The Denver Cereal (8 page)

Jill nodded her head. “Is
she in pain?”

“
The doctor put her to
sleep in her car seat. She won’t remember any of this,” Dr. Drayson
said. “She’s well-loved and strong, the kind of strong that comes
from great mothering. You got her here quickly. These doctors are
the very best. She has every chance.”

“
John?” A doctor stuck his
head in the waiting room. “I heard you were here. Do you
mind . . .?”

“
One minute,” John said to
the doctor. Returning to Jill, he said, “If it’s all right with
you, I’ll remain as your liaison. At this point, there isn’t
anything for you to do. You can stay here with your family. I’ll
let you know when I know anything.”

Jill nodded.
“Thanks.”

“
It’s my pleasure. Jacob
has helped us with a number of quandaries. I’m delighted to have
the opportunity to return a favor,” Dr. Drayson said. He and the
other doctor walked from the room.

At the same moment, Jill’s
sister Candy came into the room. Candy hugged Jill. The two sisters
joined Mike and Megan near the back of the waiting room.

Jacob stood near the door
watching the siblings all talk at once. Overwhelmed by the sound of
everyone talking, he was grateful when a hospital staff clerk came
to the door. He tried to flag Jill, but she was absorbed in her
family. Slipping out of the waiting room, Jacob followed the clerk
to a cubical where he began filling out Katy’s admission
forms.

Yes, he would be
responsible. No, Katy didn’t have insurance. Of course, he
understood that the bill might be thousands of dollars. The woman
sneered at him when he said he would pay cash. Of course, feel free
to run my credit.

The clerk ran his social
security number, and then it was “Thank you, Mr. Marlowe. Credit
card is fine. Is there anything else I can do for you?” He was just
about to leave when she asked him to autograph her copy of
5280
. He shook his head
as if he didn’t understand what she had asked and left the
cubicle.

Standing near the door of
the waiting room, Jacob watched Jill and her family interact. Their
voices would get loud, as if they were arguing, then someone would
laugh. Once one sibling laughed the rest of them
followed.

Intimidated, Jacob
convinced himself that he should probably just go home.

Jill could call him if she
wanted to see him again. He was passing through the outer door when
Steve, Jill’s middle brother came walking in.

“
Hey,” Steve said.
“Running away?”

Trying to come up with a
lie, Jacob stalled for time with a smile.

“
Megan and Mike are at it,
huh?” Steve said. “God, they drive me crazy. I thought they would
be over their bossy brigade by now. Not yet?”

Jacob shook his
head.

“
Yeah, well. That guy’s
looking for you.”

Jacob turned to see Dr.
Drayson flagging him.

“
How’s Katy?” Jacob
asked.

“
She’s improving. Are you
leaving?”

“
Nah,” Steve said. “We’re
going to get a beer.”

“
Being involved with a
woman from a huge Catholic family can be a nightmare.” Dr.
Drayson’s intelligent eyes laughed at Jacob. “Listen, they need to
keep Katy overnight. They wanted me to ask because you are paying
cash. She’ll also need follow-up treatment. A lot of follow-up
treatment. Are you all right with that?”

“
Of course,” Jacob said.
“Whatever she needs.”

“
Good,” Dr. Drayson said.
“I take Irish Breakfast tea with a spot of steamed milk. And a
sweet.”

“
Sweet?”

“
Anything chocolate works.
This hospital’s food is particularly bad. I know because I’ve
picked up call at every hospital around Denver. Have to pay my
historic restoration contractor.”

“
Your contractor has large
hospital bills and appreciates your diligence in
payment.”

Dr. Drayson laughed. “You
might want to get dinner.”

Jacob and Steve watched
Dr. Drayson walk into the hospital. Turning to Steve, Jacob said,
“Beer?”

“
Pasquini’s is close. You
paying?”

“
Sure,” Jacob
said.

“
Then let’s take the
Brit’s suggestion and have dinner,” Steve said. “They won’t miss
us. By the time we get back, they should have settled down a little
bit.”

“
We’ll get them dinner
too?” Jacob asked.

“
Shit, you’re paying,”
Steve said.

Jacob laughed.

~~~~~~~~

Jill noticed Jacob leave
with the administrative woman. She kept one eye on the door, hoping
to see him come back. But he hadn’t come back. After an hour
passed, she knew he had left her.

“
I’m going to use the
restroom,” Jill said.

“
I’ll go with you, Jilly,”
Candy said.

“
I think I need to be
alone,” Jill said. “Thanks.”

“
You sure?” Candy’s
worried face said more than she would ever speak.

Jill nodded. Jill found a
single-toilet restroom and locked herself inside. Sitting on the
toilet, she reviewed the day. She couldn’t remember when she’d had
a better time — at the zoo or anywhere. She bit her lip, wishing
she had kissed Jacob earlier. She wanted to . . .
thought about it . . . but it
was . . . what did he call it? Right. A
non-date.

Then all of
this.

She would leave too.
God.

Pulling up her underwear,
she noticed she was wearing the pretty slip of lace Tanesha gave
her for the engagement party. Sandy was right. She had hoped Jacob
would take the beautiful panties off her. Not after all of
this . . .

Jill was brushing her hair
when she realized that she hadn’t thought about paying for Katy’s
care. Her usual focus on the bottom line had slipped in her
distress over Katy. Leaning forward to wipe the mascara smudges
from under her eyes, Jill furrowed her eyebrows.

Did Jacob give that woman
a credit card? Why would he do that? Katy wasn’t his child, and he
certainly didn’t owe Jill anything. She nodded to herself in the
mirror. Time to face the music.

Squaring her shoulders,
Jill washed her hands and went to find that administrative woman.
Jill clutched her chest when she heard that Jacob had settled
everything and taken full responsibility for Katy. The woman looked
Jill up and down. With a raised eyebrow to speak her opinion, the
woman asked Jill exactly what was her financial arrangement with
Mr. Marlowe. Flushing at the woman’s implication that she was a
prostitute, Jill backed into Dr. Drayson.

“
Katy would like to see
you,” he said.

Who are these people?

They were halfway through
a pitcher of Fat Tire before Jacob realized Steve wasn’t just
killing time. Steve wanted to check out his sister’s new potential
boyfriend. After chatting with their waiter, Dustin Kidder, about
Katy, Steve ordered a couple of Pasquini’s calzones and another
pitcher of beer. And Jacob waited for Steve to get around to what
he wanted to say.

After Dustin brought the
calzones and beer, Steve’s demeanor shifted. Steve was ready to
talk. Jacob shifted back in his seat to give Steve space to unfold
his story, the story of his parents’ death.

The entire family was on
vacation in Costa Rica when his parents and Jill went out for
groceries. At nine years old, Jill went everywhere with her mother.
As usual, they left Megan and Mike in charge.

But there wasn’t anything
to take charge of.

The family had a cottage
right on the beach of a small, private cove. Steve and Candy were
in the ocean when their parents left. Mike made a complicated sand
castle complex and Megan read a romance novel in the sun. The
afternoon slipped away.

No one noticed that their
parents hadn’t returned until it was getting dark.

Terrified, the siblings
went to the police. Nothing. They called the consulate. Nothing.
When news came, it was bad. The Costa Rican national police arrived
near dawn. Their parents’ car had been hit by a tractor-trailer.
The truck driver was swatting at a mosquito and swerved into their
lane. Their parents’ rental car was destroyed. His parents were
dead and Jill was missing.

Desperate for help, they
called the father of a school friend, Senator Patrick Hargreaves.
After the senator’s intervention, the police reluctantly agreed to
show Mike the wreckage and let him identify the bodies. To this
day, Mike refused talk about what he saw.

Jill was just gone.
Kidnapped? Killed? No one seemed to know.

Senator Hargreaves told
them to return to Denver. He would continue to put pressure on the
consulate to find Jill. Grief-stricken, they returned to their
empty house in Denver.

Mike and Megan were in
charge of the family. Their parents’ life insurance paid off the
house, but not much more. Megan had just graduated from high
school. She turned down her full scholarship to Regis University
and went to work. Mike quit high school, took his GED, enlisted in
the army, and sent every paycheck home. Steve and Candy continued
at Machebeuf on a family tragedy scholarship.

“
All the luxuries of a
Catholic education,” Steve smirked.

“
What about Jill?” Jacob
asked.

“
We were just getting our
feet under us when Senator Hargreaves called,” Steve said. “Some
friar found Jill among the congregation of a church in Costa
Rica.”

“
What?”

“
Yeah, he called it
‘angelic intervention,’” Steve said. “This guy remembered meeting
the whole family at an ordination in Denver. Through Catholic
Charities, he was able to get Jill home in two days.”

“
Wow,” Jacob said. He set
cash in the bill folder and handed it to Dustin. He said to Dustin,
“I don’t need change.”

“
I’ll bring the rest of
your food when it’s ready,” Dustin said.

“
Thanks,” Jacob replied.
Looking over to Steve, he asked, “Where was she?”

“
Honestly? We don’t know,”
Steve said. “She was healthy . . . seemed fine. The
friar said that a farmer found her in his field. The farmer and his
wife had other kids so they just cared for her.”

“
Was she all right?” Jacob
asked. “Did they hurt her?”

“
No, she was healthy. She
has a scar on her leg and the doctor says her leg had been broken
and set. She wasn’t malnourished. Except for the leg thing, she
wasn’t hurt . . . in any way,” Steve said. “She was
kind of blank. She still gets like that when she gets really
freaked out.”

“
She went blank today,”
Jacob said.

“
Freaky, isn’t it?” Steve
smiled at Jacob’s nod. “She was blank for a while, then
wham
, she was Jill
again. She didn’t remember Mom and Dad were dead, where she had
been all that time, nothing.

“
I’ll tell you this,”
Steve continued. “Mike’s looked for this farmer and can’t find him.
He’s looked for the friar and can’t find him either.” Steve shook
his head. “It’s like they never existed.”

“
Now that IS freaky,”
Jacob said.

“
I guess I’m telling you
all of this so you can understand. We are very protective of Jill.
She’s like a special gift from our dead parents. They were great
parents . . . really great.”

“
She’s very
special.”

“
Trevor couldn’t stand us.
He used to harass Jill to pick between us and him. He told Mike
that he abandoned Jill and Katy because of us! Prick.”

Jacob shrugged his
eyebrows at the obvious.

“
We couldn’t stop her from
being with Trevor, but . . . We’re always here for
Jill.”

“
I wouldn’t expect less,”
Jacob said.

“
Good, then why were you
running away?”

Dustin brought three
plastic bags filled with calzones, salads, and breadsticks to the
table.

“
Here’s the tea and the
Raspberry Decadence,” Dustin said. He set a separate brown bag
down. “Dude, you’ll let me know about Katy?”

Steve and Dustin did a
complicated little hand shake that ended in a fist bump. “Yeah,
I’ll let you know.”

Dustin grinned at
Jacob.

“
Thanks,” Jacob
said.

“
No problem, man. Any
friend of Steve’s and such,” Dustin said.

The men began walking back
to the hospital with the food.

“
Running away?” Steve
asked.

“
I got overwhelmed. My
sister and I are . . . not close. She does her thing
in Hollywood and I do mine here. I guess your parents’ death pulled
your family closer, while my mother’s death drove me and Val
apart.”

“
It’s a lot,” Steve said.
“If you stay with Jill, are you going to get rid of us?”

“
I don’t have any problem
with Jill having a family. I left my life and business in Maine to
help my father. I know what it means to have family,” Jacob said.
“I . . . This was our first
date . . . It’s not even a date. We called it a
‘non-date.’ Just the zoo and lunch. The hospital wasn’t
planned.”