Chapter Twenty-Four
MAX DRUMMED his fingers on the arm of the hard plastic chair. His stomach growled. It was midmorning, and he’d missed breakfast, but he didn’t care. Unable to sleep, he’d caught a bus back to the hospital at the crack of dawn, only to find Dan had never left. Jed had been unwell overnight, and Dan had stayed by his side throughout.
The sickness had eased by the time Max reached Jed, but the pain was so bad he’d needed a shot of morphine. Max didn’t get much sense out of him before he passed out, and he didn’t wake up until an orderly came to take him down for the scheduled endoscopy.
Endoscopy. Max scowled. Yet another word he’d had to look up. He didn’t want to live in ignorance of what Jed was going through… of what he’d already been through. He wanted to know it all, to have enough knowledge to support Jed the way he deserved, but, fuck, it was hard. Max was horrified by what he’d learned the past day or so, and it was almost enough to make him forget that Kim had saved him the trouble of confessing his own deepest and darkest secrets.
Almost. In many ways, Max didn’t know how he felt about that. He’d had twenty-four hours to reconcile himself with the fact that Jed knew everything, but despite years and years of hiding, from himself as much as anyone else, Max couldn’t find it in himself to care. None of it mattered, not now. For the time being—for the next half hour or so, at least—nothing mattered except seeing Jed safely return from having a camera-tipped tube forced down his throat.
Max got up and walked to the large window in the waiting room. The sun was out in Portland, disguising the bitterly cold wind. From behind the spotless glass, he could almost pretend it was a bright summer day instead of the back end of winter.
The thought depressed him. Jed couldn’t spend the summer in the hospital. Max had plans for the summer, fantasies he’d dreamed up while hard at work alone in the boat shed. Fishing, swimming in the lake, all the produce he wanted to show Jed they could grow in the garden. Jed liked the garden. Max often saw him reading on the stone steps to the greenhouse. Only the lashing rain drove him indoors.
Dr. Howarth said he only wanted to keep Jed in a few days, but as Max stared across the hospital parking lot, a persistent sense of foreboding began to brew in the pit of his stomach. Jed had an incurable, life-changing condition, and so did Max. Realistically, what kind of future did they have? What if they both got sick at the same time? How could he take care of Jed if he couldn’t take care of himself?
“Max?” Hector Valesco appeared quietly beside him, placing his warm weathered hand on his arm. “You all right there, son? How’s that boy doing?”
Max smiled in spite of himself. Jed would turn thirty-three on his next birthday. Aside from his rakish grin, there was nothing boyish about him. “They took him away to do an endoscopy… a test on his stomach.”
“Ah, I think Carla was talking about that this morning. It doesn’t sound nice, but it is a quick procedure, she said. It shouldn’t take long, no?”
“That’s what they said.”
“Then come away from the window, son. Rest a little. Anna will be cross if she sees you so weary.”
“Anna’s here?”
Hector drew Max away from his staring contest with the window and led him to the hard plastic chairs. “Not yet. She had to stop at Carla’s with some groceries, but she will be here soon. Lord help the boy when she gets her hands on him.”
Max could relate to that. It had been a few years since a seizure had last landed him in this very hospital, but Anna Valesco’s fussing wasn’t so easily forgotten.
The image of her smothering Jed was comforting. Max slouched down in his chair and tried to let Hector’s gentle small talk wash over him, though Hector seemed to know he wasn’t in the mood to chat. About ten minutes had passed when a nurse popped her head around the waiting room door. “Are you with Sergeant Cooper?”
Max started. It felt strange to hear Jed referred to by his military title. He saw it on his mail all the time, but it was rare that anyone acknowledged it aloud. “Is the procedure finished?”
“Not yet. There was a delay in starting. Jed hasn’t responded well to the sedation. Would you like to come down and sit with him? It might help.”
“Um….” Max looked down at his twitching hands and jittery knees. He longed to go to Jed and comfort him, but in his heart he knew he couldn’t be without Flo right now.
Hector laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll go. Are you going to be okay by yourself?”
Max nodded tightly. Flo was at his feet. He’d be fine.
Hector left, and Max was alone, but not for long. Carla and Anna joined him a few minutes later. They bustled around him, chattering about this and that. He ignored them until Carla flopped into the seat beside him.
Max dropped his head to her shoulder. “Where did your mum go?”
“To Jed’s room. I think she’s going to spring clean it before he gets back. How are you holding up? Did you talk to Jed last night?”
“A bit. He didn’t say much, though.”
Carla hummed. “Yeah, Dan said he was pretty out of it. Hopefully, he’ll be a bit better today.”
Max let the silence hang for a while, until he asked the question that had been niggling at him since Carla had answered Dan’s call the day before. “Did you know he was sick?”
“Yes.” Carla eyed him with a steady gaze. “He didn’t tell me, and he never really talks about it, but I read it in his file before he first came to see me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but you know I couldn’t, don’t you? I still shouldn’t talk about it with you, but if it’s any consolation, I don’t think he deliberately hid it from you.”
“I get that. At least I think I do.” Max had been pissed the night before, but his anger had stemmed more from helplessness than a sense of betrayal. “It just doesn’t seem fair. He’s been through so much already.”
“He’ll get better, Max, but it’s going to take some time.”
Max got up, shrugging off her comfort, and drifted back to the window. “I know. I just hate that he has to deal with this.”
Carla let him be after that, and though time seemed to drag along at a maddeningly slow pace, it felt like he’d just blinked when Hector walked back through the door.
“He’s sleeping,” Hector said before anyone could speak. “I think I bored him with all the tales of my childhood. He’s heard most of them before, after all.”
Max found a faint smile from the dark depths of his mind and plastered it on his face. “Is he okay?”
“The doctor seems to think so. He said people can react differently to some types of sedation. Sometimes it has the opposite effect?”
Max looked to Carla for guidance. She nodded. “It’s called a paradoxical reaction. The sort of thing I’d expect more from you than from Jed.”
Max shot her a halfhearted glare. “Very funny. What happened? Did they have to use a different drug or something?”
“Yes.” Hector moved to Carla and pulled her close. “He was fine after that, mostly, at least. I think it is very difficult for a man like Jed to let others have such… power over him. He has always been that way. Ask Anna about when he had mono as a teenager. We had to all but lock him in Dan’s room before he would let her take care of him.”
Carla laughed, but for Max, the harmless tale from the past cut too close to the truth. He handed Carla Flo’s leash and left the room without another word.
He slipped into Jed’s room, half expecting to find Anna cleaning the windows or something equally ridiculous, but Jed was alone. The door closed behind Max with a quiet click. He waited a moment, mindful of waking Jed, but there was no response.
Max crossed the room and leaned over the bedrail. Jed lay on his good side, curled at a slightly odd angle, and even in sleep he looked utterly wiped out. Max traced the shadows under his eyes, noting the tiny cut on his bottom lip. Had that been there before? He couldn’t be sure.
He appraised the rest of Jed and found he looked pretty much the same. The IVs remained, though one seemed to have moved from the crease of his arm to the back of his hand. Only the oxygen tubes were missing. A closer scout of the room found them on the floor. Max considered retrieving them, but decided against it. Jed must have dispensed with them himself, and he wasn’t about to argue with that.
The door opened. A nurse appeared with a covered plastic tray. She flashed Max a quick wink and left it on the bedside table. He frowned at the tray for a moment before he remembered.
That’s right. Jed can eat now.
Curiosity got the better of him. He rounded the foot of the bed and lifted the lid from the tray.
He shouldn’t have bothered. The pitiful, rubberized excuse for food was even worse than he remembered it. Rage swept through him. Mac and cheese from a box, and a pot of lurid, red Jell-O. How was Jed supposed to get better eating that… how the hell was anyone supposed to get better eating crap like….
Screw it.
In one fluid movement, Max scooped the tray up and dumped it in the nearby trash can. He’d bring Jed every scrap of food he needed from home. Jed wasn’t eating that shit. No fucking way.
“Max?”
Max spun at the sound of Jed’s tired voice calling for him. “Hey, you. How are you feeling?”
Jed ignored the question and beckoned Max closer until he could cup his chin and peer into his face. “Why are you angry?”
“I’m not angry.”
“Nice try. What did that tray do to you?”
Max fiddled with the thin blankets on the bed. “Nothing. I was more worried about what it was going to do to you. I think I might have thrown your lunch in the bin.”
“The bin? You mean the trash can?”
Jed let go of Max’s face and fell back on the pillow. His eyes drooped. Max squeezed his hand. “Whatever it’s called, it’s staying there. You’re not eating that crap.”
“No. I don’t want eat… hungry, fuck.”
Max rolled his eyes. Jed was definitely off his face if he was tripping over his words. “I’m going to go home in a bit and get you some real food. Is there anything else you need?”
Jed sat up again and flickered a tired gaze around the room. “Someone stole my clothes.”
“Anna, probably. She’s around here somewhere. I can get you some more. Anything else?”
“My laptop?”
Max sighed. “Work? Really?”
“What do you want me to do? Lie here and rot for a week?”
“No. I want you to lie here and get better so you can come home.”
The statement seemed to mollify Jed. He closed his eyes and muttered something in a language Max didn’t understand.
He wondered if Jed was worried about paying the bills. He’d taken over the cabin finances, saving Max the trouble of remembering to pay them on time. Was anything due? Shamefully, Max had no idea. Despite his initial resistance, it hadn’t taken long for him to forget about the bills entirely.
Jed let out a soft sigh. Max squeezed his hand again, but got no response. Defeated, Max let go and left him alone to rest.