August 2027: A Parent's Nightmare Part III.
As Elliott headed to bed, back at the hospital, now that Dante was asleep again, Beats decided to head round to the other side of the curtain to check in with Mrs Rosenfeld. He found her sitting with her head bowed, saying a prayer that he recognised from his visits to the synagogue with Flint. He turned to go and leave her alone to pray, but as he did she said, "It is okay, please come and join me for a moment. I am finished now, and my prayer was for both of our sons…"
Beats nodded and went to sit beside her; it meant that he saw Lachlan again for the first time since he had knelt alongside him in the street in the West Village. "I prayed for them both too whilst I was waiting for the ambulance to arrive. This is just the worst nightmare for every parent; you try so hard to keep them safe and protect them from harm, but then something like this happens, all of your efforts seem so pointless in a way… No matter how hard we try, the truth is that when it comes down to it…"
"We are helpless to stop the bad things. The problem is that we have to let them fly free and make their own way in the world, and that is difficult. Right now, I want to tell Lachlan when he wakes up that he is never going out in the evening ever again; that I will be keeping him at home all the time where I know he will be safest. However, I also know that were I to do that, he would quickly come to hate and despise me. I guess that the thing that makes this so awful is that we are supposed to be living in a world that has got past these sort of prejudices…"
Beats nodded, then said, "He came round, but then you would have heard him screaming your son's name. When he did, he kept saying that he told Lachlan to run, but that he wouldn't go. I can understand your son's position entirely; when I walked in on Elliott being attacked all those years ago, I could have run, but the truth is that when you truly love someone, there is no way that you can do so, even if they are telling you to…"
Mrs Rosenfeld nodded, then said quietly, "So Dante believes that he was the target, and that Lachlan ended up being hurt because he tried to intervene?"
"Yes, it would seem like it. Something resurfaced from his past live and this is the result."
"I suppose that all that has happened is also the result of true love; if Lachlan had run, then he wouldn't be lying in this bed, but what would that have said about him? I know that none of us would have thought any less of him, but he wouldn't have seen it that way. We all have our battles to fight in life, and he obviously thought that Dante stood a better chance if he evened the odds and made it two on two. We did think about sending him to self-defence classes when we realised that he was gay, but in the end we didn't. However, once he is better, then he will be going to those classes…"
Beats had to agree with her, and well, he would be insisting that Dante went with him.
Eventually Beats went back to his spot beside Dante's bed, and even as he held his hand, exhaustion overtook him, and he dozed off. However, he woke at once when he heard him moan and looked at him just as his eyes opened again; they immediately caught Beats own and held onto them.
"I was hoping that all of this had been a nightmare and that when I opened my eyes I'd be snuggled up in bed with Lachlan, but now I know that it wasn't… My chest hurts, but I can see that I have actually been really lucky. When he came at me with the knife, I knew that he was aiming for my heart, and I might have ducked down and to the side as he struck at me, so he missed. He was trying to kill me, I think. I knew exactly who he was…"
"We know too; it was a young man called Mateo Betancourt. He was one of the gang of boys that you were tangled up with back when you lived in the Bronx," replied Beats.
"Yeah, it was him, and the other guy, the one that pushed Lachlan, that was his cousin Rudi," said Dante sadly. "Mateo used to think that he was our leader, that we all did everything that he said because he was the smart one; truth is, we were all too scared of him not to do as he asked. He always told us that if we betrayed the gang, we betrayed him and he would come after us… The day that the social worker took me to meet you and Elliott for the first time was a couple of days before his big plan, which involved us robbing one of the local stores. I didn't want to be involved, but Mateo told me I was in, and assigned me a role. I knew that the plan was doomed to fail, and I think he did too, because the role he gave me was one which almost ensured that I would be caught and end up in juvie. I was desperate to escape from it all and they all knew it…"
Dante took a breath, and then asked Beats for some water. He fetched a glass, and after he had sipped a little, his adopted son went on. "Suddenly I am in the West Village, and I loved you and Elliott at once; it would have been the same in any circumstances, but now it was my escape route from the trouble I was being placed in. It all happened so quickly and on the day I moved in, the robbery attempt was made. I hadn't told any of them I was leaving, so the plan failed… Instead of me taking the fall, the one person that ended up in custody was Mateo. He had always said he was my best friend, that maybe we could be more…"
"So, you think that last night he came after you in revenge for what happened to him?"
"No, I don't, because he looked every bit as surprised to see me as I was to see him. We greeted each other, but then he said something vile about Lachlan; told me that I needed a real man in my life, not some… I'm not going to repeat it until I have to for the police. My reply was that I had a real man, not some useless waste of space like him. I shouldn't have done that; I should have done something to get away from him. It all spiralled from there and when he pulled out the knife… The look on his face made me tell Lachlan to run, because I knew what would happen if he didn't… Is he awake yet, because I need to tell him how sorry I am…"
Beats did not speak, but the look on his face must have betrayed the truth as suddenly Dante's eyes widened. "Lachlan fell, but he got up. He tried to come towards me, but Rudi just pushed him away hard, and he fell backwards… What aren't you telling me, dad? I mean, you said he was here, behind the curtain, last night… Oh, no, please, he didn't… He can't be, because if he is then I don't want to be alive either…"
As Dante's eyes filled with tears, Beats took hold of him, looked him in the panic filled eyes, and said, "He isn't dead. He is still in his bed on the other side of that curtain. It's just… Look, when he fell, he really banged his head; he fell on a drain grating that was sticking out of the sidewalk. He has a fractured skull and well, his body has shut down a little to try and process all of what has happened. He hasn't woken up since we found the two of you, but they have done the necessary scans, and they are confident. His brain is functioning properly, his body is doing all that it should by itself. I guess you would say he is in a coma…" At the use of that emotive word, Dante began to sob, and Beats could only wrap his arm around his son gently and hold him. "His mom is with him; like me, she has been here all night…"
"She must really hate me," sobbed Dante. "She should hate me for pulling Lachlan into all of this…"
"I don't," came a voice, and Beats looked up to see the lady in question looking round the corner of the curtain. She stepped forward, and took Dante's hand, then waited until he looked her in the eye. "You did not do this to him; it was just one of those things that happen in life. You did your best to try and protect him, you told him to run even if it meant sacrificing yourself. The fact that you did that, and the fact that he refused to go only tells me one thing; that you both love each other very much. If he didn't love you, he would have run. The fact that he stayed just tells me that one of these days you will be my son-in-law, and might even remember to call me Ruth instead of Mrs Rosenfeld, like I keep telling you to…"
"He might not want me any longer after all of this," said Dante sadly. "It is all my fault; the moment that I thought I saw him from the window at the café I should have known that I needed to be on my guard. When he ended up in prison, I knew that he would blame me for it. I wasn't there so his plan fell apart; either that, or he thought that I ratted him out to the cops. I have always wondered why he was the only one arrested when all of the others were involved, and yeah, I include me in that. It might have looked like someone reported him and one of us had to be responsible. What if by the time they let him out he had convinced himself it was me? I sound paranoid, don't I? But I am certain that someone did rat him out to the cops, and I have a hunch who it was; I think it was Rudi, the guy he who pushed Lachlan…"
Beats looked at his son then, and said, "We all have moments when we seemed paranoid, and maybe the circumstances are making you that way. I mean, how can you possibly know that his cousin reported him to the cops; in fact, how can you know that anyone actually did?"
"It was the look on his face as Mateo started on me; he looked terrified of the situation. He was obeying his orders, but he kept looking at me as if I could destroy him. I think that he is the one that reported Mateo to the cops. Unfortunately, he didn't have the sense to get clear before he came back and as his cousin, he was left with no choice but to follow him again."
Beats nodded, but then said quietly, "The police will be coming for a statement, but when they do, you must only tell them the things you know for certain. You can't repeat what you just said to them, because you can't prove it."
"I know," said Dante sadly. "I will tell them everything that happened, all that he said, because I need Mateo locked away again. I have this horrible feeling that if he finds out that I survived his attack, then he will come back and try again, and this time not leave until he finishes the job. On top of that, Lachlan ended up getting hurt and that is much worse than anything that he could ever do to me. I can't risk him getting hurt again…"
Dante winced then, his wound giving him pain, and he lay back down on the bed to get his breath back. Beats looked at Mrs Rosenfeld and she nodded, understanding what he was thinking; that Dante was raving under the effects of the painkillers. There was no way he could know anything he had just claimed, no proof even that Mateo had deliberately targeted him. They could not say that to him now though, they just had to agree and hope he didn't start making the same claims to the police.
"There is one thing that is obvious to me from all that he just said though," Mrs Rosenfeld said in a low voice. "I am going to need to go out and buy myself a suitable hat for my son's wedding…" Beats chuckled at that, knowing what she meant by the remark. Dante might be raving, but his final words had been said from his heart.
Then Mrs Rosenfeld was gone, and Beats went to press the call button, to let the nurse know that his son was awake. As he reached for it, however, Dante stopped him. "I thought I was going to die, dad. Everything was going so dark, and I was falling… The street was deserted, so I don't know who came, although I seem to recall that Elliott was there…"
Beats smiled, and said, "He was, but he didn't find you first. No, you owe your life to the skills of a veterinarian…" Dante's eyes widened at that, until Beats went on, "It was Tina that found you, her and Kitty. They both decided at the right moment to take the garbage to the collection point and found the two of you. You will need to thank Tina when you get out of here, and Kitty too for that matter. She was the one that sat with Lachlan and called the ambulance…"
At about that time in the West Village, Elliott was getting up as the alarm had just gone off. He had managed to get a little sleep, albeit fitfully, his dreams filled with images of the things that could have happened the previous evening… Like Beats, he was acutely aware that Tina's timing had been a key factor; had she not decided to take out the garbage bags at that precise moment, then Dante might have bled out before someone else came across him and Lachlan. What made it worse was that he knew who that person would have been; Beats had been about to leave in search of them when the call came from Kitty…
His first challenge that morning was to get Ty and Olivia off to school; the former had not wished to go, so Elliott had used the best argument of all. He told the boy that Dante would expect him to go, as he always said that the most important thing that anyone could ever have in life was an education. "I promise you that you can go and see him tonight after school, as long as the doctors say it is okay; that offer is of course conditional on you attending every class, and I will call the school to check. Face it, Dante will ask how your day went to, and he would be upset if he thought you were lying to him…"
Ty was still reluctant, but in the end he and Olivia left the house on time. Elliott did not head down to the door to see them off as he usually would have, as it showed that he trusted them to go, and more importantly, it allowed him to avoid bumping into any of the neighbours quite yet. He loved them all dearly, but he needed a few moments alone to gather his thoughts before he had to leave for the hospital to allow Beats a chance to come home and rest…
He had barely had two minutes when the door intercom buzzed. He sighed and decided that for once he would ignore it. The subsequent knocking on the internal door to the apartment in the front hall frustrated him greatly, as it meant that someone else had let the caller in - either Drew or Ethan in all likelihood. He headed down the stairs as they knocked again, all ready to tell them to go away and leave him alone, but the words faded in his head as he saw that Tina and Kitty were standing side by side on the threshold…
"We just wanted to know how they were doing," said the latter.
"I did tell her that the last thing you would want, or need, was visitors, but she never ever listened to a word that I said," said Tina, looking apologetic as she had seen the expression on Elliott's face as he flung the door open.
Elliott nodded, then suggested that they come in. When they reached the top of the stairs, he offered to make them coffee, but they declined. "We don't want to hold you up, as we know that you are probably anxious to get back to the hospital and see how Dante is," answered Kitty, then she looked at him expectantly…
"Well, he was lucky; the blade missed everything vital apart from his left lung and they took him straight into surgery when he got there and sorted that out. He is awake, in a lot of pain, and very anxious about Lachlan…"
"Well, that just proves that they are meant for each other, if the first thing he thought of was him," said Tina.
"Whilst that is true, he can also recall the whole attack and that is an issue," replied Elliott. He said no more, not wanting them to know yet that his son had actually known the person that attacked him. It would all come out in the end of course, but until that moment actually arrived, he was not going to make any further comment on the subject.
"And how is Lachlan?" asked Kitty. "He is such a nice person, so full of life and smiling; to see him just lying there, so pale, still and totally unresponsive was awful…"
"He has a fractured skull, which isn't great; fortunately, the fracture is in a 'good' spot, so to speak… His brain will have taken a tremendous blow and absorbed a heck of a shock, so he has effectively shut down all non-essential functions for a while, and that includes being conscious. When I called the hospital an hour ago, he still hadn't come round, and they have no idea when he will…."
The two women nodded, both well aware that such a state of affairs was a very bad sign; the longer it went on, the worse it was…
True to their word, the they left, but not before Tina admitted that she had been the one to have spread the news the night before, albeit inadvertently. "When I arrived home, I tried to sneak in, but Mike was in the hallway, having just put Harry to bed. My hands and clothes were still blood-stained, and he had heard Beats scream…"
"Artie had seen the two of you walking past and did wonder where you were off to in such a hurry for the time of night, so when I got in, he asked me why I'd been so long and had I seen the two of you. I had to tell him the truth, but he didn't tell anyone else," interjected Kitty at that point.
Tina frowned at her, then went on, "I told Mike the truth, and before I could stop him, he was on the telephone to Nick. I suspect that the jungle drums beat from there; if not from Nick himself then almost certainly from Jeff… I am so sorry, and Mike is too."
"It would have come out anyway, and from what Beats has informed me, Thad knew too; I suspect that his brother might not have been quite as confidential with patient information as he should be when he saw that Warblers were involved," said Elliott. The two ladies looked relieved at his reaction, having been expecting screaming…
After they departed, Elliott wondered if the story had made an appearance yet on one of the many local news websites. He considered taking a moment to check, but time was running on, so he did not. He suspected that it might have made the news, not least because Mr Rosenfeld was well respected in the community and his son was involved. As he pondered on it during his walk to the hospital, he realised that it might not because neither of the victims had died; the media, he conceded, were only interested in doom and gloom. Still, as he approached the hospital, he was on the lookout for journalists gathered at the door; there absence was a relief and he saw no-one as he made his way up to the ward.
When he entered the ward, he was a little disturbed to see Beats sitting outside the room, which was never a good sign. Beats saw his footsteps quicken over the last stretch, and he shook his head. "Don't worry, everything is fine. The doctors came, including the surgeon that operated on Dante yesterday, and they wanted to examine him, so I thought it best to leave them to it. Ollie is in there too, but he is waiting with Mrs Rosenfeld for the specialist from neurology to arrive. They have been checking Lachlan's scans again; the good news is that his brain function is perfectly normal. It would seem that he just doesn't want to wake up yet, and who can blame him for that in all honesty? If I was in his position, then I don't think that I would want to wake up either."
"Well, he needs to wake up, for Dante's sake, because the longer Lachlan is out for the count, the slower our boy will be in recovering," said Elliott, a little tetchily. Beats nodded, in full agreement. "In other news, as a bribe to get him to go to school, both Ethan last night and me this morning, told Ty he could come and visit after school today…"
"Don't worry, I would have done the same thing if our positions had been reversed. However, I now need to do something I should have done last night; I need to call my parents and let them know what is going on. I have been prevaricating and making excuses not to call them for too long now; your arrival has taken away my final excuse if I am being honest…"
Elliott nodded, and Beats got to his feet; after asking if Elliott wanted anything from the canteen, he headed off in the direction of that room, where he could obtain breakfast and coffee, before he summoned up the courage to call Ohio. Left alone, Elliott waited to be told he could enter the room again and see his son; after the horrors of last night, it would be a relief to see him awake and hear his voice…
Mrs Rosenfeld refused to leave her son's bedside when the specialist doctor came in to look at him; they had been advised by Ollie in any case that she would not move from her son's side for anything. He did not want to say that there was of course one significant exception to that; that she would move immediately if they needed to bring Lachlan back if his heart stopped beating. He was confident that there was no danger of that anyway; all the vital signs were strong, and his brain seemed to be firing on all cylinders. However, he still just lay there, unconscious for now. The scans showed no swelling on the brain and no major damage; in theory he should be awake, complaining about a horrendous headache of course…
It was obvious that there was some mental trauma that had occurred that made his brain unwilling to send the signal to his eyes to open up and face the world. The specialists had said as much to Ollie, doctor to doctor, but they did not say as much to his mother; instead, they told her that he would wake in due course, when his body was ready to face the world once more. In the meantime, all she and his family and friends could do was keep him company; talk to him and hold his hand, let him know they were there and that he was loved and safe…
As they left, escorted by Ollie, Elliott came in, and nodded to Mrs Rosenfeld before he went to sit at Dante's bedside; his presence made her realise for the first time that it must be quite late on in the morning. Then Ollie came back in and came over to her. "Okay, now I have an order for you to follow," he said firmly. "I assume that your husband will be here very shortly; when he arrives, I want you to leave, head for home and get food and sleep. I will accept no arguments on this; you will be no use to Lachlan if he wakes up and you are slumped in that chair, fast asleep and half-starved." He then turned to Elliott, and said, "The same applies to your husband by the way."
"If that is a doctor's order, then trust me, I will see that Beats obeys it," said Elliott with a smile. He waited for Mrs Rosenfeld to protest, but before she could the door opened and her husband came in. That sight made Ollie chuckle and before he could stop himself, he was waving goodbye to her…
Elliott turned his attention to Dante then; it was hard to sit at his son's bedside, the lump of bandages on his chest a reminder of what he had witnessed last night. He knew that Dante would recover, but for now, whenever he looked across at him, he still saw the blood. Time went on, and his son slept, his body recovering from its trauma; when he did wake and saw Elliott at his side, he had looked at him, then in a half whisper he had said, "Day shift…" It had taken a lot for the man at his bedside to not just burst into tears…
He would wake up for longer around midday; he would manage to eat some noodle soup, which he pointed out was not a patch on Elliott's. Of course, the fact that he was awake had been reported, and not long after, they had been visited by the detectives from the NYPD. After asking how he was, they came straight to the point…
"First of all, Mateo is in our custody. He was apprehended this morning by the subway police on a '4' Train over in Brooklyn. He must have thought that he was safe in another borough, that we would only be searching for him in Manhattan or the Bronx. He had been charged, but now we need to hear from you exactly what happened last night, or as much as you can recall, so that we can build up a good case against him."
"You have Mateo; did you get the other guy as well?" asked Elliott.
"We have had his accomplice, his cousin Rudi, in custody since the early hours of this morning; he went home, which leads us to believe that he is not the smartest person…"
Dante nodded, and said, "He never was. I know that you will know all about my connection to them, so I won't deny it. What I will say is that Rudi was the one that pushed Lachlan the second time, left him in his current state. I saw him do it, and immediately after that, Mateo… Lachlan was looking right at me as he fell; he would have seen Mateo stabbing me… I heard the crack and thud as he hit the sidewalk. After that, I didn't care what happened to me, as I was sure that he was dead…"
Dante's voice cracked then, and he began to sob. Elliott ignored all of the rules of the hospital and the protocol too and jumped onto the bed to hug him. The detectives could only watch in silence, as if pondering whether they should go, but the senior of the two signalled to her colleague to wait for a moment, sure Dante would recover his composure. In that she was proved correct, as the tears soon abated as his anger grew once more. In less than a minute, Elliott was back in his seat, and his son was ready to speak again.
"The fact that he isn't dead is a miracle in my opinion, but although nobody is saying it to me out loud, I know that everyone is worried that he will have forgotten things when he does come round, and I don't just mean the attack; they think there is a risk he will have forgotten all about me too. I know enough about anatomy and medicine to be aware that such a blow to the head can cause amnesia and even brain damage. It would break my heart if he had no recollection of me when he came round, but my one consolation would be the knowledge that he was still alive…"
The detectives nodded, as aware as everyone else that Dante might be their only witness if the worse happened and Lachlan had no memory of events. Moving on, the senior detective said, "At some point, we might well need you to come to the station and identify the two perps from an identity parade, just as a matter of course. If that is going to present an issue for you in any way…"
"No, I will be only too pleased to do that if it means they get what they deserve. Just do not make me share the same room with them, because firstly, that would be too much to bear right now, and secondly, I could not promise that I wouldn't punch them both."
"Trust me, we wouldn't blame you if you did hit them, but unfortunately you would be taking your place at the back of a very long line," the detective said. She looked around the room, then said in a low voice, "What I am about to tell you cannot be repeated outside of this room right now, until we get the case built up. I know that you believe that the attack on yourself and Mr Rosenfeld was deliberate and targeted, but it was a coincidence. You were selected by the two perps at random as likely victims; the fact they knew you an unhappy turn of events for all of you. Yours is just the latest in a long line of similar attacks that have taken place in the city recently, and the perpetrators in those attacks match the two males we have in custody right now. We are confident that they have committed them all; what makes yours different is that it is one of a very few where the injuries sustained by the victim were neither fatal nor life changing…"
Elliott had looked on aghast as the officer spoke, but once she had finished, he said pointedly, "Well, that potentially makes Dante your star witness, so I am sure you will be affording him proper police protection. After all, the two you have captured were part of a gang that hung around together and probably still do so; who is to say that their associates will not be willing to take revenge on anyone that goes to the cops?"
The detective nodded but did not confirm what he had said to be true; all she did was promise that Dante would be afforded all necessary protections, including a panic alarm at his home should it be required. As far as Elliott was concerned, such an alarm would be only the first thing they would do for his boy if need be…
What had befallen Dante and Lachlan was a hot topic of conversation at that moment across the country at Dalton Academy too. It was the first day of the new term, and Thad was back in his classroom, his back feeling better; however, he wasn't quite at full health, and thus his classroom felt like as much of a prison that day as his bedroom had. Mrs Carmichael had been waiting for him to arrive at the school that morning and had escorted him to his classroom; in the course of that morning, Principal Lefevre and Jeff's cousin Dylan had paid him a visit too. He was almost certain that some of the older boys were also monitoring him on their behalf, ready to report to them if he so much as left his desk chair for more than a few seconds…
He was therefore grateful that the timetable provided him with a free period just before lunch, a meal that would be brought to him on a tray, so he did not have to walk home or to the refectory; he fully expected that tray to be carried in by Mrs Carmichael. He smiled as the last student headed out after the third period class, closing the door behind him; he let out a sigh of relief, but it was short lived, as after a quick knock, the door opened to admit Sebastian…
"If you have been sent here by Mrs Carmichael, or anyone else for that matter, to check up on me and what I am doing, then you can just turn round and go! I am fine, I have not moved more than an inch since she brought me here this morning, and I have no desire or need right now to make use of the facilities!" he snapped.
Sebastian looked at him for a moment, and then burst out laughing. "That bad, huh? Relax, they do not even know I am in the building, let alone with you. I come bearing the gift of coffee and am in search of a chat, mainly on the terrible topic of what happened to Dante and Lachlan last night…"
Thad apologised profusely for his reaction, but Sebastian just shook his head and admitted his own reaction would be the same in the circumstances as he handed over the coffee. "I'd suspect every person that came to see me of having an ulterior motive as well, trust me, if our places were reversed. I still cannot believe what happened to those two last night. I thought that those sorts of attacks were in the past, especially in somewhere like New York…"
"If by those sorts of attacks, you mean a gay bashing, then you have the wrong end of the stick my friend. It wasn't aimed at that because of their sexuality; it was an attempted robbery with violence, at least according to Wes. He tells me, and this must remain between the two of us for now, that it was the latest in a long line of similar assaults on single people and couples, mixed and same sex."
"Well, that is equally terrible, although I am glad that it wasn't a homophobic attack, or even an antisemitic one. My heart goes out to those two boys and of course to Beats, Elliott and the Rosenfelds too. It is the last thing any parents would want to happen to their child, especially on a day when they had all been celebrating the partnership ceremony just a little bit sooner…"
