CHERISH (40 page)

The last time we’d talked was between tours. I rented a big three bedroom apartment and moved him in. I tried to get him sober and keep him sober but failed completely. It had been hard to believe, but we were on even worse terms after that. He was so done with me that he up and disappeared one night without a word. For the remainder of the two months I was home, I had no idea where he was or even if he was alive.

Flash forward eighteen months, I’m counting kills and trying not to be killed in the Mountains of Afghanistan. I get called to Ops to take an emergency call from home, and it’s the social worker.

Two weeks after that call, I’m on a cargo jet headed home.

Happy homecoming for me.

“Did you just get all those?” There are at least twenty envelopes sitting on his bedside table.

"Yeah. One of your military buddies dropped them off last night. Said they got returned to your base. Don’t have any idea how they figured out I was here. Damn military, got eyes and ears everywhere.” He’s glaring at me, and my mind is out that door and down the hall, imagining where she went and how I can find her again.

“I’m no hero, Dad. Just doing my job. I’m home for a couple months, then I have to decide if I’m going back. It’s time to re-enlist or call it.”

“Yeah, well, if you want to do something for me, get me out of here. Save me for a change. You’re always tryin’ to save people. Save me from this shit hole.” There is the slightest bit of desperation in his voice, and I glimpse a moment of the once proud man that must still be inside him somewhere.

But, I’m relying on history to guide me. I know it’s not him wanting to get out. It’s the demon. The one that possessed him the night of the fire. The one that needs a drink.

“If you leave here, you’ll die, Dad. They say you’re not a candidate for a transplant, and your diabetes is off the charts. You start drinking again, you’re done.”

Dad’s hair is cropped close to his head, more gray than black than the last time I saw him. There is no life in his deep brown eyes. All the parts of him look familiar, but he’s a stranger.

“Who said I’ll start drinking again?” He narrows his eyes.

No one needs to say it, Dad. It just is.

“No one, Dad. I’m sure you’d be fine. I’ll see what I can do.” My voice is even, flat. There’s no sense arguing. I’m not getting him out of here just so he can go kill himself with a bottle of Jack.

I’m fucking tired. Too tired for any more of this conversation. I’ve been traveling for thirty-six hours, and I’m not even sure where I’ll be sleeping tonight. All I can do is turn and take a step toward the door and hope tomorrow is better. I’ve been doing that for a long time.

“Go talk to that bald guy. He’s in charge.” Dad grunts and rolls a few feet forward as I turn to leave.

“Okay, Dad. I’ll go find him.” It’s hard to hide the fatigue in my voice. After all these years, somehow I held hope it would be different this time.

Some things can’t change.

Giving the chrome handle on the door a yank, I’m surprised at the weight as it opens with a soft swish. I have no intention of finding “the bald guy,” whoever that is. But, I do intend to find her because this cannot be a coincidence. It has to be something more.

Maybe God just showed up . . . or he’s a hell of an asshole.

History has taught me that either is possible.

I’ve got my first step in the hallway, and I catch a glimpse of her back, hair still flopped off to the side, striding away and around a corner.

“Hey!” I start to jog, but I lose her as she jets down another corridor just as a smiling Betty White look-alike rolls her wheelchair over the toes in my left boot.

“Hi.” Betty’s eying me like her Tinder date just showed up.

“Hi.” I glance down and blow out a quick breath, shoving my hands in my pockets.

I’m so fucking tired; maybe I should get a bed here.

“You looking for a good time?” She reaches out, and I have to jerk my hips backward damn fast before she takes a big ole’ handful of crotch.

“
Hey . . .”
I can’t help but laugh through my exhaustion.

What the fuck do you say to a little white-haired cock-grabber with fire in her eyes?

I’m assessing the likelihood that she’s going to take another stab at me when I catch a glimpse of a guy about my height but half my weight with a shining, bald head marching toward us from behind the nurses station with a huge smile on his face. He puts himself between Betty White and me just as she takes her second shot at me.

“Ella. . . .”
He is clearly trying to hold back his laughter as he gives her a scolding glare.
“
We talked about this. You can’t
touch
.” He leans right down, sticking a clipboard under his left arm, and speaks to her eye to eye. His voice is firm but compassionate. I’m struck by his gentle, matter-of-fact manner, considering the absurdity of the scene.

Betty rolls her eyes then looks me up and down, and I have to admit it makes me uncomfortable.

“But look at him—” She tips her white hair in my direction and points at me.

I can’t believe my fucking face is getting warm. This woman, old enough to be my grandma, has me blushing. She sets her eyes on me like I’m Magic Mike, and she’s got some dollar bills to stuff. “My husband was a Marine.” She bats her lashes at me with a knowing smile.

My white t-shirt is pulled tight over my chest, my dog tags clearly silhouetted beneath the gray fabric.

“Yes, I see him.” Bruce nods and snaps his eyes to me then back to Ella. “It’s not every day you have this kind of opportunity, huh?” Bruce’s smile broadens as he stands straight, holding a pretzel rod between his teeth like a cigarette.

“It’s okay.” I give Ella a friendly but uninviting smile.

“Go on.” Bruce gives her the universal hand flap signal for “go away.” “Go bother Dominic. He’s more your speed.”

Bruce turns her chair around, aiming her away from us. With a well-practiced spin of the wheels, Ella is rolling away with a string of profanity trailing behind.

“Sorry.” He’s smiling at me, and his entire face lights up. “Don’t be so shocked, that happens around here. They’re
old
, not dead.” Bruce shrugs. “I’m Bruce, head nurse.” He holds out his hand, and I meet it with my own in a friendly shake. “Trying to quit.” He motions to the pretzel rod between his teeth.

I nod. “I’m Beckett. Beckett Fitzgerald, my dad is—”

“I know.” He interrupts, taking the pretzel out like he’s just finished a puff. “Your dad is doing better, but he wants to leave. Eventually, I won’t be able to stop him.”

“I can’t either.” I match his shrug, and my neck gives me another snap as I close my arms over my chest.

“Well, either way, I’m glad you’re back. I know he’s proud of you. Maybe he’ll do better with family around.” Bruce’s eyes are roaming over me with a look similar to Ella’s.

“Well, that’s debatable.” I lose my smile thinking Dad would have anything positive to say about me.

“He’s sick. Don’t take it personally.”

I haven’t taken it personally in a long fucking time.

My head clears, realizing Bruce might prove helpful in another way.

“Hey, can you do me a favor?” I ask.

I see the glint in his eye and know he’s about to be disappointed when he finds out that what I want is not what he’s silently offering.

“Sure. What?” He bobs the end of the pretzel between his lips and raises his eyebrows. Even though what is on
his
mind is most definitely not on mine, I can’t help but like the guy.

“You’ve got a girl working here. Long, white-blonde hair, blue eyes. Her name’s Promise . . .”

“We have four or five girls here that meet that
exact
description.” His eyes roll with his preposterous answer, and then he breaks into a full, toothy grin, and I like him even more.

I feel my pulse rate rising just knowing she is somewhere in this building. She’s not here, but
she is
here. She’s everywhere and nowhere, and I have to think about each breath.

After a thirty-six hour trek, I shake my head wondering what it means to walk in here and find the one girl that etched herself permanently into my heart in that courtroom ten years ago. The same girl I should have saved when she needed me most. But I didn’t. Just another victim of my bad choices.

She has no idea who I am. And, I can never tell her.

I don’t believe in fate. In serendipity. But, I’m starting to believe in something.

“She’ll be here tomorrow. Seven AM.” Bruce’s voice is soft. He’s got an ever-present twinkle in his eyes that makes him seem as though his mind is off somewhere else, fixed on something hilarious, and he’s holding back laughter.

“Thanks. I want to thank her for taking good care of my Dad. She left before I could. ”

Bruce nods. I can sense he is silently calling bullshit on me. Then, he spins on his heel and takes a few bouncing strides toward a huddle of three other scrub-clad women whose eyes keep darting my way.

“Thanks. I owe you.” I whisper even though I know he can’t hear me. I turn to make my way out to the parking lot. And my head is pounding as my pulse is slowing.

Either it’s the thirty-six hours with no sleep or the fact that Promise has just been dropped into my lap like a firecracker, but I need to sit down, or I’m going to fall down.

I’ve tried every fucking trick I can to forget her over the years. Not just forget her, pretend she doesn’t matter. Pretend that whatever it is—or was—that I’ve felt for her is some version of mixed-up guilt, some concoction that stewed inside me from my near inexhaustible need to save the unsavable.

And, I’ve failed miserably to relinquish her to the corners of my mind where I put nearly every other human I come in contact with. She’s the angel in my nightmares. The light inside the darkness that I cannot reach.

I’ve made two unforgivable sins in my life. My mother and sister paid for one. She paid for the other.

She’s here to punish me.

Or redeem me.

Whichever it is, I’m ready.

Promise

I have two hours and fourteen minutes until I take the stage, and I’ve been waiting forty-five minutes for Mr. Dennis Archibald, Esq to see me.

It’s tough, constantly having my hat in my hand. It’s hard to beg for help when all I want to do is keep my head down and never meet anyone’s eyes. It causes me physical discomfort to have to interact with people, to try to hold eye contact and speak in clear and even sentences.

Sitting in the reception area, I cross my legs tightly and huddle my arms around my body trying to keep from flying apart.

There’s irony here. Sitting in this office with its mahogany shelves filled with hardbound volumes of the Rules of Law and so-and-so vs. so-and-so, I feel dirtier than when I’m cleaning bedpans back at Windfield. I try to pass the time and not think, so I start counting the seemingly endless volumes of law books.

I’ve counted to five hundred and seventy-two by the time Mr. Archibald finally stands in the open door to his office.

“Miss Henderson? Come in, please.” He looks like Matlock with a misogynist ego.

Fifteen minutes later, he’s leaning back in his I’m-a-very-powerful-man tufted desk chair and giving me
the look.

“My fee is $350 an hour plus expenses.” I can see from his expression he knows I’m on a ramen noodle budget, and he’s caviar.

“How many hours do you think it will take?” I keep my voice as steady as I can.

Mr. Archibald looks away after a couple seconds of uncomfortable eye contact. I get it; I’m not your all-American girl, and most people find it difficult to look me in the face for very long. But, for $350 an hour, I would expect him to put in a stellar effort.

“Listen,” he sets the tip of his gold Cross pen to the legal pad in front of him starts scratching away. “This is a tough case. You are barely on your feet. You sure you want to go down this road? Saying it will be long and expensive is the watered down version.”

“Can I win?” I need to cut to the chase. I can’t be late for my job. I have two buses to take, and I need an hour just to get cleaned up and dressed.

He smiles, but it’s not the kind of smile that makes you feel any better. It’s a smile that says I-don’t-want-to-tell-you-the-truth.