Family Tree (16 page)

“People used to say you'd never amount to anything.” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “Should I not have said that? I'm blunt as a spoon, according to the doctors here. People with TBI don't always pick up on social boundaries. TBI is short for traumatic brain injury.”

“Plenty of people without TBI don't always pick up on boundaries either,” he said. “I see it every day in my courtroom.”

“You have a courtroom. That's so cool. I always knew you'd do something important. I wish I'd been around to see it.”

Judging by the expression on his face, she suspected she was blurting again. But she was also telling the truth. She knew without a doubt that he was special.

“You'll make progress. I know you, Annie. You'll get—”

“Through this,” she finished for him. “Everybody says that. But nobody says what happens after getting through. And now I'm whining. I'm told the memories will come back. Maybe not all, though. Maybe some memories are lost forever, and that might be a good thing. But then I panic sometimes, worrying about all the other things I've forgotten.” She studied him again, feeling a fount of emotion rising up through her chest. “There are lots of things I remember about you,” she added. “I'm not sure if they're memories or dreams.”

She looked down at her hands, seeing her fingers entwined. She was supposed to do ball squeezes once an hour to strengthen her hands. She picked up two balls and started squeezing. “Fletcher, why are you here?”

“I wanted to see you. But I shouldn't be here if it upsets you.”

“I don't think I'm upset.” She tried to figure out if she knew what upset felt like. Was there a face on her chart for
upset
? When Fletcher had walked into the room, Annie had sensed a flutter of excitement. It was not an unpleasant feeling. She was not upset.

“It's nice of you to come,” she said. “You were always nice, weren't you?”

“Depends on who you ask.”

She squeezed the fuzzy balls as she studied him, her hands remembering the feel of his shoulders when she gave him a hug. She would run her fingers over his sinewy arms and find his hands, and weave their fingers together. He used to smell like a combination of the outdoors and
his dad's garage. When he rode one of his father's scooters, his hair held the scent of the wind for hours afterward.

“I'm staring at you, aren't I?” she said.

“I don't mind.”

She felt a lifting sensation in her heart. “I remember how I felt about you,” she said. “I remember
us
. We were so young, weren't we? Young and romantic. Oh my gosh, I was obsessed with you. It drove my mother crazy. She was terrified that I was going to start having your babies and get all fat and happy and never have a life of my own.” She studied his face. Watched his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. The prospect of having his babies did not seem terrible. She had always wanted babies. Maybe she still did.

He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “Obsessed with me? You never told me that.”

“I guess I used to have more filters. But couldn't you tell? You were the biggest thing that had ever happened to me. I couldn't imagine life without you. But it ended, didn't it?”

“It got . . . interrupted.”

She sighed. “Memories are strange things, aren't they? You can't touch them and hold them in your hands, but they have incredible power. Because I've lost so many memories, I feel as though I've lost that power.” She lifted her gaze to him. Her hands ached from squeezing the balls. “I'm whining again.”

“You're not.” He reached over and covered her aching hands with his. “You don't have to do this all on your own, Annie,” he said, his voice low with a peculiar intensity. “I remember every single moment.”

Then

T
he accident at the garage ended Fletcher's childhood as completely and abruptly as the guillotine amputation that took his father's leg. He learned a new language, like what it meant to have a high-grade open fracture with severe vascular injury and damage to the posterior tibial nerve. He learned the complicated vocabulary of the surgical wing and the round-the-clock rhythm of life in the hospital.

Something else happened, too. His eyes were opened to the fact that he was now responsible, not just for himself, but for his father, for the garage, for the day-to-day coping with living that had to be done. Even though a guy lost his leg, the world did not stop to wait for him to recover. There were decisions to be made, and Fletcher had to be the one making them.

There were questions to be answered, endless inquiries from the medical team. The hospital people said the accident had to be completely documented so his dad could make an insurance claim and apply for payments from Workers' Compensation. The paperwork, with all its attendant duties, felt overwhelming sometimes, keeping him up at all hours, on the phone, on hold, talking to people thousands of miles away, strangers who didn't give a shit about his dad's leg, who didn't hesitate to say things like “that's not a covered event.” But Fletcher didn't have a choice. His father needed someone to fight for him.

It shouldn't be a fight at all. When a guy's leg got crushed in an accident, insurance was supposed to cover his medical costs. Simple. Until the insurance company made it impossible.

The day after surgery, Dad was doing okay, according to his vital signs, but he seemed dazed. He lay half sitting up in bed, studying his leg—or the empty space where his leg should have been. The nurse had explained that he was on a lot of different medicines, some of which made him drowsy and confused.

The people at the hospital said his rehab work would begin almost right away. Dad had to learn how to function with one leg and one prosthesis.

There was still more paperwork to be done. Someone from the hospital's business office had told Fletcher to fill out endless forms, and had flagged all the places that needed to be signed. Medical directives, power of attorney, financial forms, consent forms.

“You're giving me all the power,” he told his father with a grin. “Better watch out.”

“You do right by me,” Dad said, “or I'll kick your butt.”

“How'll you do that with only one leg?”

“Smart-ass.”

“Actually, that booklet they left you explains that you're going to get the most high-tech titanium, badass leg ever made.” He tried to sound positive, even though the insurance company said the more expensive leg was not “medically necessary.” Fletcher had thought they were joking. He quickly learned that insurance companies had no sense of humor.

“A new leg. I can hardly wait.” His dad's face looked gray and tired, yet his eyes were on fire with anger.

Late the night before, Fletcher had read that one of the most common issues of an amputee was rage and grief—not just for the patient, but for the family. No shit, he thought. “Dad, this sucks so bad. It makes me insane, how bad this sucks. I wish there was something we could do to
make it go away. This shit happened, and it's the lousiest break in the world. Let's work through it one thing at a time.”

His father gave a grim nod and signed all the necessary forms. His hand was unsteady, and the writing looked weird and spidery, which freaked Fletcher out. For the first time in his life, he looked at his father and saw an old man.

“Whatever,” Dad mumbled. “Guess I won't be much use around the garage for a while.” He fell silent, then snapped his fingers. “Whiskey.”

“You can't have—”

“No, I mean, we could become whiskey makers. Don't need two legs for that, and it's something I've been studying. Remember that year I worked in shipping and receiving in Kentucky? There's a big demand these days for small-batch whiskey.”

“Sure,” Fletcher said, not wanting to get into an argument. “Sounds great.” Actually, the idea of distilling whiskey didn't seem preposterous. He'd had a job at a barrel works in Kentucky sophomore year, and he'd found the alchemy of whiskey making remarkable. That a combination of branch water and grain could produce something so singular was intriguing.

Annie's friend Pam Mitchell worked at her father's distillery, and she said they needed to expand their business. But that was a discussion for another time.

Dad scowled down at a consent form to authorize the incident investigation. “It was that damn power hoist. I bought it brand new. The sales rep said it was top-of-the-line, but he lied. It's garbage, not to mention a hazard. Son, I don't want you going near that thing except to take it to the junkyard.”

The comment stuck with Fletcher. A hazard.

“You get some rest, Dad,” he said. “I need to go back to the garage to meet the insurance adjuster.”

“Yeah, tell him to watch himself around that piece of junk.”

“Will do.”

As he drove up the mountain, Fletcher saw that he'd missed a call from Annie. He didn't feel like calling her back. There was nothing he could say that wouldn't hurt her. The plans they'd made seemed like a fantasy now. Still, that didn't stop him from remembering the smell of her hair and the way her lips tasted when she kissed him, and the insanely great sex they had. He had never known a person who listened the way she did. She believed in him. She
got
him. Annie lived in a place inside him that left no room for anyone else. It was hard to imagine life without her, but his entire future was different now. In one crashing instant, everything had changed.

He walked into his father's garage to find everything exactly as it had been when the rescuers had taken his father away. Fletcher felt a thrum of panic in his chest as he surveyed the damage. He was haunted by the memory of his father's voice, hoarse from calling for help for hours. Why hadn't Fletcher been there?

He'd been poking around the salvage yard on the other side of town, looking for a part, and he'd lost track of the time. Then he'd run into Celia Swank, and they'd goofed off for another hour or so, talking about how weird it was to be done with school. Their class had scattered; only a few stuck around. Celia had tried flirting with him, but he'd pretended not to notice. Her epic boobs and shiny lips didn't tempt him. But he'd shot the breeze with her, only half listening to her gossip. And the whole time, he'd had no idea his dad was pinned under a ton of metal, nearly dead. The thought made Fletcher nauseated with guilt.

The ruined garage looked like the scene of a violent crime. There were tools and rags flung every which way by his dad as he'd struggled to get someone's attention while he was trapped and bleeding, probably crazed by pain. Where his father had lain, the smear of blood resembled a dark oil stain, its peculiar odor tainting the usual familiar scent of the garage. Now it smelled more like a slaughterhouse.

Fletcher glared at the broken steel. Fucking piece of crap. So much for the top-of-the-line claims made by the tool company's sales rep. One moment of failure, and a man's life was ruined. A single event, affecting not just his dad's future and livelihood, but Fletcher's as well. All the plans he'd made crumbled into dust.

Gordy Jessop, home from the U for the weekend, came by to see if he could help. He listened with a somber expression as Fletcher told him all the gory—truly gory—details.

“Man, that blows. His leg.” Gordy gave a shudder. “What a mess.”

Fletcher felt like taking a sledgehammer to the monstrosity. “Dad wants me to haul it to the dump so it won't crush anybody else.”

“The dump. I hear Degan Kerry works there now. Guess his reign of terror in high school came to an inglorious end.”

“I'll get started as soon as the insurance guy finishes.” He walked slowly around the collapsed car lift. It still had its shiny new decals, touting its features—fifteen-thousand-pound lift capacity. Powder-coated paint finish. Solid steel construction.

He bent and studied the sticker, now peeling from the twisted metal. “Solid steel, my ass,” he muttered.

“What's that?” Gordy asked.

“Look at this garbage. The decal says solid steel, but it was stuck here to cover a weld. So it's bullshit.” Upon further inspection, he found several more welds used instead of solid steel. A slow burn of anger started inside him. His father's life had been ruined because the shady tool company hadn't sold him the product it promised.

“Can the two of us move this out of here?” Gordy asked, bending to grasp a broken piece.

“Hang on.” Fletcher felt a surge of insight.

“For what? The insurance guy?”

“Yeah. We shouldn't touch anything here. Not until it's all documented.”

“What do you mean?”

“We need pictures and some kind of accident report. Not just the one from the insurance guy. We need something that's, like, totally official.”

“Holy crap, you're right.” Gordy quickly grasped the situation. “I bet your father could sue the pants off of Acme Automotive Lift.”

Fletcher kept every single note and picture in the insurance-claim account, and he took plenty of his own, including a video he shot with a borrowed camera while the claims adjuster narrated the report. Fletcher also found a guy in town who was a safety inspector. His specialty was forestry, but he was a mechanical engineer who agreed completely with Fletcher about the defective equipment. Not only was there welding where solid steel should have been used; the lift lacked another key safety feature, something he called an armlock mechanism. The safety inspector prepared and signed an official report comparing the lift that was sold to Fletcher's dad with the manufacturer's product description and warranty.

In Burlington, Fletcher went to the university library with a special pass from the hospital, and he used the Internet for hours, until his eyes blurred and his brain ached. He buried himself in information, absorbing facts and figures like a sponge, and also making notes just in case.

The next day, he went to Courthouse Plaza and started knocking on doors of law firms. No one would let him past the receptionist desk. Before anyone would even talk to him, they wanted something called a retainer fee. The problem was, Fletcher and his dad had no money to spare. With the insurance claim taking forever and Dad in rehab for weeks, Fletcher could scarcely come up with the scratch for groceries, much less a lawyer.

He went back to the library and the Internet, reading articles and abstracts and law books. He figured out that he didn't actually need a
lawyer. Any private citizen had the right to file suit if they were injured. Okay, then. His dad was a private citizen. He'd been injured. Fletcher was going to figure out how to file the suit. He worked for days, studying the steps involved in the procedure, taking piles of notes, and mapping out a strategy.

Annie called him a lot, but he didn't pick up. He had to stay focused, and she was a distraction. He sent her an e-mail saying he was busy with his dad and the garage. Since the accident, she seemed a million miles away. Then he felt guilty and called her.

“Sorry,” he said. “I've got a ton of shit to do.”

“I know, Fletcher.” There was a waver of hurt in her voice. “I wish I could help.”

“I don't need your help,” he said, and it came out sounding terse. “I mean, it's just . . . ah, Christ. This is taking up all my time.”

“Don't feel bad,” she said. “Just know that I'm thinking about you. I miss you. I'll see you at Thanksgiving break, okay?”

“Sure. Okay.” He was pissed as he hung up the phone. Not at her, at himself. At the situation. But being pissed wasn't going to get things done.

He went over the plan with his father, who told Fletcher he was out of his gourd. “Remember that old saying, you can't fight city hall?” Dad asked. “It's true. You shouldn't be wasting your time on some crazy idea. I need you to keep the garage up and running so we don't go broke.”

“I'll do both,” Fletcher said. “I can look after the garage and work on the case at night. You worry about getting back on your feet—”

“Don't you mean
foot
?”

“Whatever. Just let me worry about everything else.”

In many ways, he'd been doing that all his life. His father had always been like a big kid—impulsive, adventurous, and irresponsible. Fletcher was often the one who remembered what they needed at the grocery store or when they were supposed to go to the dentist. At a ridiculously
young age, he'd learned to forge his dad's name on school permission slips and on checks, because Dad often forgot to pay the bills. Taking on a lawsuit was just one more thing he had to do on his own.

It struck Fletcher now that he might have to take care of his father forever.
Christ.

Dad signed more papers—grudgingly. The documents were all available on the Internet for anyone to print out and use. They were official forms to show the court that Sanford Wyndham had legal capacity to sue.

That was just the first step. Then Fletcher had to outline his case in a petition, submit his facts and findings to prove he had a case, and show that his dad was entitled to damages.

Fletcher sweated bullets over the thing. He studied the process until his eyes practically bled. He painstakingly created and filled out all the necessary court documents. From the hours of reading he'd done, he knew that every single word, every punctuation mark, was crucial.

His first seven efforts were quickly rejected on technicalities by the court clerk. Something was missing, or improperly filled out, or not relevant to the case. Each time he made the corrections and went back, the filing was rejected for a different reason. He started to feel like a contestant on a game show, getting eliminated and having to start again from scratch.