Authors: Deborah Coonts
My father looked much the same as he had yesterday when I took Mona’s place in the chair by his side.
I shooed her away with a quick kiss and a smile.
“Paolo is waiting.
I brought a security guy with me.
He’s to stay with you wherever you go.
No arguing.”
Curiously, she nodded, and gave me a hug.
“Thank you.
I love you, you know.”
Had the Earth tilted on its axis?
“I love you, too.”
My father lay immobile, almost like he’d been laid out for a viewing.
Of course, the hospital gown wouldn’t be my choice for his funeral dress.
His pink tie, white shirt, power suit.
Jesus, Lucky.
Get a grip.
He’s not going anywhere.
“Hell no, he’s not.
He can’t.”
I often spoke to myself—sometimes I was the only one who’d listen to me.
His hand felt cold in mine as I squeezed it.
Machines beeped out a heart rate; a pressure cuff inflated periodically, recording his blood pressure.
A plastic cup over his mouth delivered oxygen, but, thankfully, he breathed on his own.
Shallow, but regular.
“Father, I need you to wake up.”
I leaned into him, self-conscious.
“Bad things are happening.
I don’t understand the connections.
No one is safe.
I need you to fill in a few of the blanks.”
He moaned and stirred.
The beeping of his heart rate accelerated.
I squeezed his hand harder, as hard as I dared.
If I could only transfer my will osmotically somehow.
“That’s right.
Come back.
Reach for my voice.
I need your help.”
“Keep talking to him. That’s good.”
Cody Ellis breezed into the room.
Embarrassed at being caught in the act, I leaned back.
“I heard that, even though they can’t respond, they hear.”
“It’s been proven, anecdotally.”
He slipped his cheaters from the top of his head to the bridge of his nose in one quick nod, then pulled up my father’s chart on his iPad, flipping the pages with a swipe of his finger.
“You know the medical establishment, they won’t accept anything as valid unless it’s been proven in a double-blind, controlled study.”
He looked up, catching me staring.
“But I believe comatose patients can hear.
I’ve seen it.
I had a patient once who woke up and remembered whole conversations that had swirled around him while he was out.”
“How is he?” My gaze shifted to my father, bringing Dr. Ellis’s attention with it.
“He’s a tough old coot.
What a fighter.
It was close there for awhile, but he’s on the right side of the power curve.”
“Nothing but full power from here on,” I said, finishing his analogy.
I’d taken some flight lessons, and I loved internal combustion more than most men.
I must’ve shown more relief than I’d thought because he gave me a knowing smile.
“You look pretty darn fresh for someone who’s had no sleep,” I stammered, knowing what I needed to say, but not sure how to say it. So, being me, I beat around the bush. “I need to know your secret.”
“Catnaps.
They have a lounge.”
He stepped to the other side of the bed, scanning the monitors.
He looked as he had yesterday, graying hair pulled back, thin, tall, mustache neatly trimmed, handsome in a comfortable and kind sort of way with a magnetism he seemed unaware of.
By the looks of him, the complete package.
“Why did you come back? Why now, after all these years?”
He paused, looking at me over the top of his cheaters.
Just like Miss P often looked at me.
I shut down that thought or pretty soon my mind would take me places I didn’t want to go.
“I never stopped loving her.
Nobody else compared with the young woman I remembered.”
So now Miss P had to compete with a memory of herself that had been perfected through the years.
Memory was a tricky thing, the bad stuff falling away until only perfection remained.
“And the reality of who she became?”
“Even better.”
He stopped, tucking the iPad under his arm, then crossing his hands in front of him.
“I know what you must be thinking.
After all these years, I show up and throw a bit of a wrench in everything.
I just had to see her.
I had to know.
I figured we deserved that chance.”
I didn’t want to like him as much as I did.
“I get it.
I certainly wouldn’t want Miss P marrying Jeremy if he wasn’t the right one.”
He gave me a grin.
“Miss P?
Is that what you call her?”
“She won’t tell us her real name.”
The light dawned and I attacked.
“But you know it.”
He raised his hands, catching the iPad in a deft move.
“Oh, no.
I’m not playing that game.
If she doesn’t want you to know it, she must have a reason.”
I couldn’t read one thing in the look on his face. “Is it just horrible?”
“Not playing.”
His eyes sparkled with merriment as he shifted seamlessly.
“We’ve been backing off on your father’s sedatives, trying to bring him back slowly.
Keep talking to him. I sense him there, listening, just out of range.
You can bring him back; make him want to come back.”
“I am not an old coot.” The voice was weak, muffled.
My father.
Tears sprung to my eyes as I grabbed his hand in both of mine now.
“You’re absolutely right, but the doctor doesn’t know you well enough to use the appropriate adjectives and noun.”
His smile was hidden, but it lit his eyes that blinked furiously.
He swiped at the plastic breathing thing.
“Get this damn thing off.”
Dr. Ellis hopped to.
Nice to know the mighty doctor wasn’t immune to the Big Boss’s authoritative grumblings.
He gently removed the breathing thing and untangled the strap that kept it tight to my father’s face.
“Better?”
My father took a deep breath as his gazed traveled the room, absorbing, looking for a connection, continuity.
“A tumbler of twenty-five-year-old Scotch would go a long way toward improving my mood.” His voice was husky but stronger than I expected.
Breathing tubes, bullets, they each did their bit of damage.
But time would heal.
Dr. Ellis and I both laughed and said, in unison, “Mine too.”
Cody patted his shoulder as he put the oxygen thing away and turned off the flow.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He caught me giving him a surprised look.
“Medicinal.
In other parts of the world, alcohol has many uses besides getting shit-faced.
A little won’t hurt.”
“When I need a doc, I want you.”
I thought about the doctors I knew, afraid to stick a toe even close to the line for fear of litigation.
How had we managed to litigate the humanity out of sickness and pain, life and death?
“Hopefully, I’ll be around.” He gave me a tentative smile and a shrug, then he turned his attention to checking my father’s vital signs and all of that.
Miss P was spoiled for choice, and I didn’t envy her one iota.
Her heart would have to decide, because no way could logical thinking whittle this embarrassment of riches down to one.
My father handled the doctor’s poking and prodding with a slight scowl and veiled patience.
Apparently happy with what the monitors told him, Dr. Ellis shuffled, backing away from the bed.
“I’ll go scare up some firewater, leave you two to talk.”
I didn’t watch him go.
Instead, I focused on the struggle shifting across my father’s face.
For the first time I realized, while still handsome and vibrant, life had taken a toll.
Of course, a bullet to the chest could have something to do with it.
I lowered myself back into the chair, keeping myself at a comfortable height to see my father and not have him twist uncomfortably to see me. “You gave us quite a scare.”
Stupid.
He had nothing to do with anything other than battling back from a horrible injustice.
“Never mind.
An inanity to offload stress.
What the hell happened?”
That got the hint of a grin, then it fled.
“Mona?”
His voice gaining strength; his brain sorting memories and priorities, finding the present reality.
“She’s fine.
I’ve got a security detail dogging her heels.
I’m probably going to have to spring for hazardous-duty pay, but she’s protected as best I can.”
He squeezed my hand with remarkable strength, considering.
“I could always count on you to do the right thing, take care of everybody.”
Well, if this wasn’t warm and gooey family day.
I loved it.
My family had been too attenuated for far too long, almost to the point of distance and cynicism, especially on my part.
I didn’t want to be that.
“Do you remember what happened?”
He moved, shifting the pain.
“Do you need something for that?”
He gave a quick dismissive shake of his head.
“A little pain is good.
Lets you know you’re alive.”
“Good point.”
I didn’t know what I could do to ease his pain, so I patted his hand and felt helpless and homicidal in equal parts.
“Can you tell me what you remember?”
He stared at the ceiling, running the video reel from …yesterday.
Had it really only been twenty-four hours?
I’d aged a decade.
“I was arguing with that fathead, Cho.
Damned ass.
So arrogant.”
My father rolled his head over to look at me through both eyes.
“I really hate that man.”
“Good to know.
We won’t put you at the same table.”
He gave me a long look.
“You must’ve gotten your smart mouth from your mother.”
“Oh, I think I got the worst of both of you, so don’t piss me off.”
That got a belly laugh, cut off when he winced, his hands reaching to hold his chest.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“You find me funny.
What am I supposed to do with that?” At his sharp look, I tried to get a handle.
“Okay, Mr. Cho.
What were you arguing about?”
“Holt Box.”
That sobered us both.
“Can you give me a context?”
“Yeah, Cho accused me of poaching.
Me!
Poaching!
Like I’d have to undercut somebody else’s deal.
Give me a fucking break.”
Anger accelerated the heart rate monitor to a pounding rhythm.
“So, he thinks you stole Holt Box’s comeback?
How did you end up doing the deal with Mr. Box?”
“His people approached me.” He closed his eyes for a moment.
When he reopened them, the anger was gone.
“I should’ve known he blew in on a troubled wind. Enough years, enough mistakes, you get a sense.
My grandmother used to warn me about those kinds of things.
Course, she was referring to your mother.”
He gave me a sly grin.
“She was wrong there.”
His grandmother?
I knew nothing about my extended family.
My parents acted like they’d been hatched from eggs, rarely mentioning parents, siblings, grandparents.
Having the two of them was enough for me, so I hadn’t pushed.
But part of me really wanted to know.
My great-grandmother had known my mother.
Had she been wrong about Mona?
My father thought so, but their path to happiness was a bit more tortured than I hoped for.
Years and years, a lifetime of watching each other from afar, unable to have, unable to touch.
And I got lost in the shuffle, not knowing the Big Boss was my father until not too long ago.
Mona, an underage hooker, was the kind of wife that would’ve landed my father in jail, a huge detour off the fast track.
Mona had lied about her age and cost both of them years together.
“So, you inked the deal with Holt Box?”
“Yeah, it was pretty generous. I bent to his demands and was happy to do so.
Lots of interest in his comeback.
We would’ve gotten a lot of traction out of that.
Good for everybody.”