Chapter 4 - Jackson

“He’s coming around.” The voice was too loud and the light coming in through my slitted eyes was too bright. I groaned in protest. Mom did this crap all the time. She’d come in and just turn the light on and pull the covers off me so I couldn’t drag them up over my head. I really wasn’t feeling that well. She’d probably let me stay home today. She could always tell when I was faking it. My head pounded. My stomach churned in my belly. I felt tuned up like I’d gone for a jog down 10th street in a All Lives Matter t-shirt.

The van. The shattered glass. The screams. The world spinning. Gun shots. Dad. Jane.

My eyes snapped open and I sat up with a jolt, my heart hammering, my breathing coming in choking gasps.

“I need help over here!” A female voice yelled out next to me, then quieter. “Hey. Hey. It’s going to be okay. You’re fine. Everyone’s fine. You’ve got a few bumps and bruises and a broken arm.” The pain registered next. It exploded in a torrential flow of molten lead up from my wrist, through my shoulder, and settled into my teeth. I bit back a scream as I lay back down. My arm. Not good. I remembered bracing my arm in front of me just before the van hit. The driving course said that airbags at deployed over 200 mph. It must have smashed my arm into my face. Now that I thought about my face, I felt like I could really sympathize with Rihanna. Chris Brown really needed some pipe bangin’ thugs to go to work on him with a pair of pliers and a blow torch.

“What does Marsellus Wallace look like?” I murmured past my swollen nose.

“I think he’s still incoherent, doctor. He’s not making any sense.”

I groaned loudly as I shifted to a more comfortable spot.

“No more than usual,” I said through the tears that sprang up from the bright light the doctor shined in my eyes a moment later.

“Mild concussion. That’s to be expected.” The doctor spoke to the nurse and then turned to me. “You were very lucky actually, young man.” He paused with a small smile. “What’s the other guy look like?”

I chuckled. It hurt. “I was actually on the winning side if you can believe it. Damsels were distressed. The light of good prevailed. Darkness was vanquished. Where’s my sister and my dad?” I suddenly asked the question that had been sitting in the back of my mind.

The smile on the doctor’s mouth faded. “Jane’s fine. Nasty cut on her head. Your dad got the worst of it though. Three broken ribs, multiple contusions and cuts and a broken left tibia. We think that last happened when he was pulled from the vehicle. There’s a detective Daniels watching over Jane and a—” he glanced down at his clipboard, “Gerald Stone, waiting out in the hall to fill you in if you think you’re ready for a visitor.”

“Gerald? Sure doc I’m pretty sure my nose is broken and I’d love to see one that’s been in worse shape than mine.”

The doctor huffed out a laugh and patted me on my shoulder. He had enough foresight to use my good arm. The doctor and nurse filed out of the room and waved Gerald inside. The nurse eyed Gerald as if trying to place a celebrity. The doctor shooed her on.

Gerald swept into the room like a typhoon on an unsuspecting shoreline. He moved with the easy grace of a predator and had the size and rough dimensions of a bear. If anyone asked what he looked like—his favorite response was “a serial killer”. His head was shaved clean and his square jaw could put Duke Nukem to shame.  His mouth was fixed in a perpetual line and his eyebrows pulled down into a scowl. I winced in pain as I smiled at the thought of him with a cigar and throwing out lines about being all out of bubble gum. Whatever’s in this IV, I like it.

“How long was I out? Did the DVR get that last episode of Thrones?”

“You’ve been in and out a whole day. It’s Wednesday. As to the other. We’ll get you back on the couch with some potato chips in no time.”

“I let them down, Gerald.” My humor evaporated, as I focused in on what I had been trying to avoid thinking about. “I should have seem them coming. Done something.”

“That’s a bunch of horse crap, son. Sometimes the only thing you can do is keep your head down, get some, and hope you survive. Did you know that you turned into that van at the last second? That took some brass balls kid. You took the hit on the front quarter panel instead of on the passenger side door. You saved your dad’s life with that move. I’ve seen ten year veterans freeze and react less competently than you did in a handful of seconds. Don’t second guess yourself, soldier. When your back was up against the wall you did everything you could, and it made a difference.” Somehow the steady, no-nonsense surety of his words struck me harder than all the empty compliments and platitudes. I started to cry. Deep, racking sobs that caused the pain in my arm to lance through my body. I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to. My hands shook. My vision blurred.

“I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. It all felt like a dream. A nightmare.” My words came out in a heaving mess. I wiped the tears that fell freely as best as I could. I eventually stopped as it hurt to much to touch anywhere near my nose. A big hand rested on the back of my head and tilted my eyes to look up.

“You did a hell of a job out there, son. Nobody could’ve asked for more. What you’re going to do next is just sit here and let yourself feel. Soak it up. Don’t push it down. It’s your body’s way of dealing with everything that happened. We’ve learned a lot in the last fifty years about trauma and you can’t man up enough to put those feelings down and come out the other side a healthy human being. Just be in the moment and process what’s going on right now. The next hour and the next day are going to take care of themselves.”

My mind raced as I thought back on everything that had happened. Mom. The police station. The accident. All of the uncertainty and the entire screwed up situation. None of this was supposed to happen to me. I was supposed to go to school. I was supposed come home to sit down to lasagna and four-cheese garlic bread. All my life I’ve had a network of support and strength that I knew would always be there for me. Only that’s all falling apart. I’m losing everything one crazy thing at a time. I missed my mom.

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As if reading my mind Gerald spoke up next. His words traced a line of mingling fire and ice down into my belly.

“They found your mom this morning.” He stated simply. I stared at him blankly, unable to breathe. He just extended a hand out to me and helped me up to my feet, taking my weight onto his left side. Okay, let’s be honest. He carried me and let me keep my dignity.

I was physically and emotionally exhausted. We rounded a corner and down a long hallway until we came to a set of double doors marked Intensive Care Ward. He pressed the buzzer and after a simple “Lee, room 5” a buzzer sounded and we pushed through. We made our way down the hallway. Detective Daniels was sitting in a simple wooden chair outside of the room. I gave him a quick nod of acknowledgment, which he returned with an air of sympathy.

After a soft knock on the door with a large number 5 on it, Gerald pushed our way inside. The only thing that kept my feet moving was the thought that they wouldn’t have her in a room if she was dead. Jane was curled up on the small couch, wrapped in a blanket. Gauze wreathed her head and she leapt up to wrap me in a powerful hug. I grunted in pain which turned into a sort of low moan.

“Easy there little sister. I may be the big brother but I’m pretty beat up.”

“Two minutes!” Her voice was muffled in the scrubs I had been changed into. A thought struck me, along with a breeze. Where were my pants?

I chuckled and relaxed as we fell into old rhythms. She pulled back and I finally got a look at the bed in the room. Mom was laying in the center of one of those beds with all the dials and functions. Her face was too pale and there was something about her. Some undefinable quality that was missing. She had a thin tube down her throat and another pair pressed into her nose. Laid out next to her was another bed butting up against hers. Dad was awake on it. His hand reached over and was holding mom’s hand tight. I gently pushed away from Gerald and Jane and gingerly walked over to dad’s bed. I pressed my face into his shoulder and slid my hand along to his other shoulder and did the best I could to give him a hug.

“I’m glad you’re okay, dad.”

“Me too, son. It’s good to see you up and about.”

“What’s going on with mom?” I asked as I walked over to the other side and took her hand.

“No one knows.” Dad sighed. “They found her laid out neatly in an upscale hotel, she was going down hill after they found her.” His voice was steady, despite his injuries. “She’s on full ventilation and drips. That stuff isn’t as unsightly and invasive as it once was but she’s not doing too good. We keep knocking but no one’s home. They’ve done scans and can’t find any brain function.” The news struck me like a blow. I felt like a rung out rag. My eyes stung but the tears refused to come. I steadied myself. I breathed. Prioritize and execute. Work the plan.

“Okay. So we need to find out what’s wrong. Which means we need you to come home as soon as you can and we can look into this.”

Dad looked at me sadly. “Son, I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here next to your mother.”

“What?” I felt shocked. “We can’t sit around and just wait for a miracle dad. This is your thing isn’t it? You’re good at this kind of stuff. We can do some research and figure out a way to fix her. She needs you dad. I need you.” That last, I was barely able to squeeze out.

“You’re right. I am good at this stuff. I’ve already done the research and there’s nothing that covers this. She does need me. She needs me right here. It’s going to take me some time to heal up, but even if it didn’t I’m not leaving your mother’s side. This is the kind of situation that separates the men from the boys.”

“The men? You’re going to sit here and give up and still act like thats what a man does? You’ve told me a thousand times that men are warriors. We need you dad. We need you to suit up and get out there and fight with us. You’re not going to be doing anyone any good sitting in here and twiddling your thumbs.”

“You got no idea what good I can or can’t do or where it could be done. You think at sixteen you’ve got a grasp on how the world works and the shape of it? You couldn’t be further from the truth. The world doesn’t line up in neat rows for you, boy. Its messy and its mean, and there’s no silver bullet out there that’s going to kill the monsters that come your way. The world don’t revolve around you and what you want. You’re not the most important thing in this household. You kids are valuable beyond what I can possibly mention but you’re not the center of the universe. In a couple years you both are going to set out and find your own lives and live them. But I settled on that twenty years ago when I made a covenant with your mother that I would stand by her side in sickness and in health and I’ll be damned if I go back on that word when she needs me most.” His jaw tightened as the words spilled out. They struck like hammer blows—all the more because I could understand where he was coming from.

It didn’t change anything though. I needed him. We needed him. Mom needed him. He was running away from his responsibilities and abandoning me. Abandoning mom. Tears stung my eyes again. Perfect. Just what I needed. My lip trembled in a muddied mixture of rage, need, disappointment, and longing.

“You know dad. There’s a lot of things you’ve been over the years, but I never thought that one of them would be a coward. Fine. You sit here and wallow in self pity and I’ll go out and find the bastards that did this.” I whipped around, ignoring the dizziness it caused and pushed past the anxious face of Jane and the hard face of Gerald. I wandered the halls for a time, aimless, before I found myself back in my room. I curled up on the uncomfortable bed. My mind was awash in uncertainty, doubt, and fear. I took slow, calming breaths before I remembered a saying that death is a door one person wide. We walk through it alone. It turns out that life isn’t so different.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, but I was going to find out who hurt mom, and I was going to make them pay.