What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(10)

“We were like sisters. When we were kids, sometimes people couldn’t tell Kellen and Cecilia apart.” There! That was completely true.

“Okay. Thanks for clearing that up.” Still, he tapped his fingers. “You were telling me why you didn’t think you were fit to have a child.”

“All those things I said!” This felt like an interrogation with too many questions and not enough answers. “And, and, I wasn’t ready to have a child.”

“My mother says no one’s ever ready to have a child.” He stopped tapping. “I can’t argue with that.”

“Maybe not, but you’re an awfully good father.” Kellen meant it, too. He was so giving of his time, so patient, so openly affectionate.

“Thank you. I make terrible mistakes all the time. If you could love Rae, you’d understand what real guilt is. Children make you guilty for every mistake, every cross word—and they don’t even try. Rae loves me no matter what.” He leaned back, shoved his hands through his hair. “She loves you, too.”

“Even though I don’t deserve it.”

He sighed. “Deserve is not in her vocabulary. You’re her mother. Her whole life, I’ve told her about you, and to find you at last! She’s thrilled. Yes, she loves you.”

“But I haven’t bonded with her.”

“No.” He sounded sad. “It’s not your fault.”

“What’s the solution?” she asked.

“When...if we’re convinced this isn’t going to work, we can do things differently. She can live with me. You can visit.”

Kellen wanted to whimper so badly it almost seemed as if she heard a whimper.

Max continued, “She knows, of course, most mommies and daddies don’t live this way, but the divorced ones do, and it’s not until she’s older that she will realize that you, perhaps, are not ThunderBoomer.” He walked toward the door.

Tears leaked from beneath Kellen’s closed lids. She turned on her side, pressed her face into the pillow and thought out loud. “It’s not so much that I’m stifled by Rae, or by domesticity. I need a task, a focus, to help me sort out my new role.” She took a quivering breath. “I need a job.”

Behind her, she heard the door open. A pause. Then it shut.

He was gone, along with any hope she had of ever having a family. She wanted to cry, she wanted to be awash in tears, but she couldn’t keep awake. She slept.

And came awake on the sound of her door closing again. Her eyes were wide, her ears strained to hear. But there was no further sound, and as she drifted to sleep once more, she decided she must have been mistaken before.

That second time must have been Max leaving the room.

When Kellen woke the next morning, on the foot of her bed she found a drawing of Daddy, ThunderBoomer and LightningBlast. It was signed by Rae. Kellen held it and smiled. Max really had raised a cute, kind kid. Good for him.



5


The doctors and nurses had an attitude that grated on Roderick. They were nothing but glorified servants, but the way they behaved, they thought they were his masters. He told them he was in pain, and they told him he had had as much morphine as he was allowed. He couldn’t have more for another half hour. No matter how he yelled and cursed, they allowed him no more.

After the first day, they put him in a soundproof room and left him alone. The nurses only answered his call button once an hour. Every half hour, he got a nurse’s aide. The biggest outrage—he got a doctor once a goddamn day, and half the time it was a female and sometimes not even white. If he could, he would kick their asses, but the fall had shattered his legs and after the surgeries, he was in traction. He couldn’t move, he was ignored, and he was in pain.

He wanted drugs. Now. If he couldn’t have morphine, then a pain patch, and Oxycontin.

He twisted the self-medication button, trying to break it open and bring the rest of the morphine into his system, then punched the nurse’s call button once, twice, three times, four times, five...

Persistence finally produced results. A male nurse came in, one Roderick didn’t recognize. He wore a surgical mask. Everybody who came in wore a mask; the hospital was terrified Roderick’s compound fracture would result in infection and he assured them he would sue if it did.

The nurse stopped by the bed. “What can I do for you, Mr. Blake?”

“I want pain reliever. I want more morphine. I want Oxycontin. I want it all. I’m in pain here and no one in this goddamn place cares.”

“That’s true. No one does care. You’ve made yourself so obnoxious everyone will be glad to see you die.” The nurse fiddled with the morphine drip.

Roderick had put up with a lot of insolence since he’d come to this godforsaken country, but this was the worst. “You impertinent nobody. I’m not going to die! I’m going get out of here and sue the hospital and you—”

The nurse released a stream of morphine into his system. “No, you’re definitely going to die.” He pulled his mask down.

Roderick was in such a froth of rage, he didn’t notice the man’s features. He screamed, “Cover your face. You’re worthless. You’re incompetent!” Then the morphine hit. The pain was suddenly a minor annoyance, something to be contemplated from a distance. “That’s better,” he grunted and looked up at the nurse.