What She Doesn't Know (26 page)

Rita couldn’t swallow. “I’m not punishing you. Maybe I’m not ready to be your daughter yet. It’s not a role I’m familiar with, okay?”

“Oh, hell.” Rita heard more pain in those words than she cared to. “Just tell me you’re all right. Just tell me that.”

“I’m all right. Mama.” The word choked in her throat, painful and bittersweet. Rita heard something on the other end of the line, something close to a sob. “I have to go now.”

“Rita…you call me if you need me, okay?”

Her hand clenched on the phone. She couldn’t imagine needing her mom again. “Bye.” For a few minutes, she held onto the phone, even after hearing the click on the other end.

“Get assaulted by the phone gremlin?” Christopher asked, looking way too good in white pants and a plum-and-white striped sweater.

After giving him a questioning look, she followed his gaze to the curly phone cord wrapped around her. “Oops. I’m not used to corded phones. I really need to find a charger.” She untangled herself. “You look less hung over.”

“Amazing what a tub full of cold water will do. Ready?”

“Tub? As in bathtub?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. Those concave porcelain structures designed for holding water.”

“I know what they are. I just can’t see you taking a bath, that’s all.” Then she could, legs propped up on the edge, chest slick with suds. And then she really wished she couldn’t as heat engulfed her face.
 

He was probably wondering what she was thinking about then. Could he tell she’d fallen for him? She hoped not; the guy would push her so far away they’d be in different states.
 

They both stiffened when the phone rang.

“It’s only rung a few times since I’ve been here,” he said as he went to answer it. A faint voice asked for Brian. “Brian’s in the hospital, but I can help you. I’m his brother, Christopher.” She gave up trying to hear what the man on the other end was saying and let her gaze roam down his white jeans as he continued to talk. “Okay, I’ll be in to make it right.” He hung up. “That’s odd. Brian rents a warehouse over in one of the run-down areas of the city. I recognize the address; it’s where the krewe used to store their parade floats. For some reason he’s been renting it from this real estate office for the last two years. He always pays cash, one lump sum a year, and he’s late. I told the guy I’d settle up, but I want a key so I can check it out. Maybe we can find out more about Brian’s secret life.”

Before she gathered her purse and coat, Christopher’s cell phone rang. After talking with someone, he said, “That was Dr. Schaeffer. He wants to see us.”

Brian’s doctor met Christopher and Rita at the nurse’s station. He had a hopeful light in his gray eyes that quelled the anxiety his call had produced. “I’d like to show you something.”
 

The guard left the room to give them privacy as the doctor led them into Brian’s room. He directed their attention to his hand. “Brian, if you can hear me, move your hand.”

Rita held her breath as they waited. Slowly, Brian’s hand contracted.

“Brian!” She rushed forward and took his hand in hers. “You’re coming back to us!” She turned to Christopher. “I can feel him move.”

“Some patients move involuntarily, but he’s responded several times to a question. It looks like he may be coming out.” The doctor nodded for them to join him at the far corner of the room and spoke softly. “As I told Christopher before, once he starts to come out, we don’t know how long the process is going to take. It’s not like in the movies where the patient suddenly wakes and is his old self. Especially a patient who’s been in a coma state for as long as Brian has. It might take months or even years. I want you to be prepared. You’ll need to work with the rehabilitative nurses so they can train you for when Brian goes home. I’ve already contacted a physiatrist to oversee Brian’s rehab program.”

Christopher looked at Brian. “Sounds hopeful.”

Dr. Schaeffer’s voice went low again. “Yes, but hope is relative where brain injuries are concerned. He’ll likely have to relearn the most basic skills, like walking and talking. He may never fully recover, but he can make a lot of progress.”

“He’s still in there,” Rita said. “He just has to learn to communicate with us again.”

Christopher asked, “Will he remember what happened the night he fell? Or his life at all?”

 
“Most patients have no memory of the event that put them in the coma. The medical staff on this floor will be instructed to give Brian around-the-clock stimulation. I encourage you to stop in as much as possible and talk to him.”

“Absolutely,” she answered for both of them, relieved that people would be in and out of his room.
 

Dr. Schaeffer took in Rita’s enthusiasm. “The man you knew will be different from the man who comes out of this coma. Don’t be surprised if your feelings change. And don’t feel guilty. Just be a friend and see what the future brings.”
 

“I will.” She’d already grappled with those issues. He was different from the man she’d met online. Her feelings had changed. She’d definitely felt guilt, but no matter what, she would be a friend.

After Dr. Schaeffer left, Rita knew Christopher was thinking about all those months ahead, and his role in the process, as he stared at the man on the bed. “Are you going to stay?” she asked softly.

“He’s my brother.”

He looked like a man who had no choice in the matter. No matter what he said, no matter what anyone had ever told him he was, he was a man of honor. He just didn’t like it.

She reached out and took Brian’s hand. “Brian, Christopher and I are here. Can you hear me?” The movement was almost imperceptible. “He can.” Their eyes met, but Christopher dropped his gaze to the hand she’d linked with Brian’s. “We’re going to figure this all out. We know about your alter ego, Alta. We even understand why. You know, the whole king thing. But we still don’t know what Xanadu is yet. We’re going to the warehouse after we leave here. I hope it will help us solve this puzzle you’ve given us.” She glanced up at Christopher, who stood there looking a little lost. “Do you want to say anything to him? I can leave if you’d like.”

He kept his gaze on Brian. “I don’t know what to say.”

She reached over and took Christopher’s hand, linking all three of them together. “You’re here. That says a lot.” She turned to Brian. “When you come back, you and Christopher need to have a long talk. I think it’s time you got to know each other.” She smiled at Christopher. “He squeezed my hand! He agrees.”

Movement near the open doorway caught her eye, and she disengaged her hand to check it out. She was hoping to catch Aris out there, but all she did was startle both the security guard and a janitor. The man resumed his mopping.

“Something wrong?” the guard asked.

“What’s up?” Christopher said from behind her.

“Just checking.”

When she returned to Brian’s side, she didn’t get any response. “He’s gone back to the gray place.” She tried coaxing him back with no luck.

Christopher kept his gaze on Brian, or more specifically, on all the tubes keeping him alive. “Did you have someone trying to bring you back from the gray place?”

“Marty, the one who came to my rescue in the lobby. She’s a good friend. And my mother surprised me and came up from Jersey. She’s trying to be my mom after all these years.”
 

“The one you’re not ready to be a daughter to yet.”

She blinked. “You heard my conversation?”
 

He merely lifted one shoulder. Of course, she could hardly reprimand him for eavesdropping.

“It’s a start. Calling her, I mean. I have to get used to the idea of having a mother. It’s strange.”

“At least you have the chance to make it right.”

“Yeah, I do, don’t I?” She wanted to tell him he had the chance, too, but decided not to lecture him. “If you knew my life, you’d understand why I went into counseling. I wish I could make all parents take a course and get a license. Can’t leave the hospital without one, and it has to be renewed every three years. Then there wouldn’t be people like us dealing with the crap our parents dumped on us. I even did my thesis on it.” She ducked her head. “Sorry, I get on my soapbox sometimes. It’s a personal issue for me.”

He regarded her with a speculative smile. “I can see that.”

“Don’t you get angry when these women on the Internet come to you because no one else will help them?”

“Sure. But I don’t get personally involved.”

She thought of Sherry. “No, I don’t suppose you can.”

He met her gaze, and she felt a fission of understanding pass between them. It didn’t surprise her that he was the first to turn away. He turned to Brian, staring at the man beneath the tubes. She wanted to touch Christopher, to lend her unspoken support, but she pressed her hand against her thigh and turned around. He stood there for a few minutes, and each one of them felt like an eternity.
 

Finally he turned around. “Let’s go check out the warehouse.”
 

He watched Christopher and Rita head down the hall to the elevators as he pushed the mop across the floor for what was probably the hundredth time. He’d better move on before someone noticed he’d been outside Brian’s room too long. Then they might notice that his identification badge didn’t even apply to this hospital or that his overalls didn’t fit.

They’d hired a security guard to protect their precious Brian. The skinny guard was probably keeping an eye out for a green-eyed nurse named Aris. She’d never return again, but someone else would. Brian couldn’t come back from his coma. He had betrayed Sira, rejected her, and had tried to cheat her out of her rightful place. He was a traitor and would be treated as such.
 

He felt an ache in his chest and bent over the mop handle. Now he would take care of things.
 

“You all right there, buddy?” the guard asked as he walked back into Brian’s room.

He only nodded and pushed onward. He couldn’t let himself think of those pages Brian had written or especially the way they’d brought tears to Sira’s eyes. It was all before Rita had stolen him away, he reminded himself. Too late for regrets.

Rita and Christopher already knew too much. He couldn’t hear everything they said, but he’d heard
Xanadu
and
Alta
. They’d even found the warehouse, damn them. It was too late to change the location for the Gathering. No, it had to go on as scheduled. That meant he had to get rid of them before Fat Tuesday.

CHAPTER 17

Christopher and Rita made two stops on the way to the warehouse. One to a gun shop to get Rita a can of pepper spray and another to a cell phone store to get her a charger. She fingered the holster and watched the scenery go by as they drove through town.
 

“What’s your house in Atlanta like?” she asked.

“It’s beautiful, but it needs a lot of work.” He thought of the oak floors that needed to be scraped of ugly red paint, of the walls he’d only half torn down, and of the bedroom that consisted of an antique dresser and mattress on the floor. Two stories of history, of wood and glass, and the little touches that all the people who’d lived there before had added. Some of them were hideous, like the green paint on the marble fireplace. Some were nice, like the pedestal sink. With the history surrounding him, the laughter and tears, the fights, the routines of other lives, sometimes he felt very alone in that house. “I’ve owned it for about a year. It’ll take me ten years before I’m done fixing it up.” Or longer. Somehow it was more comfortable the way it was.

“I’ll bet it’s nice, even with the work to be done.”

“It’s got a great front porch. My favorite place in the house.” He wished he were there right now, far away from New Orleans and Rita.

“Is that where the kittens live?”

What was it with her and the kittens? “Underneath it.” He’d put some towels under the porch for them.

“I’ll bet they’re so cute.”

She had the warmest smile he’d ever seen, as though she were imagining him and those kittens, seeing him as this gentle, caring guy. Her light blue eyes crinkled at the corners. He turned up the music. He wanted to tell her he kicked them for fun. He’d tried to send them away at first, but the little buggers had no fear of him. He glanced over at Rita. Like someone else he knew.

He launched into a story about a friend’s coon dog and how it had followed them to school and then howled until they got out. Nice benign stuff. No more soul bearing. And what was that business with him asking if someone had been there during her coma? He’d done well with keeping distance between them and out pops that question.
 

He already knew more about her than he wanted to, yet there seemed to be some deep part of him that wanted to know more. Well, forget about that. No more questions about her life, no more kissing her. It was bad enough sharing a room with her, and then that little comment of hers about not having to sleep on the floor….

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He realized he was frowning. “You can tell it’s getting closer to Mardi Gras. All this traffic.”

She gave a bewildered glance forward, where traffic was light. He couldn’t tell her that she was driving him crazy, that he was only human, and if she kept tempting him it was bound to get ugly.
 

And she’d called him Chris.

He pulled to a stop in front of a corrugated metal warehouse. It hadn’t changed much since he’d last seen it, except that the paint had faded to a powdery gray. He got out of the car, wondering if the floats were still in there. That was the only part of the krewe he enjoyed, working on the floats and riding in the parade.
 

Generations of spiders had set up house in the crevices of the large door, undisturbed for what looked like years. He unlocked the regular door and stepped inside, expecting to find dusty floats or maybe boxes and old furniture jammed inside. It was as black as the darkest shadows of his nightmares. He felt around for the switch and turned on the lights.