Temporary Father (Welcome To Honesty 1) (12 page)

“H
IS NECK IS FINE
. Nothing broken.” Brent looked up from the tests he’d run again. “I don’t see anything in his bloodwork.”

“How do you know? They took two days before.” They stood outside the glass-fronted ICU room, but Beth couldn’t take her eyes off her son who had an oxygen line in his nose and barely took up half the bed. A growing boy shouldn’t look so tiny.

“This was an emergency. You saw Dr. Drayton? What did you think?”

She clenched her fingers around the counter. Brent had asked her out to the nurses’ station to talk while the staff was busy with patients. “If you bring him over here, I’ll tear him apart with my bare hands.”

Brent had the decency to blush. “I thought he might be okay because he can come across as a father figure.”

“Or a troll,” Beth said.

“How about Dr. Lester?”

“I loved her. Eli thought she was too much like me.”

“And that was bad?” He wrote something and glanced at his watch before making another note.

“According to Eli.”

“Let me call Maria Keaton then.” Brent tried to reach for the phone. It was too far away. “You can talk to her before she sees Eli. If you’re dead set against her, we’ll find another therapist, but we need to find someone soon.”

Beth nodded, unable to think. She felt pain from head to toe, some crazy physical reaction to what had happened. She hated to think how Eli must feel, and she could do nothing for him.

At the end of the white-tiled hall, one of the double doors swung open. An orderly pushed a patient on a gurney through. Behind him, Aidan stood, his hands at his sides, still in a state of shock.

Beth ached for the man who’d saved her son’s life. “Who will we find, Brent?” Aidan would know someone. He’d be able to drag some specialist from Timbuktu if Eli needed it.

“I don’t know. Meet Maria and then we’ll worry about what comes next.”

“But is he going to be all right?” She shuddered in the hospital cold, grabbing her friend’s sleeve, leaning hard on the counter to keep from falling.

“Physically, yes, but we have to keep him here for a few days. He needs constant supervision, and then we’ll see what Maria says about psycho
therapy. Sometimes, talk takes care of the problem if the therapist is capable, but I’d like to start Eli on an SSRI for the present. We can wean him off as he responds to treatment.”

“SSRI?”

“A selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Basically, they make more serotonin available in the brain, which eases a patient’s depression.”

She dropped both hands on the Formica surface. “Eli’s not just a patient. He’s the boy you’ve known all his life. Don’t you back away from him behind that patient talk.”

“I wouldn’t.” He pulled her close across the counter and she felt better for a moment. “Sometimes I have to sound like a doctor.”

She stepped back to search his face. “I’ve heard those drugs can cause suicidal feelings.”

“They can help, too. Right now, I think we need to try them. The combination of meds and talk therapy often helps children. If Eli doesn’t need the drug, or if he tells us the bad feelings are worse, we’ll take him off.”

“And this Dr. Keaton knows what she’s doing?”

“She’s probably the one I’d choose first.”

“Then why did you put her last?” What if they were too late to help Eli?

“I didn’t want to influence your decision.” He hugged her again, one-armed. “Which makes me feel like an idiot. Let me call her.”

“Okay.” She looked toward those double doors
again. “I know Aidan isn’t eligible to visit since he’s not family, but he saved my son’s life.” She’d never forget the sight of him working desperately to breathe for Eli.

She pressed one fist into her impossibly tight chest. If she had any courage she’d admit she also needed Aidan’s compassion. She just wanted him near.

“I’ll bring him in later. Right now, you’re enough for Eli.”

She nodded. Pushing away from the counter, she flattened her hand on the glass door to open it. A chair stood in the corner. Beth lifted it and then set it down close to Eli’s bed.

Perching on the hard seat, she folded her son’s hand between her own. His felt cold and unresponsive.

They’d given him something to make him sleep because he’d started crying and couldn’t stop on the way to the hospital. Beth pressed her cheek to their hands and breathed in the scent of uber-clean sheets.

She closed her eyes. The better to pretend she wasn’t crying, too.

“M
RS
. T
ULLY
?”

She looked up, blinking because her eyes were swollen and dry. A young girl stood in front of her wearing a skirt about as wide as a seat belt and a snug-fitting T-shirt. With her hair in a loose knot, she looked about sixteen.

But she had knowledge in her eyes—and sympathy without the sour flavor of pity.

“I’m Dr. Keaton.” She shook Beth’s hand. “Would you like to step outside for a moment?”

Beth’s gaze snapped to Eli. He looked the same. A small frown drew the faintest line on his forehead. “Is something else wrong with my son?”

“I’m the psychologist Dr. Brent suggested. You were supposed to meet with me on Monday.”

“I know.” Beth nodded, reluctant to leave Eli alone. “You sounded concerned. I thought something might have happened while I was asleep.”

“No problem. Could we go as far as the hall? You’ll be able to see him.”

“Okay.”

Dr. Keaton held the door and then closed it firmly. “I hope you won’t think I’m rude, but I suggest you see someone, too, Mrs. Tully. You’re in shock.”

“When my son doesn’t need me.” Beth searched for her spirit. Normally, such a suggestion would have insulted her. “Brent told you what happened?”

“Yes, when he called.”

“How old are you?” Beth straightened her own shirt. “I’m sorry for being rude, but you look too young to help anyone, and I can’t handle any more—trouble—Dr. Keaton.”

“You can keep calling me that if you like. I use it to make patients and their families remember I’ve finished my training and been in practice for nearly ten years. I’m probably older than you, and my
name is Maria. I have excellent credentials, which I’m happy to share with you. Brent says you’ve turned down his other two options?”

Maria Keaton might look like someone’s baby sister, but she sounded calm and certain. She gave Beth a sense of hope.

And Beth could imagine Maria, right at home on a skateboard.

“I’d like you to try with Eli as long as he’s happy with you after he wakes up.”

“The E.R. physician—” Dr. Keaton looked at her palm, on which something was written in blue ink “—Dr. Galt, tells me he gave Eli a sedative, but your son should wake soon. He’s going to be fine.”

“Fine?” Beth tried not to overreact. Calm was one thing. Too much confidence could only hurt her son. “He tried to kill himself. Failing won’t make him less eager to do it.”

“We’ll soon find out why and we’ll give him safer tools to handle the things that bother him.” Dr. Keaton reached into her back skirt pocket and tugged out a stack of business cards. She flipped through a few before she pulled one out. “My numbers are on there, Mrs. Tully. If you want to talk, I’m available any time of the day or night. You matter to me as much as Eli because you’ll be part of his getting well.”

“You don’t sound a lot like the other doctors.”

“I’m glad.” Her smile was as serene as a prayer.

“And you look like the younger sister I never had.”

“I can help your son, and I have no rules other
than ethics, so I’ll try whatever he needs. I once had a breakthrough with someone your age on a climbing wall.” She swished her ponytail over her shoulder. “Scared the crap out of me, but my patient faced her whole life as we went over the top.”

Beth had never coped well with arrogant people, and the doctor was, in a strange, kind way. “What happens next?”

“When Eli wakes, I’ll introduce myself and ask if he wants to talk about anything. I’ll tell him I’ve informed the hospital staff they’re to call me the second he needs me for any reason, and we’ll start building trust in each other. Mrs. Tully, you’re staring at me.”

“My name is Beth.” She blinked. “I’m praying you’re as good as you believe, and that I’ll be able to make myself let you take care of Eli without interfering. My son’s life depends on you.”

“And on you, and on all his friends. Does he have a pet?”

“A dog, Lucy. He loves her,” Beth said. “More than anything.”

“Maybe you could bring her to the parking lot and let him look out the window at her.”

“Just say when.” Maybe it would be all right. Maria’s confidence rubbed off.

“Try not to worry, Beth. Think of me as being the next doctor in the line. If I don’t work out, you can keep on shopping.”

The door to the hall popped open again and
again, Beth saw Aidan. He was staring at the short-skirted doctor at her side.

“Maria.”

“I thought I’d see you in a hospital at some point, Aidan.” She looked at Beth. “Friend of yours?”

B
ETH FELT
as if she were being sucked down a drain. She pitched her voice low. “You didn’t try to help his wife?”

“I worked for his company after she died.”

Beth searched Aidan’s face for the kind of horror she’d feel if—something—happened to Eli in this woman’s care. There was none. Just surprise.

The door closed on him again.

“How did you get here?” Beth asked Maria.

“He fired me. I didn’t fit in with the pinstripe and PDA crowd.”

Beth tried to speak.

“You’re rethinking.” Maria nodded. “And that’s fine, but I’m perfect for a skateboarding teen. I suggest people don’t take themselves so seriously. Imagine how that erodes an executive’s ego.”

“How do you know Eli skateboards?”

“Your son almost died tonight. When Brent called to ask me if I’d see him I found out everything I could. Brent faxed me his notes, and I made a few calls.”

“Okay.” She started to add that they’d give it a try, but Eli moved on his bed. His mouth formed the word
Mom.

The door thudded beneath her hands. She skidded to his side. He opened his eyes and looked around the room, exposing the bruises at his throat.

“Eli—” Her voice gave out. Her son stared at her, his face pure yearning.

“I’m sorry.” His tone rasped.

Sorry? Startling herself, she got angry—because she saw a chance for him to be okay, and the thought of life without him made her furious. “It’s okay.” She put her hand on the top of his head and held on to his hair, afraid to touch anywhere else. His arms weakly held her, and she kissed his forehead. “We’ll figure it out.”

“You’re awake, Eli. I’m glad.”

Beth turned. “Aidan?”

He came to the bed and put one arm around her waist. His smile for Eli was pure relief. Eli beamed back, holding his throat because it must hurt.

“I told Maria you both mattered to me,” Aidan said. “She got me in.”

E
LI HAD FALLEN ASLEEP
again. Only his breathing made any sound in the room. Aidan glanced at Beth. They’d shared over an hour watching her son’s chest rise and fall.

He couldn’t forget one of his first thoughts on seeing Eli had been “Not again.” His guilt over his
ex-wife’s death had brought on a heart attack. He couldn’t be sure he’d recovered enough to take on a real family, based on love, rather than their need of his help. He didn’t trust himself to know the difference.

As he reached the glass door, he saw Van in the hall. Beth’s brother waited, clearly troubled to see him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

The door behind them opened again. “Van,” Beth said, “Aidan saved Eli’s life, and he’s my friend.”

“Your friend?” Questions passed between brother and sister, but Aidan, used to reading nuance, didn’t understand. His senses seemed to be deserting him.

“You should thank him,” Beth said.

“I came back to see Eli.” He glanced at Aidan again. “And maybe I should stay.”

“Stay as long as you want. Eli could use your company. He told me he heard me talking to Campbell just before he…” She couldn’t put Eli’s suicide attempt into words. Van hugged her tight. “He heard Campbell making the usual excuses, and they weren’t believable. He saw the truth.”

“I’ll get that coffee,” Aidan said. “Would you like a cup, Van?”

“You don’t have to wait on us.”

“I’m going anyway.” These two. You couldn’t do them the smallest favor.

“Thanks, then.” Van stuck out his hand. “And thanks for saving my nephew.”

Aidan shook his hand. No man could react normally after his nephew had tried to kill himself.

“What have you been doing to that guy?” Van asked Beth as Aidan headed for the break room the nurses had shown them.

He wanted to look back. Beth’s whispered response was inaudible, but annoyed. He’d give a lot to know what she’d said.

A
FTER A TAP AT THE DOOR
, Campbell swung into the room, natty in gabardine khakis and a linen shirt. He’d gone to seed. An affection for fast food had given him both bad skin and a bit of a belly, and Beth couldn’t help rejoicing in both because his appearance and his fun had always mattered more than Eli.

She walked to the window. They’d moved Eli to a regular room after Maria suggested he felt like an insect.

“Dad.” Eli’s happiness almost made Campbell’s visit bearable. Reflected in the glass, he opened his arms wide. His father went in for a minihug and then straightened.

“I can’t believe you’re in here, son. What happened?”

“What do you mean?” Their child, eleven going on a hundred, seemed to expect something different than Campbell’s usual used-car-salesman patter. “It was—after I heard you talking to Mom.”

“You did all this over a skateboard?” His dad
strolled to the end of the bed. “Beth, why didn’t you just give him the skateboard?”

Beth turned on him, ready to attack. “Maybe you think you’re joking. You may even think Eli can be teased out of his ‘funk,’ but this is different, Campbell.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Stop, Campbell. We don’t need to argue about this right now. What you have to do is be a father to our son. Either be an adult and buckle down or get out of here.”

“Mom?”

“Don’t worry, Eli. I’m not telling him to leave. I want him to stay. I just don’t want him to hurt you and pretend you don’t need help.”

“Nice, in front of the boy.”

“He has to know someone puts him first,” she said.

“Dad, please stop.”

“Son, it’s no big deal. I’m sure everyone misunderstood what you did. Tell them. You just want a skateboard. They’ll let you out of here.”

As straws went, it weighed about a hundred tons. Beth turned and walked toward him, deliberately keeping her face averted from Eli.

“You need to leave, Campbell, and you are not to see my son until I think you’re fit to.”

“Eah?”

“I don’t know what that sound means, but you’d better go.”

“I should have visited sooner, but I don’t know what to say to sick people, and he looks fine to me.
I believe things got out of hand. Let’s call it even. I’m a father who waits too long to do the right thing, and Eli really wanted that toy.”

“You’re a father who wouldn’t know the right thing if it ran you down, and Eli isn’t capable of pretending to be ill. You don’t even know him. Now leave this room, and don’t go near my brother’s house or mine when it’s rebuilt. I’ll call you when I think Eli’s well enough to deal with your deliberate obtuseness.”

“Does that mean when he pretends he doesn’t understand?” Eli asked.

“Exactly.”

“Son—” Campbell gaped at them. “Do you really want me to leave? You want to see me, don’t you?”

“No,” Eli said. “Go away.”

“I can’t—” Then to Beth “—You’ll be sorry.”

“I don’t see how.” The sheer relief of knowing he couldn’t make Eli worse was worth the fight.

Campbell barely swung back out of the room with tattered style before a nurse came in. “Mr. Nikolas is here,” she said. She patted Eli’s pillow. “You want to see him?”

“Yeah,” Eli said.

“Can you give us a second?” Beth ignored how her pulse began to stutter at the mention of Aidan’s name.

“Let me know when you’re ready,” the nurse said, glossing over the room’s tension.

After she shut the door, Beth sat on Eli’s bed. “Are you okay?”

“Why doesn’t Dad love me?”

“He does. He’s just a huge kid who loves himself most.” She threaded her fingers together and squeezed so hard it hurt. “I don’t know a lot about him anymore, but I won’t let him come near you again until he changes. If he’s able.”

“You pretended he was a good guy except for that time you made the cops arrest him.”

“I didn’t want to make you think you couldn’t trust your father when you didn’t trust me.”

“I get that, but don’t do it again.” He hugged her. His small arms felt so good. “I always trusted you, Mom, but Dad ignores me when I’m mad at him, and you at least try to talk to me.”

“So all your irritation has been affection, huh?”

“Yeah. Cut out the crying, though.”

“The nurse said I could interrupt.” Aidan came in holding out his phone for Eli, raking Beth with concern.

She shook her head, managing a watery smile. He turned back to her son.

“I brought pictures. This morning Lucy wandered down to the house so I took her for a run.” He leaned down to show Eli, and Beth wanted to curl up between them.

“Thanks, Aidan.” Eli started flipping through the photos, his face happy.

Why couldn’t his own father have done something so small and yet so kind?

A
FEW DAYS LATER
, Beth and Maria shared tasty coffee in Maria’s office.

“Beth, I think the camp would do Eli a lot of good. He’ll learn about camping and hiking and climbing. He’ll be with other children who share many of his feelings. He won’t be the odd man out.”

“Is it my fault? Is that why you want to send him away? Dr. Drayton said as much, because I hover and, apparently, I’m not manly enough to be a dad for Eli, too.”

“Dr. Drayton can have funny ideas.” She plucked a Kleenex from a box on her serviceable cherry laminate desk. Unlike Dr. Lester, she hadn’t built a cozy nest. Unlike Dr. Drayton, she didn’t need a men’s club. “Only his assumptions aren’t that funny if you’re the butt of them. Ignore it. You know you’re doing your best with Eli. You can’t take his father’s place because he has a father.”

“I married Campbell when I was too young to really know him, and then we went to Florida with his grandparents for almost a year. I had to depend on him.” Beth blew her nose and cursed her own weakness. Was she equally blind when she looked at Aidan? “Maybe I convinced myself he was decent, but the older Eli gets, the less he can depend on Campbell.”

“Are you angry with your ex-husband, or with yourself?”

“Do I have to choose?”

“I’m not excusing him, but he might be afraid.
Maybe he’s been hiding behind fear since you were children. It can freeze some people.”

“He doesn’t get off that easy. Do you think he’s as scared as Eli was when he climbed that tree?” She shuddered at the too-vivid image.

Maria pushed a pencil across her glass blotter. “Eli is finally facing the truth about him. That’s what matters to us. Your brother came home for a couple of days, and I notice Aidan visits every day. Eli has other grown males in his life.”

“Yeah.” Beth was careful. Not even Aidan could guess how relieved she was each time he walked into the room. He’d stayed another day and another, but the days would eventually run out.

“You don’t want to talk about Aidan?”

“You’re not my doctor.” She evaded Maria’s glance. The woman was too damn smart. “We should discuss Eli’s trip. Visiting hours start soon, and I have to find the money to pay for his treatment.” She didn’t care if her spreadsheets and careful budget spontaneously combusted. If she had to, she’d ask Van for help.

“W
HY CAN’T
I stay here?” Eli almost hated his mom for trying to send him away. Maria was pretty and nice and he liked her a lot. He liked the way she saw stuff.

“Maria suggested the camp, Eli. She says it’ll be a good step for you.”

What the hell? “I’m not scared of those kids at school.”

“The camp has teachers for you. They’ll get a copy of your transcript from school and notes from all your other teachers about your progress. You can finish the year up, and next fall, you’ll be back with your old friends.”

Like a little bit of heaven. He took refuge in their usual problems. “Can we afford this place? Camping costs money, and I don’t have equipment.”

His mother’s mouth trembled. Her lie look. She thought she was the best at keeping stuff from him, but he always knew. “I’ll find the money even if I have to ask Uncle Van for a loan. Insurance helps,” she said.

Insurance. Hell. She thought he was stupid.

In his mind, he saw himself throwing the huge cup of water at the window. That scared him—it was how he’d ended up hanging from that tree. He’d imagined the quiet and the darkness of being— “You couldn’t find a cheaper way to get rid of me?”

His mother’s mouth dropped. He’d never seen anyone actually do that.

“You’re mad at me,” she said, as if he’d invented something as cool as a brand-new skateboard. “Ever since you saw me that first night, you’ve acted scared and sad, and you keep apologizing, but you’re mad at me again.”

“Wouldn’t you be? You think I’m going to hurt myself again, but I won’t.” He’d told Maria the truth. A second too late, he’d known he didn’t want to die.

He couldn’t say that to his mom yet.

She ran her hand down the sheet, like she used to pat his arm or his shoulder. “If I could, I’d come with you. I’d carry you up the mountains. I’d climb with you on my back.”

“I know that.” He almost laughed, but she wanted to send him away. She didn’t get to know he could laugh again. He looked out the window. All the trees were green. And they blocked most of the sky.

“You know I’d never ‘get rid’ of you?”

“You keep trying to get rid of my friends. Where’s Aidan?”

Her face turned bright red. “He’s better, too. You know he’s going home soon.”

“I’m not the one who’s falling for him.” Half joking, he was surprised when she turned even redder. “You really do like him,” he said.

“Don’t you?”

“Not like that.” He grabbed the blanket on his bed. Not content to run his friends out of town, she had to horn in and try to take them.

A knock at the door, and Aidan came in. “I brought you a visitor, Eli.”

Trying to hide how mad he was, Eli looked past him. “Who?” Probably some jerk from school.

Aidan had eyes only for Eli’s mom.

He’d never looked at Eli as if he expected him to jump off the nearest bridge, but he wasn’t supposed to look at his mom, either.

“We have to go downstairs. I stopped in to ask Maria, and she said I could take you down.”

Eli bolted out of bed. “You are my friend,” he said, looking for his flip-flops. “You brought Lucy.”

“You did what?” his mom asked. Her voice stopped him halfway into his shoes. She wasn’t breathing and her eyes—she looked at Aidan the way women in movies looked at the guy in charge.