As always: Thanks to the Usual Suspects! Kate, you are an awesome beta!
Pony - I hope your eyes get better soon!
I'd also like to thank all of the rest of you reading this story as well. It's gonna be a fairly one, I hope you can stick with it. I will understand if you decide not to, since there will be more bad and sad stuff in the upcoming chapters.
I know it's a little early, but Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Warnings: Please don't read this story if you are sensitive.
West ch. 7
"Don't you hear that? He's calling for me!" Elizabeth struggled to escape the confines of her husband's arms. "Kenny! Kenny! Darling, Mama's here!"
Richard held her tightly, "Elizabeth, hush! It'll be all right. He hit you. I told you that if he ever did that, he would have to go to Doctor Lottridge's Van Hall Institute. We haven't made any progress with him. Van Hall is his only hope now." The inarticulate sounds that had issued from his son tugged at his heartstrings.
But then Kenneth made other sounds as well, some sounding suspiciously close to swear words. The nurses had told both of them that Kenneth didn't know what he was saying and likely never would; the damage was just too great. The nurses were incredibly helpful and sympathetic to Kenneth and to the both of them. They had been a godsend and were likely the only reason Elizabeth hadn't been hurt worse than she had been.
He was quite angry with Elizabeth for hiding the fact that today wasn't the first time Kenneth had struck her. It was certainly the hardest time, for her nose might be broken. She had tried to use makeup to hide the bruising from him. She had failed. The thick swelling around her nose and eyes had given it away.
He in turn had lost control and slapped his own son. Richard felt bad about it now. Kenneth didn't know what he was doing; he simply wasn't capable of knowing right from wrong anymore and he certainly didn't know his own strength.
Richard had asked Doctor Lottridge to tell him what to expect and not to sugarcoat anything. The good doctor hadn't. His son was going to be a perpetual infant and because he didn't know his own strength, a dangerous one at that. But perhaps, with intensive hands-on therapy, just perhaps Kenneth could become more manageable and be re-schooled so that he could feed himself with the proper eating utensils and not his fingers. There was hope that he might be taught how to use the toilet, maybe even dress himself, but only if he was given the proper long-term care. He would never be able to fend for himself again.
The elder Hutchinson swallowed hard, forcing down the lump that rose in his throat. He knew that neither he nor his wife was getting any younger. If Kenneth had been manageable and non violent, they could have kept him at home and it might have been tolerable -for a few years. But Richard realized that eventually, they would be too old and too feeble, to watch over an adult-sized toddler.
But that wasn't the case since Kenneth was unmanageable and violent. The boy had to leave now. It would only be more difficult for Elizabeth to deal with later. Richard knew he should never have permitted it to go on as long as it had. It had only raised false hopes in his wife. And himself. There. He had admitted it.
The tears burned in the back of the older man's eyes, but he held them in check. He had been hoping the doctor was wrong; he prayed that his boy would recover. He had come into his boy's room day after day and talked to him. Had tried working with Kenneth, but the much hoped for progress, never occurred. Sure, there was some improvement in mobility but that seemed to be the limit. The good doctor had told Richard to expect that.
But every time he looked at his boy, he could only see the damage that had been wrought. He had not been able to force himself to look into his son's eyes, not since Kenneth had been back in the hospital. The vacant stare and drooling still haunted him.
Richard looked at the photos on the wall, each photo recording a single moment in each year of Kenneth's life - in them he could see his son progressing from a cherubic platinum blond baby, to a fit, handsome and proper young man. In his mind's eye, Richard added a new picture, that of a drooling, infantile man. A single tear escaped his iron control and tracked down his face. Acid burned in his belly. So much potential, wasted.
His beautiful boy drooled, moaned and could only make jerky, baby-like movements. There was no grace, no control – no mind- in that body. He couldn't force himself to look into those vacant light blue eyes. His son wasn't in there anymore. He knew it. His boy was gone forever. And he feared if he looked into those eyes one more time, he knew he would break down.
Someone in this family had to be strong and make the hard decisions and as the patriarch, it was his duty. He enfolded his wife in his arms, gently cupping the back of her head to his shoulder and listened as the ambulance doors were slammed shut. And that's just what he had done, he had made the hard decisions and this decision had been the most difficult of all.
The sound of the metal ambulance doors closing were as if he closed off his heart to his once bright and lovely boy, for it was as if his son were truly dead. He finally allowed the tightly held back tears to flow.
XXXX
Doctor Robert Lottridge greeted the ambulance as it pulled into the service bay. This was what he had been waiting for. With young Hutchinson in his control –correction- care, he would finally have access to the kind of funds he needed for his less affluent patients, for his research and for his beloved institute.
With the backing of the well-to-do Hutchinsons and their wealthy friends and connections, Lottridge knew that it was only a matter of time before there would be charity balls and other events that would be held in support of the unfortunate Kenneth. Tragedies such as young Hutchinson's never failed to make the local rich populations open their collective pocketbooks wide. The money would soon start to roll in.
The doctor carefully controlled his expression as the doors of the ambulance were opened and the gurney was lifted out. He put up a hand and stopped the crew before they wheeled Hutchinson into the building. He took out his stethoscope and listened to Kenneth's heart. The beats were slow and steady, the man was still sedated. Lottridge waved the crew forward and fell into step behind them.
It was a pity that Kenneth Hutchinson had been in an accident and it was a loss to his family. But young Hutchinson wasn't an only child. Richard and Elizabeth had a daughter who was married. The Hutchinsons had a grandchild on the way, so the loss of their son would be minimized. The family bloodline would flow in the veins of that grandchild and any subsequent children, so there would be no real harm to them.
Doctor Lottridge carefully searched for opportunities such as this and he was not about to let it pass. Young Hutchinson had a head injury; so there was no telling how much improvement he might make. There was every possibility that Kenneth could make a full recovery. But Lottridge didn't intended for the young man to ever recover enough to leave.
True, he wanted some improvement for the young man; it would make Hutchinson's long term care easier. It would also placate the Hutchison family. A little improvement, a little money. A little more improvement, a little more money. It was a good plan. Sad for the family of course, but they could easily afford it, unlike many of his other patients.
From what Lottridge had found out about the heir to the Hutchinson fortune, Kenneth had disobeyed his father and dropped out of medical school and –much to the embarrassment of the rest of his family- he had become, of all things, a policeman. The doctor shook his head; sometimes the rich were impossible to figure out. To his family, Kenneth was an embarrassment, a wasted life. But his use to the Institute was invaluable. The money his parents would be forking over for his care would benefit many less affluent patients, not to mention helping to fund the doctor's ongoing research. It was a windfall for Lottridge and the Van Hall Institute.
Doctor Robert Lottridge wiped his hand down his face to cover his smile as he listened to the sound of the automatic double doors swooshing closed behind him. He would have to instruct a select few of his carefully chosen staff members in the specific way he wanted Hutchinson cared for - -the young man was going to require a unique regimen for his highly controlled and limited rehabilitation.
Lottridge followed the gurney to the exam room he had specified to the ambulance crew. His golden goose -or gander- in this case, had arrived and unlike in the fable, he was fully aware that he couldn't get all of the golden eggs at once. He intended to keep this 'goose' well tended and very much alive for many years to come.
XXXX
Hutch woke up in slow increments to find that his whole world had changed. It was darkened, but he could tell he wasn't in his room anymore. He vaguely remembered that some men had taken him away from his home and had wheeled him away from Mah-Mah. They must have brought him to this strange place; one that reeked, the smell was sharp, laden with a medicinal aroma that made his nose itch. He knew that scent. It was one that filled him with dread, though he couldn't quite remember why.
He did know that is was always a bad thing to smell… that odor always meant pain or loss. A hazy memory floated by unannounced, that of dark curls and indigo eyes staring up at him, a plastic mask covering the lower half of the face. It was the face of a friend, a dying friend. Was it Dark Curls from before? It just must be. The memory evaporated and was gone just as quickly as it came, leaving Hutch feeling ill.
The queasy feeling remained as Hutch looked about at the austere white walls and cold metal bars on the side of his bed. He shivered and pulled his blanket up, feeling cold in a way that a simple blanket could never warm. He scanned the room and found he was all alone. The only sounds were his rapid breathing and a monitor's soft beeping. Unsure what to do, he worked at sitting up, though it took a lot of his strength to do so.
His right side was still weak and largely uncooperative, but he was getting movement back. He panted lightly, the energy it had taken to move, had sapped him. Or it could be the residuals from the stuff in the push-plunge short nurse gave him. He closed his eyes, the change in his environment was overloading his brain and he could feel his head begin a slow, painful beating.
He heard a door opening and looked in the direction of the sound. In walked a tall man in a long white… shirt… no, that wasn't the right word, but Hutch didn't bother to look for it. It was too hard, not worth it, not for one word. There was a 'click' and the room lit up. Everything was white. The brightness pierced his aching head and the painful beat sped up.
The man went with the odor of the room, sharp and slightly unpleasant, but with good intent. Hutch knew that with the way his head was hurting him, things would soon become a muddled blur of input when he needed to have everything calm and clear. That happened often when he was at home and too many things happened at the same time.
When he got upset by all the commotion, the nurses would almost always give him a push-plunge and he didn't want that, not now. Not when might he end up… someplace else… maybe some place worse, when he awoke up. It made him anxious, the fingers of his left hand dug deep into the covers, scrabbling for purchase, for something to hold on to as he struggled to concentrate on the man in white and what he was saying.
"Khzotaevh?" The man tilted his head slightly. "Dxeopetadsfg?"
Those were questions. Hutch knew they were, but the harder he concentrated on figuring out what was being said, the more his head ached. He focused hard on the man in white. He could feel his eyebrows knit in concentration. He had a feeling he was being tested. What was the right response?
"Khzotaevh?" The man repeated.
Headache growing, the blond struggled to ignore the pain. He knew that the word was the same as before and hoped the man would repeat it. It then occurred to him that perhaps if he gave the right responses, he might be allowed to go back to mah-mah and stern-faced man. He already knew that he didn't want to be here. He willed the man to ask the same question again.
The man obliged him, speaking slowly and clearly. "Kenzoaeth?"
His name. That's what the man in white was saying. Hutch slowly tapped his left hand to his chest and nodded, hardly daring to believe. He didn't want to try to talk just yet. His words were wrong and he didn't feel comfortable enough to try in front of a stranger.
"Hmmm." The man in white pulled a small paper out of his white… shirt… and took out a scribble thing and scratched away on the paper. He stopped, looked Hutch in the eyes and tapped the scribbler to his lips. He stuck out his hand towards the blond.
Hutch stared at the hand and slowly reached out and grabbed it with his left hand and shook it. It seemed right. It wasn't the correct hand for this, but the action was right, he knew it. He smiled. He couldn't help it. This man was trying to communicate with him. Not as a cry-squall, but as one man to another. A small spark of hope flared, perhaps this wasn't such a bad thing that he was sent here after all.
The man in white patted their clasped hands with his free hand, then gently retracted his own, offering a small smile as he did so.
Even though his head pounded with pain, the blond found himself reluctant to let go of the moment. But he released the man's hand and put his own hand to his aching head. He was losing the struggle with the pain.
"Slxoap. Waond mrea lakd." The man in white scratched away on the paper. The man then took Hutch's right hand and felt along it, he pulled out a pin and poked one of the blond's fingers.
Hutch felt the poke to his fingertip and tried to pull his arm away from the slight pain. He was confused by the action, but it hadn't really hurt. His left fist clenched, just in case he needed to punch white coat man.
The man flicked his eyes to Hutch's and frowned a little. He then flipped the blanket away from the detective's legs.
The blond was filled with apprehension, unsure what was going to happen next. He clenched his fist so tight it hurt.
The man in white moved to the foot of the bed and took his scribbler back out and ran it up the bottom of Hutch's left foot.
Hutch's toes curled automatically from the sensation. The action was repeated with his other foot. Again his toes curled, but to a lesser degree.
The scribbler was put away behind an ear and a small mallet was produced from somewhere in the big white 'shirt'. The man tapped the blond's good knee and then his weaker side. The mallet was put away and more scribbling was made on the paper. He tapped the scribbler to his lips a few times before flipping the covers back in place. The man walked to the door, looked over his shoulder at the detective. He left, turning the lights down as he did so.
Though his head ached fiercely, the blond struggled to stay awake for a bit longer as his mind was reeling with questions. He turned his head and noticed something on the small table next to his bed, something helpful. Its shape and curly cord gave it away. The name of the object refused to show itself. It didn't matter. Hutch didn't need the name of the thing to know how to use it. He reached over, picked up the thing and set it in his lap.
His hand hovered over the… the… talk-into-part.
TBC
