Page 5 of The Trust We Broke
1
LUCY
FOUR WEEKS LATER
I’ve never seen my father look like this.
Furious, and yet utterly humbled. His nondescript brown hair is slicked back to his scalp, revealing a prominent widow’s peak. Machines beep around him, monitoring his heart.
“In many ways, he’s very fortunate, Ms. De Bose,” the doctor says. “Strokes can often cause severe issues that seriously affect standard of living. And heart disease is a silent killer. Aphasia, while complex, will still enable him to function day-to-day.”
My father opens his mouth and strains to say a word, then shakes his head. I can see the vein pulsing at the side of his forehead.
Technically, it’s a little over four weeks since I came back home from New York for the first stroke, all ready with emergency paperwork to be able to practice in Colorado. The stroke my father ignored because ‘it was minor’, and ‘he was lucky’. The one where he forcibly told me to get back onto a plane to Manhattan because I was making the illness look worse than it was. That my arrival would have his rivals circling like vultures.
It’s been four days since this new heart attack and stroke combo hit him far worse than the first stroke did. I quickly made peace with never seeing him again. Until Mom called me in tears and told me she couldn’t cope with this on her own. That I had to protect my family’s good name and reputation.
That she suspected my father may have been involved in things he shouldn’t be, and I was needed to deal with them and protect him before it impacted all of us.
Because of his aphasia, I can’t ask him what those things might be because he’s unable to answer.
I have no love for my father, but I do hold some for my complicated mother, whose motivations have always been confusing to me. She’s the only reason I haven’t gone non-contact with them. My father loves her only marginally more than he loves me. He married her for her family money, even though his own family already had plenty. He stays married to her for image reasons.
To the best of my knowledge, they’ve slept in separate rooms for over a decade. Dad is married to his legal reputation. Mom is married to the illusion of a happy home and family.
My father spent the first two days in the ICU with a mix of sedation for intubation and brain-pressure management. I left him with my mother while I tried, unsuccessfully, to find out more details about her suspicions.
I’m a defense attorney, and I like to think I help those who most need the help. My father, on the other hand, deals in the cutthroat world of people and companies trying to evade, well, everything: Taxes. Environmental responsibilities. Consequences for using cancer-causing chemicals without telling the public.
I feel dirty even touching it.
And if dealing with all this weren’t enough, I’ve put copious amounts of energy into avoiding Zach.
Or Grudge, as it said on his cut. He used to talk so excitedly about being given a road name, about what an honor it would be to receive one.
Seeing him again a month ago, for the first time in a decade, caused my knees to shake. He’s lost a little of the youthful exuberance I used to love, replaced with a ruthless competence. If I didn’t know him, I’d be terrified of him. He’s Grudge now, not Zach, and for my own sanity, I should think of him that way. Occasionally, I slip but try to correct myself when I do.
Grudge.
Vice president of the Iron Outlaws.
Just like he always wanted.
And yet, a whisper of warmth crept through me when we stood face-to-face. In his eyes, I found the man I loved with every vulnerable piece of my heart.
When I returned to New York, waves of guilt would pass through me. My fiancé, Henry, was happy to have me home, but every now and then, when he touched me, my mind would stray to how it felt to be in Grudge’s orbit.
Although, if I’d known then what I know now about Henry, I wouldn’t have worried.
I shake the thought from my head and look to my father’s doctor.
“My father is a lawyer, Dr. Henderson. A trial lawyer. While he has sufficient funds to live out the rest of his life without working, it’s in his blood. He’s also mid-trial. The inability to speak normally is devastating for him.”
My father slaps the bedding of his hospital bed like a round of applause.
My mother tries to calm him by placing her hand over his, but he shakes her off.
“I understand,” Henderson says. “We’ll make the referral for speech-language pathology to start as soon as possible. What’simportant is we keep your father calm.” He looks over to my father, who is wearing a venerable sneer. “And that we push forward with figuring out communication methods between you all. Aphasia can last days, or it may never go away. Only time will tell us what we’re dealing with. But we need you calm to aid your recovery from the heart attack and stroke.”
