Acts of Desperation (18 page)

Over the next week, there was a lot of legal drama. My case against John had reached its conclusion. He admitted fully to his crime and was sentenced to five years in prison; I could officially close that chapter and move forward with my life. There was also a lot of back and forth between Sarah, Anders, and Jax. Sarah gave me periodic updates on what was happening behind the scenes, since I was too angry and refused to talk to Jax about it.

Sarah
and Anders had met over the weekend, and they inched closer to a final agreement. She offered Anders shared custody and hoped that he wouldn’t be able to follow through on the time commitment. She didn’t want to subject the kids to anymore of his mental abuse than was absolutely necessary, but she said she felt stuck. It was a gamble, but she was only following her lawyer’s advice. After Sarah made her offer, Anders did become slightly more agreeable on the financial side, and by midweek, Sarah thought they’d reached a settlement that she wasn’t one hundred percent happy with but one she could live with. A final meeting had been scheduled for that Friday. Both Sarah and Anders were coming in to sign the papers then Jax was going to request a date to go before the judge for the final divorce hearing.

The days leading up to the signing were stressful for Sarah; she was sure Anders would back out at the last moment or screw things up in some way, but when Friday arrived, they both walked into the Alexander, Richards, and Williams offices together.

When I saw them walking down the hall, I couldn’t stomach looking at Anders’s smug face. I spoke with Sarah off to the side for a second before they went into Jax’s office.

“Are you sure you’re ok with
this? If you sign the papers, it’s final. There’s no going back,” I said.

“Sem, I’m sure. The money we agreed on is more than the judge awarded me. It’s not great, but I can live with it. It’
ll be tough to get by, but I’ll just have to start tutoring and cut some of their activities after school. I can’t take this anymore. I need my life back,” she said.

“But you know he’s hiding his money. You
know it. He can afford so much more.”

“Trust me I know. I saw all the huge checks he got in the mail when we were still together and what we had in our bank account. He’s got a
ton of money somewhere but Jax said it’s a matter of finding it, and I don’t want to invest anymore of my life pursuing it. It could take years. The kids are young, and I don’t want to waste any more of their lives fighting a battle I may never win. They deserve to have a happy childhood, and now I can build one knowing what I’ll have.”

I still thought Jax could have persuaded her to pursue an investigation into Anders’s business, but the situation was what it was. As much as I hated that I’d have to watch my sister struggle over
the coming years knowing Anders’s pockets were getting fat, in the end she was in the position she wanted to be in, and I suppose I needed to come to terms with it as well.

“Ok,” I said finally. “Good luck. I’ll see you when you come out.”

Sarah smiled nervously and went down to meet Anders in Jax’s office. The signing of the papers hadn’t taken long at all and a short time later I looked up to see Anders walking past my office. He was wiping down his sweaty forehead again and turned to look at me. I gasped; he looked awful. His skin had yellowed, and he was even thinner than he’d been at the financial trial. But still, with as awful as it looked like he felt, he still managed to smile at me arrogantly silently acknowledging his victory. I hoped that deep down the guilt from what he was doing was eating away at him from the inside out.

Sarah followed behind him seconds later.

“Well, it’s done,” she said stepping into my office. “Now we just need to set the final court date and I’ll officially be divorced.”

“Umm, congratulations I guess?” I smiled.

She laughed. “Yep. Thanks.”

“By the way
, Anders looks
terrible
,” I said.

“I know. When I met him over the weekend he said that he’d been having trouble with his stomach again, but my guess is too many late nights might do that to a man his age. Both of his parents were alcoholics so it runs in the family.
He needs to grow up and start taking care of himself. He’s not in his twenties anymore.”

“But he’s
almost glowing Sarah. Is that normal?” I asked.

“Funny
, I noticed it too so I Googled it over the weekend. Too much alcohol can make your liver fatty and cause jaundice.”

“No kidding,” I said.

“Yep. I’d like to think deep down, even though on the surface he’s always so confident about his legal abilities, behind closed doors he’s secretly stressed about it and has to drink to compensate. It makes me feel better knowing he might be suffering a little too and not just constantly laughing at me behind my back.”

I was about to add my next comment when we heard a commotion down the hall followed moments later by Jax dashing past my door. Sarah and I stuck our heads out of my office to see what was going on.

“Someone call 911!” Jax yelled. He was on the ground next to someone.

We both ran to the scene.
Evan was already at Dee’s desk talking to an emergency operator. We looked down at the heap on the floor only to see an unconscious Anders.

Sarah squatted down next to him and felt his head. “What happened?” Sarah asked.

Dee was standing close by with a cup in her hand in shock. “He-he said he wasn’t feeling well so I went to get him a glass of water. When I got back he was on the floor.”

I walked over to De
e, took the cup out of her hand, and put my arm around her shoulders while I watched Jax and Sarah assess Anders.

“His breathing is really shallow, but he
has a pulse,” Jax said to Evan who was relaying the information to the 911 operator. Jax looked over to Sarah. “Was he complaining about anything before you got here?”

“Yeah…he-he said his stomach has been bothering him, but he’
s had trouble with it for years, but he’s never collapsed because of it. Do you think it was a heart attack?”

“I don’t know.” Jax looked at
Evan. “Tell them to hurry.”

Anders was brought into the hospital semiconscious and dehydrated. Sarah worked closely with the doctors and disclosed his full history of stomach issues and his recent alcoholic binges. Over the next week, they ran a barrage of bloods tests and ended up performing a CT scan that discovered multiple tumors in Anders’s abdomen. After doing a biopsy, they diagnosed Anders with pancreatic cancer. He had the most aggressive and common form, and it had already spread to his liver and lymph nodes.

The doctors said his symptoms could have easily been mistaken for Irritable Bowel and learned that Anders had actually seen his regular physician two weeks prior because of his symptoms. Unfort
unately with pancreatic cancer, by the time the patient senses something is truly wrong, it’s usually misdiagnosed. His death was inevitable, but the real question was when. 

I met Sarah in the waiting room at the hospital a few days following Anders’s diagnosis. After talking to my parents, I found out that she’d been spending most of her time with him.
She looked completely drained.

“Here, I brought some good stuff,” I said, sitting down next to her and handing her a cup of coffee. “The coffee in hospitals is always terrible.”

“Oh you don’t know how much I need this, thanks,” she said. The cup squeaked as she popped the lid off, allowing billows of steam to escape, and she cautiously took her first sip.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m exhausted.”

“The kids?”

She sighed. “They’re fine, but I don’t know what to do. If I thought telling them we were getting divorced was hard, I can only imagine how awful it’s going to be telling them their dad’s dying. So far I’ve only said that he’s sick.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out
and grabbing her hand. “I can only imagine how hard it’s going to be. Are you and Anders going to tell them together?” I asked.

“He doesn’t think we should tell them.
”

“He doesn’t?”

“No, but not telling them feels like lying, and I can’t do that.” She took a deep breath and took another sip of coffee. “I’ll do it eventually when we know more. For now, I’m taking it one day at a time.”

I was certainly no authority on dying having only experienced the deaths of our grandparents and our family cats growing up; this situation was far more complicated. “Well,
I’m sure you’ll know the right time when it comes. Maybe he’s right about not telling them yet. Since you don’t have all the answers, it could lead to more questions. They deserve the chance to say good-bye though. I assume they’re at Mom and Dad’s now?”

She nodded. “And they’ve been taking them to school and everything else. The kids think it’s an extended slumber party—you know dad’s just a big kid—so they’re having a good time.” She put her coffee down then laughed uneasily. “I can’t believe everything that we’ve gone through over the last
two years, and now he’s going to die. It’s too much.”

“Mom and D
ad said you’ve been spending a lot of time here. Have you guys just been talking a lot?” I asked.

“Here and there, but mostly he’s been sleeping,” she said.

“I assume he’s going to do chemo?” I asked.

She shook her head. “The doctor used the term ‘palliative care’, which essentially means they can keep him comfortable during his final days. He’s too far along for chemo to do any good.” She started crying and blotted her tears with a tissue that had been balled up in her hand. “I feel so guilty Sem. I wish
ed for him to die so many times. I feel
awful
. I wished for the father of my children to die. What kind of person does that?” She hid her face in her hands. “In my wildest dreams, I never imagined he actually would.”

“Sarah, you had a normal human reaction. You certainly couldn’t have known he was actually sick, and just because he is, doesn’t undo everything he’s done. He’s still the same person he was before,” I said.

“I know and I’m still mad at him, furious, but…” She shrugged her shoulders. “I-I think it’s the kids I’m worrying about the most and it’s messing with my head.”

“When was the last time you went home and slept?” I asked.

“Days. When I leave here, I go over to Mom and Dad’s. The sleeping arrangements there aren’t the best. I toss and turn a lot, worrying.”

“Why don’t you go home and take a shower and try to rest a little? I’m sure it’s best for him to sleep anyway so you’re not really doing any good here
just staring at him.”

She took a few cleansing breaths. “I should do that.” She nodded her head. “Yeah, I think that’s what I’ll do.”

We talked a little more while finishing up our coffee, and I waited outside Anders’s room while Sarah said good-bye. I tried to listen in on their conversation, but Anders’s words were only indiscernible mumbles. All I could hear were Sarah’s repeated responses of “I will.”

On our walk to the parking garage, I asked what they were talking about, but Sarah only shook her head and said an exhausted, “Nothing.”

I drove her to her car and told her I’d touch base with her in a couple days. She looked like she could have used some well needed rest and some time to work things out for herself. Admittedly with all that was going on, I felt slightly confused. I didn’t want to see my nephews lose a parent and see the emotional toll it would take on them, but honestly I thought they’d probably live a more peaceful existence without him. So, I couldn’t say that I was happy he was dying, but I wasn’t really sad either. It was definitely a weird place to be, and I imagined my sister was probably feeling something similar. And, as far as their divorce was concerned, it would be shelved; there was no sense in pursuing it any longer.

The next few days passed in relative silence and then the weekend went by without a word. I called Sarah like I said I would, but each time I was sent directly to voicemail. I assumed it was the thick steel walls of the hospital blocking her reception. Finally, I sent her a message and asked her to call or text when she got a chance. All I ever got was a one word response
—ok. It was unlike her.

Professionally, I’d been handling a few new cases
and I was busier than ever. I assumed Jax had been making himself scarce because I never saw him. I had appointments and court appearances throughout the week anyway that kept me late every night and left me little time for anything else.

After my final court appearance of the week, I stood outside the elevator
in my building and waited to go back up to my office. Standing there, I checked my phone for any updates, and finally I received a message from Sarah. She said they were transferring Anders to a Hospice facility. I knew it had to be an incredibly emotional situation. The elevator was taking forever so I sent her a brief response offering my support in whatever way she might need. When I finished typing, I shut my phone off and was slipping it in to my pocket just as the elevator doors opened. I blindly stepped forward when someone walking out grabbed my arm.

I l
ooked up and saw Jax. My breath caught in my throat and I stood as his lips brushed against my ear. “I’m taking care of everything,” he whispered. Then, he was gone. By the time I turned, he was already walking through the glass doors as the elevator door was closing.