Chapter 36. Trying Not To Kneel
Aunt Kate entered unannounced into the boy's room where Peter and Davy sat playing dominoes. "Where is Michael?" she demanded without preamble.
"Isn't he in your room visiting with you and the girls?" Peter asked without looking up from their game.
"Would I be askin' where he was if he was in our room with me and my girls?" Aunt Kate shot back in exasperation.
Peter seemed to take a moment to ponder the question before coming to a conclusion. "No ma'am, I guess not." Pondering it a moment longer his eyes went wide. "Wait!" he exclaimed at last. "If he isn't in your room with you and your girls and he isn't in our room with us, he could be anywhere with anyone!"
"Worked that out all by yourself, did ya?" Aunt Kate deadpanned, trying hard for a patience she didn't feel.
Peter looked at Davy, horrified. As if realizing it for the first time, they intoned together, "He's gone!"
"We have to go find him. You don't think the Sandovals have him again, do you?" Davy asked, rising quickly and going for his coat. "Let's go."
"How would you suggest we do that?" Aunt Kate answered. "Micky and the car are gone, too."
"Wait, Micky's not here?" Davy looked about in surprise, having missed the drummer's exit.
"My," Aunt Kate rolled her eyes. "Observant, aren't you?"
"They stole Micky and the car, too?" Peter began to panic.
"Should we call the police?" Davy hurried to the phone. Aunt Kate looked at Davy incredulously, unable to believe he'd just asked that. No wonder Mike worried over them so much. It wasn't that they weren't smart boys. She'd already seen that they were. It was just that they didn't always think things through. This was a prime example.
"Or," she suggested calmly as she spied a scrap of folded paper. "We could just look to see if they left a note."
"Good idea!" Peter nodded, hurrying behind her to peer over her shoulder to read Mike's distinctive scrawl. "Gone to lawyers to settle things up. Be back soon." he intoned. "Well, that tells us where Mike is, anyway." His expression clouded again as he worried, "Do you see a note from Micky anywhere?" Davy began helping him look as Aunt Kate facepalmed
"Merciful heavens," Aunt Kate groaned. "You boys are about as thick as bricks. You don't think maybe Micky drove him there, seein' as Mike ain't s'pose to be drivin' just yet, 'tween the pain and makin' sure he's got them seizures under control again?"
"Tha's right!" Davy turned to her. "They were talking about that last night."
"Oh yeah! They're probably together, then." Pete looked relieved. " See, Davy? And you were so worried."
Aunt Kate and Davy both wore matching expressions of disbelief. "I'm sure he feels much better now," Aunt Kate answered at last, sitting down on the foot of the bed nearest where the boys continued their game, waiting for Micky and Mike's return.
When they arrived two hours later, Mike arrived looking pale and tired, his movements slow and measured as he gingerly lowered himself to sit on the bed against the headboard.
"Everything alright?" Aunt Kate asked, watching her nephew carefully. Mike nodded, not trusting himself to speak just yet. Instead, he looked to Micky to answer for them before turning his head to look out the window, really wishing they all had private rooms at the moment, or at least that everyone could had chosen to gather in the girls room instead of theirs.
"Boy are we glad that's done," Micky piped up once it became apparent Mike wasn't in the mood to talk just then. "He got the old house and the garage signed over. Anything of value they managed to salvage from the ranch is being sold and added to the trust, which is supposed to pay the taxes and everything for the garage and the old house for as long as they need it to. And the land the ranch and barn used to stand on has been donated to build a shelter for abused women and children."
As she listened to Micky detail the outcome of the day's outing, Aunt Kate sent Davy to find Mike one of his pills and Peter to get a glass of water. Moving to her nephew's side, she placed a hand on his shoulder. "Sounds like a good day." she told him.
Mike just nodded. Waving Davy and Peter off, he shook his head and insisted softly, " I don't need none o'that yet."
"We've got a few hours 'fore we need to get on to Sadie's place. 'till then, you're gonna just stretch out here and relax." Aunt Kate replied, speaking as softly as he did, but with a conviction his declaration had lacked. "Now you go on and take what they're offerin' and try to rest. I'll see to it you're waked with time to clean up 'fore we need to go."
Knowing he wouldn't win an argument just then, Mike reluctantly conceded with a sigh. He was just so tired of arguing. Only after he was settled did Aunt Kate draw the other three outside the room to the bench and demand, "So now tell us what else happened. What's got him all twisted up and hurting inside and out again? What did we miss?"
"He made me promise not to tell you, even though I really think you should know in case they try something else." Micky answered. "He doesn't want you worrying about it, though."
"Tell him I threatened to hurt you if you didn't tell me." Aunt Kate suggested, her expression dour. "Which, for the record, I will if you don't."
Micky gulped hard. He weighed his options quickly and realized that Aunt Kate was far more dangerous at the moment. But how to do this and still keep his word to Mike?
"I can't. I'm sorry." He said at last. " If I told you anyone ambushed him outside of the lawyer's office I'd be betraying my friend's trust and I just can't do that. If I said anything about how they tried to convince him he owed it to them to make sure they had a living allowance from the trust he was left for taking care of him all those years or how they wanted him to tell Mister Burke, the lawyer, to give them unlimited access to the account I couldn't live with the guilt. I just can't do it. I'm sorry.'
"If you could, though," Aunt Kate pressed, needing to know the answers for her nephew's sake. "you'd tell me that he refused them, right?"
"Yes, ma'am." MIcky answered. "And I'd tell you that they got real angry and tried to press their demands physically , and how he stood his ground, and refused to let them see how much pain they were causing him. and how it was probably the one time I ever wished Mike wasn't so dead set against hitting women, and how Mr. Burke had to have them removed from the premises. And how they kept screaming this wasn't over yet. But I really can't do that. You understand, right?"
"Yes, well," Aunt Kate struggled mightily against the rising fury. "I do understand, and I won't ask you to tell me none o'that, then. From now on he's to keep at least one of us, meanin' me or my girls, with him at all times, though. Him and Clara was always thick as thieves anytime they was near each other, so he won't think nothin' of having her right there and she's got herself a great left hook. He might not be willin' to strike one of them old hags, but she sure as hell will."
"I suggested that. Well, sort of like that." MIcky admitted. "I offered to have Mrs Arcadian do it for him." The other two boys couldn't help but laugh at that.
"Mrs Arcadian?" she asked, being certain she'd never met anyone by that name before. Her confusion only prompted the boys to laugh harder.
"I wanted to date a girl once, but her father wouldn't let her go out and she couldn't go to parties without a chaperone," Davy began to explain. "We had one, really, but she had a nip now and then and when it came to the party she'd had a nip or two too many and we couldn't wake her. So Micky, being the friend he is and knowing how important it was to me, donned a gown and wig and Voila! Mrs. Arcadian was born. And courted. And proposed to by my date's father."
Aunt Kate looked incredulous as the boys' laughter echoed through the common area. "Now y'all're just pullin' my leg, ain't you?"
"No ma'am." Micky grinned, adding "I was actually kind of sad when Mike made me give back the ring."
Aunt Kate stood there laughing a moment longer with the boys before she shook her head, sobering quickly. "It's good that you all get him into things like that with you. He needs all the memories he can look back on and smile that he can get." Motioning them toward the girls' room, she said. "Y'all go on in. I'm gonna send Clara on over to set a spell with Mike and the rest of us're all gonna figure out what to do about them aunts. I've got me an idea."