Zane's the Other Side of the Pillow (28 page)

Jemistry was decorating the house early for Christmas. She had enlisted me to put up a nine-foot tree in the living room for us to enjoy in the evenings, and another seven-foot one in the sunroom with lots of lights so that passersby would see it and hopefully be inspired. She had even almost completed all of her Christmas shopping, so she said. Something told me that once Black Friday sales hit, she would hit the pavement as well with some of her friends. She was really in the spirit.

I could tell that she was glad that she had decided to go ahead and marry me. I was walking on air. Seriously, it seemed like my back had straightened and I was walking taller, like someone had snuck into my closet and put some lifts into the heels of all my shoes.

Being back at work had truly helped Jemistry out the most, though. I had never seen someone so committed to changing the lives of children. Her hormones were definitely throwing her for a loop and having to deal with the hectic schedule somehow
managed to calm her down instead of overwhelm her. She wasn't the type of woman who appreciated being able to sit at home and chill. And I actually had never been attracted to that kind of woman. I wanted to be able to talk about each other's day at the dinner table every night. To be able to give each other career advice and cuddle when a rough day presented itself from time to time. Even if every day ended up being rough, we would be there for each other.

A lot of men—including “he who walked behind the rows and shall remain nameless”—wanted to control their women economically. They wanted their women to have to rely on their income for everything from toothpaste and toilet paper to maintain their hygiene to lipstick and hairbrushes to maintain their looks. I really had nothing against that theory. No man could force a woman to sign up for that, after all. However, my mother had been a stay-at-home wife and I saw how it had affected her in the end.

Daddy had to pay her alimony and child support . . . for a while. Like most women who take the option of not pursuing a career or stacking their own savings, Mom assumed that Daddy would always take care of her. Once all of us—their offspring—were grown and the five years of alimony were up, Mom had found herself struggling financially. No money paid into social security. No pension plan or 401K. No stocks, no bonds, and no true net worth.

She had been given the family home in the divorce, but that was only because Dad didn't want to look bad in front of my sisters and me. He would've never misplaced us out of spite. He had nothing to be spiteful about, really. If not for his actions, there never would have been a divorce. I never blamed my mother for deciding that enough was enough. While my siblings and I surely were not privy to all of what occurred, we knew enough details to determine that Daddy was a disrespectful dog who couldn't control his dick.

Mom eventually sold the house after we were all grown. Her
funds were low so she needed the equity. When she called to inform me that she planned to sell it, I immediately offered to cover all of the household bills and send her several thousand extra a month to live in the lifestyle she was accustomed to. She refused me and she refused both of my sisters who made similar offers. I will never forget her exact words to me: “Children are not supposed to take care of their parents. Your father and I did not put forth the effort to make you all successful, only for me to have to turn around and financially drain you. I love you, but I will not accept your money.”

Mom also said that she would be lonely, living in a seven-bedroom mansion by herself. It was pointless. So she sold the house, moved into a condominium in New York City for several years, believing that being in “the city that never sleeps” would make her life exciting. She had several longtime friends there but all of them had lives of their own and she would often feel like the third wheel.

Eventually, she tapped out of the equity; a lot of it went toward purchasing the condo since the cost of living in New York was so high. Then she had to swallow her pride, call Alexis in Florida, and ask if she could move in. It was devastating to her to have to go there but, out of the three of us and where we were located, Florida made the most sense.

I sent Mom a few thousand dollars a month despite what she had initially said. I refused to see her worry about money; not the woman who had sacrificed all of her time for me as a child, the woman who made me study and complete my homework on time, the woman who fought for me to be valedictorian when my high school tried to rob me of it because another girl's relatives were “important people.” While I credited my father for a lot—after all, I had followed in his footsteps and became a vascular surgeon—my mother was the glue that held our family together. Such was
the case with many wives who, while married, often felt like single parents because their husbands were workaholics—or “playaholics.”

Yes, women were amazing creatures. Women who did everything that they promised to do, who took their marriage vows seriously, and who took raising children even more seriously. And yet, that didn't prevent a lot of men from trying to self-destruct their family units during a divorce. A lot of men who found themselves no longer desired or tolerated by their wives straight up showed their asses. I had seen many male friends and associates do that over the years.

I bring all of this up for a good reason. November 22nd, 2013, was the day that all of the shit hit the fan in the marriage of my
former
best friend. And instead of blaming himself, he tried to blame all of his drama on me.

I had been out of the operating room less than ten minutes. I was in the waiting room on the sixth floor speaking with Mrs. Rosella McCoy, whose husband was in recovery after I had cleared up a clot in his leg.

“Is Michael going to be all right?” she asked, as if she was afraid to know the answer.

“The surgery went very well.” I grinned at her. “He's in recovery now. You'll be able to see him in about an hour.”

She sighed in relief and hugged me. I was still wearing my scrubs.

“Oh my God, thank you.” She put her hands in front of her face, palms together as if she was praying, and then lowered them. “So, that's it? No more complications?”

I was always cautious not to mislead patients or their families. The fact of the matter was that something could always go wrong
after surgery. A person could do anything, from suddenly bleeding profusely to suffering a stroke or heart attack, to slipping into a coma or ending up with no activity in the brain stem, having to be removed from life support within a matter of hours after what seemed like a successful surgery at the time. No matter how skilled a doctor, nature or undiagnosed health conditions could intervene at any moment.

“I cleared the clot,” I said, being truthful. “We're going to monitor him closely over the next several days. Don't anticipate him coming home until at least Monday. I never release my patients until I'm confident that they'll be okay without standby care.”

“I understand, Doctor Harris.” She was fighting off tears. “I'm just glad Michael's still alive. You hear all those horror stories about people dying on the operating table and—”

I rubbed her shoulder gently. “He was a trooper. The surgery was by the book.”

Mrs. McCoy smiled. “I don't know what I could ever do to repay you. You saved his life.”

“Ma'am, it was my pleasure to remove the clot. You don't owe me a thing, except taking care of your husband while he recuperates, and discouraging him from doing anything that may cause another one. He is going to have to stop trying to do a lot of heavy lifting, and he needs to retire from that construction job.”

“I keep telling his hard head that. Now they'll probably force him to retire. But it's for the best.”

“Definitely for the best, in this case.”

I reached into the pocket of my scrub pants and hit the button to turn my cell phone back on. I had retrieved it when I left out of the operating room but had neglected to turn it on, both my phone and my hospital pager.

I felt the initial vibration from it powering up and then it started going off like fireworks.

“Excuse me for a moment,” I said to Mrs. McCoy and then took a few steps to the side so I could read my text messages.

All of them were from Jemistry:

CALL ME ASAP.

CALL ME WHEN YOU GET OUT OF SURGERY!

CALL ME! IT'S URGENT!

BABY, I REALLY NEED TO SPEAK WITH YOU THE SECOND YOU GET OUT OF THE O.R.

BABY, I FUCKED UP!

COURTNEY KNOWS! LOOK OUT FOR FLOYD! SHE LIT HIS ASS UP!

ARE YOU OKAY? HAVE YOU SEEN FLOYD?

I was standing there shaking my head and about to text Jemistry back when Floyd came ripping through the double doors of the waiting room. Mrs. McCoy seemed taken aback, like the rest of the people sitting there. They all looked around at one another, to see if one of them was the one about to receive bad news about a loved one. Floyd had on his white coat and had an angry expression on his face that others probably mistook for anguish.

When the majority of them realized that Floyd had locked eyes on me, they relaxed a bit.

I walked over to him. “Not here.”

“I need to talk to you . . . now!”

“Floyd, I just came out of surgery.” I tried to maintain my composure. “I'm consulting with a family member. I'm aware of your
issue
, and we will deal with it later.”

“My issue?” he practically yelled, acting all belligerent. “Is that what you call it? An issue. How could you tell—”

I was getting pissed off. “How could you not tell me about Jemistry being pregnant?”

We stared at each other for a few seconds.

“I can't believe this shi—”

Floyd had at least enough sense to prevent that curse word from escaping his lips in front of a dozen people. He scanned the room and realized that his behavior—storming in there as he did—was inappropriate and unprofessional.

He glared at me. “I'll wait for you in your office.”

“Fine by me,” I said, refusing to break eye contact first.

He straightened his coat and stomped off like a child.

Mrs. McCoy walked up to me. “Is everything all right? Both of you seem upset. It's none of my business but I—”

I looked down at her and forced a chuckle. “Everything is great. He's a cardiologist and we're consulting together on a mutual patient. We'll talk about it later.” I patted her on the shoulder. “I'll have the nurse come and let you know when Mr. McCoy is awake so you can go up and see him. I'll be by to check on him in a little while and give you some updates. Just remember that he's going to be groggy for most of the night until the anesthesia completely wears off. He might not quite be himself.”

She smiled. “As long as he is alive, that's all that matters to me. When he gets home, I'm going to wait on him hand and foot. I'm not letting him overexert himself, no matter what.”

“We're on the same page. I'm sure that I can count on you.”

“Yes, Doctor Harris, you can definitely count on me.”

I walked out of the waiting room, hoping that I could count on myself not to end up getting arrested a few days before Thanksgiving for ramming my foot all the way up Floyd's ass.

“Love means to commit yourself without guarantee.”

—Anne Campbell

W
hat happened?” Jemistry asked, meeting me at the laundry room door as I entered the house from the garage. “Did you see Floyd?”

I walked past her into the kitchen and tossed my briefcase down on the table.

“Jemistry, I really don't want to talk about this right now,” I finally replied.

“Let me guess. You're upset with me because I told Courtney about her husband's roaming dick.”

I pulled a chair out, sat down, and pulled the bottom of my tie out of my waistband. Then I slipped out of my jacket.

“Can you hand me a beer, please?” I asked politely.

“A beer?” She rolled her eyes at me. “Sure, I'll get you a beer, Tevin. That's what wives do when their dictators come home from work.”

I sighed as she crossed the room, yanked the refrigerator open, and pulled a Bud Light out of the six-pack on the bottom shelf.

“I'm not trying to be your dictator, baby.”

She slammed the bottle down on the table then sat across from me. We stared at each other for a few seconds.

“Oh, my bad!” She stood back up. “Mea culpa! Let me fix your dinner plate. Sorry that I didn't have it on the table before your arrival.”

Jemistry walked over to the sink, washed her hands, took out a
porcelain plate from a cabinet, then walked over to the stove and started piling what looked to be spaghetti onto it. She put on an oven mitt, yanked a baking sheet out of the oven that had garlic toast on it, and then tossed two pieces beside the pasta on my plate.

She walked over to a drawer, pulled it open, and grabbed a fork, tossing it on top of everything else on the plate. I kept my eyes glued to her every move, wondering how she could be upset after throwing my ass to the wolves. If she had kept her mouth shut, or had at least warned me that she was about to spill the beans to Courtney, my day would have gone much smoother.

Jemistry set the plate down in front of me and then retook the other chair. She folded her arms in front of her in defiance and glared at me.

“This is silly,” I said. “All of it. You don't need to be all upset and put yourself and the baby under a bunch of stress. We don't need to be going at each other. Sure, I was upset with you earlier today. I come out of surgery and read your
montage
of texts, and then Floyd comes storming into a consultation with a patient's wife.

“He looks like he's ready to jump me, right there in the waiting room.”