Page 69 of Justice for JoElla

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The next fewdays were a blur. Roy told her to take three days off and let them deal with the fallout, so she did. At one point, a TV crew had turned up outside her apartment, but she didn’t open the curtains, just let them sit out there. After about thirty-six hours of her rummaging around in the dark so they wouldn’t know she was home, they finally gave up and left.

Jerrica had called several times to check on her, and she really appreciated it. To her surprise, Amy called too. “Honey, if you need anything, all you have to do is let us know. You hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” JoElla answered, thinking about that kind face and big smile. Jerrica’s parents were really nice people, and she remembered Brandon saying they’d sort of adopted him into their family. There was nothing nicer than that.

She’d run out of things to do and was mindlessly watching some silly game show when someone knocked on the door.Damn TV station, she grumbled internally, but when she looked through the peephole, she could only see one person there, so she threw the door open. “Yeah?”

The woman who stood in front of her was tall, beautifully coiffed, and wearing very expensive clothes, not to mention that she looked vaguely familiar. “I’m looking for JoEllaTompkins.”

“You’ve found her.”

“I’m LouellaFox, Brandon’s mother. May I come in?”

Oh, great. Just great. I’m about to have my ass handed to me, she told herself and, against her better judgment, she swung an arm inward. “Sure. Come on in.”

The woman stood in the middle of the room, looking around like she was afraid something would jump onto her if she sat. Without apologizing, JoElla picked up the magazines that she’d left all over the sofa and pointed, so Louella sat down. After a full minute of awkward silence, Louella started. “Ms.Tompkins…”

“You can call me JoElla.”

“Uh, yes. JoElla. I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”

“Unless I’ve misunderstood everybody else, you’ve come here to tell me to stay away from your son because I stand in front of bullets for a living. Is that a good guess?”

The older woman sighed. “I see you’ve been talking to Landon.”

“Landon, Jerrica, Breckin, Liella… Oh, and of course, Brandon, who admitted he’d been a turd toward Breckin and Jerrica in the beginning.” She wanted to sayshit, but she wasn’t sure how that would go over. Besides, turd sounded a lot dirtier to her.

Louella nodded. “So true. I suppose we’re legend, and not a particularly favorable one.”

“Not from where I sit.”

“My, you get straight to the point, don’t you?”

“My job is dangerous. I don’t have time to schmooze people, and it can cloud my judgment. There’s a reason you came here today. But before you tell me what it is, I want to point out something. Yes?Landon, Jerrica, Breckin, and Liella all told me how you’ve treated them. The interesting part is that when they told me that, we were all together. Everybody in the family?except you and their father. You weren’t invited.”

“Neither were his wife and children.”

“His wife is destined to be his ex-wife. As for his children, I know he’s reached out to them, but they weren’t interested in seeing him or even speaking to him. And before you say it, yes. I know he messed up. He was very up front about that when we met. But he learned from it. The BrandonFox lying in that hospital bed is very different from the BrandonFox you knew. I don’t think the one in that bed gives two shits about fancy watches or expensive cars. And excuse my language, ma’am, but that’s just who I am and I don’t mince words.”

Louella seemed flustered and JoElla didn’t care. She and her husband had railroaded every decision their kids had made except for Brandon, and now he was on the hot seat. She couldn’t fix it, but she certainly wasn’t going to contribute to it. It was also fun to just sit there, silent, and let his mother stew and squirm. It occurred to JoElla to offer her something to drink, but she decided against it. After what seemed an intolerable amount of time, Louella said, “I just wanted you to know that we appreciate your interest in him.”

What the hell does that even mean?“Wait. You what? You do know Brandon and I have been seeing each other, right?”

“Yes.”

“And that right before he lost consciousness, he told me he loves me.”

“He?”

“And I told him I love him too. Actually, what I said was, ‘I love you too, dumbass.’”

Louella sat there for a second, looking kind of stunned, and then started to laugh. “You called him a dumbass?”

JoElla snorted. “I sure did. I regret it… but only kinda.” She waited until Louella’s laughter died down before she asked, “Is he awake yet?”

“No. They’re going to wean him off the medications later today, so he should be awake by dinnertime. I assume you’re going to see him?”

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