Tall, Tatted and Tempting

  ###

  The Reed brothers are all draped over the furniture in the waiting room, taking up a ton of space. But no one else is there, so it hasn’t mattered. Any one of these boys would give their seat up for someone else. Pete took Sam’s socks about an hour ago, and Sam put his shoes back on with none. Pete was barefoot. I somehow knew he wouldn’t go back inside. He went for his brothers instead.

  It seems like days later when a doctor comes to talk to the family. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. But it feels like days.

  The doctor sighs heavily and starts to talk. I hear snippets of it over the pulse that’s pounding in my head.

  The chemo didn’t work.

  He’s worse than he was.

  They can call hospice.

  “There’s nothing else you can do?” Paul asks.

  The doctor sits down with them. “We’ve exhausted every opportunity. There are some trials that he could get into, but the chances are small. And the one that would most benefit him is very expensive.”

  He waits. A pregnant silence falls over the room. “How expensive?” Paul asks.

  “Hundreds of thousands,” the doctor says. “He doesn’t even have medical insurance.”

  So that’s it. They don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars so their brother dies?

  I wipe a tear from my cheek. “This treatment, it could save him?” I ask. “Or would it just prolong the inevitable?”

  He looks at me like I’m the most ridiculous person he’s ever met. “They’re having good success with it. There are no guarantees, however.”

  “But it would give him a chance?”

  “The best he could have.”

  I nod. Logan squeezes me to him. I’ll be right back, I sign to him. I know what I have to do. My heart is breaking in two, but I know what my choices are.

  Where are you going? he asks.

  Restroom. I’ll be right back.

  You okay?

  I nod. He watches me walk away, his gaze boring into my back. I can feel it all the way down the hall. I don’t stop at the bathroom, though. I keep walking until I find a payphone.

  I pick up the handle and a weird sort of peace settles over me. I press the button for the operator. “Collect call to California, please,” I say. I rattle off the number. It’s Saturday afternoon. My dad will be in the office.

  Ring

  Ring.

  Ring.

  “Mr. Madison’s office,” a chipper voice says.

  “You have a collect call from— Caller, state your name?” the operator says.

  “I’d like to talk with Mr. Madison, please,” I reply.

  “We’ll accept the charges.” There’s a stillness on the other end of the line. “Emily, is that you?” the woman says. There’s hope in her voice. She’s been my dad’s secretary for as long as I can remember.

  “Can I talk with him, please?” I ask.

  The line goes dead for a moment, and then my dad picks up. “Emily?” he asks. I can almost hear the beat of his heart through the phone.

  “Dad,” I say.

  “Em,” he says on a long sigh, like he’s deflating. There’s a clank, and I imagine him taking his glasses off his nose and laying them on the table. “Where are you?”

  “I need some help, Dad,” I say. I lay my forehead against the cool tiles on the wall and try not to cry. I want to cry for all that I’m giving up. I want to cry for all that I’m giving them. But mostly, I want to cry for me.

  “Anything, Emily,” he says. His breath catches. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

  “No, I’m fine. But I’m coming home.”

  “Tell me where you are. I’ll send the jet.” His voice is urgent.

  “Dad, first, I need for you to do something for me.” Please, please, please do this for me.

  He doesn’t say anything for a minute. “What do you need, Emily?”

  “I need for you to take care of something for me, Dad.” I tell him some of the story. “I need for you to get him in the trial. And I want to take care of his treatment. We’ll use my money, Dad.” I have enough to spare. And then some. A lot more than I need.

  He heaves a sigh. “We don’t need to touch your trust fund, Em,” he says. “Why does this young man matter to you?”

  “He just does, Dad.”

  I hear his pen click. “What’s his name?”

  “Matthew Reed.” My voice clogs in my throat. He’s going to do it. He’s going to do it. I tell him the name of the hospital. “I don’t know more information than that. I don’t even know who his doctor is.”

  He chuckles. “I can get the information I need.”

  “You’re going to do it, right, Dad?” I ask.

  “Emily,” he sighs. “If I do this, you’re coming home.”

  My voice is a whisper. “Yes, Dad. I understand.”

  “I’m sending the jet for you now.”

  “I need a day, Dad. I need for you to handle this now. And I need another day. If you’ll give me that much time, I’ll come home, and I’ll do whatever you want.” I’m pleading with him now.

  He waits. And I hear his pen click over and over. “Okay,” he breathes. “I’m sending the jet now anyway, though. It’ll be waiting when you’re ready at the airport.”

  “Take care of this for me, Dad.” I roll my forehead back and forth across the tiles. “Please. Promise me.”

  “I’d do anything for you, Em,” he reminds me.

  “I’ll see you in a couple of days,” I whisper.

  “Two days, Em,” he says. “No longer.” And before the line goes dead, I hear him yelling details to his secretary. I hear Matt’s name, and I hear him tell her to handle it. It’ll get done. I’m sure of it.

  I walk back to the waiting room. The doctor is gone, and all the boys are standing there with their arms around one another.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  They move away from one another. “They’re moving him to a room. He’s awake. We can go see him in just a minute,” Paul explains.

  I drop into a chair. My legs will no longer support me.

  A few minutes later, a nurse summons the boys to follow her. Logan takes my hand and tugs me along with them. “I’m not family,” I say.

  “Shut up,” he murmurs. He brushes a strand of hair back that’s stuck to my lip.

  I let him tow me along.

  “You can only stay for a few minutes,” the nurse warns.

  The boys are giddy with excitement. She pushes back a curtain, and Matt’s there in the bed. There are tubes and wires, and he’s hooked up to monitors. “What’s up, guys?” he asks. He winces and adjusts himself in the bed.

  “The next time you want to die, don’t do it on Kit’s watch, you sorry fucker,” Logan says out loud. The room goes quiet. A tear rolls down Logan’s cheek, and Matt reaches out a hand for him. Logan grabs it, palm to palm, their thumbs wrapped together like men do, and falls into his chest. Sam and Pete put their arms around one another, and Paul is just standing there, so I lean into his side. He throws an arm around my shoulders and pulls me to him.

  Matt finally lets Logan go and says, “Shit, when did you start to talk?”

  Logan shrugs.

  “This girl is getting him to do all sorts of new shit,” Paul says, squeezing me tightly.

  “What happened?” Logan asks. He’s signing while he speaks.

  “I had a date to snuggle with your girl on the couch, and we were going to watch a movie,” Matt says. “Next thing I know, she has my head in her lap, instead.” He looks over at me, an impish twinkle in his eye. “If you wanted to hold me, Kit, you could have just asked.” He chuckles.

  “You remember?” I ask.

  He grins this unrepentant grin. “I’ll never, ever forget the day you threw Logan over to hold me in your arms.”

  Logan chuckles. Out loud. Everyone looks at him, and he shrugs.

  “You going to keep talking, bro?” Paul asks cautiously.

>   Logan shrugs again.

  Paul squeezes me.

  Suddenly, a team of doctors rushes into the room.

  “What’s wrong?” Paul barks.

  The doctor comes in a moment later. “We’re going to be moving Matt to a different facility,” he explains. “So he can begin that treatment we discussed.”

  “What?” Matt’s dumbfounded. As are the rest of them.

  The doctor holds up his hands to silence them. “Don’t get too hopeful,” he says. “But now there’s a chance where there wasn’t one before.”

  “There’s a chance he might live?” Paul asks.

  The doctor smiles and claps Paul on the shoulder. “A small one, yes.”

  “How?”

  “I’m still working all that out.” The doctor looks at me, but I break eye contact.

  The room is barraged with activity, and the nurses get ready to move Matt. “There’s a helicopter waiting,” the nurse explains.

  “How?” Paul asks again.

  Matt reaches for each of them in turn. He hugs his brothers. Then he hugs me to him last. “Take care of them,” he says. “No matter what.”

  I nod. I’m doing that the only way I know how.

  Logan

   

  My brothers are solemn on the way back home. It’s early afternoon on Saturday, and I look down at my watch. “Shit,” I say.

  “What?” Paul asks.

  “I have an appointment for a tat this afternoon.” Kit’s walking beside me, but she has been lost in her own world since we left the hospital. “I guess I can cancel.”

  “Are you too tired to do it?” Paul asks.

  Honestly, I’m so full of adrenaline right now I could climb mountains. And pick them up and throw them. I shake my head.

  “So, why not do it?” he asks.

  “Matt,” I say. Just that one word.

  Paul claps me on the shoulder. “They won’t let us see him for forty-eight hours, dummy,” he reminds me.

  That’s right. They are going to do a bunch of tests and scans and shit and told us that he can’t see anyone until at least Monday. Until he’s settled in. I’m hopeful. I’m so hopeful, and I haven’t been hopeful for weeks. I’ve watched Matt decline more and more, and I was at the point where I was coming to terms with it. But hope has bloomed within me. It’s not fair. It’s not fair at all. What if he still doesn’t get better? I still have to believe he’ll make it.

  “He said he’d call when he gets settled,” Paul reminds me. “Until then, we wait.”

  Kit looks up at me, her eyes focusing for the first time since we left the hospital. “I think you should open the shop. Do your tat. You’re going to need the money.” She doesn’t look me in the eye when she says the last part of it. “Can I go, too?” she asks. “I want to watch.”

  I wrap my arm around her, and she smiles up at me. “You okay?” I ask.

  She nods and leans in. I can feel the warm wind of her inhale against my skin. “Stop sniffing me, you little pervita,” I say.

  Her eyebrows lift, and she repeats the word. “Pervita?” She laughs. I hug her to me, never wanting to let her go. She’s a part of us now. All of us. And she’s mine.

  Sam and Pete are walking behind us with their heads pushed together, talking softly. When they do that, there’s usually trouble brewing.

  “What are you two up to?” Paul barks. Their heads snap apart, and they try not to look guilty. They’re terrible at it, though.

  “Nothing,” they say in unison.

  Paul narrows his eyes at them. “I don’t believe you.”

  They look at him sheepishly.

  “I don’t believe you either,” I say.

  “I think I liked you better when you didn’t speak,” Pete says. Then he grins.

  I flip him the bird, and he flies at me, jumping on my back. He bounces up and down and leans over my shoulder so I can see his lips. “My feet are cold,” he says, batting his golden lashes at me. “You should carry me the rest of the way.”

  He’s latched onto me like a koala. And he’s fucking heavy. It’s like carrying a load of bricks. But I hitch him up higher and start walking.

  Sam turns his back to Kit and bends down. “You look tired, Kit,” he says. “Want a ride?” He waggles his eyebrows at her. She laughs and jumps onto his back.

  “I’m not sure I got the good end of this deal,” I croak as we all walk along together.

  I can’t help but wish Matt were here. I miss the gentle giant already.