I dialled my mother's number and waited, and seconds later my mother was answering the phone. "Stephanie?" she said. I could hear the tears in her voice.
"Hey, Mom. How are things going?"
"Better now. I talked with Ranger. He blasted me."
"We've been pretty upset about everything. I'm crying all the time, and Ranger is getting angry. He is furious with Val because he sees me crying, and he knows that Val's comments are the cause of it."
"Is that why he's answering your phone?"
"Kai suggested it. He has banned me from talking to Val for a while. The stress of what has happened has stalled my recovery, and Kai said that if we don't take drastic measures to reduce my stress, he can see the pneumonia getting worse and me needing to go into the hospital here in Inverness."
"Oh God", said my mother with tears in her voice. I could just imagine her making the sign of the cross. "Can you come home?"
"I'm actually more protected from Val here. Having said that, Kai has grounded me for at least a month because I started bleeding again. Besides, I still have to do what I came to do. The problem is that I had anticipated getting into the company by today, and now I am on sick leave for a month. Then, the month afterwards, Kai doesn't want me working more than half days. This means that I will be in Scotland for at least two months and more likely three."
"How is your team here handling it?"
"They are okay with it, but it puts a lot of extra work on their desk. They had an Amber Alert that they were responding to as well, and it didn't end well. It is the first time that we have lost someone, and the guys took it hard."
"What happened?"
"There was a surrogate mother who stole her baby back. The guys found her quickly and sent over a team, but the woman was mentally ill and was determined that, if she couldn't have the baby, then no one else could either. As the team went in to retrieve the baby, the mother snapped the baby's neck and then she shot herself in front of our team. My guys took it hard. They watched the whole thing from the Command Center, so they saw it all go down and there was nothing they could do to stop it. For Miguel and Dirk, it brought back memories of Tia being kidnapped and the fact that she almost died. For Nick, it brought back memories of his abusive mother-in-law taking his kids and running with them. In both cases, the kids were retrieved before something bad happened. However, each of the guys have been suffering from PTSD symptoms. They are too traumatized to sleep. They were given time off work and told to see their therapists, but it's been a rough go for them. I feel guilty that I'm not there to help support them better."
"You never think of the people who are rescuing the victims", said my mother. "I saw that story on the news, and I thought about how awful it was for the parents and the baby, but I didn't think of how awful it would be for the people involved in the rescue."
"And there were a number of people involved. The retrieval team has eleven people – ten that work onsite and one that supervises everything offsite. There are usually four people – three plus me – on the research team identifying who is involved and where they can be found, and we often work round the clock to try to find the kids faster. And that is just in our company. There are more people on the police side as well. Dozens of people have been traumatized by what has happened."
"Tell me about your friend who died in Scotland. I didn't even know that you had a friend there."
"We bought a company in Scotland from a man, and he came to Trenton. He was dying of cancer and I had just had my hysterectomy, so we both had to rest a lot of the day. But he walked in and we just clicked. He was seventy-three years old. He said I looked like his fiancée before she died. She was pregnant when she was in her car accident, and he said that he would like to think that he'd had a daughter and she was just like me. We shared the same sense of humor, the same outlook on life, and he took me under his wing and provided the support I needed when I was still grieving the loss of our babies and the upset with Val. We talked almost constantly when he was in Trenton. Together, we worked with the team to develop a merger plan. One of the reasons he wanted to sell his company to us was because of my research department. He liked what we could do and he wanted that for his company.
"It was four weeks ago that he returned to Scotland. Since then, I have talked to Colin every day. He adopted me as his daughter, and he treated me as his daughter." I sniffled.
"We got here four days ago and the day we got here, we went to the hospital in the evening. Colin and I talked for about ten, fifteen minutes, then he asked me to tell him a joke. He closed his eyes, listened to my joke, and laughed as he died." I sniffled. "The nurses told me that they didn't know how he was hanging on, but when they saw the smile on his face when he saw me, they knew it was that he was waiting to see me again before he died." I sniffled again. "And then this woman came in and attacked me because she said she was his daughter and I said it was impossible. I still have scratches on my cheeks. And then Val called to complain that I had gone to Scotland and hadn't stayed in Trenton which, really, was inconsequential but Val was screaming at me and telling me that I was selfish, and my friend had just died in my arms. It broke me. And then you called to add fuel to the fire.
"The next day, Heather – the woman who attacked me – came to the house and complained that we were having a family gathering and she hadn't been invited. We went to Colin's sister's house, and Heather showed up again. She attacked me and hit me in the lower abdomen, and I started bleeding heavily. I've been in so much pain that I haven't been able to walk, and Kai had to put me back on heavy-duty painkillers. I am glad to say that I have almost stopped bleeding again, but it was pretty scary for a while. Add in that the pneumonia seemed to come back , and Kai said it was because I was under too much stress and I was exhausted. In the last four months, Ranger has been shot, we rescued a kidnapped girl in Costa Rica, then Christmas, then I was pregnant and had to have emergency surgery, and then pneumonia, and then the allergic reaction. There was the fraud case, and the merger that has required a lot of work on everyone's part, and I've been pushing myself and only took a week of sick leave, despite Kai wanting me off for three months. And then, to top it all off, Colin died, Heather believes that she is Colin's daughter, and we had to come to Scotland two weeks early. Through all this, my babies died and Val has been attacking me and then the Amber Alert. It's been a lot Mom, and Kai and Ranger are worried about me. As Kai said the physical issues alone are a lot. It doesn't even make sense. All these awful things and Val is calling me a half-dozen times a day to demand money. Her problem is not that important. There is a simple solution - she just needs to get a job. For the parents of that baby? There is no solution. My sadness over losing my friend? There is no solution.
"So now that Kai has ordered me to bed, Ranger is ensuring that I am following doctor's orders. Ranger and I agreed that he would take the phone away and I would converse with people over email. I've been trying to support my team in Trenton through their distress over the Amber Alert and when I was doing that, Heather came in again and held me at gunpoint today. So I talked to her for a while, disarmed her, and held her as she cried. She said she wanted to try to make her life better, and we believe her. We've worked on ways of doing it, and she has already made a huge start in revamping her life. She is trying, and I think she is going to be okay. And then Val phoned me six times today to tell me that I'm not being fair. Mom, I refuse to help people who refuse to help themselves. Heather has done more to help herself in the last six hours than Val has done in the last fifteen months."
"But this other woman was holding a gun to you."
"She felt desperate. She didn't really want to use it. She was just upset because I had done some research and found out that at the time she was conceived, Colin was living in London and hadn't come back to Inverness, and Heather's mother had been living in Inverness and to all appearances, had not left Inverness at all. So I talked to Heather about her life, and I listened to what she had to say. She'd had a shitty upbringing and she'd had no one to love her. She thought she found someone, and when she got pregnant her boyfriend left her. She then lost the baby. She just wanted someone to care about her, someone to treat her as worthwhile. So we helped her make a plan for her recovery, and I asked her to email me every day to tell me how she was doing. I'm trying to become her friend.
"And we'll see how it goes.
"But Mom, her life really was shitty. Her mother was addicted to both drugs and alcohol, and she often forgot that she had a daughter. Her mother supported her habits by solicitation. But for her daughter? Clothes were too small. Food was obtained through dumpster diving. Yet somehow through that, Heather kept on trying. She finished public school and went on to university. She is now working on her Master's. She lives in a safe neighborhood and owns her own car. She supports herself as a security guard and has done well, and even earned a couple of promotions. She is a success.
"Then Val left six messages today wanting me to pay her way and telling me that I was being mean to not be giving her money. I was disgusted. Mom, Val and I had a good childhood. We were well-cared for and well-loved. We always had somewhere safe to come home to, we always had a roof over our heads and enough food on the table and of a good quality that would let us grow up healthy and strong. We always had proper clothes that fit and were in our favorite colors and styles. We had a father who taught us how to drive, how to fill our car with gas, and showed us what end of a screwdriver we were to use. We were assured of a hug whenever we needed it. We had parents who wanted to read us bedtime stories and give us kisses and wish us sweet dreams as they tucked us into bed, and to chase away the monsters in the middle of the night. So if Heather can be a success after such a shitty upbringing, why can't Val even try after having a great one? And Val thinks that I am being the unfair one out of the two of us?"
"You're right. I've been blaming myself and I just want our family not to be fractured. I have been putting pressure on you to fix it, however you can and as quickly as you can. I have Val phoning me daily to beg me to talk to you."
"I have a question for you. Do you think what Val is doing is fair?"
There was a silence. "I was blaming myself for bad parenting."
"Well, that's a big bunch of bullshit. Mom, you and Dad are excellent parents. We never wanted for anything important, you love us deeply, and you are always there when we need you. You and Dad are who I model my own parenting after."
My mom sighed. "No, baby girl, I don't think that Val is being fair. When you two were little, I stayed home with you and your dad went to work. But we were always partners, and we always worked together. Val doesn't want to do anything. She doesn't want to work around the house like I did, and she doesn't want to go out to work like your dad did. To tell you the truth, I don't understand it. You get such pleasure at the end of the day by looking back at everything that you have accomplished. It makes you feel good."
"Yes, that's a problem. Her drinking is a problem. Her decision to stop going to therapy is a problem. Her failure to go to classes is a problem, and her belief that her profs will pass her based on whether she goes to bed with them is a problem. Going to your house for dinner every night when we were giving her money for groceries is a problem. Her failure to contribute to the family is a problem. It doesn't have to be financial. She could take Grandma for a night every now and then. She could help you out around the house once in a while. She could make you dinner or do the dishes with Mary Alice. Instead she has done nothing but complain. I'm very frustrated with her. There is no good excuse for her behaviour.
"Ranger and I talked about it. We knew that she had stopped seeing her therapist. We knew that she was once again spending about a thousand dollars a month on alcohol. We knew that she was failing her classes. We knew that she was eating dinners at your house, probably to come up with the thousand dollars for booze. We knew she was spending hundreds a month in online shopping for things she doesn't need. We even knew that her reported rent was seven hundred dollars more than it actually was. We were hurt and worried about her, but when we talked about it we decided the true problem was her drinking. We told her that we would continue to fund her, despite the fact that she was wishing me dead and being horrible to me, but that we'd require urine tests every second day to show that she was trying to stop drinking. She responded by screaming and swearing at me for being a horrible person, and she again told me that I was going to die and she was going to celebrate when I did.
"And that was when Ranger had enough. I tried, Mom. We gave her the money and made her plan out her life so that she was living on the straight and narrow. She did the plan and it worked at first – and then she refused to follow the plan she had created. We asked her to revamp the plan. She refused. Now we have to practice tough love, and she's not liking it so much. To tell you the truth, neither am I. But I have to cut her off to protect myself, because with the rate that Val is calling me and the level of abuse that she hurls at me when she does call? I want to help her. I really do. But I can't take her selfishness and abuse any longer, and I have realized that giving her money isn't helping her."
"That makes sense. I've been supplementing her income over the last little while as well. I didn't know that she was lying to you about her rent, and I didn't know that you were giving her money for food. She told me that you weren't giving her enough to cover her expenses. I've been struggling to cover meals for her family as well as ours, and I've been giving her all our savings. However, from now on I won't give her any extra money and I'll encourage her to get a job."
"Mom, we've been giving her five thousand to cover her expenses each month, and because it is a gift she doesn't even have to pay tax on it. That's more than Ranger and I spend per month."
My mother sighed. "That's quite a bit more than we have coming in each month as well."
"And you are probably covering her food and the kids' clothing bills as well, aren't you?"
My mother sighed again.
"How does that leave your savings? Because I will happily plump up your savings. You don't waste money or lie to me or wish me dead. If you need some help, I would love to help you."
"You don't need to worry, baby girl."
"How much do you have in your savings?"
There was a silence. "A hundred dollars."
"I'll send some money to you when I get off the phone, Mom. If you ever needed money in a pinch, I wouldn't have time to transfer it over."
"I feel so bad."
"Mom, don't worry about it. The problem with Val isn't that I don't have the money. I have the money. The problem with Val is that she is sponging off me and lying to me in order to try to get more. You've never sponged off anyone, let alone me, and you don't lie, you don't make me feel horrible and you don't wish that I was dead."
"That was the worst part."
"Yes. It hurt me deeply. A few hours before she came in, I had been struggling to breathe and I was still scared as hell, and when she came in she said that God was going to kill me for not giving her more money. It was just bad timing, but neither Ranger nor I will ever forgive her for that one." I sighed. "We were going to give her a second chance up until that point."
"I'm sorry to have talked about Val. I know that I promised Ranger that I wouldn't. However, I am very glad to clear the air, and to know where you are coming from. I will talk to your dad tonight, but I suspect that he will agree with me in that we should take the same stance with Val. Your father has been begging me to be harder on her, and I couldn't do it. Now that I know how she has been treating you though, I think she needs a big kick in the behind to get her to smarten up. And I have to say that I'm good at giving out kicks to the behind."
I giggled.
"Tell me about the company you are taking over."
"It's a good company. There are almost forty locations in Europe, their head office is here in Inverness, and they have thirty thousand staff that are primarily security guards. It's called Castle Force and has a great reputation. It was a good buy for us. It came about in a funny way. We'd had a man come to us to sell his company, Castle Force. We figured out that it was a fraud, as the person who was 'selling' us the company didn't own the company. So Ranger phoned Colin and introduced himself and told him what was going on. They connected, and Colin told us that he was interested in selling his company, that he was dying of cancer and he didn't want to have to leave the company for his sister and nephew. And that was how it came about. A week later, Colin was in Trenton to talk about things."
My mom smiled. "That's incredible. Sometimes things are just meant to be."
"That's true. So what is happening at your end?"
"Your dad picked up another two regular fares, so he is pretty happy about that. Your grandmother got away from Annie in the mall today, and they had to do a full mall search. She was in the men's bathrooms. It took us an hour to find her. Vinnie called me and told me to get Val under control, that she was clogging up his phone lines. And that's about it. Not much new is happening here."
"Vinnie was probably more worried about Val interrupting his session with Mistress Melody."
"Does Vinnie really see prostitutes in his office?"
"Yes, but you didn't hear it from me. Of course, he can't fire me any longer now that I don't work for him."
My mom laughed.
"Hey, I've got a joke for you", I said. "A lawyer writes a letter to his wife. 'Dear Janie, I know you understand that I have certain needs that, now that you are 57, you can no longer satisfy. I love you dearly, and I hope you don't take it the wrong way that I will be spending my evening with my 18-year old secretary at the Motor Lodge in town. Please don't be upset – I'll be home before midnight.' When he got home, he found the following letter from his wife. 'Dear Ian. I thank you for our honesty about me being 57 years old. However, I would like to remind you that you, too, are 57. I will be spending the evening with Len, one of my students. He is young, fit, and a sports trainer in the gym. He is also, like your secretary, 18 years old. I'd like to point out that we are in the same situation – with one small difference. Since I am a math professor, I know that 18 goes into 57 a hell of a lot more times than 57 goes into 18. Therefore, I will be home sometime tomorrow. Your loving wife, Janie.'"
My mother broke out laughing. "That's one thing that I have always loved about you. You can always find something to smile about."
"Thanks", I said.
"Look, I'd better let you go. I want you to have a good sleep tonight, and I hope you feel better tomorrow. Thanks again for talking to me and for letting me clear the air."
I smiled. "Thank you for listening. I've missed you, Mom, so I'm glad that we are past this. If you call me and you don't get me, I'm not ignoring your calls. Ranger will be holding my phone for the next little while. If you need to get me quickly, call Ranger's phone. That's what I've told my team as well. You can also contact me through email, although there will again be a delay in responding."
"Okay, thanks for letting me know. If there is an emergency, I'll contact Ranger."
"Thanks, Mom. Have a good evening."
"And you have a good sleep. I love you."
"Love you too, Mom."
I hung up the phone and accessed our bank account. I sent my mom the maximum amount of money that I was allowed to etransfer and put my phone down. I was glad that I had talked to my mom. As I said, I missed her, and with clearing the air I felt like I could breathe.
