A/N: I wrote a part in this chapter that says Gotham City is in Gotham County. I'm pretty sure that's correct, but if it isn't please let me know and I will correct it right away. This chapter looks long again, but it's mostly dialogue. I didn't have much time to correct mistakes, so sorry if you find any. Thanks for reading.
Chapter 7 - Sneaking
The next day, Sunday, Jack woke up around ten. He had managed to get the number of the lady his mother worked with, and also, with a good measure of glee, told his father's boss over the phone that he would not be coming in to work for an indefinite period of time.
Jack was surprised when Bernice called him Sunday morning. He didn't think she was courageous enough to weather another chilling exchange of dialogue with him. Jack knew he had the uncanny ability to make something as sweet as apple pie seem as evil as a serial killer. All she was, was easy prey. She informed him that his father was going to have a hearing on Tuesday to set bail. When asked if Jack was going to see a bail bondsman, Jack immediately refused. "Let him rot."
Bernice didn't seem to care either way. She just wanted to get off the phone. "The hearing is at eleven in the morning. If you need I can write you a note to excuse you from school."
"I don't care about that."
"I thought you wouldn't," Bernice snapped.
Jack was about to let that slide, but he couldn't resist prodding her patience. "Braver on the phone?"
There was silence.
Jack laughed. "And you thought you could help me," he said the same thing from the day before, rubbing salt in an open wound.
"I have referred you to another social worker. His name is Anthony Perez. Maybe he will be of more help to you."
"I doubt it," Jack said sarcastically.
"Have a good day," she said mechanically and hung up the phone, not even waiting for a reply.
Jack let the phone drop back onto the receiver. He yawned. But he knew he couldn't go back to sleep. He had to go to the hospital to see his mother.
At about noon he set out again, this time, using the car. However, he still took thirty minutes to get there. On the bus it had taken an hour.
He checked in with Vicki and walked into the doctor's office. Anderson was on the phone and smiled a hello. The window faced East, so today the sunlight was not falling through. The slats of the blinds were open, illuminating the beige painted room brilliantly. There was chocolate brown trim on the edges, near the floor and near the ceiling. These colors went together much better. At least someone had some color sense. Jack seated himself on the same chair as the previous time, and gave a distasteful glance at the business cards. He turned them away this time. He couldn't stand to look at it anymore. That wasn't lost on the doctor. He smiled again, frowning slightly, showing curiosity.
He finally hung up the phone. "You don't like my cards," he stated.
"No," Jack said airily.
"Why is that?"
"The colors don't go together."
"Do things like that bother you?"
Jack looked at the doctor. "Yeah, things like that. And things like people trying to analyze me when I don't want them to."
The doctor laughed, grating Jack's nerves. "I think you may have a twinge of O.C.D."
I think you may have a twinge of you're-about-to-get-your-ass-thrown-out-of-the-window. Jack shrugged. "I don't know."
"Well, I'm glad we made an appointment to see each other today."
Jack noticed it then, a vague, triumphant look on Anderson's face. It was like he had been playing hide-and-seek and had just won. Jack didn't like it one bit.
"Your mother told me she was born and raised in Gotham. And that's where she was traumatized. That's why the whole family moved. You've never been to Gotham, am I right?"
"Yes."
"I took a shot in the dark and called Gotham General. I asked if there had ever been a woman by your mother's name - maiden name - admitted to the hospital around eighteen years ago. Well, at the time it was their policy to destroy hospital records after ten years of inactivity. So on hospital record it looked like there never was a woman with her name admitted to the hospital. So I called Gotham County Police Department. I asked for a police report on a rape for a young woman with your mother's name. They turned up only one exact match for the five-year period preceding her family's move to Florida."
"So she was raped."
"Yes." But the doctor lost his light voice and sighed. "Your mother's been through some hell."
Jack found those words to be highly out of professional character, and he frowned. "Well what happened to her?" He asked ominously.
The doctor shook his head. "I can't tell you. She hasn't even told me herself, I just found out because I made a few phone calls. But she has to tell me first."
"Why, you already know what happened to her."
"But she isn't ready to confide in me yet. How will it look if I undermined her choice to keep this from me and came to her and told her that I knew what had happened to her?"
"But you already do know. Aren't you lying to her if you pretend you don't know? How does that make you more trustworthy?"
The doctor sighed and shook his head. "I'll admit it doesn't. But she isn't ready. But now that I know, I'll be able to draw the confession out of her more quickly."
"So you're not going to tell me what happened to her?"
"I'm afraid not."
"But she's my mother!"
The doctor shook his head again. "Listen, this information is in this file," the doctor pointed to a stack of files. He even pulled one out and set it in front of Jack. "This is confidential information. I can't disclose anything to you, even though you're her son. I can only tell you what you need to know. No more."
Jack didn't like the fact that the file was sitting just in front of him, but he couldn't take it. Was the only thing stopping him this clean-cut man in his mid-forties sitting in front of him, taunting him?
But Jack contained himself. Just barely. How he wanted to snatch that shiny black pen from Anderson's coat and stab him in the eye. He might actually enjoy the blood destroying the white perfection, simply because the doctor was so despicable. Jack thought he could hold his food in just this one time. He would have to, the chance to reduce the doctor to a screaming mess under his own desk would come only once...
"Do you have any more questions?"
"Huh?" Jack looked at the doctor. He had spaced out with his eyes on the file. He remembered where they were in their disagreement. "No, that's all. Wait, no. How long is my mother going to be here?"
"There is a recovery center we are going to send her too. I usually spend about half the week there while my patients no longer need continuous monitoring, but definitely do need some manner of counseling from a psychiatrist. It's like a nursing home, the way it works. But they have their own room, their own space. You're welcome to visit them at any time. They can even have their own things in the room. There are a few rules about what they can have though. Like, no knives or sharp objects. Things like that. All you do is check in with the nurses at the front desk, and show her what you're bringing in."
"What sort of medicine is she going to be on?"
"We have her on Valium right now. It seems to do the trick."
"What about money?"
"Vicki will tell you who your Case Manager is. He or she will deal with all the financial aspects," Anderson put the file on top of the stack. "If you have insurance that should cover most of it. You may just have to pay a small amount."
Jack nodded and glanced at the file surreptitiously. He stood up. "When will she be moved to this recovery center?"
"Probably tomorrow. Vicki will give you the address, all right?"
Vicki, Vicki, Vicki. Is there anything you do besides talk all day? "Okay."
Jack left the office and went to his mother's room. She was awake, but looked sleepy. "Hi honey," she said sweetly. She reached out a hand to Jack.
"Hi Mom." Jack twisted the corners of his mouth ever so slightly into a smile. He pulled up the same chair and sat on it. The bed was at the lowered setting, so he only had to tilt his head up slightly to look at his mother's face.
"I was looking for my things. Do you know where they are?" She started to look around again, as though she could have missed a spot.
"No, they're not here. I took them home."
"Oh. Why? Am I going to stay here?"
"No, they're moving you to a recovery center."
"Well I need my clothes, Jack."
"I know. I'll bring you some today. The doctor said they're going to take you there tomorrow."
"Well, what's it like?" She sat up and looked eagerly at Jack. She looked abnormally happy to be going to some place other than home. Didn't she know she was just a prisoner now?
"They said you get to have your own room. I guess you get therapy every day or something like that."
"Sounds exciting."
"Mom, you're not going on vacation. You're going to be stuck there as long as they want you to be."
His mother put a patronizing hand on his face. It was still hurting from being slammed into the hot hood of the police car. "What happened to your face?" She asked, frowning with concern.
He noticed she wasn't asking about the swollen jaw. She only needed one guess to figure out where that came from. "Some stupid guy," Jack said dismissively.
"Why don't you get some nice friends?"
"He wasn't my friend," Jack muttered contemptuously. "He was an asshole."
"Don't use bad words, you sound like your father."
Jack froze. "I'm not him," Jack said darkly.
"I know, honey, but sometimes you should be careful not to sound like him."
"I don't sound like him."
His mother shook her hands. "Okay, okay. You don't sound like him."
Jack was still feeling deeply insulted that she would even utter such terrible words. Another reason was that she hated his father too... Didn't she?
"Mom."
"Yes?"
Jack didn't continue. He hesitated and looked at his mother's eyes. They were a light brown, like honey. Lighter than his own, and very naive. "Were you raped when you were young?"
At first she just blinked. Then the flesh on her face visibly drained of blood. Even her lips lost color. She pressed them together. Jack saw a tremor go through her body and he saw it coming, but didn't dodge. She slapped him sharply on his right cheek with an open hand, just like a mother would. Not like his dad, who used a closed fist. Jack had not really expected this reaction. She had never hit him before. He had figured she would completely clam up, maybe even break down and pour out her locked up emotions.
Jack felt his cheek still smarting from the slap. This weekend was really not good for his face.
"Don't ever bring that up again," his mother hissed more darkly than he ever thought possible of her.
Jack finally allowed his left hand to touch his face where it was stinging. This is what it felt like to not be able to believe something that just happened? What a weird feeling.
Jack looked at his mother again. She was no longer looking at him. Her joy was gone as though it had never been there. She was staring at her bright red fingernails. It looked like she thought that, perhaps, they could offer her some consolation.
Jack stood up and left without saying goodbye. His mother didn't call for him to return.
Like he had promised his mother, however, Jack brought some clean clothes to the hospital again, along with some shoes and her purse too. He didn't go into her room, but dropped the items off at the nurses' station.
Jack was about to leave the hospital when he started to wonder if he would be able to get a peek at his mother's file, which he guessed was still inside the doctor's office. He made his way to the doctor's office - he had the path memorized now - and he stopped at the reception desk. There were surprisingly few people there, and there was a huge sign hanging from the desk that said what the visiting hours were, and that the hours between two and five were "Quiet Time." It was invariably clear that few staff members were needed at this time, and the one person that was at the desk didn't notice him - she was too engrossed in her work.
Jack waited for her to turn away or get up to leave the desk. Even after what seemed like five minutes she didn't move. Jack sighed and sat down on the glossy floor. He leaned on the wall like a homeless man and looked around the corner at the desk every now and then to see if she was still there. The hallways were deserted at this hour.
Jack was careful not to stretch his legs out too far, in case the woman noticed his sneakered feet on the floor.
Finally, the phone rang. He heard the lady say okay a few times and she said, "I'll get it to you right now. Just give me a few minutes to fax it."
Hanging up the phone, she stood up and disappeared into the doorway behind the desk. Jack seized the chance and walked quickly to the doctor's office. He half expected the door to be locked but it wasn't. He eased the door open and the room was empty. He smiled and shut the door behind him. He rounded the desk and went to the stack of files on the doctor's desk. His mother's file was under a few other files. He pulled it out and opened it. On top were a few stapled sheets of paper. They looked like fax paper, and on the top, was a cover sheet that said, Gotham County Police Department with an official-looking emblem on it. Jack flipped through the papers and saw a lot of small scratchy writing.
Jack didn't want to be caught sneaking around, so he took the stapled sheets and peeked out of the doctor's room again. The desk was still empty. Jack closed the door and tucked the sheets of paper in his back pocket. Then he saw the lady returning to the desk, a bowl of steaming food in her hands.
Jack gave an exasperated sigh and wondered what to do next. In a miraculous stroke of luck, the lady put her food down and disappeared into the back room again. Jack went to the desk to see where she was, and she was out of sight. Using this opportunity, Jack made a copy of each page on the copy machine with shaking hands and with a sigh of relief, snatch the copies and hastily walked back to the doctor's office. He shut the door quietly and sighed again.
Jack folded the copies and stuck them into his pocket, and then replaced the pages into the file, but not before creasing out any folds he may have made. He stuck the file back under a few others. Jack took a deep breath and let out to steady himself. Now all he had to do was leave.
As he was about to close the door again after he was out in the hallway, he had the misfortune of getting one last glimpse of the ugly business cards. He stopped and went in. Jack grabbed the entire stack of cards and was about to throw it into the garbage bin, when he noticed that the windows were actually slightly open. He let all but one float out of the window on the gentle breeze, watching them waft down into traffic.
He kept one in his hand and went back to the door, but received the shock of his life when the same lady at the desk came into view. "What do you think you're doing?" She demanded. "You can't enter these offices."
Jack held up the card. "I just wanted to get one. I forgot."
She frowned disapprovingly. "You could have just asked me."
"I didn't see anyone at the desk. I actually thought the doctor would still be here. I was here a little while ago."
She nodded, still suspicious. "Please don't ever do that again. This area is for doctors only, and only people with appointments."
"I'm sorry, I didn't think he'd mind. He seems like a nice guy." Jack almost started laughing when he said those words.
"Oh yes, Doctor Anderson is a good man." She walked Jack back to the desk and Jack keenly waved goodbye and rushed out of the hospital.
He would read those papers at home and find out what happened to his mother.
