Finding Divine (15 page)

“Oh, please excuse my manners. My name is Ann Lange. I’m probably the last person she wants to see right now, but it’s important I speak with her. It’s about my son, Simon.”

The last name Lange didn’t sound familiar but the name Simon did. Before Jessica’s complete breakdown she’d told Keith about what Simon had done and how she’d dated him without having a clue about who he was. Where the hell did that bastard’s mother get off coming here like it wasn’t in complete bad taste? “You’re right. You’re the last person my baby would want to see right now, so I suggest you leave.” And with that, Marie slammed the door on the stunned woman’s face.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Simon, you’re going to have to come out of this funk you’re in. It certainly won’t help things if you stay negative through this process,” Ann sighed in exasperation.

“Mother, just go away. If I need to be nagged, I’ll give you a call, but until then, I wish you’d go away and leave me alone,” Simon said, literally through clenched teeth. It would be another couple weeks before the wires holding his jaws shut would be removed.

Besides cuts and bruises all over, Simon’s injuries included a broken jaw and arm, and spinal damage, the latter being the worst. When he’d woken up, there’d been no feeling in his legs, but the doctors had assured him that it could correct itself. Some feeling had come back since then, but not much.

If Simon was really honest with himself, he didn’t care if he walked again or not.  It was no less than he deserved. He wished he could get out of this damn hospital bed and go home. At least if he was in his own house, he’d be able to keep unwanted visitors out.

“Despite how much you’d like it to be otherwise, I’m still your mother, and I wish you would talk to me with a civil tongue in your mouth.”

“If you don’t like the way I talk to you then you can leave.”

“I’m not leaving because I care about you Simon, and it breaks my heart to see you like this.”

“Why, because you don’t want a crippled son? Really Mother, your motives are quite transparent.”

A loud gasp reached his ears. “That’s not true Simon and you know it. I have a good mind to get up and leave you all alone.”

He turned his head slowly to look at her pale face. She looked like hell. His usually well put-together mother wore no makeup, her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, and dark smudges rested under her eyes. She’d been by his side for most of the time he’d been here in the hospital. Still, Simon didn’t particularly appreciate the gesture. Intellectually, he realized she must care for him to put up with his surly attitude these past weeks, but sometimes things came just too little too late.

“I’m not stopping you.”

“Please Simon, don’t make this harder on either of us than it has to be. I’m trying. Can’t you at least put forth the effort?”

“Kind of like I tried for eighteen years to be the son you and Dad wanted me to be, but came up short? Then when I acted out, you tried to put me away? If that’s what you call parenting I think I can do without it.”

“Please. I explained to you why, even though there was no excuse for the way we acted. If you want me to apologize for it again, then I’m sorry, but please stop shutting us out.”

Simon wasn’t in the mood for listened to another round of “shoulda coulda woulda”. Leaning back on his pillow, he closed his eyes, refusing to respond.

“Please, Simon,” she cried in a harsh whisper.

She ceased to be in the room to him. Nothing really mattered except Jessica and the baby, and he no longer had them. Simon understood that if he wanted her to recover and deliver a healthy baby, he’d have to stay away. It pained him that he’d never get to see his son or daughter, but he would make sure they would always be taken care of. It didn’t look like it was his time to go, so that was the least he could do for her.

Seeing Jessica like that had broken his heart. At first she’d looked right through him as if he hadn’t been there. Then when she acknowledged his presence, the emotions within the depth of her brown eyes were like nothing he’d seen before. 

It was actually a mixture of terror, fury, and sadness rolled into one. His despair had been so complete that he hadn’t paid attention to the road. Thankfully, no one else had been seriously injured. He didn’t think he could handle having more blood on his hands.

The door opened, and he didn’t bother to see who’d entered the room. It was probably one of the nurses checking on his bandages, so it was a surprise to hear his father’s voice.

“How’s he doing, Ann?” Harold asked his wife.

“He’s ignoring me as usual, but I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any differently,” she said with a ragged sigh.

“Honey, you look tired. Why don’t you go home and rest for a while? You’re not helping anyone if you make yourself sick.”

“I wouldn’t be a good mother if I didn’t stay by Simon’s side in his time of need,” she replied.

Simon opened his eyes. If it didn’t hurt so damn much to frown, he would. “Being a good mother has never been a great concern to you before. Why let it get in the way now? Don’t you have a charity board to lord over or something? I thought I told you to beat it.”

A stricken look stole over her already pale face as the back of her fist covered a whimper. Abruptly shooting to her feet, she ran from the room.

His father’s eyes grew stormy, mouth tightening in that old familiar line of disapproval Simon had grown so used to over the years. If things had been awkward with his mother, he knew it would be especially so with his father.

With a heavy sigh, Simon turned his head away as his father took the seat next to his hospital bed.

“She didn’t deserve that. Your mother has kept a constant vigil at your bedside while you were out and she’s been here every day. I think when she comes in here again, you should apologize.”

Simon snorted with derision. “I won’t apologize for something I’m not sorry for. I didn’t ask her to sit by my bed all this time. Why should I be gracious, just because she suddenly remembers that she’s my mother?”

“Simon—”

“Whatever you have to say, save it. I’m not in the mood to hear it,” Simon cut him off before closing his eyes.

A brief silence fell over the room and Simon hoped his father would go away. Apparently he had no such luck. “What’s this I hear about you not wanting to go to therapy to get you walking again?”

Simon ignored the question, willing his father to go away.

“Dammit Simon, would you answer me?!”

“It’s funny, but I thought there was such a thing as doctor-patient confidentiality. Seeing as that I’m sound of mind, if not body, what I do is no concern of yours.”

“So you’re willing to be a cripple for the rest of your life because some girl has turned you down?”

Simon opened his eyes again, and slowly turned his head toward his father to glare. “Her name is Jessica, and I’d thank you to keep her name out of your damn mouth.”

Harold Lange blanched, but being made of much sterner stuff than his wife wouldn’t let the subject drop so easily. “But why would you want to put yourself through this obvious pain your suffering. Your mother told me who she was, and I just can’t imagine what you were thinking to get involved with her in the first place. You had to know she’d react this way when she learned who you were.”

“Same old Dad: always pointing out everything that’s wrong with me. I guess the more things change the more they stay the same. Not that it’s any of your damn business, but I didn’t connect who she was until after we were involved. Now that your curiosity has been satisfied, how about getting the hell out of here?”

His father’s nostrils flared and it looked as if he were trying to get his breathing under control. He stood up and for a moment, Simon thought he would leave, but didn’t. Harold began to pace the room. Simon grabbed the remote with his good arm and turned on the television to block his father out.

With one snarling move, Harold yanked the plug from the socket. “I’m not going to let you ignore me! How long are you going to punish your mother and me?”

“Got another handful of years? I’d say that’s a pretty fair trade off for the hell I’ve suffered.”

“How many times must I tell you how sincerely sorry I am before you believe me? I have no right to demand that you accept my apology, but can’t we at least try to come to some sort of understanding to bridge this gap between the two of us?”

“The gap you created from the day I was born? Listen Dad, I’ve tried not to be bitter about this, but you make it impossible when you won’t leave me the hell alone.”

“It’s too late because you’ve been bitter for a long time, son. You’re not civil to me or your mother, and we’ve really tried.” Releasing a long sigh, Harold returned to his seat and placed his head in his palms. “If you have to blame someone, please just blame me. Don’t take it out on your mother.”

“Why? Maybe if she had been able to keep her legs shut, you wouldn’t have to swallow that famous Lange pride of yours and beg my forgiveness.”

His father’s head shot up. “If you weren’t already in the state you were in, I’d punch you for that one. No matter how you feel about either one of us, I won’t stand for you speaking so disrespectfully about your mother again, do you understand me?”

“Whatever,” Simon muttered with little interest.

“I’m serious Simon. She doesn’t deserve it. When I found out that Ann was having an affair, I was devastated. We’d only been married for a couple years then, and in my arrogance, her biggest sin had been lowering herself to sleep with the help. Your mother is a beautiful woman and probably could have had any man she wanted, but she chose to sleep with the tennis instructor. That hurt and I made her pay for it, even though I’d been sleeping with other women from nearly the moment I said I do. It was the way of the men in our family. My father did it, as did his. When we were on our honeymoon, your mother got really sick and while she was in bed, I slipped out and met up with a couple of ladies who were only too willing to show me a good time in Ann’s absence.” Harold paused to shake his head in a self-depreciating gesture.

“I’m not telling you this to brag, but I just want you to know how much your mother was hurt when she’d found me in bed with one of her bridesmaids. I know I’d gone too far, but again, my arrogance told me that it was my right. That’s why she turned to someone else. I didn’t see it that way at the time, however. Anyway, you know the rest of the story. Shortly after I found out about the affair, your mother was pregnant with you. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking that you might not be mine.”

“So you took out your frustrations out on a child who didn’t ask to be born. Nice,” Simon said, sardonically.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I did. I had too much pride to admit I really did love your mother and it was my fault she found comfort in the arms of another man. So I told myself I was doing her a favor by not serving her with divorce papers but in actuality, I wouldn’t have been able to let her go had she slept with a whole league of men. And then you were born. At first you looked nothing like me, and it was easy to convince myself you weren’t mine. I guess I treated you that way to get back at your mother and to lash out because I was hurt by Ann’s betrayal, ignoring my part in the entire debacle. I know it’s hypocritical of me, but I expected her to keep her vows and when she didn’t I acted like a jackass. Even when you started to look like me a little bit, you were a constant reminder of her infidelity.”

“Well we both already know that you’re an asshole, but it doesn’t absolve Mother all nice and neatly like you guys want it to. She let you do what you did to me. She said nothing all the times when you ran me down for no particular reason.”

“She was frightened, that I would be even harder on you if she showed how much she cared.”

“And when I turned nineteen and stopped caring about what you thought? It only made things worse, because you couldn’t stand seeing me not trying to win your approval anymore. I was the top of my class throughout school, excelled in sports and was popular, yet nothing was ever good enough for you. And then after that incident… you basically had me kidnapped and sent away so I wouldn’t go to the police to confess my part in the whole mess.”

“Simon, I know your mother and I made a lot of mistakes where you’re concerned, but I was damned if I’d see you go to prison for something we drove you to. I won’t ever apologize for getting you out of town or paying those boys off. Besides, I haven’t been completely ignorant about the kind of person you are. Although you won’t tell me exactly what happened that night, I know it’s not in your heart to maliciously harm someone like that. Especially for that reason. Those boys you hung around, I know it was just to get my attention. Maybe they were that way, but you weren’t. Admit it.”

Simon stubbornly remained silent, even though this new information did shed some light on a few things. Still it made no difference. A boy was dead and no amount of apologies could bring him back.