Authors: Cathy Lamb

A Different Kind of Normal (44 page)

BOOK: A Different Kind of Normal

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“It’s a Porsche—”

“I don’t care. I did not want to go in the living room and lie down, relax, and get a massage as you suggested. I did not want to hug you when I left because all you wanted to do was shove my boobs against your chest, plus you smell like moral rot, which is why the second time I saw you I told you not to hug me again.”

Ralph mini-groaned and exchanged a glance with Nigel, who closed his eyes.

Dirk started to sweat.

“It doesn’t negate Dirk’s concern about the untimely death of his father,” Nigel said, but it was a routine comment, thrown out. He was an expensive attorney!

“Not untimely at all,” Dr. Baharri said, then he, again, gave a medical lecture about Mr. Hassells’s liver cancer.

“What relevance is this?” Ralph asked, but he pulled on his collar. Thank heavens he’d had Dirk pay up-front money!

“The relevance is that Jaden declined Dirk’s advances and that pissed him off,” Sandra said. “He was rejected, couldn’t handle it. She has to pay. In addition, clearly Mr. Hassells is filing this suit because he wants money. That’s unethical. This is close to extortion. His father left him five hundred dollars, plus cassette tapes, an old lamp, and his favorite brown belt. He left the rest of his estate to his daughter’s children for college. Does the brown belt fit?”

“That’s not true,” Dirk wheezed.

“It is. You may have to sell the Porsche, Dirk,” Sandra said. “Or is it leased? Just because you accuse, falsely, one of our nurses of murder, your words, it doesn’t mean the hospital is going to flip over and vomit up some money. But let’s have some fun.” She flipped her folders shut. “Let’s take it to court. Mr. Hassells, you’ve already spent a ton of money on your two attorneys, who knew from the get-go that you would lose.”

“That’s not true,” Ralph said, his voice almost humorous. He knew what he’d done. “His father could have lived . . . uh . . . a while longer . . . uh.”

“False,” Dr. Baharri said.

“Impossible,” Sydney said.

Nigel coughed. “We think our client has a solid chance of winning! Malpractice! Incompetent medical care. Too much morphine on a dying patient!” It was weak.

“Also false,” Dr. Baharri said.

“Wrong,” Sydney said.

“Non adherence to medical laws!” Ralph said.

Sandra, Sydney, and Dr. Baharri laughed out loud.

“Go ahead and pay your attorneys some more money,” Sandra said. “They’re pale. They can use it to go on a cruise to the Bahamas and get tanned up.”

Ralph’s eye lit up a bit. I think that idea appealed!

“When we take this case to court, a jury will listen to all the testimony, including testimony from Jaden about how Dirk was all riled up because she wouldn’t go out with him in his car.”

“It’s a Porsche—”

“Who the hell cares? This’ll be fun. When you lose, the hospital will make sure that you not only pay your legal fees, but ours, too, and court costs. And they’ll be significant. Anything else?”

“She did it!” Dirk pointed at me. “She killed my father!”

“Mr. Hassells”—Sandra leaned in, her teeth white and snappy—“if you accuse Jaden Bruxelle of killing your father to anyone in future, I will sue you, on her behalf, for defamation of character. You’ll be fried.”

He swallowed hard.

“Let’s go, Dirk,” Ralph said. I think he wanted to plan that Bahamas trip! “We’re done.”

Sandra called me the next day, when I was sitting in my hundred-year-old rocking chair staring out at the cherry trees and irises, both swaying as puffs of spring wind wandered through.

Ralph and Nigel had dropped the case. They asked the hospital to cover their legal fees. Sandra laughed.

Dirk called me, asked me out on my voice mail, said he wanted to “make amends. You apologize, I apologize, and we can be friends again.” He e-mailed me. He stopped his car in front of my home, and my neighbor wrote down his license and called the police. The police came, asked him what he was doing. They called me. I told them I was being stalked by Dirk Hassells.

I have a restraining order against him. One must take revenge when one can.

Last I heard he had decided to move to Florida. Hopefully the alligators will eat him.

P
art of Tate’s head had been shaved where Ethan had cut him open and operated on his brain. There was the expected scar. Tate had named the scar Cleopatra. As in, “General Noggin has a girlfriend, and her name is Cleopatra.”

Although his humor was intact, he didn’t have his balance back completely, but it was coming. From a devastating blow to his head, a coma, an operation on his brain, his heart stopping, breathing again, to eating chicken pancakes, he was our Tate, and he was recovering rapidly.

Today the basketball team was being honored in a school assembly in the gym for being the Class 4A state champions. Tate’s last shot had been a three-pointer. The ball had arched, up up up, Tate had been slammed to the ground, the ball circled the rim, Tate’s head had bounced, the ball swooshed through, his head kept bouncing, and the blood had poured out.

We had won the game. The cheers had abruptly stopped, I was told, when Tate didn’t move on the floor of the gym.

The community had been invited to attend the celebration, and the gym was packed, the bleachers filled, with rows upon rows of chairs on the gym floor, where my mother, Caden, Ethan, and the kids and I sat. The band played the school fight song, the drumbeat loud and strong. The media had set up cameras all around the gym as Tate’s ordeal, his story, his blog had been on the news every night since it happened.

Coach Boynton and the entire team, except for Tate, had been introduced and were on a stage at the end of the gym, below the basketball hoop, in uniform. The principal, Melinda Musfa, who is blond, six feet tall, and former military, had been calling each player’s name over a microphone to enthusiastic applause and bleacher pounding. The boys sauntered down the aisle from the back of the gym to the stage, all lights off, a spotlight on each player.

After all the players had been introduced, Melinda said, “We have one more player to honor.”

The drums rolled, and we all hooted and hollered.

Tate, Tate, Tate!

The principal held up her hand for silence. “We have a young man who has shown all of us, for years, courage and character. He also has shown us a spectacular three-point shot.” She paused, and I knew she was holding her emotions in check. Melinda had been at the hospital almost daily with us, as so many other friends and neighbors had, young and old. Her voice cracked when she spoke again. “A young man who played hard, played to win, but who always gave credit to his teammates. A young man who, I know, we will be hearing about in years to come. He’s gonna be a legend.”

The band played, and people cheered, the noise so deafening I thought the walls would collapse.

“Ladies and gentleman, please welcome the young man whose last shot won Tillamina High School the 4A state championship!” More pounding. “Taaaatttteeee Bruxxxxelllleeee!!”

If it was any louder in there, my ears would have fallen off my head and run for the doors. Tate high-fived people as he slightly wobbled his way down the aisle in his uniform to the makeshift stage, the spotlight following his path.

I knew that my dear son was crying, tears rolling down his face. He did not wipe them off.

“I have a box load of emotions,” he’d told me. “Sometimes in the past I thought I should box them up, lid down, but then I wouldn’t be a real person anymore, would I? I’d be a humanoid with a head the size of Kauai and a Bert ear.”

I didn’t wipe the tears off my face, either.

Caden bellowed, muscled arms up in a
V,
“That’s my boy!” The triplets were dressed as a Life Saver, a lollipop, and a hot dog. It was “Food Day,” they’d told me. Damini chanted, “Tate, Tate, Tate!” Ethan was clapping over his head.

“There’s my ball breaker!” my mother screamed into my ear. “There’s my ball breaker!”

Tate stopped to hug me, Caden, Damini, Ethan, and my mother while the Life Saver, lollipop and hot dog jumped around.

He climbed the steps to the stage, grabbing Coach Boynton’s hand for more balance on the way up. We did not realize the triplets were gone until they scampered up on the stage. Caden made a lunge to grab them, but Tate waved him away.

He was hugged by the principal, his teammates, and especially Coach Boynton, who didn’t let him out of the hug for a long time. I had seen the man cry a bucket over Tate at the hospital. He had told me, “Jaden, I feel it in my bones, he’ll be okay! He’ll be okay! He will!
It’s in my bones!
”

After the long Boynton/Tate hug, his teammates pushed him toward the microphone.

“Hey, dudes. Dudettes,” Tate said.

Tate, Tate, Tate!

He told them to, “Have a seat, fellow galaxy walkers,” and they did.

“I got a little banged up at the tournament.” Tate tapped his head. “General Noggin is a big target up here to hit. But now General Noggin has a girlfriend, ya see.” He pointed at his scar. “I call that scar Cleopatra. The scar looks like an asp, you know, that poisonous snake that bit her? But I didn’t want to name the scar asp, that’d be creepy, so it became Cleopatra.” He cupped his hands around the microphone and said, conspiratorially, as if he was sharing a secret, “I think General Noggin is in lust with Cleopatra. I think Cleopatra and General Noggin are . . .
getting it on
together behind my back.”

Oh, how they laughed. He is darn funny.

“Let’s hope they use”—he paused and wiggled his eyebrows—“
pro-tec-tion.
”

Those kids howled. I rolled my eyes, Ethan’s laugh booming in my ears.

“Now I’m in trouble with Boss Mom for saying that.” Then he lowered his voice and said in a low, deep monotone, “Sex education is part of a solid health education. And using protection is an important lesson for all youngsters to know.”

I tried to be mad at him, but oh, his classmates thought he was hilarious.

“But now I wanna talk to you all about my teammates here and our home boy, Coach Boynton. We’re friends, all of us here, that’s why we won. We went out there believing we would win, and we did. It was a good game, wasn’t it?”

Whoo whoo!

And then, Tate, kind Tate, generous Tate, said something special about all of his teammates. “Milt’s third quarter steal, man, did you see that? And Baron’s baskets. He has magic hands.... Anthony’s defense, he’s a python, wrapping around his opponent.. . . Kendrick, if you hadn’t pummeled that ball to me on the last shot we’d have had a different game. . . .”

“Tate makes everyone feel special,” Ethan said, his voice breaking. “Everyone. That’s his gift. An acknowledgment of everyone else.”

“The worst part, though”—Tate paused, and I thought he was going to say something serious about his injury, as I think everyone else did, too—“the worst part of the game was that I thought Coach Boynton was going to need a
diaper,
he was so excited that night. A diaper!” Tate pulled out a giant-sized adult diaper from a sack that I’d put on the stage for him, held it up, waved it around, then tossed it to Coach Boynton.

Sooo much laughter and hooting.

“Put it on, man. We don’t want any accidents in the gym,” Tate said. Coach Boynton did not want to put it on. “Okay, but if you have to head to the toilet, we get it, Coach.”

Ha ha ha.

“I’d say it was the coolest game ever until General Noggin was hit.” Tate pointed to his head. “And General Noggin shut down for a bit. That would not be classified as a smiley-face day. But see, I had a gift that day, and it wasn’t just a gift of winning the state championship, even though that was radical.”

He nodded when the drums rolled.

“But see, I died that day in the hospital.”

Ah. Now everyone was quiet.

“I died. I died on the table. The ol’ ticker stopped. I think most of you know that. A whole bunch of you, I hear, were up at the hospital when I crashed. Thanks for being there, by the way. Good of you to come and visit me when I was such a poor host.

“I want you fellow galaxy walkers to know what happened when I died. No one wants to think about dying, especially us, because we’re young and we’re gonna rock the world one day, but my mom always says, ‘We’re all going to die so we all have to love life each day we’re still here.’ ”

The mom who said that was a blubbery mess.

“When I died, all I felt was peace. I saw a friend of mine named Maggie Shoes, too, but I can’t talk about her right now. There was that white light that people talk about, too. It was soft. It was safe. It was happy. I felt the happy. I took a visit to heaven. A short one, and I came back.” He smiled at everyone, solemnity in a day of celebration. “Live free, galaxy walkers, but take the fear out of death for yourselves ’cause I already went, and dudes and dudettes, there ain’t nothin’ to fear.”

Now those teenagers clapped. They liked the idea of no fear.

“Go out and have fun and laugh, but remember to stick your hand out to help other people. Be a friend. Be kind. Include others so they don’t feel left out. Don’t be a dick, and don’t be scared.”

We all clapped.

“I shouldn’t have used the word”—he cupped the microphone—“
dick
. Now Boss Mom is going to be upset with me. Okay, I’ll rephrase it. Rewind! Everyone”—he spread his arms out—“don’t be a
penis!
”

That brought the house down.

I covered my face with my hands in mock embarrassment. I wasn’t embarrassed, I was simply, utterly grateful that Tate was even standing up in his basketball uniform again.

“Don’t be a penis!”
he said again.

The kids about fell over each other with laughter. They started stomping their feet on the bleachers.

“So I hear there’s a Winter Formal tonight. . . .”

Tate paused, more stomping, the drums rolled.

“It’s gonna be cool!”

The Winter Formal had been moved to accommodate Tate. It had been scheduled for the night after the game but no one wanted to go. The student body voted to move the date for Tate. That date was tonight, and we would be having a whole bunch of kids over to our house beforehand.

“I hope you all go to the dance. If you don’t have a date, come anyhow. Once we’re all there, no one will know who anybody’s date is anyhow, right?” They cheered.

Tate raised his arms up and grinned, that toothy grin stretching across his face. “This is our time, you know what I mean? We’re all”—and he paused—“we’re all damn sexy! Look at General Noggin with his Cleopatra. Who can resist him? Who?” He pointed at his head as those kids howled. “No, not you, Roderick.” He shook his head at a kid in the audience. “General Noggin is not interested in you, sorry, buddy.” Roderick laughed so hard he wriggled. “General Noggin is only interested in
the ladies.
The female sort, not you, Roderick. You’re a male species. Emphasis on the word
species
. Come to the dance. Let’s dance right here. Watch me dance, this is how you do it! Play something, band!”

The band played “Tequila.”

Tate performed a dance move. It was awkward, it was unbalanced, it was sweet. He knew it would make people laugh and it did. “There isn’t anyone out there who is a worse dancer than I am and I’m going to dance. So, you all coming?”

The kids flew out of their seats, yes, they were! Yes, they were! They were going to the Winter Formal!

“Excellent!” Tate shouted, raising one fist in the air. “Excellent.”

He then turned and grabbed Coach Boynton and slow danced with him, cheek to cheek, thigh to thigh. Coach Boynton’s head tipped back as he cracked up, as everyone laughed and whistled. Tate dipped Coach Boynton all the way back, that romantic sort of dip that the waltzers do, and
kissed his cheek,
and that brought the house down.

I have never, in my life, seen that many people celebrating with such free-flowing joy, with the exception of Coach Boynton, that Mafia bad-ass tough guy, who cried.

At the end of the song Melinda gave the signal, and orange and black balloons dropped from the ceiling along with confetti. The expected chaos ensued as the kids grabbed the balloons, stuck their tongues out to catch the confetti, danced to a modern song the band struck up, and cut loose as kids do.

Caden stuck both huge fists in the air and yelled, “That’s my boy! That’s my boy!” My mother sank to her chair and buried her happy head in her hands. The Life Saver, lollipop, and hot dog bee-bopped around the stage with their balloons. Damini said, “He’s such a pain in my keester,” then ran up and hugged Tate, and he hugged her, then started spinning her around, her short, ruffled pink skirt flying around her legs.

I hugged Ethan and took a moment in the chaos. A moment to
be
. A moment to rejoice, to be grateful, to be loved, to watch my son bring the gift of love and laughter to other people.

Tate was alive.

It was, without a doubt, the most magical moment of my entire life.

Thank you.

BOOK: A Different Kind of Normal

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