Letting Go (12 page)

“You don’t need to do this, Clarissa. You were a kid. Your mother…”

“This isn’t all about Tammy Jo. And I wasn’t always a kid. Eventually, I became a liability of sorts to my mother. She dropped me off at my grandmother’s when one of her cons decided he liked me a little too much. Instead of using the time with my grandmother to start over, I joined a group of girls who didn’t bother conning people. We stole right out in the open. They dubbed us the Barbie Bandits. We were young, pretty and we’d walk in to stores and take what we wanted without a worry in the world. That might also be the news clipping you ripped up.

“I got lucky after that one, though. Probation and juvenile court. My mother said I’d conned the entire juvenile court system into going easy on me. She was probably right. Once my probation ended, I ran. I started off using people, telling them horrible stories about my past, convincing them to help a poor girl out. Churches were the best places to score. It was like living with Tammy Jo all over again, only I was on my own.

“And then, about ten years ago, one of the kind strangers I’d conned nearly killed me. When I woke up in a hospital bed, I decided to try to start over. I tried to reach my grandmother to apologize, but I was too late, and Tammy Jo was the only one at the house.
 

“Since then, I’ve been straight. I work and I move on. Eventually I figure maybe I’ll find a place to stop, a place where maybe I can come to terms with who I’ve been and what I’ve done. But it can’t be here. This, you and everyone, you’re too close to who I was. I can’t find peace when the life I’m living mirrors the life I pretended to live for so long.”

To his credit, Jed didn’t kick her out of the truck. That’s the first thing Clarissa thought when she finally looked at him.
 

When he didn’t say anything for another minute, she started to worry.

“Jed, say something.”

At first, he continued looking into her eyes like he was trying to see into her soul, and then he did the strangest thing. He reached out and pushed a curl of her hair away from her cheek and said “You are so pretty. Mack’s right. You look like an angel.”

What was wrong with him? “Did you hear a word I said? I am a horrible person. I’ve done things…I can’t even...”

“You are an amazing, courageous woman who made some bad life choices and then started over.”

“Bad life choices? Jed, I stole from people. Blatantly. I was on CNN. I used my hard times to take from people. Old people, young people, sick people. I didn’t care.”

“And you’ve been beating yourself up for it the past decade while you tried to do things differently.”

Something turned in her chest, sank into her stomach, blossomed through her body. Hope.

“I…You…Jed, I’m not….”

“You are not the same person,” he said and then he leaned forward and touched his lips to hers in a soft kiss that made everything in her melt.

She knew she should fight him, should tell him to take her to the bunkhouse she was sharing with Tammy Jo and they’d leave as soon as possible, but all she wanted was to sit in his truck and kiss him sweetly and pretend her past didn’t exist.

A zap of longing swept through her and she knew this was so wrong.

She pushed away from him and leaned against the truck’s door. “You can’t help yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You want to save me. It’s part of what makes you tick. But Jed, I don’t want anyone saving me. I’m working hard to save myself. It’s got to be that way.”

Jed laughed, and she heard a roughness that hadn’t been there earlier.
 

“You’re confused, Clarissa. That kiss wasn’t me trying to save you. That was something else entirely. Maybe later we can talk about what it was.”

Later. He really still wanted to see her, to be part of her life. Even knowing….

“Jed. I think maybe…”

“Maybe you should just stop thinking so much,” he interrupted. “Maybe you just need to let go and let God.”

So easy for him to say.

“I can’t,” she said. “I want to. You have no idea how much I want to. But I’m not even sure He exists.”

Jed smiled at that. Strange response. Then he restarted the truck. “It’s okay, Clarissa. Because here’s the deal. God doesn’t need you to be sure of Him to exist. If you want to spend all your time thinking, think about that.”

Clarissa wished it were that easy. Jed’s phone buzzed, and he looked puzzled as he answered.

“Hey Momma,” he said, and Clarissa wondered what it would be like to have such an easy relationship with a parent. With Tammy Jo at the ranch maybe they’d forge some kind of mother-daughter bond.
 

“I’m with her now,” Jed said, suddenly concerned. “We’re on our way.”

‘What’s wrong?” Clarissa asked when he hung up the phone.

“Your mother’s in the hospital. It’s bad.”

Chapter Nine

Clarissa’s heart dropped and then she remembered this was Tammy Jo they were talking about.

“It’s not bad, Jed. It’s business,” she said as she climbed in his truck.

“Whatever it is, my parents called and said you better get to the hospital quick.”

Clarissa couldn’t believe she’d almost let herself be lulled into a sense of security where her mother was concerned. Silly girl. Nothing was going to change Tammy Jo. The Dillons and Stearns, Oklahoma were the perfect con. If her mother thought she’d stand by and let that happen, she had another think coming.

“I’m going to need you to take your family and leave for a while when we get there, Jed,” she said. “Tammy Jo and I need to talk.

He didn’t argue with her, didn’t try to reason with her or use his life experiences to challenge her surety.

Maybe he’d listened to her earlier. Maybe he understood nothing in their lives meshed. That for every good thing in his world, she’d done or been part of or lived through something equally bad.

“I don’t think…”

And then again, maybe he didn’t understand at all.

“Look, Jed,” Clarissa said. “You’re a great guy. But this is something you can’t begin to understand.”

“I don’t think you ought to make assumptions. They can end up leading to an awful lot of heartbreak.”

“Again, you have no idea how good Tammy Jo is at swindling people out of their hard earned livings. Just trust me here, okay?”

He looked forward, a frown marring his face, his jaw working in an effort to do as she asked.

He didn’t try talking to her the rest of the trip to Shawnee, and Clarissa told herself she liked that just fine.

Scenes from her life with her mother played through her mind as they closed in on the small hospital, and Clarissa wondered why on earth she hadn’t packed her mother’s suitcase and brought it along with. Lord knew she wasn’t going to let Tammy Jo set foot on the Triple Eight again.

Jed parked the truck in a visitor’s spot, and Clarissa climbed out without waiting for him. Warm wind brushed her hair off her face and the sky held a tinge of red from a dust storm moving their direction. Behind her she heard Jed’s booted feet closing the gap between them.

“Remember what I said, Jed. I’ll need a few minutes alone with her.”

He didn’t answer, just strode beside her as they made their way through the automatic door and to the elevator. The hospital scent from her memories clashed with this one. A different kind of cleaner, she supposed. Cold anger kept her moving forward. Once they were inside the elevator Jed fished a piece of paper out of his pocket then pushed the floor’s number.
 

A few seconds later they were greeted by the whirring, whooshing and beeping noises of the critical care unit.

Clarissa had to hand it to Tammy Jo. Her acting must’ve improved quite a bit to get herself admitted to CCU.

She started to tell Jed she didn’t need him to walk back to her mother’s room, but Susie Dillon was there, her face a mask of worry.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” she said, wrapping Clarissa in one of her perfect hugs.

Clarissa didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d been used by an expert manipulator the past few days.
 

“The doctor will be back by in a few hours,” Susie said. “For now she’s stabilized, but she’s on multiple monitors and she’s dehydrated.”

Clarissa shot Jed a meaningful look, and he cleared his throat before speaking. “Uh, Momma, why don’t we let Clarissa and her mother have some privacy,” he said as they reached the room door.

Clarissa walked in the hospital room and blinked. Her mother was connected to an IV and a heart rate monitor. She looked horrible. Of course, Tammy Jo was an expert at looking terrible for a cause.

“Momma,” Clarissa said walking forward, but her mother didn’t acknowledge her presence.

Behind her she heard a nurse moving forward. “You can talk to her,” she said. “She can hear you even though it doesn’t look like it.”

Clarissa stopped moving and blinked. The room whirled around her and she looked again at Tammy Jo. Her mother was on a ventilator. She couldn’t fake that, could she?

“Why wouldn’t she be able to hear me?”

The question sounded perfectly normal, but Clarissa felt anything but.

“Miss,” the nurse stopped then moved forward efficiently, an iPad in her hand. “Your mother is in a medically induced coma for now. Her kidneys and liver shut down and that caused her heart to stop working earlier today. We have her on this floor because ICU is full.”

Clarissa blinked again and held on to the bed’s rail to try to right her world. “What?”

The nurse looked at her sympathetically.

“I have some literature that might help you understand what’s going on with your mother. Our patient liaison will be able to help also. The doctor is in the hospital, so I’m sure he’ll be able to visit with you shortly. Is there anyone I can get for you?”

No. Clarissa bit her lip. No, there was no one.

Tammy Jo wasn’t pulling a con job. She was sick. Bad sick. The kind of sick you don’t recover from.

She bent down over the hospital bed and listened to the machines, watched her mother’s chest move.

“She can hear me? You’re sure.”

The nurse smiled gently. “We have patients wake up from these states all the time to tell us they heard everything.”

Clarissa gripped the bed rail tighter.

“I’ll be right outside the room if you need anything, ok?” the nurse must’ve practiced that look. A perfect combination of sincerity and efficiency.

Clarissa nodded, then reached out to stroke her mother’s hair and whisper. “Oh, Momma, why?”

Less than an hour later the doctor explained just how bad Tammy Jo was doing. Her heart, liver and kidneys were failing. An infection raged throughout her body. She’d been unconscious since arriving at the hospital.
 

“If there’s anyone you need to call,” the doctor said, and Clarissa heard what he meant. In all likelihood Momma wasn’t making it home this time.
 

Footsteps sounded in the hall, and Clarissa didn’t have to look up to know the heavy strides belonged to Jed.

“Can I do anything?” he asked.

Clarissa looked at the monitors hooked up to her mother and closed her eyes. When she did, the years of life with Tammy Jo replayed across her memories leaving a trail of anger, then guilt at the first emotion.

“She would hate this,” Clarissa said. Tammy Jo couldn’t stand being trapped.

“I’m real sorry, Clarissa,” Jed said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. Clarissa resisted the urge to lean into him.
 

“I don’t know what I need to do, Jed,” she said, then she bit her trembling lips.
 

“We’re here for you, you know that, right?”

Clarissa knew she should take comfort from his words, but she couldn’t. They were so foreign.
 

“I thought…” she stopped talking, remembering the nurse’s words, afraid the truth would hurt her mother. “It doesn’t matter. I’d like to talk to her alone if you don’t mind.”

Clarissa kept her eyes on her mother’s white face. Tried not to see the machines. Tried to block out their constant whirring and beeping.

When the room door closed, she brushed her mother’s cheek. “Oh Momma. You’ve really gone and done it this time.

Whir-beep-whir-beep.

She reached to the hand that wasn’t connected to an IV. In the recesses of her mind she could remember holding her mother’s hand for real. But most of her memories were tied to a con job. The best part of her childhood cons had been making herself believe her mother really did care, really was worried, really did love her.

The anger boiled up inside her again, but she held on to her mother’s hand anyway.

“What are we gonna do this time, Tammy Jo? I bet you’re talking to whoever you can, trying to work out a deal to get through this. The nurse says you can hear me, so you better listen up. You still have a lot of work to do at the Triple Eight, so you need to get better.”

Clarissa’s voice cracked and she realized she was crying. She wiped the tears from her face, but she didn’t let go of her mother’s hand. Couldn’t.
 

“Momma, you gotta get better,” she said. “You can’t just die on me. You’ve got to fight this.”

For some reason Clarissa thought maybe her words would have an impact, change something in her mother’s response. But nothing changed. Not the machines, not her mother’s sickly face, not the weird antiseptic smell of the room.
 

Clarissa closed her eyes and tried to find a peaceful place, but closing her eyes just brought how hateful she’d been to Tammy Jo to light, and that just piled on the pain.

She patted Tammy Jo’s hand and stood. She’d need to talk to Pete and Bev, make sure her shifts were covered. And she’d need to see if Susie Dillon could bring some lotion or something up to keep Momma’s hands from drying out too much. And she’d need to talk to the doctor again. Try to understand what exactly was wrong and what they needed to do to get Tammy better.

Behind her one of the machines made a different whirring noise, and an alarm rang out. Nurses streamed into the room, the one who told her Momma could hear her, took her hand and calmly told her she’d have to step out.