Thursday, t-minus 2 weeks, one day till Mercedes' depature
"Is that song about me?" Sam smiled as he leaned up against the doorframe.
Mercedes rolled her eyes, unable to resist the urge to smile back. To gear up for her return to L.A., Mercedes had been spending literally all of her free time this week in Sam's spare bedroom turned home office with her head burrowed in her songbook jotting down lyrics and ideas for songs.
Sam would ask if the songs were about him and she always told him they weren't, so he had decided to ask her every time he saw her writing until she said yes.
"It's not," She replied.
It was, but so were all the others she had been writing recently. And he certainly didn't need to know that.
"When are you going to write about me for a change? That's a song I'd love to hear." He chuckled.
"Check out any given song of mine," She only half-joked as she looked up from her notebook. "I spent that last 5 years and some change writing about you, us, our failed relationship, long lost love, how we were meant for each other but things never turned out right." She paused and deepened her gaze. "That's an actual lyric I wrote. About you. Now, I just want to write something that's not going to make people so hopeless they want to find their nearest roof and jump off of it." She laughed, going back to writing.
Sam sent her a surprised smirk. "I didn't know that," He said softly.
Her head rose again. "Well, now you do."
As she went back to her notebook, he watched her intently. After his conversation with Dani at the top of the week, he had been debating on whether or not to tell her about it. On the one hand, he didn't want to mess up what they had, especially not when she was leaving two weeks from today. On the other, he knew that honesty was key if they were going to make things work, especially when they were thousands of miles apart. But also, was Dani really that much of a threat to them? She said herself that she wouldn't tell Mercedes about their history and he believed her. Even so, threat or not, he knew it wasn't right to keep Mercedes in the dark.
Needless to say, it was a dilemma that had been keeping him up at night.
"Hey, can I talk to you about something?" He asked.
"Sure, just give me one second," She trailed off as she finished jotting something down and shut her notebook. "What's up?"
"It's about this whole—" He was cut off by her phone ringing.
She looked at it and twisted her lips in thought. "It's Mason. I should probably take this. I've been so busy and screening his calls all week."
"Yeah, go ahead." Sam waved her on. He would use their call time to properly formulate what he wanted to say.
"Hey, Mase," Mercedes smiled.
"Hey, Sis. Look, I just got a call from Mom. Pops is going back to the hospital."
"What? When?"
"Now," he said. "Apparently, his symptoms are back and they're worse. You gonna meet us there?"
"Yeah, Sam and I are on the way. We'll leave in a few." She hung up and shot Sam a look of both confusion and defeat.
"What did he want?" He asked, not paying any attention to the call.
She shrugged and shook her head in disbelief. "My dad's on his way back to the hospital."
"His heartburn again?"
"I have no clue," she said, wracking her brain to figure out what was going on. She got up to put her shoes on before looking back at him. "I told Mason we were on our way. I forgot you were supposed to be at the football game in a few—"
"No, it's alright. I took off. I'll throw on some shoes, grab my keys, and we can go."
"What is going on?" Mercedes asked, rushing over to her brother.
At the hospital, Mercedes and Sam were the last to arrive. She didn't waste any time asking questions.
Her brother answered them all. "One of his assistants said that he had been complaining of an upset stomach all day. He figured it was still indigestion so he took some antacids at about 9, 10—"
"Indigestion at 9, 10 in the morning? Had he even eaten then?" She knew her dad had the tendency to skip meals when stressed, something she got from him. "Had that happened before last Friday? That didn't feel off for him at all?" As Mercedes shot her questions out, she looked at her mother, who was across the large room, out of earshot, on the phone. "She didn't say anything?"
"No. She didn't know until his office called her. They said when he was walking out the door of the office to take an early weekend, he ended up doubled over in pain. Chest, shoulder, back, stomach, the whole nine yards. They called the ambulance, then called Mom, who called me, who called you. No one's given us an update since we got here."
Mercedes' eyes remained trained on her mother, who was still on the phone but looked rather sane for the occasion. She did look annoyed, but that was probably because she had been called off of work early to come here.
Immediately seeing where her train of thought was going, Sam tried to calm her nerves a little. "Mercedes," He said cautiously, "just breathe, okay? Take a moment."
Michelle walked back over to where her children were.
"Moment taken," She said as she started toward her.
Sam sighed because it was obvious that she had not, in fact, taken any sort of moment.
Mercedes met her halfway to start the interrogation. "Indigestion? That early, huh?"
"He didn't say anything to me," Michelle sighed as she took a seat, still buried in her phone. "I had no clue."
Mason cautiously watched their interaction.
"What's going on?" The younger Jones woman stood across from her mother.
Her mother looked up at her for the first time. She definitely looked more annoyed than anything. "What?" She asked as if Mercedes was being ridiculous.
"Dad's not as healthy as a horse or anything but he's healthy for his age. Chest, shoulder, back, and stomach pains don't just happen, Mom. You know something," Mercedes said, aware of her fiancé, brother, and sister-in-law's wary eyes on her.
"Mercedes, why would she know something?" Mason's tone matched his mother's.
"Really, Mason?" Mercedes called him out. "Don't play Mama's Boy right now. Dad, who hasn't even had so much as a cold in the past decade, is in the hospital with God only knows what happening to him and she's sitting here like she couldn't be bothered."
"Mercedes, I've been on my feet in court all day and I was pulled out and told that my husband is being rushed to the hospital for the second time in a week; I'm tired and worried and annoyed all at once. It doesn't mean that I know something that you don't."
Mercedes shook her head. "Except you do know something I don't, and I can tell. So?"
Michelle rubbed her temples. "Mercedes, what you're not gonna do is—"
"That is my father. Don't tell me what I'm not going to do—"
"And that is my husband! You must've lost your damn mind." Michelle stood up, towering over her daughter, which she would've done even without the added boost of her sleek black 5-inch heels "I'm not in the mood to do this with you today. I would suggest you watch your tone and sit your narrow behind down somewhere. I have too many things going on right now, I don't need my daughter disrespecting me to be added to that list."
"Mercedes," Seeing she was about to fire back, Sam swooped in at the last second, touching the back of her arm, "come on, let's sit down. I know that you may be upset but this isn't the time or the place."
Even staring up at her mom, Mercedes showed no signs of fear, but backed away anyways, holding Sam's hand.
Sam led Mercedes to a couch on the opposite side of the waiting room. She was a chip off of Michelle's block and those two were spitfires if there ever were any. No one needed them butting heads right now. He sat her down and squatted in front of her, rubbing her shoulder with one hand and holding her hand with the other. "Just take a deep breath. For real this time."
She did as told.
After a few minutes, a doctor came into the waiting room asking for them. They crowded around her.
"Hello," She said. "I'm Dr. Reed. I'm taking care of Mr. Jones today."
"Is he okay?" Mason asked. "What happened?"
"And you better not stand here and tell us it's just indigestion like Dr. Lyle did last week." Michelle crossed her arms.
"I'm not going to. I think it's something much more serious. With his medical history, it seems very likely that his gallstones are the issue here."
"So it's not a heart attack?" asked Michelle.
"No, ma'am. It is still very important that we take care of this, though."
"But he came in with a lot of these same symptoms on Friday," Mercedes spoke for the first time since her argument with her mother. "Why did no one examine him for this then?"
"Well," Dr. Reed prepared to be blatantly honest, "I don't think he got the proper standard of medical care. When he came in, it was a Friday night as well as the last day of summer for a lot of the kids. It was busy."
"So what, his doctor just pushed him out the door with an antacid prescription?" Mercedes's arms were also crossed, just like her mother's.
"His gallstones are clearly documented in his medical history. Dr. Lyle, at the very least, should've done some scans or run some blood tests. I would've also probably admitted him and done an ultrasound, all of which we are going to do now."
"So how do you treat this? Hopefully not by having him throw back more antacids like candy."
"We have two options: get rid of the stones, or take out the entire gallbladder. But with the first option, the stones are just going to keep coming and most likely keep causing him problems. I'm going to recommend that he lets us remove his gallbladder in surgery. Once he's lucid, we'll see what he decides. If he says yes, we'll do the surgery and he'll be home probably by the end of the day Sunday, barring any complications."
Michelle's hands found their way back to her temples. "Can we see him?"
"His team is still working on him, running those tests and some more, so it'll be a little bit before you can see him. If you like, I can have one of our nurses take you to a more private waiting room that's on his floor."
"Please," Mason begged. At least this way, if his mom and sister were going to be at each other's throats, they could do it in private.
In the private waiting room, tensions surprisingly were not as thick, but there were still no updates from Marvin's doctors.
"Shouldn't we have heard something by now?" Mason asked, walking aimlessly around the room.
"Well, they say no news is good news, right?" Devon tried to ease his fears.
Mason huffed as he came and sat beside his wife. "No news just means that they don't know what the hell is going on which means that whatever's making him sick is probably making him sicker."
"Mason." Mercedes gave him a 'what gives?' look.
"What?" He didn't waver. "People don't say 'no news is good news' because not having news means there's a greater chance for actual good news. They say it because if you don't have bad news then you can't say for sure that things are going badly. But the doctor already came and told us that there's something seriously wrong."
"She said she would update us when she had more information," Mercedes said.
"And it's been two hours. How do they not have anything?"
"These things take time, Mason," Sam said. "I'm sure they'll be in with something soon."
As if on cue, Dr. Reed appeared in the doorway with a knock. Everyone rushed over to her.
"He's awake, but he's been in and out and we're still working to lower his pain levels."
"Did he say whether or not he wants to have the surgery?" Mercedes asked.
"That's why I'm here. One of the gallstones has traveled from the gallbladder to the pancreas. He doesn't have a choice anymore. It was good that he came in when he did. Things are ugly now, but they could've gotten a lot uglier. We're going to start prepping him soon."
Michelle went to rubbing her temples again.
"He's going to be here for a few days, even after the surgery. If you're all going to stay the night for updates and whatnot, which you're more than welcome to, know it's going to be a long one. I would suggest you all go and freshen up. Maybe get some food or some rest."
They thanked the doctor and she left.
"I'm staying," Mercedes said quickly, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm not going anywhere."
Mason looked at his watch. "I've got to go pick Aubrey up."
"It's half past 7," Mercedes pointed out. "She's still at daycare?"
"No, one of the parents picked her up with their kids." Devon looked at Mason. "I can do that. You stay here," she said.
He shook his head. "No, I'm still going to go. I'm gonna get some food or something to take my mind off of things."
"Well, in that case, I'm joining you. I haven't eaten since this morning."
After they left, it was just Mercedes, Sam, and Michelle. Sam wanted to go home and get some things so they could spend the night in the waiting room, but he was slightly afraid to leave Mercedes alone with her mother. "Are you sure I'm not going to come back to you two tearing the room apart?"
She smiled some, rolling her eyes. "Boy, go. We'll be fine."
Michelle and Mercedes had been in the room together for the past 30 minutes alone with not so much as a clearing of the throat from either of them. Mercedes decided to break the silence and looked over at her mom. "I'm sorry about what happened back there," She said softly. "What I said."
Her mom sighed. "We knew he had the gallstones but we didn't know they were causing him any symptoms. We thought it was just indigestion. We had no way of knowing." She looked up tiredly from where she sat across the room. "I know you don't like being kept out of the loop and we weren't trying to do that. We just didn't want you worrying and being distracted."
"He's not a distraction, Mom. He's my dad."
"Yeah, but you know what I mean. We wanted you to focus on finishing the tour and enjoying your time off. If we had known that something was seriously wrong, we would've told you."
"To be honest, I'm surprised you haven't turned the tables and gotten onto me yet. I know you can tell Sam and I are back together and that he's who I've been staying with. I also know that you don't like him." Before today, she had told her mother that she was living with a friend from high school.
She shrugged, slightly exasperated. "I like the boy just fine, Mercedes. You're 26. I don't have any control over who you date or live with."
"That's a tune you've never sung before."
"Well, your father wants me to be more mindful of what I say. A change of tune comes with that, I guess."
Mercedes didn't respond. She didn't really have anything else to say. She hated that this was what her relationship with her mother had come to. Arguing in a hospital waiting room followed by silence and awkward conversation. It wasn't like this until she left New York. Granted, they'd had their issues since Mercedes was 16, but once she started gaining traction in the industry, her mom became more scrutinizing by the second. Mercedes, being the woman her parents raised her to be, didn't meet the disrespectful energy for a long time. But in the past couple of years, her mother became unbearable, saying things no one should be saying to anyone period, much less a mother to her child. Her dad tried his best to help, but Mercedes didn't get her bull-headedness from him. Her mom had always been a spitfire and someone who liked to stay stuck in her ways, even if it was hurting people she loved. The more Mercedes started noticing how alike they were, the worse things got between them.
Mercedes was so consumed with her thoughts that she didn't hear someone coming into the room. It wasn't until she saw her mother's face as she got up that she realized Dr. Reed had come back.
"He hasn't gone into surgery yet, but he's asking for someone and we couldn't quite make out who. We can let one of you back to see him."
Michelle looked at Mercedes then back at Dr. Reed. "I'm sorry, I'm his wife, this is our daughter. Are you sure there's no way we can't both go back and see him?"
Dr. Reed shook her head. "Unfortunately, we can only allow one person in for now. We have a few more tests to run."
"What are you still running tests for? I thought you said it was his gallstones causing the problems?" Mercedes stepped forward.
The doctor took a breath. "It is, but something's not quite right. His test results aren't all consistent with gallstones, so we're running a few more before we send him into surgery."
Michelle went to rubbing her temples for the umpteenth time that evening.
Seeing this, Mercedes put her hands on her mom's shoulder. "Mom, you should go ahead and see him."
Michelle turned around. "Are you sure? I don't want to leave you alone."
She nodded. Just as Mercedes played with her hands when she was anxious out of her mind, her mom always went straight for her temples. She could tell that she was really worried. "Yeah, go. Sam will be back in a few minutes. I'll be fine."
"I can take you now if you're ready, Mrs. Jones," Dr. Reed said.
"Okay." She turned to her daughter as she was walking out. "I'll let him know that you're here."
Mercedes nodded and watched her walk off. She went back to her seat, sending up prayer after prayer for her father.
Everyone had returned to the hospital, prepared to spend the night. Sam brought some food for Mercedes, but she said she didn't want anything. They were all camped in the waiting room, waiting on updates that were few and far between. Marvin went into surgery, but they couldn't finish, so they were still running tests. Something was still wrong. They slept in the waiting room that night.
Mercedes woke up freezing and looked to see that her blanket had slid off of her, probably because she had been tossing and turning all night. Between the thoughts about her dad and the inhospitable hospital waiting room, she had been narrowly avoiding insomnia all night. She decided that a quick walk outside would do her some good on both fronts. She got up, careful not to wake up her fiancé who seemed to be sleeping soundly.
As she began walking down the hallway, Mercedes heard someone walking behind her.
"Hey, you," they said.
She turned and smiled. It was her sister-in-law. "Hey, Dev. What are you doing up?"
"I could ask you the same thing. Where were you going?"
"Just going for a walk. Trying to generate some body heat and maybe clear my mind or something."
"I'll come with." Devon jogged for a second to catch up with her.
She shook her head. "No, I'll be fine alone. You go back to sleep."
Devon shook her head back. "Mercedes, it's what, past 11 o'clock at night? Pitch dark outside. You're not going out there by yourself. Let's go."
Knowing her resistance was futile, she nodded and they went out for their walk.
"So what were you thinking about?" Devon asked as they walked into the warm summer night.
"Do you really need to ask me that?"
"Okay, yes. Obviously, you're thinking about your dad." She smiled. "But what about? I mean, your mind's got to be racing for you to need a walk to calm down."
"It's nothing, Dev, seriously. Honestly, given the circumstances, my mind is going at a pretty normal pace at the moment." Feeling Devon's eyes on her, Mercedes avoided looking in her direction.
"So, it's time for me to start guessing until I figure it out, then? Because I'll do it. You know I will."
Mercedes definitely didn't want her to guess. With her luck, Devon would say something she hadn't thought of and just make her feel worse. "I feel like this is all my fault," she said simply.
Devon frowned. "Marvin?"
The singer nodded. "I knew that something was off. I knew that it was more than just heartburn, I didn't push him to go to the doctor, and now he's in some room in pain being constantly poked and prodded and scanned."
"Mmm."
"And the craziest part about all of it is that I'm not even upset or sad. If anything, I'm frustrated. Hell, I'm pissed off."
"Pissed off at yourself or your mom?" Devon smirked at her.
"Ugh. Could you not shrink me right now?" Mercedes gave an annoyed laugh. Devon was a psychiatrist and liked to psychoanalyze people without them knowing it. Needless to say, she was good at her job.
She put her hands up in defense. "I'm not shrinking you! I'm just saying. You're pissed off because you think that your dad is in the hospital due to your perceived neglect," she mentioned. "Then, as soon as your mom is free, you almost bite her head off. But in reality, it's you who kept your silence about your gut feelings. I don't even need my med school training to tell you that that sounds like projecting."
"Okay, so maybe I am projecting a little. But you can't ignore the fact that my mom likes to keep me out of the loop."
"Now that, I can't do. You're right."
Mercedes sighed as they turned a corner. "I just can't stop thinking about how things would be different if I had convinced him to come in, you know? If I told him that I had concerns, he would've listened to me."
"Mercedes, just because he would've listened to you doesn't mean things would've turned out any differently. His doctors could've missed it again, he could've understated his symptoms, you have no clue what would've happened."
"Look, all I know is, I came on this walk to clear my mind and talking about this isn't helping."
"I think I have something that might take your mind off of it," Devon said as she shot her sister-in-law a smile.
Mercedes shrugged. "Go for it."
She pulled out her phone and opened up a photo, showing it to her.
Mercedes gasped. It was a sonogram picture. "You?"
Devon gave her a wide and excited smile. "Me. 10 weeks yesterday. We found out two weeks ago."
She hugged her. "Oh, my gosh! This is amazing."
"It is," Devon said as they separated.
"Was it, like, planned?"
"Not exactly. We wanted to wait until Aubrey was three to even think about another one, but life had other plans. We couldn't be more excited, though."
"I'm so happy for you two. And for me!" Mercedes beamed. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm really good at this whole auntie thing."
"Believe me, I know. Bree learned to say your name before she learned to say mine." She laughed. "But you can't tell anyone, especially not Mason. He wants to surprise everyone at Family Dinner in the true Jones fashion."
Mercedes frowned. "Excuse me? Surprising the family at dinner is my m.o., not his."
"No, I don't think you understand. This is a good surprise," Devon said sarcastically. "It's a 'Michelle! Marvin! You're going to be grandparents again!' surprise. Not a 'Michelle! I'm doing something that's going to garner unwarranted criticism from you again!' surprise."
"Oh, well when you put it that way, it makes much more sense." Mercedes laughed as she played along.
They were still joking, laughing, and talking about the baby when they got back to Marvin's hospital floor.
"Now, I'm not saying you need to spend every ounce of your free time coming up with new ways to spoil your new niece or nephew, but—"
"Uh uh." Mercedes grinned as she shook her head. "I asked for something to take my mind off this and you more than delivered. I'm going to spend every waking moment preparing for this." As they reached the nurses' station, Mercedes looked over at Devon. "I'm going to ask if they have any updates yet. Couldn't hurt, right?"
They walked over to the desk and one of the nurses immediately asked what they needed.
"Hi, my name is—"
"Mercedes Jones, I know." The nurse smiled before quickly checking herself. "Sorry, I'm a nursing student, so my professionalism isn't quite the best yet. It's not every day we have a celebrity in Lima. And at the hospital no less."
"It's not a problem," Mercedes said, hiding the twinge of annoyance that she felt. Sometimes, she had to remind herself that fans were fans no matter the setting. "My dad is a patient here, his name is Marvin. It's been a few hours since we received any new information. I know it's late, but are there any updates that you or someone else could give us?"
"I can certainly check for you." The nurse went to typing on the computer in front of her. "What was the last update you received?" She asked.
"They took him in for his gallbladder surgery, but they couldn't finish it. They didn't tell us why or what the plan was."
The nurse studied her screen for a moment. "Would you like me to have someone find you now? I can't tell you exactly how long it will take, but I can be sure to send someone in."
"Yes, please. Thank you."
"Alright. Dr. Reed is gone for the night, but I will have another one of our doctors come in and update you as soon as they can."
"Sorry," Devon stepped up from behind Mercedes to speak to the nurse, "quick favor to ask. Could you make sure that you don't send Dr. Lyle? Dr. Christopher Lyle. I don't know if he's working tonight, but he is the reason we're in this mess in the first place," She looked over at Mercedes and squeezed her hand. "I just think it'd be better if he didn't bring any news to us."
Mercedes squeezed her hand back, understanding her.
"Of course," The nurse said. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"
"No, that's all." Mercedes thanked the nurse once again before she and Devon walked back to the waiting room.
She sat beside Sam, who was now awake.
"Hey," He said, smiling at her and kissing her on the forehead. "Where were you?"
Mercedes took his arm and put it around her. "Dev and I went for a walk. I was having trouble sleeping."
"Are you ok? Did the walk help?"
As she went to answer, Mercedes' mouth stretched into a big yawn.
"I guess that's a yes," Sam said in the middle of her inhale, causing her to break it with a laugh.
"It is. And aside from the obvious circumstances, I'd say I'm doing pretty well," She said softly. "Maybe even great."
"Good. Now that I know you're sleeping peacefully, so can I. Maybe we won't throw off our circadian rhythms too bad."
"You and these damn circadian rhythms." Mercedes rolled her eyes and smiled.
"What?" He asked, on the defensive. "I don't know how you could've toured in almost every time zone and still not understand the power of your own biological clock."
"I'm about to ignore you now. This is me ignoring your biological clock talk." She looked him dead in the eyes, lips pursed with one brow sleepily raised, before she found her eyes drifting down to his own lips, which were slightly curved. "Has your breath turned into morning breath yet?"
"Well, by the looks of my watch," He pushed back his sleeve to reveal the time: 11:50, "I've got about 10 minutes." He gave her a goofy smirk.
She bowed her head, chuckling. "You are so crazy, boy."
"Do I need to say it?"
Raising her head, she shook it. "Just kiss me."
He obliged, pulling her closer into him as he placed his lips on hers.
She pulled the blanket over them and lay her head on his chest. "Don't think you're getting too much sleep. Someone's coming in with some updates soon."
"Then I guess our circadian rhythms will just have to wait." He smiled. "Hey, I want to talk to you about something in the morning, if that's okay." He knew he needed to tell her about Dani before it was too late.
"Sure."
Hi everyone! So, chapter 12 is down. As always, I loved reading your reviews and can't wait to hear your thoughts again! Looks like Sam is on the right track with letting Mercedes know about Dani. We will soon start to see whether or not she really is a threat! Next time, we'll figure out what's finally going on with Marvin and if Sam gets to tell Mercedes the truth. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!
