Chapter Eighteen
Libby
Kristy still looked tiny in the hospital bed, but without the tubes running to her nose and down her throat, she looked a hundred times better than she had two days before. She cried when Tucker had explained to her that court had been put off until she was okay, even though she wasn’t required to be there. The police had come and gone, and I had explained at great length that I also had been held hostage emotionally by the people that had driven Kristy to try to take her life.
When the uniforms left, Kristy looked years younger than she had in the courtroom. It was still amazing to me how much like my nineteen-year-old self Kristy looked. It was uncanny, and made me question my life and marriage all over again. She was physically almost completely well, but every time the doctor spoke of discharge to a psychiatric hospital, her vitals would go haywire, especially her blood pressure. Her insurance was refusing to pay for another night in a regular hospital, and I asked Tucker to speak to her surgeon to extend it one more night, just until her blood pressure was no longer at a life-threatening level.
I washed her face, applied a little makeup, and brushed and styled her long hair. The nurses had said she’d be allowed out of bed to shower by late afternoon, but I did what I could to improve her mood before I had to go get Olivia.
“Do you want Olivia and me to come back later? We could sneak in something good to eat, like a Philly cheese steak from Moochies.” I wheedled, as we watched General Hospital on the grainy television in her room.
“I don’t know. I mean, what if she hates me? I married her dad, you guys had to move out of your house… I just can’t.”
“Sweetie, I was divorced when you met Andrew, so we had already moved, and she’s four. She couldn’t care less about your relationship with her father, except that it’s something you have in common, which in her toddler brain, means you’re already friends.” I held her hand and forced her to pay attention to me, instead of the soap on the TV. “Let me do this. I think it will help you, and it can’t hurt us.” Kristy’s face crumpled and she began to weep quietly, still holding my hand
“Why are you doing this for me?” I handed her a tissue and chuckled.
“Because my life would’ve been so much better if someone had been there for me when my sanity was on the line. If it hadn’t been for how much I loved Olivia, and how much she needed me, I’d probably have done the same thing. Just because he had an education and money, doesn’t mean he was a good man. I’m still coming to terms with the damage he did to me. I expect no less for you.”
“Okay, since I’d rather her see me here, than the insane asylum.” Kristy looked close to tears.
“Oh, sweet girl, is that what you think of your next days?” I sighed and stood at her side, stroking her hair. “Three days spent in the care of people who know how to make you stronger is not the end of the world.”
“What will people think?”
“Why would you tell them?” I turned off the television and sat on the end of her bed. “Kristy, you don’t know me at all, but I get the impression from your lack of visitors not associated with me that I’m what you’ve got right now.” She looked down at her hands on the faded blue hospital coverlet and scowled. “We’re not friends. But I’m the closest thing to family you’ve got right now, aren’t I?” Kristy nodded, still refusing to look at me.
I seethed. Andrew knew exactly what he was doing when he had brought each of us home. Girls with no parents or siblings to ask questions, eager to give their love and loyalty to someone they looked up to. Very young women, ripe for someone to dominate them. As though I had summoned her with her with our conversation, the staff counselor tapped on the open door and poked her head in, asking to speak with Kristy. I left them alone, grateful for the chance to grab a surprisingly good coffee from the stand downstairs.
I sat in the lounge longer than I needed to, basking in the soft light that filtered in through the stained mural in the panes of glass over the doors, depicting Tejano cowboys herding cattle over the plains. It was a quiet time of day, and while people flowed in and out of the building going about their business, the lack of conversations added to the stillness I felt while waiting to return to Kristy to say my goodbyes. One way or another, I wouldn’t be visiting her in the hospital again—though I did hope it was because she continued to get help.
There was a surreal feeling to everything that had happened, all leading to a plain white armchair in the hospital lounge, Tucker and his new best friend, Cynthia, working their collective butts off fighting for Olivia to get back her inheritance, and me trying to make friends with one of the few people in the world that might truly hate me. I rubbed my temples, in an (apparently failed) attempt to massage out the headache that had already started pushing through the medicine and caffeine I’d already taken to banish it.
A shadow fell across my face and I opened my eyes to Tucker standing over me. He arched an eyebrow and handed me a gigantic chocolate muffin on a plate. As I pushed the flimsy plastic fork through the muffin, he sat in the chair next to mine and watched me with a smile.
“Am I supposed to share this with you?” I asked, with a mouthful of muffin. He laughed softly and shook his head.
“I already ate. But I saw you sitting there, looking… well, a little forlorn, and I thought chocolate might help.”
“You were correct. I don’t think I got through to her, Tucker. She thinks that because she was only with those people for a few months, that everything that happened, every choice she made, is because she’s a bad person, instead of admitting she’s ill, and needs help.” He rubbed his jaw.
“Don’t get mad.”
“I’m not mad, I’m just frustrated. If I had been in the position to get help…”
“Yeah, that’s what I want to talk to you about, and I would prefer that you listen without getting angry with me.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like a conversation I really want to have, but, go ahead, you are my council, right?”
“I think you’re too close to this. She isn’t you, Libby. She should live her life her way, even if it’s going to lead her to pain. You can’t make those choices for her.”
“Wow. You really don’t see the hypocrisy there, do you?”
“Hey, I’ve told you what I think will help you, and what I’d love to do to help you. I’ve lost sleep over you and your unhappiness. But I know you. I care about you. I—I love you and O, and I say and do what I do out of love.” He leaned in and stared into my eyes. “She isn’t your friend, or family. What do you owe her, that you’re putting yourself through this?”
“I just keep seeing the mistakes I made, the amount of pain I could’ve avoided, and the things I did avoid,” I told him, gesturing around me. “I wanted her to take what’s being offered to her, to make her ‘right’ again.” He touched my cheek, and his finger left a trail of electricity that shot through me, heating my belly, and making me grateful I was already sitting and my knees couldn’t give out on me.
The muffin was dust in my mouth when I tried to eat it, and I set it aside and tried to wash it down with the lukewarm remains of my latte, choking on the tepid coffee. When I was finally able to breathe normally again, Tucker had vanished. The coffee and what was left of the muffin went into the trash bin, and I started for the coffee cart again, only to see that was exactly where my tall, handsome hero had gone.
He handed me a fresh, hot cup of heaven and stood to one side of the cart with me while the nice young barista made his. Tucker didn’t press me on my over-involvement with Kristy, and I didn’t bother to tell him he was right. It didn’t matter. Kristy was now my problem, whatever he said. Because he was right—she wasn’t family, or a friend. However, she was something more, or something worse. She was me; but for the grace of God. I could’ve been the one in that bed, so many times. Tucker couldn’t understand how much it meant to me to see her better than I had been.
“She’s only twenty-three, Tucker.” He accepted his coffee and stood with me under an arch, facing the colorful window mural. “I just want to see her have a chance at happiness before she’s too old and realizes how much of her life she’s wasted.”
“I know. I don’t fault you for wanting to help. I’m not saying your advice is wrong. But there comes a point where you should let go, for your own well-being.”
“Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you’d stayed on the ranch, or even just kept at being a cattleman, on your own? Andrew said you were amazing with a rope, like something in a rodeo or a movie.”
“I was all right, I guess. No better than my father, or my brothers. It was what we did, and sometimes, it was even fun. But I loved school so much, and I always wanted something more.”
“More what?” I scoffed, “More frustrating, time-sucking, nerve-wracking, and thankless?” he laughed so hard he spit coffee onto his chin. I handed him a napkin from my pocket.
“Thanks,” he laughed, wiping his chin. “You are right about how difficult this life is. But I still wouldn’t change a thing about what I do.” He tossed the crumpled tissue in the bin and looked at me, his eyes dark with a look so possessive and masculine, it made me flush. “I’d never have been there to help you if I was still a cowpoke.” I nodded and glanced at my watch.
“I need to go get Olivia and bring her back around before Kristy goes, well… wherever she decides to go. Want to come up and say ‘goodbye’ with me?” I paused. “Unless you were here to see her.” He held up his briefcase and nodded.
“Here to get some information and a signature or two on your behalf from her, and really happy that I saw you first.” My blush deepened and I walked toward the elevator, trying to hide it. There wasn’t much more I could say to Kristy except “goodbye” and “thank you,” but I felt like I needed to find a way to get through to her. The woman had stood up in a courtroom and made a statement that had to have been humiliating for her, instead of simply firing her lawyer in private. Then she’d attempted to end her life because of her part in an argument over money. It was more than a will and some pictures that had put her in the hospital. She needed real help.
Tucker may not have thought we needed to be involved with her, but for better or worse, I was. I wasn’t going to abandon her without knowing there was someone to take up the torch and carry on until she was stronger. Like it or not, she was my problem, and I wasn’t going to walk away until it was solved.