Chapter
26
“Jane?”
Jane Carter flinched as the voice of
her ex-husband, her betrayer invaded the airwaves. She held the phone slightly
away from her ear as if it smelled bad, “Bob,” she replied flatly.
“How are...”
“Don’t start with small talk Robert,
what do you want?” Jane’s voice was strained, her mind over a thousand miles
away, in Florida.
She heard him sigh, “Fine. Why
is Nick off tour, and where are Leslie and BJ?”
Jane sighed and massaged her temples,
“They’re in Florida Bob. All three of them.”
“Why? And why is Nick off tour?”
“Bob you sure do ask a lot of questions,
why do you care so much all of a sudden? A guilt trip? Do you finally feel
guilty for deserting your family? For making your oldest son feel like
he’s inadequate?” Jane spat her words angrily through the phone, “Well
it’s too late for that Robert! The damage has been done! Our kids are
already ruined!”
“IT’S MY FAULT!” she heard Bob begin
to rage, “How is my fault that the judge decided to give you custody of MY
kids! You’re the one who was around them to corrupt them...”
“Around them? Around is the word Bob!
How often do the kids see you? Only when you’re not off screwing that
bitch, and when’s that Bob... About 2 hours of your week?”
“Jane, that’s unfair!”
“Yeah, to MY children!” Jane yelled,
“So you haven’t answered my question Bob... Why do you all of a sudden care so
much?”
Bob was silent on his end,
“They’re my kids too Jane... even though, even though I haven’t been much of a
father I’m trying to make up for that. Jane, Aaron says he hates me!”
Jane narrowed her eyes, “Well if you
would hang around your kids more often you would learn that they all share
mutual feelings.”
She could feel Bob’s wince through the
phone, she heard him clear his throat, “Are...Is.... Aaron says if anything’s
wrong with Nick he blames me... Jane, is he ok?”
“Is who ok?” Jane asked sounding
weary.
“Nick,” Bob said sounding defeated, “I
treated him badly, and I’m sorry.”
“You’re telling that to the wrong
person Bob,” Jane said softly, she hung him up, and leaned back on the sofa.
She relaxed her eyes and uncramped her telephone fingers for a few
seconds, then she opened her eyes. She stood up with a slight groan
and grabbed her car keys. She walked to the backdoor and opened it, then
lifted her cream colored suitcase in one hand and exited, locking the door
behind her.
“It tastes like paste,” Nick
complained after taking a timid sip out of a straw from the nutrient shake BJ
was offering to him.
“It’s good for you,” BJ said setting
down the small can, “But if you don’t want this I can run down and get you some
soup...”
She saw Nick’s expression cloud
over at the mention of soup, “You want another sip?” she raised the can to his
lips again and he turned his head. With a loud sigh he said, “I’ll take
the soup.”
“You’ll what?” BJ turned to stare at
Nick wide eyed, “Did you just...?”
“Yes,” Nick muttered barely
suppressing a smile.
“Are you smiling?” BJ pressed she
poked him lightly in the side, she grinned at him and crawled on the bed beside
him. He was smiling, an expression BJ hadn’t genuinely seen on his face
for a long time. Sure she had seen his drug induced grins, but none of
those could compare with the “real” ones. “Is there an occasion for this
rare event?”
This made Nick laugh slightly, “No.”
“Hold on, I’ll go tell someone to
bring you that soup,” BJ said, she slid off the bed and opened the door to the
room. Howie was sitting in a chair by the door... there was always
someone sitting by the door playing sentinel. Howie’s brown eyes looked
up to BJ, “What? What’s wrong now?”
To his surprise BJ was all smiles,
“Nothing at all... Howie, can you run downstairs and get Nick some soup.
He wants some.”
Howie nearly fell out of his chair,
“What? He what?” He sprang up, “Ok, I’ll be back in a minute.” Howie
bolted for the stairs, and BJ giggled. To turned to look back at Nick who
was now laying on his back.
“What brought about this wonderful
change of heart?” BJ asked coming back to the bed. Nick shrugged,
“It was either soup or paste... what do you think?”
“I think you be bullshittin’ big bro,”
BJ sat down and tapped his kneecap, “What happened?”
Nick sighed and sat up slightly to
gaze at his sister, “You.”
“Me?” BJ blinked feeling a bit
confused, “What about me?”
“It’s not just you, it’s Leslie, and
Brian, and Kevin, and AJ, and Howie...” Nick was shaking his head, “You guys
have been right here with me for how long? A long time... You won’t give
up until I... well until I do, and start doing what you say I should.
You’re relentless and, and I... I feel it would only be polite of me
to...”
“You be bullshittin’ again Nicky,” BJ
prodded him playfully, making Nick give another smile, “Ok, ok... I know what
you’re trying to do... and well, you guys would only press this hard if, if you
really cared. And until now I really didn’t care about anything or anyone
anymore cause everyone always seemed like they were out to hurt me in some way.
I don’t care how nice and loving exterior of a person is... they could
still betray me, and disown me. I didn’t want to be hurt anymore, but now
I see that you won’t hurt me. At least not intentionally...”
BJ felt a tear sliding down her cheek,
“I will never hurt you... no one in this house will ever intentionally hurt
you.” She held out her arms to him, they began to shake as he stared at her
with a strange cloudy expression over his face. She was about to lower
her arms when she suddenly felt Nick’s slight weight throwing itself into her
arms. He held on for dear life and clung to her like a small child.
She felt dampness on her shoulder and rubbed his back as he cried softly,
“I’m sorry...” he kept saying to her, “I let you down so bad BJ...”
“No,” BJ was whispering into his ears,
“You didn’t let me down Nick. You haven’t let anyone down. Don’t
tell yourself that you have.”
There was a soft knocking at the door.
Kevin, Brian, AJ, and Howie entered, Kevin holding a large bowl of soup,
Brian holding a spoon, AJ holding salt, and Howie holding pepper. BJ
almost laughed at them, their eyes were huge as if they were expecting to
see some miracle in the works.
“Awww...” Brian set the spoon down on
the nightstand and crawled onto the bed. He ran his fingers through Nick’s
stringy hair, “What’s going on, kid? We brought you something to eat.”
BJ felt the warmth leaving her
shoulders and the cold air rushing to greet them as Nick pulled away from her.
He sat back on his pillows and turned to look at his friends and the full
steaming bowl of soup Kevin was holding. He took a deep breath,
“Thanks...”
Howie was assembling the TV tray and
gently putting it over Nick’s legs. AJ began setting the table. Nick
watched on incredulously as Brian spread a napkin in his lap. By the time
Kevin was setting down the soup and adding salt and pepper to it he was
chuckling lightly. The guys stepped back looking stunned. Could Nick
be laughing? Nick looked at each one of them in turn with an amused smile
toying on his lips, “I haven’t received this good of service since, well no, I
have never received such service.”
They all laughed, “Well get used to it
bro, this is the service you’ll get until you’re all better... Then you’ll have
to get your own soup, make your own table, and add your own salt,” Brian
said. They sat in silence watching each other.
“Soup’s gonna get cold,” Kevin said
softly after a what seemed like an eternity of silence.
“Oh,” Nick said. He stared down into
the bowl of soup which, if he wasn’t mistaken, was staring back up at him.
He saw his reflection in the rich broth. It looked as tense as he
felt. Could he do this? He reached his hand out for the spoon. He had
some trouble lifting it and instantly he felt hands cover his own and help him
to lift the heavy spoon and guide it over the bowl. He looked up to meet
Kevin’s green eyes and sighed deeply, here goes. He lowered the spoon into the
bowl and spooned up some broth. Carefully and slowly he brought the spoon
to his mouth, with Kevin’s help of course and took a sip. He wanted to
spit it out. Every cell in his body screamed, every taste bud squealed out in
displeasure. No! No! He swallowed. The hot liquid traveled down his
throat warming his cold body. He took another small sip from the
spoon, then another until the spoonful was gone.
AJ wanted to ram the spoon in his
mouth, to grab the spoon and quickly start feeding him more. Nick ate so
damn slow, and every few minutes he would have to set the spoon down and rest.
Howie began to make small talk to draw attention away from Nick, not
wanting him to feel self-conscious. AJ tried to keep up with the pointless
conversation while counting how many spoonfuls of soup Nick was ingesting.
He was up to 6. BJ squeezed his arm and offered some encouragement.
Nick was shaking his head telling her that he couldn’t eat anymore.
AJ cursed to himself and turned away from Howie and Brian’s
conversation and crawled beside Nick who was shaking and trying to shrink away
from the food. “Come on Nick, a little more,” AJ said rubbing the thick
baggy sleeves of Nick’s sweatshirt. The sweatshirt was winter clothing
and much too hot for being inside a house, especially one in Florida, but still
Nick shivered, “it’ll warm you up.”
Tears had begun to sneak down Nick’s
face as his stress over the situation showed. “I can’t.”
“Yes you can,” Kevin said soothingly,
“Lets just pick up the spoon and start over like we...”
“What the hell’s that?”
There was the sound of a bickering
female voice from downstairs. Leslie’s voice could be heard trying to
calm the domineering woman’s voice. AJ, Howie, Kevin, and Brian all
stared at each other wondering who that could be downstairs, but one glimpse at
the two pale frozen Carters in the room with them.
“What the hell is Mom doing here?” BJ
asked.
Mom? Jane Carter? AJ could feel
his eyes rolling up towards the heavens. Why did it have to be her?
Jane Carter would surely ruin
everything!
***
