Chapter 13:
Anna from behind her closed eyes could feel the pain seeping into her body. She felt that there were eyes on her. That feeling alone was enough to make her want to open her eyes. She wasn't sure how long she'd been asleep, all she knew was that her body still ached and her eyes didn't want to open up with ease. She fought to get them open as she softly moaned.
She could feel the touch of someone's hand on hers. There was a smell in the room that was familiar but yet one that she didn't remember being there when she went back to sleep. Her eyes opened all the way and the face that was beside her bed started to come into focus. There she was face to face now with her ex.
"Max." Her voice was soft and the pain radiated through it. She didn't know why he of all people would be there.
"Hello Anna." There was something in the tone that he used with her that just didn't sit well with her right now. Surely he wasn't there to belittle her when she was lying there defenseless.
"Why are you here?" She let her eyes shut for just a moment thinking that when she opened them again she'd find out that she was just dreaming.
"The hospital called me and told me you'd been in an accident and that I should get here." He said, "there for a moment I thought that I'd find you on your death bed."
"I'm sorry that I have disappointed you." Anna said. When she heard him speaking she knew that she wasn't dreaming that he'd really come all the way from Philadelphia again. "I'm not anywhere near dying no matter how much you wish for it."
"Now, now dear," she felt him pat her hand, "that's not something that you should be saying." He leaned in and put a very fake kiss on her cheek. "I wouldn't want anything like that to happen to you."
"Save it for the judge and jury." Anna replied, "I know that you don't give rats damn about me unless there's something in it for you."
"Oh now that hurts. How you show so little disregard for my feelings when I dropped everything to rush to your side."
She rolled her eyes when he said that. "I'm not buying it Max." She really wasn't in the mood for this. She didn't know why he had even bothered. Surely he had something more important to be doing than this.
"Not buying what Anna." He asked. "That I do have a heart somewhere in my ice cold chest. That I am something other than the monster you have painted in your mind?"
"You are incapable of loving someone Max. I didn't have to paint a monster, you created the one that you are without my help." Anna said, "what is it that you are getting out of this trip here? Did you think that you would be collecting on an insurance policy perhaps, or maybe you thought you would find me in a vegetative state and be the wounded victim and pull the plug on me?"
"My, I see that being injured has brought out the best in you today." Max said. "You always were a feisty patient. But then I believe that playing the part of the wounded bitch always suited you better."
"Go to hell." She said back to him her tone cold as ice matching the feeling in the air right now. There was no love loss between the two of them and getting divorced from Max had been one of the smartest moves Anna had made in a long time. She just wished that she would have seen it sooner and saved herself a lot of heartache in the process.
"You will be there first my dear." He said, "you are the most accident prone woman I know. It appears to me that you have pissed off the karma gods in more than just this lifetime."
"I don't know why you even bothered coming. What do you get this sick thrill out of tormenting me like this?" She asked. She never thought Max liked poor and defenseless women, but then those were the ones that he could easily mold to fit his many moods and be easily forgiven by. Anna hadn't been that kind of woman. Strong and independent she could and often did stand on her own too feet. And she had been working hard on starting over again in Chicago with nothing more than the clothes on her back. She didn't want anything from him and especially not support. She had friends that she could get that from. "You need to find a hobby, was golf not enough for you."
"Oh no, Brenda and I have a great time golfing." He said. "She's settled into life in Philadelphia much better than you seemed to. She doesn't complain about all the traveling I do, or throw herself into her work to avoid me. I have no complaints."
"Then why?" Anna knew the answer to that question, not that she needed to hear why he was there. She knew that she didn't want him there with her and was upset that they had called him to begin with. But in the end that was her fault for not getting her emergency contact list updated when she should have.
"Like I said the hospital called and I had to come." He said. "It would have looked very bad, been a bad reflection of my character if I didn't come and at least see for myself that you were alive. People would have began to ask questions, not that I really think that other people's opinions matter that much."
"Just go then. As you can see I don't need you here. I really don't want you here. You've wasted your time in coming to see me considering most everyone knows that I am no longer your wife. That I left you, not the other way around. See I'm not the only one who knows you are a player and a liar." Anna said. " But that in the end really doesn't matter because it's over, you won, you have everything that I could have given you. I signed the papers without fighting you. You got the house, the car, what more could you want from me. I ended it like I knew it needed to be ended."
"It's never over Anna." He said. "You have something that belongs to me, I don't know where but I know. I won't let you get away with it. Your strong sense of denial just always amazes me. But then you always were a very strong self-centered woman."
"I don't know what you are talking about Max." Anna answered. "but I'm not in denial over anything. I've accepted, long accepted the fact that I made a dreadful mistake in thinking you were the person I should have married."
"You say that but no one believes you Anna." He was inches away from her face now. "You need to come clean with the truth, see I would hate for something to happen to you and you carry you lie with you."
"You are insane." She said, "and you need to give up this obsession. It makes you look crazy Max, your the one in denial not me. You refuse to accept the truth no matter how many people tell it to you."
"You have no right, you know that don't you." He was upset with her, they had, had this argument one too many times. "How can you live with yourself doing this to her.. doing this to me."
"She's dead Max." Anna said, "you know that as well as I do. Isabelle isn't here, she never was. You've been told that, it was shown to you. What more do you need to accept the fact that you just weren't there when it happened, and that was your fault not mine."
"I don't know how you did it, but I know you have her." He said. "How many people did you pay off to be able to do this Anna? Even you couldn't have enough money to keep everyone who would have known quiet. It's just a matter of time before it all comes out. You can't lie forever."
"You are imagining things." Anna said, "I'm telling you right now for the last time, there is no baby, you do not have a daughter. The baby was still born while you were in Phoenix." She really wished he would just accept that fact and move on with his life, more importantly just stay out of hers. It would make her life much more easy. "You put your trip above everything else, you left me alone, stressed out, I did everything that I could but in the end, if anyone is to blame it's you. You brought this on yourself. Do us all a favor and leave me alone, go back to Philadelphia to your precious perfect Brenda and have a baby with her. I'm not yours anymore, you have no claim upon my life, no right to be here in this room. So haul your ass out before I call security."
"Anna, please," she heard him stop as she looked up to see Carter going into the room. She had her arms crossed over her chest now. That was the first time that she'd ever seen Max shut up so fast in her entire life. Probably because he knew that with Carter there she would call security and have him throw out of the hospital, in the end more embarrassment than what he would want. While Max seemed to thrive on attention at times, he preferred to stay out of the negative spotlight.
Carter unaware of having done so had saved her from having to have this conversation anymore with Max. She knew why Max couldn't let this go, but she wasn't about to let him win this one. "Too late," she said feeling now just how tired she was and how much pain she really was in. Carter's timing was a complete and total savior for her and she wished that she could show him just how much she appreciated it. Max was wearing on her last nerve. This insistence upon being right no matter what anyone told him never seemed to end. Sure he probably had his reasons but in her eyes none of them were valid. She'd never let on to them being valid. She had people who would protect her with everything that they had in them, but when she was in Chicago like she was right now, a few hundred miles away from her closest family members. Having seven brothers had come in handy.
She had learned to play this part very well. He was emotionally abusive to her, he had always been that way. At first she had just been to blind to see what he was doing to her, but that's what happened when you looked at someone when you were in love with them. When she first came back to Philadelphia things really did appear to be better than they had been in a long time. That's why she decided it would be okay to give him another chance at a relationship with her. But after they got married things took a turn for the worse and after a year or so Anna really did see that things weren't what they appeared to be. He never could get his drug problem under control. Sure he could do it for a little while, but never fully. He would alway slip back into the same patterns that he was used to. That just appeared to make life much easier for him, and hell on earth at times for her. He had managed to find some way to blame it all on her, but she knew what went on when he took those business trips. They had been always the same for the last four years. "I appreciate you showing up, but it's too late, would you please just go now?"
Max turned, "it's never too late."
Anna knew she was going to have to be careful still. Even though they lived in two different cities she was never going to be safe. She would take the truth to her grave with her if that's what it took to keep him away. "No you told me once before that it was too late and really it is too late. Please just go, I'm tired and in pain. You have a life and a wife to return to in Philadelphia Max, you don't need to be here, you're not wanted here."
She watched him leave the room passing by Carter. She was just tired. All she could do was sink down a little more into the bed when Max left the room. She reached over for the button that controlled her PCA machine. She pushed it knowing that in a few short moments she would be getting some relief from the pain that had really began to course through her body.
"Are you okay?" Carter finally asked once they were the only two in the room.
Anna fought the urge to roll her eyes at Carter when he asked that, "I will be okay. I'm just hurting right now that's all." She was just happy that Max had appeared to leave, but there was still that fear inside her that this wasn't going to be the last time that she saw him. That he would appear the moment she let her guard down and try to live a normal life. It was never going to be normal for her again. Too much had happened to her for that to be the case.
Carter nodded. "Do you want me to see if we can get you a morphine booster?"
Anna shook her head. "No I'll be okay. I just need to give the morphine a few minutes to kick in and actually work." She knew it would be a matter of a few moments before she would find some relief from the pain of the car accident but she would never feel safe and secure. More importantly she would never fully be hidden away from the pain that Max had inflicted upon her. Those memories were always going to be there for her and she knew in her heart there was no drug in this hospital that could ever ease that pain.