The Denver Cereal (21 page)

“
I figure if you’re
willing to take a beating, save my Katy’s life, and are amazing in
bed . . .”

“
Amazing?”

“
Well . . .
We don’t want to add ego adjustment to your next surgery.” Jill
worked to keep a cheery voice. She was determined to be light and
flippant when she spoke with him. “I’ll say . . .
pretty good. Now don’t interrupt. I’ve been practicing. Where was
I?”

“
Amazing in bed,” he
said.

“
Yes. I figure if you’re
willing to take a beating, save my Katy’s life and
are . . . pretty
good . . .”

Jacob smiled.

“ 
. . .in
bed, then I should marry you before you ride off on some
horse.”

“
Horse? I don’t have any
pony bags.”

“
I’d say like a knight in
shining armor, but that ego adjustment is so costly.”

He smiled. She brushed her
lips across his in a quick kiss.

“
Jill?” Jacob
asked.

“
Yes, Jacob.”

“
Would you mind if we got
married tomorrow? Maybe save some excitement for our third
non-date?”

“
Well, I want a really big
diamond. I’m willing to give you a few days, but only a
few.”

“
Val has your diamonds.
Just ask her . . .”

Everything went
dark.

~~~~~~~~

Tuesday morning, 10
a.m.

Mike stopped the Mustang
at the edge of the grass. The perfect lawn was broken by a few
monuments. Sam Lipson sat on a bench near a blooming rose hedge. He
was reading the
Rocky Mountain News
out loud to Celia’s grave.

“
Are you sure you’re up
for this?” Mike asked.

“
My brother almost died
because he did the right thing,” Valerie said. “I need to do the
right thing. I need to speak with my father.”

Mike’s big hand stroked
her delicate cheek. Her beautiful face was pale and drawn from her
night at Jacob’s bedside. For the first time in a decade, she had
allowed herself to be photographed in her distraught, rumpled
condition. Today, Valerie Lipson didn’t give a crap what anyone
thought or said about “Just Val.” He kissed her lips.

“
I’ll be right here,” he
said.

She held him tight and
whispered in his ear, “I love you so very much, Michael
Roper.”

He smiled.

Valerie slipped out of the
car. Leaning in, she took a bouquet of a dozen white roses from
Mike. With her shoulders squared, she walked forward across the
lawn. Her father looked up to see her and jumped to his feet in
surprise.

“
What is it? What’s
happened? Is Jake . . .?”

“
Jake’s in surgery.
Everything was going well when I left. Dr. Drayson said they found
a metal shard, probably from the pipe wrench, next to his heart.
They think that’s causing the heart attacks. The cardiac team
removed the metal. The cardiac surgeon is optimistic that Jake’s
heart is not damaged. We won’t know for certain until he’s active
again.”

Sam Lipson visibly sagged
with relief.

“
The orthopedic surgeons
have another couple hours. Jill and Delphie will call the moment
they know anything.”

“
I was reading your mother
the funnies.”

“
You can finish,” she
said.

“
That’s all right,” Sam
said. “She likes them . . .”

“
Uninterrupted, start to
finish,” Valerie said in unison with him.

“
Some things never
change.” He smiled.

“
I need to speak to you
about . . .” Valerie’s face clouded. She wasn’t sure
how to even start the conversation. Shoving a picture frame at her
father, she said, “Jake keeps telling me to look at this picture.
What . . . what does he want me to see?”

“
What do you see?” he
asked and passed the photo back.

“
I see you,” Valerie spat
the words, “and your . . . new perfect
family.”

Sam laughed.

“
Why . . .
why is that funny?”

“
You can be so stubborn,”
he said. “That’s why I laughed. It’s right in front of you and you
don’t see it. Why is that, Valerie?”

“
What am I supposed to
see?”

“
You and Jake look
remarkably alike,” Sam said.

“
We look like our mother.”
Valerie flipped her hair at him.

“
Celia was fair skinned.
She had light brown hair until the very end of her life,” Sam said.
“You don’t have fair skin or light brown hair. Do you?”

“
What are you saying?
We’re African-American?” Valerie spit at him.

“
My family has been in the
West since long before there was a United States. We’re mutts. Dark
hair, darker skin, hazelish eyes . . .
African-American, Native-American, Spanish,” Sam Lipson shrugged.
“The Lipson’s pass their features to their children.”

Valerie curled her lip at
her father. She jerked the photograph to her eyes. Four tiny little
blonde bitches . . . with their tiny blonde whore
mother. Trevor’s wicked fiancée and her bitty sister stood next to
their mother while her father’s . . . What? They
looked like . . . She pulled the photo next to her
eye.

“
Your mother
wanted . . .”

“
How dare you blame your
slutty behavior on my mother! She was devastated by
you!”

“
Was she?” Sam asked. “Are
you sure?”

Valerie threw the
photograph at her father’s feet. Crossing her arms over her heart,
she started to walk off.

“
I promised Celia that I’d
only tell you kids when you asked.”

Valerie swung around to
look at him.

“
Jake asked about six
months after Celia died. But you . . . What’s it
been? Nine years? You were at the lawyers today. You walked in on
us the night before your mother died. And still, you don’t ask the
question. Just ask me.”

“
Fine. Why did you betray
my mother?”

“
I’ve never betrayed your
mother. Never. Not one time in the lifetime of knowing her. She was
the very best thing in my life and I miss her like a hole in the
very center of me.”

“
How can you say that? She
gets ill and you’re off . . . With that horrible
woman . . . and . . . I thought you
had a vasectomy?”

“
I did,” Sam said. He
smiled at the question. Valerie was finally ready for the truth.
“It’s the only time Celia was truly angry with me. She wanted
babies so badly, but there are reasons she was the last of the
Marlowes. She was lucky to survive carrying Jake. She was
determined to have more children. I . . . I didn’t
want to lose her, so I had it done.”

Valerie looked down at the
bouquet of roses in her hand. She remembered the fight. It was the
only time she ever remembered her parents screaming at each other.
They fought for days. She was five or maybe six years old. Jake was
a little more than a year old.

“
Then how did you get your
secretary pregnant?”

“
I didn’t,” Sam
said.

Valerie shook her head.
She almost left again when she realized what she needed to
know.

“
Dad, what
happened?”

“
Finally,” Sam said.
“Thanks for that.”

He held out his hands and
she gave him the roses. They walked together to Celia’s grave. He
placed the roses in a flower holder near the bottom of her grave.
Letting out a breath, he turned to her.

“
Celia was sick for a
long, long time. She fought the cancer for a decade or more. She
wanted so much to live.” Sam smiled remembering. “We kept it from
you kids because . . . Well . . .
because raising you was . . . important to us. When
we knew that fighting wasn’t an option anymore,
she . . .”

He stopped talking for a
moment. His expression reflected his love and frustration for his
Celia.

“
Oh, your
mother . . . She always thought the best of
everyone. If someone was awful, she would say that they didn’t know
any better.”

They said together, “With
loving support they will blossom.” They laughed.

“
Tiffanie’s boyfriend was
in and out of prison. She was just pregnant with Briana when he
violated parole and was sent back to Cañon City. Your mother felt
that if I married her, said that the baby was mine, I would save
Tiffanie . . . and her children.”

“
But why would Mom do
that?”

“
Why do you think?” Sam
asked.

“
Can’t you just answer the
question?”

“
Who did your mother love
more than anyone in this world?”

“
You.”

“
More than me and more
than Jake.”

“
No one. Jake was her
favorite.”

“
God damn it, Valerie. You
know that’s not true.”

At that moment, patience
left Sam Lipson. The last twenty hours had left him raw, exhausted,
and unwilling to play into anyone’s bullshit.

“
Me.” Valerie
whispered.

“
Exactly.”

“
But this destroyed me.
I . . .”

“
Your mother knew things,”
Sam said.

“
Like Jake and
Delphie.”

“
More like Jake. Long-term
visions, big picture stuff. Life was a chess board to Celia. While
all our friends went into building houses, we switched to
underground utility. Celia knew the Californians would come to
Colorado and build cheaper than anyone else. Everyone we knew went
out of business except us. Delphie is good at the next six months
and specifics in the next day or hour.”

“
Mom knew about Mike,”
Valerie said.

“
And your baby,” Sam said.
“She knew I wouldn’t make it . . . six months
without her. With her death, my death, the baby, and
Mike . . . She didn’t think you’d
survive.”

“
I barely survived as it
is.”

“
Exactly,” Sam said. “The
only thing that would keep me going was having people depend on me.
And I do love babies. I didn’t care about living without her,
but . . .”

Sam face shifted to a kind
of quiet love. His eyes filled.

“
She believed your
anger . . . at me . . . would pull
you through all of the loss.” He put his hand on her shoulder.
Valerie looked up into his face. “She was right.”

“
Oh, Dad.” Valerie reached
up and her father hugged her.

While she cried into his
shoulder, he said, “It was so worth it, Val. So completely worth
it.”

“
Val! Val!” Mike yelled
from the car. He ran across the grass to them. “Jake’s
dead.”

~~~~~~~~

“
So that’s it?” Jacob
asked.

Celia laughed.

Cards on the table

Thursday morning, 4
a.m.

Jill stood with her hand
on the employee exit at Pete’s Kitchen. Her feet, still oozing from
the lacerations of the glass, ached in her waitress shoes. She had
shuffled through her regular Wednesday night shift with skinned
knees and tattered feet. Pete finally sent her home with
instructions not to come back until she was well. With work over,
her mind turned to her lists.

“
You okay, Jill?” Pete
asked.

“
Yeah, I’m
just . . . overwhelmed.”

“
Of course,” he said. The
elderly man patted her shoulder in a gesture of support. “You need
to take care of yourself.”

Jill nodded.

“
You’ll let us know if you
need anything?” he asked.

“
Thank you,” Jill
said.

When Pete returned to
tracking down more hashbrowns, Jill returned to making a list in
her head. She needed clothing for Katy. Wait. Where was her
journal? At the Castle. Yep, Castle. Maybe she’d do a
load . . . or forty loads . . . of
laundry. When was the last time she’d washed her hair? Yesterday.
Clean underwear was a must. Trash collection
was . . . Friday. Better get the trash
out.

Jill looked at her
wristwatch. Three hours. Pressing open the door, Jill began the
short walk to her apartment.

The last forty-eight hours
had been . . . hell. She might always have trouble
lining up all the events. When the cardiac team came out of
surgery, they told Jill that Jacob had “popped a bleeder.” Both
Delphie and Jill heard them say that Jacob was dead. She called
Mike to tell him and then collapsed in tears of grief and
regret.

By the time Mike, Valerie
and Jacob’s father arrived, Dr. Drayson had come out to say a bone
shard had been lodged in the subclavian artery, wherever that was.
The shard had kept Jacob from healing. Dr. Drayson was not only
able to suture the artery, but he also felt like Jacob would
recover in “short order.”

And sure enough, Jacob
went from being critical to serious condition in a couple hours. He
was moved into a private room this . . . yesterday
morning. Jill called an hour ago and Valerie said the nurse told
her they would start decreasing his medication
in . . .