His Revenge Baby: 50 Loving States, Washington Read online

  “No…” I say. Maybe out loud, maybe only in my head as I watch him collapse into a sleep I know he doesn’t want.

  Chapter Five

  So John’s episode buys him another few days at the hospital. But unfortunately he’s moved to another floor where he’s put on psychiatric hold. Which means I can’t see him because the visiting hours are for family members and spouses only.

  I spend the missed lunch hours loading more brain games onto the iPad and downloading more songs onto the iPhone I’d been planning to return to him on that fateful afternoon. C-Mello, some Colin Fairgood tracks, and the very few country songs I know and like. Songs I think might be “old” to him.

  Of course, I’m not there to see him when he’s released back to the eighth floor the following week. But I swear I just about run to the stairs like a Whitney Houston song as soon as the clock strikes twelve on the first day he’s back.

  I’m a panting and sweating mess by the time I get to his new room. But I hesitate in front of his door, not sure of what I’ll find inside. He was so crazed the last time I saw him, so out of control…the way he’d yelled at me… Who knew if he even wants to see me now or if it will only upset him further?

  With a deep breath, I enter the room, braced to be thrown right back out.

  Which is why I’m surprised to find him scribbling in his journal with one hand, while the other, now encased in a white cast, rests on his folded leg.

  So he did fracture it, I think with a heavy heart just as he looks up.

  He stills when he sees me, his blue eyes so intense I find it hard to look at him.

  Hard to squeak out, “Hi! I just, um…” I search my mind for a valid reason as to why I’m here, and finally settle for the plain truth. “I was worried about you. And I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

  A beat passes during which he only stares at me. Then he says, “You came back. I didn’t know if you would. I didn’t think you’d want anything else to do with me after what happened.”

  I step forward, almost unconsciously. “No! You had an episode. It was completely understandable. And it wasn’t your fault. The only reason I stayed away is because they would only let family visit where you were, and I didn’t want to upset you. I almost didn’t come here today, because I was afraid it might—”

  I stop speaking when he reaches out, his good hand curling around the back of my head, pulling me down toward him with surprising strength. Before I can even register what’s happening, his lips have claimed mine.

  Wait. What? Who? How? When?

  My mind blanks out as his lips draw on mine, drinking me, savoring me. Making it so I can do nothing but stand there as I risk my entire medical career on one very inappropriate moment.

  “No!” I whisper, finally finding the strength to protest.

  I push away and put as much space between us as possible in the tiny room. “That’s not why I came here. I only wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  Even though I’m several feet away from him, his blue stare is just as relentless as if he’s still kissing me, still holding me.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” he answers, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Now. You okay?”

  His reply has so many shades of wrong hidden within it, I’m afraid to answer.

  But eventually I manage to lie, “Yes, I’m fine. Totally fine.”

  He studies me, blue eyes sharp as an x-ray machine. “I scared you. With the episode and the kiss. I’m sorry about that, Doc.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I start to lie again.

  But he cuts me off, “Let’s not lie to each other, Doc. I don’t want lies between us.”

  “I’m just…”

  Finding it really hard to keep myself emotionally disconnected from you.

  I settle for, “I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried about you.”

  He tenses, as if my concern hurts him somehow. Then he taps a finger against the journal, “Don’t worry about me, Doc,” he says. “I don’t want you worrying about me.”

  But how can I not?

  I quietly leave the room, and try not to look back.

  John doesn’t come down to see the kids, and I don’t bring him any more lunches.

  Three days after his return to the eighth floor, I get a call from Ken. “Social worker found a shelter over near Washington, PA to take him,” he tells me. “They’re discharging him on Saturday.”

  Not my business. Not remotely, ethically, or medically any of my business.

  But on Saturday, it’s me, and not the usual taxi, who pulls up to the curb in front of UWV/Mercy to pick John up as Ken rolls him out of the hospital in a wheelchair.

  Yes, me. Clutching the wheel; wondering what the hell I’m doing, and why I’ve taken on this particular task when I’m supposed to be at home editing the next Chemo Kids Sing Broadway video. I watch as John stands up and shakes hands with Ken.

  Ken rushes to pull open the back door of my Prius C, but John shakes his head and opens the passenger door.

  In one smooth movement, he pushes his cane through the space between our seats before settling into the two-toned seat beside me, with the blue-and-white plastic bag the hospital gives discharge patients for belongings on his lap. The bag is huge, but it doesn’t look like there’s much inside. Just the imprint of one solitary rectangle I’m pretty sure is his journal.

  “Hi,” he says to me, after waving good-bye to Ken.

  “Hi,” I answer, still not quite sure why I’m doing this. “You ready to go?”

  A beat, two, three, during which it feels like he’s speaking volumes even though only a single word is uttered. “Sure.”

  “That’s new,” he says when I push the black button toward the right of the steering wheel to start the car. Then “Are we waiting for something?” when I don’t put the car in drive.

  “Seatbelt,” I answer, nodding toward his untouched strap.

  A small frown of disgust mars his face as he pulls the belt across his body. “I don’t think I like seatbelts,” he says, after he’s clicked it into place. “Feels like I’m trapped in a goddamn cage.”

  “You were riding around on a motorcycle without a secure helmet and you don’t like seatbelts,” I say as I pull away from the curb. “So what you’re trying to tell me is you’re either a very dumb bitch or suicidal.”

  He goes tense and very, very silent in the passenger seat.

  And I regret my words almost as soon as I say them.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “That was unnecessary. I can be catty sometimes.”

  “You got nothing to be sorry about, Doc,” he answers.

  Yet I am sorry. For what I said. For the fact that we aren’t any closer to finding out who he really is. Also because I don’t love the idea of him having another episode like the one in the hospital in a place where there’s no trained medical personnel to sedate him.

  “So this men’s shelter I’m driving you to is run by a church,” I tell him, regurgitating what Ken told me on the phone in lieu of stewing in my anxious thoughts of what might happen to him going forward.

  It feels like I’m reassuring both him and me when I say, “I looked them up on the internet and they seem like really good people. Really good people. The community is lucky to have them. Ken and I made sure the hospital social worker called ahead to update them on your case. They’ll try to help you with some job outreach, but it’s going to be tough going because you don’t currently have a birth certificate or a social security number. They’ll have to figure out how to get you paid…”

  I trail off, scaring myself with that line of thought. Of thinking about how John will fare until his memories finally come back.

  “Anyway, here’s your phone back,” I say, reaching into my purse with my free hand and passing it to him. “Please don’t hesitate to use it if you need anything. Anything at all. And of course, I’ll try to visit whenever I can.”

  Until then, I might as well have been babbling to myself, because
he doesn’t say one word until I offer to visit him.

  “No. No, Doc, I don’t want you visiting me there,” he answers with a firm shake of his head.

  “Why not?” I ask. “Seriously, it wouldn’t be a problem for me to stop in after work. It’d be like having an old fashioned home visit from the doctor. I could check in on you, make sure your healing process is coming along as it should…” Help you get home when you finally remember who the hell you actually are, I add to myself silently.

  I don’t particularly like romance novels, but for whatever reason, I feel desperately invested in John finding his happy ending.

  But he doesn’t seem at all concerned with the many practical reasons why a visit from me, a medical professional, might be a good thing.

  “After work—that would be at night? You want to come visit me at an all-men’s shelter at night?” He asks these questions like I’m certifiable.

  “Well, not exactly at night, per se,” I answer. “I get off at six, so it would be more like early evening…before sunset.”

  But he just shakes his head, his face stony and unyielding. “No. I don’t want you visiting me there, Doc.”

  “Okay…” I answer, not really knowing how else to respond. After a moment of thought, I come up with, “Then maybe we can have lunch sometime. I bet there’s a restaurant we can meet up at.”

  “Yeah,” he agrees, a little of the stone slipping off his face. “Let’s meet somewhere. That’d be better. I could see you on the weekend, maybe.”

  “Yes,” I agree with more enthusiasm for the idea than I’m actually feeling. A coffee shop meet-up just doesn’t feel like a good enough substitute. But I tell myself it’s better than nothing as I follow my navigation app southeast to a small neighborhood just outside Washington, Pennsylvania.

  Really, he’s lucky. According to the hospital social worker, a lot of these places have waiting lists a mile long—especially for men. John was lucky there was a place to take him within the tri-state area. And Washington is a super cute city. Lots of old tan brick buildings, a quaint little downtown, and it’s less than a thirty minute bus ride from Pittsburgh.

  I might be able to convince John to let me visit him at night after all, I think as I drive through Washington’s classic American downtown.

  But the neighborhood we eventually end up in isn’t the sort with cute little corner cafes, or even a Starbucks. In fact, the only buildings not abandoned on the seedy street we pull onto is a methadone clinic and a halfway house—which I know after a few years in my rural medicine program often takes the place of rehab centers in smaller cities. There’s also a bar, I note, scanning further down the street. Wonderful.

  We pull up to the Union Baptist Men’s Shelter. It’s a squat, red brick building with one solitary steel security door. The door’s been painted over several times with various shades of blue, probably to cover up gang tags, and it looks very, very heavy. I’m sure there are people inside, but the door remains firmly shut when we come to a stop at the curb alongside the building. I very much doubt anyone will be coming out to meet us.

  But if John is freaking out anywhere near the level I am, it doesn’t show. His face stays neutral and he even throws me a lazy smile as he unbuckles his seatbelt and says, “Well, thanks, for everything, Doc—”

  He cuts off, slamming backwards into the passenger seat when the car suddenly accelerates forward. Speeding, not just merely rolling, away from the shelter.

  “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry!” I say, glancing at his cast-covered arm, then at his leg, which is better, but definitely doesn’t need to be subjected to the sudden movement as I drive like a maniac away from the men’s shelter where I was supposed to drop John off.

  Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! I scream in my mind. Out loud I yell, “What am I doing? What am I doing?!?!” as I continue to drive from the shelter with my hands tight on the wheel.

  But I don’t stop. And John doesn’t say a word as I round a corner, my tires making a screeching sound straight out of The Fast and the Furious. Fact is, I’m asking my Prius to step way outside its comfort zone as it speeds away from the men’s shelter faster than an ambulance.

  I can’t believe what I’m doing. Can’t reconcile it. But when we finally come to a stop sign at the side of a two-lane road between nowhere and nowhere, I check my Waze app to discover I’m over three miles from my intended destination.

  I rest my head against the cool steering wheel. Breathing hard. Still not believing what I’ve done.

  I can feel poor John watching me in that quiet way of his as I squeak, “What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?” over and over again.

  Which is why I can only laugh when he finally clears his throat and asks, “So Doc, what are you doing?”

  I shake my head, still resting on the steering wheel. Weary, though my day off has technically only just begun.

  “I have no idea.”

  Chapter Six

  But I guess I must have some clue. Because the next address I insert into Waze is my own. Yes, the place where I live. Even though I’m a doctor, with a medical degree, at the end of a three-year residency, driving around a former hospital patient who, up until a short while ago, I was supposed to drop off at a shelter.

  “This is just for a little while,” I explain to John as we walk through the door of my one-bedroom apartment. “I’m going to talk with your social worker on Monday. I bet there are lots of housing programs for people with disabilities. Places where you can live until your memory comes back. She probably didn’t look into it because you didn’t have anyone to advocate for you, but I’ll call her. And I bet it only takes a week or two, tops, until we’re able to find you somewhere better than that shelter to live.”

  John doesn’t answer, and I’m once again hit with the feeling that I’m providing more reassurance to myself than him—and not doing a particularly great job of it.

  No matter how many words I throw at this situation, I don’t feel any better about my unorthodox solution to John’s current problem. John, for his part, seems more interested in checking out my little second-floor apartment than in listening to anything I have to say about him moving out of it soon. He walks around the living room, taking in everything, before coming to a stop in front of my beige couch. His self-tour doesn’t take long. There’s just not that much to see, thanks to the space’s total absence of pictures or anything else that would indicate someone actually lives there.

  Luckily, the apartment had come fully furnished. Otherwise, John would be sleeping on the floor tonight. I haven’t added a stick of furniture or ambience to the place since I moved in, and it looks exactly like how I intended it to be when I came to the small college town of North Independence seven years ago. One step up from a hotel rental until I fulfilled my program obligations and could move.

  Even so, I cringe at the beige couch. It’s perfect for me when I’m nestling in for a weekend of editing Chemo Kids Sing clips on my laptop, with the TV running old musicals in the background. But it’s only six feet long. His feet will probably hang over the sides.

  Which is how I find myself offering, “Hey, why don’t you take the bed?” as I cross the room to stand in front of him. “I practically live on the couch anyway.”

  He tilts his head to look down at me. “You brought me here, Doc. To your home. And you think I’m going to take your bed and let you sleep on the couch?”

  “Well, the couch is probably not big enough to accommodate you, and I don’t want you sleeping on the floor—especially with your recent injuries.”

  He holds up his right hand and shakes his head. “Doc, stop. Just stop,” he says, like I’m confusing him more than the amnesia. “You brought me here. To your home.”

  “Yes,” I answer. “And I want you to be comfortable here.”

  He considers my words, then says, “The only place I’m going to be comfortable is in your bed.”

  “Yes, exactly!” I answer, relieved that he finally
gets what I’m saying. “So please don’t feel bad about taking it—”

  But then he steps closer to me and says, “That don’t mean I’m going to let you sleep on the couch, Doc.”

  It’s the word “let” that sets off the first alarm bells. I find myself swallowing hard, my brain scrambling to deny, deny, deny what my instincts are telling me he’s really trying to say.

  “Okay,” I say, taking a step backwards. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

  “Maybe on your part.” He takes another step forward, and this time, he only leaves enough space between us for his cane. “You understand I ain’t a dog, Doc? That you can’t just bring me home and foster me.”

  “Actually, I’ve never had a dog,” I babble.

  “And you still don’t got one,” he informs me, his face somber. “If a dog’s what you want, take me back to that men’s shelter and go to the pound.”

  “No,” I answer, my brain completely fried by what I’ve done, and what is happening now because of it. By his sudden nearness, the way he looms over me in the small space between the couch and the coffee table. But somehow I manage to say, “I don’t want a dog. First of all, it’s against the terms of my lease. Second, I don’t really have the time or the lifestyle to keep up with one. Third—”

  He kisses me before I can finish with my list.

  Not like a dog.

  Not like a patient.

  But like a man.

  A man who knows exactly what he wants.

  And is the world supposed to spin when someone kisses you like that? Maybe I need to schedule an MRI. Because I’ve brought a guy I barely know home with me. And when he kisses me, everything tilts and twists, whipping us around and around each other like we’re on a carousel.

  But I’ve been in relationships before, and unlike his, my memory is still fully intact. I know this is not what a kiss is supposed to feel like. I know someone’s lips claiming yours shouldn’t suddenly unhinge you and make you feel like you’re going to fly away.