PART FIVE
Chapter One
Olivia
I had just walked into the store when I heard the phone ringing. My uncle picked it up and after a few seconds he said, “It’s for you, Liv.”
I had left my cell phone off all night and morning. I didn’t want to talk to Dax or listen to his excuses in a voice mail or read them in a text.
“Is it Dax?” I asked him with what I hoped was an, I don’t want to talk to him face.
“No, it’s his mother,” my uncle said.
He handed me the phone and walked away. I stared at it for a few seconds before finally concluding that if his mother was calling me….something bad must have happened to Dax. I had a flashback to when he went to jail and my heart was already speeding up when I finally said, “Hello?”
“Hi Olivia, it’s Gail.”
“Hi,” I said. “Is everything okay?”
“No honey. Dax was shot last night.”
Shot! What the fuck? I thought she was going to tell me he got arrested. That was bad enough, but I had somewhat mentally prepared myself for that...but not shot.
“Is he okay? Where is he?”
“The bullet went through his abdomen. They had to do some repairs to his stomach and they removed his spleen. He’s pretty doped up right now, but he’s out of surgery and they said he did fine.”
“Oh God,” I said.
“I tried to call you last night, honey, but I was never able to get through. I left a bunch of voice mails…”
“I’m sorry. My phone was off. Can I come and see him?” I asked.
I felt numb and at the same time, shaky all over. I knew something bad was going to happen and as happy as I was that he was alive, I wanted to kick his ass for doing exactly what his mother and I had been telling him not to.
“Of course, honey. They just moved him out of ICU onto the floor. He’s in room 217.”
“Okay, I’ll be there soon,” I told her.
“Okay but drive safe. There’s no emergency now. He’s not going anywhere.”
“I will, thank you, Gail.”
I told my uncle that Dax was in the hospital. I avoided telling him why. He told me he’d call someone else in and to go and not worry about it. I grabbed my purse and headed for the hospital. The whole way I couldn’t stop thinking about how scared Dax must have been, how much pain he must have been in. It actually caused me physical pain to think about it. I was still angry, but now I was angry at whoever did this to him. If they would have been in front of me, I might have shot them myself.
It seemed like it took me forever to get to the hospital. It was normally only a thirty minute drive but it actually only took me about twenty-five minutes. I was in a high state of anxiety before I got there though.
I practically ran from the parking lot to the elevator and took it up to the second floor. I found 217 and when I got to the door of the room, I had to force myself to stop and take a deep breath before I went inside. Feeling slightly calmer, I pushed open the door. I saw Gail, sitting in the corner in a chair. She smiled and gave me a little wave. The curtain around the bed was pulled about half way so I could see the outline of Dax’s body under the sheet, but I couldn’t see his face. Gail saw I was hesitating and she beckoned at me to come in further. I forced my feet to move forward and when I got to the bed I closed my eyes for a second before finally looking around the curtain.
Dax was pale, almost as white as the sheets on the bed. He had an IV with a bunch of bags hanging off of the pole and some other kind of tube coming out of his stomach and going to a container on the wall. There was some kind of green foamy stuff in the container. I guessed it was suctioning stuff from his stomach. There was a bag hanging on the side of the bed with urine in it so he must have had a catheter in as well. He was such a big guy but lying in that bed with all of that stuff hooked up to him made him look smaller somehow, and so pathetic. I felt tears in my eyes as I leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.
“You’re an idiot,” I whispered to him, “But I still love you so much. I’m so glad you’re going to be okay.”
I felt Gail’s hand resting on my shoulder and I turned to look at her. “I’m going to go down and get us some lunch,” she said.
I nodded and wiped one of the tears from my eye. Gail wrapped me up in her arms and that was when I finally lost it. I felt bad, but I couldn’t stop. I would stop for a second and then I would think again about how easily we could have lost him and start crying all over again. Gail was great. She just held onto me and let me cry, not saying a word.
When I finally stopped I said, “I’m sorry, I know he’s okay but I can’t help thinking about how much worse it could have been.”
She smiled and said, “Don’t be sorry. I’m just not crying now because I’m cried out. I cried on Bull’s shoulder all night.” She handed me a tissue and I took it and blew my nose. “I’m going down for the food, I’ll be right back.”
I forced a smile and nodded. I was afraid if I tried to speak that I’d start crying all over again. Once Gail left, I turned back to the bed. I ran my hand lightly across Dax’s handsome face and said, “I’m not leaving you this time, not ever. All of this craziness has forced me to take a deeper look at how I feel about you, Dax. I love you so much. I don’t want to be without you, ever. I can’t even imagine a life without you any longer. I don’t want to even try. So, you better hurry and get out of this bed so we can hurry and start getting on with our lives.”
It wasn’t like the movies. He didn’t wake up with any snappy come backs, but I hoped he heard me. I had meant every word. From there on out, if he ever wanted to get rid of me, he was going to have to pry me off of him.
I sat with him and listened to the gentle beep of his monitors. The nurse came in and took his vital signs and emptied his catheter. I watched her do it all, talking to Dax or me the whole time. She was smiling and she looked genuinely happy to be doing her job. I wondered how good of a job it had to be to feel like you could wear a smile as you dumped out someone’s pee as well as the contents of their stomach that were freshly sucked out through a tube.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked her before she left.
“Sure,” she said.
“How long did it take you to become a nurse?”
“I went for four years,” she said. “You can do it in two or a little less, but I wanted to also get my degree. Are you thinking about becoming a nurse?” she asked.
“I might be,” I told her. “I just signed up at the University but I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do yet. I was just watching you and you seem to really like your job.”
The nurse smiled again. “I do like my job…actually, I love it. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I like knowing when I go home at night that it’s with the satisfaction that although I’m not saving the world, I at least did all that I could do for the ones that I was in charge of for the day.”
“Thank you,” I told her.
She smiled and said, “You’re welcome, hon. Good luck to you too.”
Gail came in as the nurse was leaving. She had an armful of food so I went to help her. There was a little table in the room so we set up for lunch there.
“I don’t suppose sleeping beauty woke up while I was gone, did he?”
“No,” I told her. “But the nurse says he’s doing really well vital signs wise. “
“Good, my boy likes his sleep,” Gail said with a smile. “He’s probably just taking advantage of a prime opportunity.”
I laughed. She was right, Dax did love to sleep.
“Let’s sit and eat,” she said.
She had gotten us sub sandwiches, chips, and sodas. After she sat it all up and we started eating, I finally asked, “Do they know who shot him?”
Gail sat her sandwich down and looked at me. “Well, you and I know that they probably all know who did it by now, but so far no one is stepping up and saying anything. Bull says he didn’t even know Dax was in the garage until they heard the gunshot and ran back to see what was going on. Thank God they were all still there though; Dax may have lain there and bled to death overnight.”
“Wasn’t it late? What would he have been doing in the garage at that time of night?”
Gail looked over at him and said, “I have no idea. One thing I’m sure of is that it had something to do with all of that nonsense he told me he was going to leave in the past.”
“Yeah, he told me the same thing. I started out wanting to kick his ass, now I think when he wakes up he’ll be lucky if I don’t kiss and hug him to death.”
Gail smiled and said, “Me too. It’s amazing how fast we can forgive and forget, isn’t it?”
“I’ve forgiven him,” I told her. “But, I don’t plan on forgetting. I plan on standing by his side, but making sure that nothing else like this ever happens along the way.”
“Good for you,” Gail said. Then, with a far off look in her eyes she said, “You’re a better woman than me. I’m glad Dax has you.”
“What are you talking about? Dax thinks the sun rises and sets on you, Gail. Everyone thinks you’re such a great lady.”
Gail had tears in her eyes when she said, “It’s easy for me to blame Bull for all that’s happened to our family. But the truth is, I could have walked away a long time ago, as soon as I found out what kind of business he was actually running. I didn’t though and Brock and Dax were raised on the fringes of a criminal enterprise. That’s as much my fault as anyone’s.”
“Oh Gail. I’m sorry you feel that way. We all make the decisions that we do, within a moment. We try to think of what the future will hold when we do, but there’s so much of the future that’s going to change before we get there that it’s impossible. I know you thought you were doing the best thing for those boys…You raised a good, decent son. You should be really proud of that.”
“I’m really proud of him,” Gail said, looking over at Dax. “I love him so much.”
“Me too,” I said with a smile as I picked my sandwich back up to finish my lunch.