“No, I wouldn’t think so,” Jasmine said, obviously fighting laughter. “I can help make the calls. James helped get me to Sarge when I almost lost him. I’d love to return the favor.”
After that, there was no one in the room but Sarge and Jasmine. The lead singer looked like he might organize a sacrifice of himself on an altar to the gods just to thank them for creating his girlfriend. Jasmine couldn’t stop staring at his mouth. And yeah…they were seconds from boning on the kitchen island, so Lita shoved the bottle of tequila into her purse and skirted past them toward the front door. “I’ll be down on the beach getting shit faced when you guys are done.”
Once outside, she took a fortifying breath and slipped the cell phone from her back pocket. She couldn’t sit still and wait for other people to help her anymore. Something had to be done now before she went crazy. Maybe just then, buzzed on tequila and emotionally drained wasn’t a good time to start owning up to her mistakes and acting like an adult, but time kept passing, passing, passing without James, and that felt like a horrible travesty. A waste of valuable minutes.
It was time to take control of her own life. Her own fate. No one was responsible for Lita’s happiness but her.
She went down to the beach and started making calls.
James sat outside the hospital, hands clasped between his splayed legs. He’d left his cell phone back at his roadside motel in an effort to allay temptation. For so long, he’d had the device holstered like a six-shooter, ready to draw if someone needed him. No, not just someone. Lita. He felt naked without news of her right at his fingertips. Several times since driving back to his hometown of Modesto, he’d checked the gossip websites and police blotters, praying nothing about Lita would show. His habits were firmly ingrained and he couldn’t trust himself yet to stay away should she land in hot water.
So far, there had been nothing, apart from news agencies following up on her recent arrest and subsequent release from jail. She hadn’t called or emailed, telling him he’d finally succeeded in scaring her off.
Good. He’d always known she was smart.
James breathed through the horror of having scared the one person he’d dedicated his life to saving from pain. Relief would come eventually, along with the conviction he’d done what was right. If it didn’t, at least he’d know Lita was happy. Somewhere without him.
A shadow filled the sunlit walkway in front of the bench where he sat, temporarily lifting him from mental torture. He lifted his head to find his mother running a Kleenex beneath her eyes. “How is he?”
“Better,” she responded with a sigh. “Still no movement on the right side of his body, but he’s communicating with the white board and marker. He won’t try speaking just yet…I think because it feels so unnatural with only half his mouth.”
James gave a tight nod. “Still no desire to see me, I assume?”
His mother’s sympathetic look was unbearable, so James stood and paced away. He’d been home for six days, following the phone call from his mother informing James that his father had a stroke. Over a decade had passed since the last time he’d been face to face with the man—frankly, he’d been content to remain in contact with his mother only, when there was an occasion or major holiday. Unfortunately, the family landscaping business didn’t run without his father, so his mother had begged James—their only child—to step in until the company’s manager returned from a family reunion trip overseas. Regardless of James’s non-relationship with his father, there’d been some solace in being needed after relinquishing his title as manager to Old News. As protector to Lita.
Working with his hands had given James some place to direct the restless energy, so he’d taken a labor role in addition to the managerial responsibilities. The last six mornings, he’d spent digging trenches, planting trees, hauling rubble. And six afternoons in a row, he’d been refused entry to his father’s hospital room.
The sidewalk outside the hospital had begun to fill up, presumably with a shift change, if the amount of personnel was any indication. People rushed up the walkway to take advantage of the final hour of visiting time before the dinner break. An unnamable tug of consciousness pointed out an anomaly among the moving mass of people. A flash of life, of static, that didn’t belong with the rest. Sort of like déjà vu that wouldn’t stop, just looping back and around, keeping him edgy.