll stay as long as you want me to," Kade promised.
They entered the hospital side by side, finally being directed to the right room. Walking down the sterile corridor, Del could see her mother and two men who had to be her oldest brothers standing in front of one of the doors. They were talking to a doctor.
God, she has gotten old! Startled, she realized how long it had been since she had last seen her mother. The last time I saw her, she was praying to God to forgive me my sins and make me "normal" again.
Her mother looked as if she was praying now too, looking up at the physician with a desperate expression.
The doctor walked away just before Del reached the group. Kade stayed back a little as Del stopped right in front of her mother. Del didn't say anything. She gave a nod to her mother and a sidelong glance to the two brothers she hardly knew. They had been little boys when she had last seen them. She didn't know how to greet them after twenty-six years.
"Delicia!" Her mother clutched her hands to her chest when she recognized her only daughter. "You came! Your father will be so happy."
Oh, yeah, right. He'll be overjoyed to see his daughter and find out she's still a lesbian. Instead of saying it, Del turned to Kade. "Kade, this is my mother, Rosita Montero Benítez, and my brothers, Ismael and Ricardo. This is Kade Matheson. She came with me from Oregon."
Rosita stared at Kade. "Are you...?" She turned to Del, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "Is she... your...?" She gestured helplessly in Kade's direction but didn't finish the sentence.
"My girlfriend?" Del glanced at Kade, who was now blushing a little too. "No, she's not." Not that I don't want her to be. But officially, they were still nothing more than friends, and Del didn't want to assume too much just because of one kiss. She would be proud to call Kade her girlfriend one day, but not without Kade's explicit consent. For now, she wasn't sure if Kade was ready to make a public announcement, so she would follow Kade's lead.
"Oh." Her mother visibly relaxed. "So you're not...?" This time, she gestured in Del's direction.
Del knew exactly what she was hoping for. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm still gay. That's not something that changes just because you want it to," she said frankly, not willing to hide who she was just to make her parents feel better. She pointed at the door. "Is he in there?"
Rosita nodded and pressed a handkerchief to her face. "The doctors say he probably doesn't have long," she whispered.
Del's brothers bowed their heads in silent grief, but all Del could feel was numbness and dull disbelief. It was hard to believe that the strong, dominating man she had known could ever die. "Are you sure he wants to see me?" she asked, feeling like the scared sixteen-year-old again. She wasn't sure how she would react to seeing her father – or if she wanted to see him at all.
"Oh, yes, of course!" Her mother urged her toward the door. "Go on in."
Del hesitated.
"Do you want me to go in first and talk to him?" Rosita asked.
Del was impressed almost against her will – it was the first time in forty-three years that her mother had stepped protectively between Del and her father. When he had beaten her all those years ago, she had done nothing. Maybe a few things have changed, Del conceded. For now, though, she would remain skeptical. "No, it's all right. I'm going in to talk to him. I don't have anything to fear. There's nothing he can take from me anymore," Del said. She inhaled deeply, mentally preparing for the task ahead.
Kade moved a step closer and squeezed her hand for just a moment before letting go again. "I'll be right here, waiting outside, if you need me," she whispered.
Nodding, Del took another deep breath and knocked on the door before she entered.
"I already told the damn nurse I don't want any more painkillers!" the man in the bed ranted before the door was even halfway open.
Del wasn't sure what she had expected, but the patient in the hospital bed was a shock. Her father had gotten old, and he looked as if he had lost forty pounds even though he had never been overweight. His cheeks were hollow and unshaven and his skin thin and mottled.
An oxygen tube, an intravenous line, and various wires connected him to the beeping machines and blinking monitors all around the bed.
Del felt an overwhelming wave of emotions crash down on her – regret, hurt, anger, compassion. It almost choked her and condemned her to speechlessness.
Héctor Vasquez Calderon returned her stare, and Del realized that he didn't recognize her. This realization hit her like a blow in the solar plexus even though it probably shouldn't have surprised her. She wasn't a scared sixteen-year-old anymore, but a mature, confident woman.
Without saying a word, she stepped closer to the hospital bed.
His former strength gone, Héctor sat up in the bed with difficulty. He narrowed his eyes. "Do we know each other?"
Del bit her lip. A lump of emotions burned in her throat and left a bitter taste in her mouth. Her father not knowing her, his own daughter, was almost worse than an angry rejection. "It's me," she said and almost hated herself for the tremor in her voice. She had promised herself years ago to never again show any weakness in front of her father. "Del."
The terminally ill man who was her father gasped. "D-Delicia?" His gaze fluttered over her face in disbelief. "Yes, it's you. You look a lot like me – at least how I looked before this damn cancer made me a drooling, old geezer!"
Del said nothing. She had always preferred to believe that she resembled her kind grandfather, not her despotic father.
"So your mother found you," Héctor murmured. "I knew she would search for you as soon as she had the house to herself. After you left, our marriage slowly broke ap
art too. Somehow, throwing you out... it always stood between us even though we never talked about it."
Only when she had to gasp for air did Del realize that she had held her breath. "That almost sounds like an apology... as if you regret how you treated me." Torn between hope and mistrust, she looked down at her father.
Héctor rubbed his stubble with one of his thin hands. "Regret?" he said slowly. "Do I regret that I'm lying here, about to make a not very glorious exit as a lonely and practically divorced man? Yes, of course." He coughed but struggled to continue. "Do I regret that your mother and I, after forty-five years of marriage, have only our sons and a daughter I banned from our lives in common? Yes, I think so."
Del stared at him. "You admit how you treated me was wrong?"
"It wasn't the right way, but..." Héctor lifted a hand, and for a moment, Del could see the tyrant from her past. "...it was only for your own good. I thought if I forced you to face reality and showed you how wrong such... perversions are, you would come to your senses sooner or later."
"Perversions," Del repeated quietly and bitterly. No, her father hadn't changed his attitude toward people who didn't share his way of life. "I'm sorry to inform you that I haven't come to my senses," she told him stiffly. "What now?" What did he expect of her?
"Your mother would like to see you again. Maybe she can somehow overlook your... lifestyle, but I... I just can't accept it – and I don't have the time to maybe come to terms with it someday. Sorry." His narrow shoulders moved up and down under the hospital gown like the wings of an exhausted bird.
For the first time, Del didn't only hear hateful reproach for his "perverse daughter" in his voice but also an admission of his own inability to accept her as she was. It wasn't much. Still, it was more than she had expected from him. She cleared her throat. "What am I doing here? Why did you want to see me? Just to tell me that?"
"Maybe because I didn't want my last memory of you to be that of a crying teenager with a black eye and a bloody lip," he said quietly.
Del shrugged with false casualness. "That healed long ago."
"Really?"
Del knew he hasn't only talking about a few bruises. "No," she said honestly. "Wounds like that leave scars. You almost did the worst thing someone can do to their child – you almost made me hate myself. That's not something you forget."
Her father was silent for a long time. Maybe he sensed that nothing he could say would undo what he had done to Del. Maybe he didn't want to undo anything, because he still believed he was right. Finally, he lifted his tired gaze up to look into Del's eyes. "Will you give me your hand before you leave?" he asked quietly.
Del looked down at her own long, strong fingers – the competent hands of a cop – and then at her father's skinny hands that had lost their former, sometimes brutal strength.
It wasn't only the heart monitor and the bed rail that stood between them. A deep rift separated father and daughter – Héctor couldn't accept his daughter's sexual orientation, and Del couldn't accept her father's homophobia.
Del stared down at him. Finally, she took a hesitant step and slowly reached out her hand. She gently closed her fingers around the punctured back of his hand. She could feel the rapid thumping in the veins that carried shared blood.
His bony chest heaved, but his face was almost expressionless. "Thank you," he said quietly.
"You're welcome." Del gave his fingers a soft squeeze before she slowly let go and turned to walk out of the room and out of his life.
* * *
Dawn was sitting on the front steps of Aiden's apartment building, waiting for her, when Aiden got out of her car.
"Hey," Aiden said in surprise. "What are you doing here?" Not that it wasn't nice to see Dawn. After looking into the lifeless eyes of a woman who could have been Dawn, it soothed her to see the familiar green-gray eyes alive with emotion – even if that emotion was worry.
"Two of my patients canceled, so I called your cell to see if you wanted to join me for an early dinner. When you didn't answer, I called the precinct. They told me you had gone home." Dawn stood from her place on the steps and came closer to study Aiden's face. "You rarely do that in the middle of the day. Is everything all right?"
Aiden sighed. The last thing she wanted was to explain to Dawn why Ray had been so insistent on sending her home for the remainder of the day. That was why she had turned off her cell phone. "We have a new case, and the lab results are not in until tomorrow. Ray thought it would be a good opportunity for me to relax for a few hours." It was the truth, but not the whole truth.
"Can I come in?" Dawn asked cautiously when Aiden searched in her pocket for her keys.
"Of course you can," Aiden said. "You could have gone on in without me, you know? You have a key." God, did my refusal to move in with her make her so unsure about herself... about us? Or is she just trying to be considerate?
"I know, but I was worried about you, and I wanted to see you the moment you approached the apartment building," Dawn confessed. "I know there's more to why you went home early than just waiting for the lab results." She quickly held up her hands. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, but please, don't lie to me."
Sighing, Aiden rubbed her neck. "It's just... It's a tough case for me. Ray thought I could use a few hours to get my emotional equilibrium back. I'd love to have dinner with you, but I want to take Evan out for another driving lesson first."
"I don't mind waiting a bit. I brought a novel," Dawn said as they entered Aiden's apartment. "You won't even know I'm here."
Aiden stopped in the doorway, very close to Dawn in the cramped space. "I'll always know when you're here – and I'm glad about it." Finally, she allowed herself to do what she had wanted to do since she had seen Dawn sitting on her doorstep. She stepped closer and pulled Dawn into a tight embrace, closing her eyes and breathing in Dawn's scent.
Dawn melted into the embrace. "You okay?" she whispered into Aiden's ear.
Aiden let go and slowly stepped back. "Yeah. I'm fine now."
Clearly, Dawn didn't believe her, but she said nothing. She sat down on the couch and, as promised, began to read her novel. After a moment, she kicked off her shoes and curled her legs under her.
Aiden sighed. She knew she couldn't relax now. She was too keyed up from what she had seen at the crime scene and too worried about visiting Evan. She went to the bathroom, checked her messages, and then went to the refrigerator to get them something to drink. Restlessly, she prowled her small apartment. Aiden felt Dawn's gaze following her around the room. It made her feel even more like a caged tiger in a zoo.
"Hey, what's the matter?" Dawn asked as Aiden passed her for the third time. "I thought you took the afternoon off to relax, but now you're pacing."
"I took the afternoon off to spend it with Evan," Aiden corrected.
Dawn raised her brows. "And that's not relaxing?"
Aiden shrugged. Lately, she had begun to relax around Evan. "Not today."
"Why? You're not still nervous about handing over your car to Evan, are you?" Dawn asked with a tiny bit of amusement. With the exception of her sardine can, which had been a present from her father, cars were just cars to Dawn – things that were a necessary evil, but not something you cherished.
"No, it's not the car." Aiden had quickly gotten over that. "Evan is not a bad driver."
Dawn nodded with a satisfied grin. She was visibly proud of her protégé. "What is it, then?"
"I've been debating with myself."
"About?" Dawn prodded.
Aiden took a deep breath and prepared to say it out loud for the first time. "About whether or not I should talk to her about... our father."
Dawn put down the book she had still held in her hands and immediately gave Aiden her full attention. "Why today?" she asked.
"You think I shouldn't talk to her about this?" Aiden asked.
"That's not what I said. I'm just wondering about your timing." Dawn looked up at her with a worried fr
own. "With work and everything you already have a lot on your plate at the moment."
She's right. There's a lot to deal with in my life, so why am I taking this on now too? Am I using Evan as an excuse not to have to deal with my other problems? Aiden thought about it, and shook her head at herself. She knew that wasn't it. I know I can't deal with everything else that's going on in my life and move forward with Dawn until I somehow deal with my past... and Evan and our father are a big part of it.
Dawn was still waiting for her answer.
Aiden cleared her throat. She didn't want to reveal all of her reasons for wanting to talk to Evan. It would only make Dawn start to hope for something Aiden wasn't sure she could achieve. "It feels like the right moment," she hedged. "I feel like Evan and I... we finally established some trust between us." Seeing Evan take care of Laurie yesterday made Aiden realize again what a good, caring person Evan could be when she lowered her protective walls. She wanted Evan to see herself that way too.
