BROKEN WING
CHAPTER 8: ICY SPIDERS
J.D. was dozing when the phone in his room rang, snapping him out of his half dreams inspired by Madison's stories about games she played with her little sister and the ambient noises of the hospital. Reaching out his good arm, he winced as he contorted his torso to grab the phone by his bed. Adrenaline was making his heart race. It was getting late on a Saturday β past the hour when well-wishers would cal β it had to be his mom calling to let him know she was on her way home. He fumbled for a moment, trying to get his stiff thumb to press the answer button. "Hello?"
"Hey sport."
J.D. felt his heart dip at the male voice, but he smiled when he recognized that it was his dad. He hadn't been called "sport" since he was small. "Hi, dad."
"How're you doing?"
"I..." His guts grated as tension pooled in his stomach at his father's question, the familiar voice vibrating in his mind.
Joe stood several feet from him on the grass, slowly rotating a glass of ice and brandy. The world around them was dark but the lawn was illuminated by the lights from the house.
J.D. furrowed his brow. "I dunno know. I've been better, I guess."
"I'll bet. How's the staff treating you?"
"Okay."
"Good."
Silence fell on either side of the line and J.D. felt the tension in his stomach begin to form a knot. He felt ill. "Where are you?"
"Back at home."
J.D. looked down at his hands and saw a scuffed up football. In front of him, yards beyond the crystalline cloud of his breath, was a tire he was throwing the ball through. The tire had been part of his childhood swing until his father had cut it down and set it up as a target for him. His father was behind him and as he burped, J.D. could smell the alcohol on his breath.
"Oh."
The pain in his stomach was growing sharper and making him nauseous, so he pressed his heels against the mattress and tried to shift his position without bending his torso too much. "Listen, son, I spoke with your mother this morning and she's going through a real tough time."
The knots in J.D.'s stomach dissipated into a cold pit as he felt the tempo of his heart rise. His father hadn't spoken to him since he was admitted to the hospital and yet here he was, already making excuses for his mom instead of asking him how he was coping with being away from home, surrounded by strangers all day, doing his best to heal.
"And you know that I'm not allowed to visit you right now, right?"
J.D. nodded, his throat going dry, then reminded himself that his father couldn't see his nod. "Yeah, Tamβ they told me," he replied, catching himself before he revealed Tami's involvement.
"It's complete bullshit. Did you tell them that? Have you given the police a description of the gangbangers who attacked you?"
J.D. moved his lips but no words came, and he felt numbness spread its wings in his chest.
"Fucking Mexicans shouldn't even be allowed in our country," Joe spat as he shook his head.
"Don't talk like that," J.D. replied as he aimed and threw the ball.
"This is my house and I'll talk however the hell I please."
"J.D.?"
"Yeah... yeah, I... um... I should go."
"What? Why? This is the first time we've spoken all week."
Sweat was breaking out on his hairline. "I know, it's just, there's this old guy next door and it's late. I don't wanna wake him up." Joe didn't reply but J.D. could hear him sigh.
"All right. You don't need to say anything more."
"No, Dad, I just β"
There was a noise on the other end then the hiss of a dead line. Joe had hung up on him. J.D. held perfectly still, listening to the static until it clicked into the dial tone. Licking his lips, he tried to swallow past the dryness of his throat then clicked off the phone. For several long moments, he stared at the dark wall ahead of him, feeling as if a hundred icy spiders were creeping along his flesh, crawling up his back and digging into his brain. His stomach tickled with bile as the confusing sounds and images his father's voice had triggered wove themselves into a picture.
He swallowed hard but knew it wasn't worth it to fight the nausea. He was going to throw up. He grabbed the nearly empty water pitcher from the side of his bed and tried to take a few steadying breaths, then his stomach heaved.
He remembered.
Tami sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose as she waited in line to get out of the parking lot. The informative meeting had been long but helpful, and her passenger's seat was littered with packets, pamphlets, and handouts on foster parenting. It was three in the afternoon on a Sunday and she had a headache from not eating or drinking enough all day. All she wanted to do was go home and start dinner, but she'd promised J.D. that she'd visit him today. The importance of following through on promises had been discussed at the meeting, reminding her of her training on dealing with on-edge teens.
The line of cars finally began to move and she felt some of her tension release as she was finally headed towards the freeway. The one hour drive back to Dillon seemed too long, so she rummaged through her purse with her free hand, trying to find the protein bar she thought she'd put in there earlier in the week. It was smashed, had melted and cooled a few times, and was in pieces, but it was better than nothing. By the time she reached the hospital, she actually felt human again.
She made her way up to J.D.'s room with only an hour or so left in visiting hours, which hastened her step. Knocking on the door, she waited a minute then stepped in with a smile, only to discover that J.D. wasn't there. Furrowing her brow, she glanced around the room and saw that his cards were still on the windowsill, so he couldn't have changed rooms. Slipping back out to the waiting room, she sat down with her purse on her lap and tried to think past the lingering pain in her skull to figure out where he could be.
A small part of her was panicked, worrying that something had gone wrong and that he'd had to be rushed into surgery, but as she often had to remind herself when panicking over the possibilities of loved ones being in danger, "when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras." The most common, logical answer was almost always the correct. She'd drilled the philosophy into herself when she had been home alone for the first time with Gracie and kept having horrible fears that Eric had been in a car accident every time he was late for dinner. It was an anxiety she rarely let show but was constantly grappling inside.
The doctors had mentioned physical therapy, so that was probably where J.D. was. He was healing well, so she doubted there were any complications. She tried not to tap her foot as she waited, glancing through a magazine that showcased the allegedly shocking photos of female celebrities and their cellulite. "God forbid they be human," she murmured.
After a few minutes, she spied a nurse pushing J.D. down the hall in a wheelchair. She smiled and rose but neither had seen her yet, and when the nurse paused to open the door to the room, J.D. snuck out of his wheelchair to walk in on his own. The nurse, an intimidating dark skinned man, gave him a disapproving look, but J.D. walked in anyway. His step was a little shuffling and slow but steady enough for someone who seemed afraid to hold his torso completely upright.
"My, my, my," she said as she approached the open door, catching J.D.'s attention as he sat back down on his bed.
"He's damn sneaky, is what he is," the nurse said, shaking his head with a rueful smile before pointing at J.D. "Remember what we talked about."
"Yeah, I know," J.D. said, tugging at his pants as they pinched his thighs, clad in the scrub-like wear of a patient.
The nurse winked at Tami before wheeling the chair back down the hall. Tami entered with a perplexed smile. "Everything okay?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Walter just thinks I'm pushing myself too hard."
"Oh?" She stepped over to him and set down her purse. "With what?"
He shrugged. "I dunno. Everything. I just want to get better, you know," he said with his slight lisp that secretly made Tami's heart glow with maternal affection. "The sooner I can get out of here, the better."
"I went to my first meeting today."
"Yeah? How'd that go?"
"It was... It was good," she said. "A little long, but worthwhile."
He pivoted a little to face her as she walked to the other side of his bed to sit in the tattered armchair that looked like one from the waiting room. "What did they talk about?"
"Legal stuff, psychological stuff. I think it's more geared towards folks who are adopting little kids."
He furrowed his brow. "Adopting? I thought it was just temporary."
"It is, I mean, the meeting covered both, you know."
He nodded, his eyes growing distant. "Oh."
Tami cocked her head to better peer at his expression. One of the first things the instructor had covered was the child's resistance to their new situation and surroundings, but she didn't need a pamphlet to tell her that J.D. was less than sold on the idea of permanently living apart from his parents. In fact, she was surprised he hadn't yet expressed more distress at the idea, given that he was programmed for unwavering loyalty. "Is there something you wanna talk about, hun? Cuz you know you can tell me anything."
For a moment, he didn't seem to hear her, then he sucked on his lower lip for a few seconds before he met her gaze. "Everything's just... happening so fast."
She nodded, resting her elbows on her knees. "It's only been about six days."
"Six? That's all?"
Tami rested her chin on her fist. "We heard about what happened on Wednesday afternoon and I went to see you. You'd already been in the hospital for a night."
He looked as if the act of trying to remember the order of events was causing him physical pain, and after a few moments, he gave up and brought his feet onto the bed. He scooted back so he could lean against the pillows and give his healing abdominal muscles a break.
"You know, that painkiller you've been on is pretty powerful. I know it makes a lot of people get confused."
He nodded absently, and his expression had been so distant over their past few exchanges that she wondered if he was so exhausted from physical therapy that he didn't know what was going on.
"Hun... are you all right?"
His eyes snapped to hers then, fully alert. "Yeah, I just... I, um... last night I threw up."
"Oh no, are you all right?"
"Yeah, but they started talking about using the feeding tube again. But I didn't throw up because I was sick. It was because my dad called."
She studied his profile at length since he refused to look at her. "He upset you that much?"
He nodded, his slightly receding chin making him look terribly unsure, and his voice was so soft that she could hardly understand him. "I guess it was... it... he made me remember."
Tami waited patiently until he hesitatingly met her gaze again. "Sweetie, what do you remember?"
His eyes were stormy like the sea. "Everything."
Don't be shy. Please review! :)
