Everything is Everything Book 2 (15 page)

Tyrone knew there was a small bathroom that looked like it should be in a hospital because there were metal hand-holds in the tub and at the toilet. There was also a sick smelling bedroom but today they would not need to go there because Tracy was sitting in her wheelchair watching The Price is Right on television.

When she saw them a broad smile covered her gaunt face.

“My boys! Hi. Come in!” Scotty came forward and kissed her cheek and dutifully Tyrone did the same.

Tracy was oddly beautiful in a ghostly, willowy way. Certainly she was more beautiful than she had been while working the streets despite the fact that she did not, at that time, carry the virus that she would eventually pass on to the father of two of her children.

Her eyes lit up as she stroked Tyrone’s curls and beamed at him. “Hi my big boy. How are you?”

“Fine,” he replied politely.

She looked over at Scotty and smiled even wider.

“He’s so polite.”

Scotty smiled also and agreed while Tyrone wondered how they had figured all of that out with just that one little word.

“You guys want something to drink? I’m afraid that I don’t have much. I drink juice and this icky stuff to help me gain weight. But I do have cartons of apple juice. They send me that from meals on wheels even though I probably have a collection of the stuff turned to wine by now.”

Scotty sat down on the edge of the armchair across from her and Tyrone squeezed himself in next to him.

“We just ate. How are you doing mom? Miss Jennings said that you’ve been coughing a lot. Are you getting a cold?”

Tyrone studied the scary woman as she and Scotty talked about medicine and other things he didn’t understand. Every once in a while she would wink at him and his eyes would get big in surprise that he’d been caught staring. She looked like Scotty, which helped, except that she didn’t have yellow hair. Hers was brown and kind of pretty. She was skinny, like a skeleton and he didn’t think she could walk because she was always either in the wheel chair or in bed. When she was in bed she would have a tube in her nose and her eyes would be very tired.

“How soon?” Tracy asked quietly.

“December,” Scotty said.

Tyrone saw his mother rub her lips and her eyes looked sad. She saw him watching and she smiled at him.

“What’s in your bag?” She asked.

He looked at Scotty for confirmation that it was okay to give it to her and Scotty nodded.

“We got you some candy.”

“Oh? What kind?”

“Candy corn and a Butterfinger.”

Tracy held out her hand and he gave her the entire bag. “Thank you.” She watched him and her eyes began to look sad again. He decided that he didn’t like when she was sad. He reached into the bag and opened the small package of candy corn and then handed her one.

She popped it into her mouth and the sadness began to fade. “These are my favorite candies.”

Tyrone nodded. “That’s what Scotty said.” He didn’t like them but he did eat one because she would want him to.

They stayed for only a while longer and as they were getting ready to leave he pulled his hand from Scotty and hugged her. She felt like sticks and dry skin and she smelled like medicine but her arms as they returned the hug felt strong and firm.

Tyrone didn’t need to hold Scotty’s hand as they left. He turned and waved at her and she blew him a kiss.

He never saw his mother again.

When Vanessa walked out of the post office she was clutching two letters, both reminders of what she and Scotty had lost all because of a series of bad events stemming from her need to follow him while he was trying to take care of a situation that he should have never been involved in.

One was a letter from the hospital where she’d taken a lab test for the drug that Donald had slipped into her beer. She didn’t even care about that anymore. He was dead. And at the way things were going, it might work against them, proving that she was just another factor in this stupid drug business.

The second was a letter from the admissions board of the university. Damn. Scotty would have been starting college the winter session.

Vanessa carried them into the house and placed them on the dresser in their bedroom for Scotty to open them if he wanted to know any of the information contained in the letters.

That night they made love as if it was the first and last time.

“Don’t, Scotty,” she cried out when he reached for the second condom. “Don’t put it on.”

He settled between her parted legs, using his elbows not to squish her.  He left the condom where it was but looked into her brown eyes, reading her desire.

“No.” Was his simple statement. “No, I won’t leave you with a baby-“

She pushed at him and when he didn’t move off her she slapped him and punched him until finally he rolled off her.

Vanessa jumped out of bed, pulling the bed sheet around her nude body.

“God damn, Scotty!” She glared at him as he sat up in bed, nude and with nothing to cover himself. He didn’t move to get up to dress and even in her anger and disappointment, Vanessa could not help yearning for him. He was beautiful.

His hair was a wild mess of blond locks that fell in a face that remained calm because he always had reason on his side. His damned logical mind had calculated the collateral damage and over-ruled it. And that was that.

“For once can’t you just … REACT?! Do you have to think every fucking thing down to its most common denominator?”

He sighed and wouldn’t look at her then. “You want a baby? You want to be a single mother at eighteen-“

“I want to have
your
baby, Scotty! Why can’t you just see that sometimes desire is just as important as your fucking logic?!”

He finally climbed out of bed. His dick bobbed and was still hard and thick, jutting out before him like a club surrounded by dark golden pubic hair. Ignoring his desire, he pulled on sleep shorts.

“This time I’m not thinking for you or about you.” He spoke.

She gave him a confused look. He walked out the bedroom to take a cold shower but paused to look at her.

“I’m thinking about my kid. Because God knows we don’t need another Tremont born with a deadbeat father. I won’t do that to my own kid. And Vanessa,” his brow drew together, “you should take a minute to remember what it was like not having a father around.”

He lightly closed the door after himself and took that cold shower while Vanessa mulled over his words.

After that, sex between them didn’t happen. Vanessa knew that Scotty was right but she wouldn’t apologize because she couldn’t forget that there was a chance that she would never get another opportunity to have his child. And even if she was selfish in wanting a piece of their love in the form of a little baby, she couldn’t help that. So she wouldn’t apologize and at night when they fell asleep without touching she stubbornly refused to acknowledge her need and he would not ask her to give what she didn’t do so freely.

J. Alexander Rosenthal was now their attorney. Vanessa’s five thousand dollars, which she had used on Scotty’s bond would pay his fees and leave her a little extra to get … well she didn’t want to think about what she would need to do in order to get her life moving forward after the trial. Right now, all she would think about is that Scotty had saved her and a bad person had been killed in the process. The judge had to see that.

“Was it ever confirmed that Mr. Miller slipped a drug into your drink?” Mr. Rosenthal asked her.

She and Scotty exchanged looks. They were sitting in comfortable leather chairs across from his desk.

“We went to the hospital the day after and they took blood.” Scotty stated. “But we ended up moving without following up. But I know she was drugged based on how she acted.”

“I have a letter back home from the lab. I can bring it to you.”

Mr. Rosenthal made some notes. “I’m not sure how helpful it will be. Predator drugs are often times used recreationally. And depending on what it is, it won’t prove that he slipped it to you, only that you were under the influence of the substance.”

“I’ve never taken drugs.”

Mr. Rosenthal looked at her to see if she was being serious. “Unfortunately that doesn’t matter.”

“You have the pictures of her bruises.” Scotty said.

“Yes, that along with knowledge of the drug might help, especially if he used something like Rohypnol—which is a known predator drug and something unlikely to be used recreationally.”

When they drove back home Vanessa looked out the window. Thanksgiving was just a few days away and she thought about sharing it with Scotty, Miss Gloria and the other Tremonts while her grandmother spent it alone.

She would call her--at least to wish her a happy Thanksgiving.

“Are you okay?” Scotty asked.

“Yeah. Just thinking about grandma.”

“Vanessa,”

She looked at him warily. His tone told her that he was about to say something that she wouldn’t like. She swore that if he had something to say then she would listen first and then fly off the handle afterwards. She was tired of always being the unreasonable one in their relationship.

“You should move in with your grandmother after the trial.”

“No.” She said flatly.

“I know that things have been strained between you two but she loves you and you love her.”

“I’m an adult and if I move back with her I’ll constantly be a child in her eyes.” She looked at Scotty and her words softened. “I know I can’t stay with Miss Gloria once she moves from the house.”

“She won’t kick you out-“

“She won’t have to. I’m not going to be a burden on her. Besides, I have time to consider … the future. But not right now, Scotty. I don’t want to do this right now.”

He reached out and grasped her hand. “Okay baby.”

The house was crowded with people from Miss Gloria’s family that had come by to visit and after chatting long enough not to be rude, she slipped away to their room to lie down and nap until it was time to eat.

Stress had made it so that she felt lightheaded all the time. Sometimes she thought if she heard one more piece of bad news she’d just black out on the spot. Before leaving the room Scotty kissed her forehead as if she was one of his sisters and she couldn’t even get mad at him for doing it. After all, he had made it clear that she was expected to go away and not look back.

She accepted the kiss and walked up the stairs almost robotically.

Both letters were still sitting unopened on the dresser. She picked them both up and out of curiosity she opened the letter from the university giving Scotty details about his classes. After reading every single word she crumbled it angrily and dropped it into the garbage while bitter tears dripped from her eyes.

She swiped them away angrily while opening the letter from the hospital. It was only half a page long and contained numbers and symbols that she didn’t quite understand. But she very clearly saw the words LSD-25 in parenthesis. She sighed in disappointment. A recreational drug—

Beneath it was written in bold letters:

Pregnancy test-POSITIVE. Please schedule an appointment with an OB/GYN within the week to screen the effects of the drug on the fetus.

Vanessa sat on the edge of the bed and the facts began to swim through her head.

Scotty’s baby was growing inside of her!

Her heart began to soar but just as quickly her joy retreated. This wasn’t exactly good news. She was eighteen, jobless, pregnant, and the man she loved was facing a prison sentence.

Vanessa began to pace. Scotty wouldn’t be happy. No. She knew that he would love their child—that wasn’t it. It would just be another thing that he was counting on losing.

She shook her head. She was not convinced that he would get prison time. She couldn’t believe that anyone would be blind to the facts.

She’d wait. She’d tell him after the court date when he would be released and they could return home together to begin their lives fresh and new. And then they could celebrate with no regrets. But how many months was she pregnant?

She did a quick calculation on the last time she’d had a period. It had been before her birthday back in September although she hadn’t thought much of it because she’d had some spotting earlier this month.

Was it normal to spot? It had been very light and only lasted that one day … The idea that the LSD could have hurt her baby was enough to cause her to quickly pick up the telephone and dial the number on the paper. She told the receptionist that she needed to make an appointment as soon as possible with an OB/GYN and was told that there was nothing available until the week after Thanksgiving.

Vanessa accepted the appointment and hung up the phone. She stared at the paper and then folded it very neatly and searched around for a place to hide it. For some reason she didn’t want to throw it away but she couldn’t allow Scotty to see it.

He had been right, of course. There was no good reason to bring a baby into this mess--except she needed this baby and Scotty did too. He just didn’t know it yet.

But Vanessa also understood something. And this understanding pushed her into adulthood far more than any of the events that had marked her coming of age.

Scotty could not know that she was going to have his baby. He had figured out a way for himself to cope with the idea of prison, which was the hope that she would do better without him. She wouldn’t take that away from him.

That night she wordlessly handed him an unopened condom. He buried his face against her neck and held her tightly in his arms before making love. And he was gentle as if it was the first and last time.