Your Love Is King

  “ICU? I thought you said he was stable. Can’t I take him home now?”

  “Well, Dr. Price wants to keep him. He really needs to be monitored closely, and he can’t go home without an inhaler.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, yeah I know. I left it back home. We’re just here in town visiting. I need to talk to the doctor.”

  I looked down at the phone and then back up at her face. She was short and heavy-set, which seemed to be Chris’s preference. Her skin was a little lighter than mine. She looked like she’d once been pretty, but something in her life had beaten her down and taken away from her looks. Her round eyes had bags underneath them, and her full lips were dry.

  “Um, let me go and get him,” I said. I hurried back into the trauma room to get Dr. Price. I returned to the desk to find her standing in the same spot, nervously tapping her foot.

  “Um, Dr. Price will be right out to talk to you, Ms.—” I stopped on purpose, hoping she’d fill in the blank.

  “Thank you,” she said, without giving me her name.

  Dr. Price, however, was able to get it from her. “Ms. King?” he said as he approached her.

  “No, it’s Franklin,” she replied.

  I tuned the rest of their conversation out, turned my back to them, quickly called up to ICU to get the bed assignment, and then I dialed Chris’s number.

  As soon as the call connected, he said, “Hey, baby. Break time, again, already?”

  “Chris,” I whispered, “You need to get down here right now.”

  “What is it? Why are you whispering? What’s going on?”

  “Listen, I think Russell is here in the ER.”

  “My son, Russell?” he asked, sounding shocked.

  “Yeah, get off the phone and come now. His mom is trying to leave with him.”

  “I’m coming.”

  Click.

  When I turned around, both Dr. Price and Fatima were gone. I got up from my seat and walked to Russell’s room only to find the stretcher empty.

  “Where’s the kid who was just here?” I asked Pam.

  “You mean the King kid? His mom just stormed in here and took him home, AMA.”

  “What?! When?!”

  “A few seconds ago. Dr. Price called security, but she made it out the employee exit before they could get here.”

  “Dang-it!”

  “Marli, you all right? You’re getting a little too involved with this kid, aren’t you?”

  I was only half listening to her. “Yeah, I guess. Look, I need to take my break. Be right back.”

  Before Pam could reply, I walked out to the parking lot to see if I could spot Fatima and Russell anywhere. I was still out there when Chris pulled up to the front of the ER.

  I trotted over to his car. “Chris!”

  He turned around with a wide-eyed expression on his face. “What’re you doing out here? How’s Russ?” he asked.

  “He’s gone. She took him.”

  “What?! Are you sure it was him? How could you have recognized him?”

  “He was admitted under his real name and he looks just like you. He has the same blue eyes. His mother said her last name was Franklin. Was that Fatima’s name?”

  “Yeah, Fatima Franklin. How long they been gone?”

  “Not long. She snuck out with him just in the time I was on the phone with you.”

  Chris slumped against his car and placed his head in his hands. “Damn! I got here as quick as I could.” He looked up at me. “How long were they here?”

  I placed my hand over his. “He wasn’t breathing when he got here, and it took a few minutes to get him stabilized. After I left his room, I talked to his mom and called up to get a bed for him. The next call I made was to you.”

  He moved his hands and looked at me. “Why did you wait to call me? You should’ve called me the second you recognized him!”

  I backed up a little. “Well, at first I wasn’t sure it was him. When I was sure, I called you.”

  “Sure or not, if you even thought it was Russell you should’ve called me. This is the closest I’ve been to seeing him in five years! Damn, Marli.”

  I frowned. “Are you mad at me or something? I did the best I could in the situation. I wasn’t even supposed to call you. I could get in trouble for it. It’s against the privacy policy.”

  He gave me a look I’d never seen on his face before. “You were worried about this job? I told you that you could quit this job. My son is more important than any job. He’s more important than—” He shook his head. “I don’t have time for this. Did you at least call the police?”

  “Well, no. It all happened so fast…”

  “Look, I gotta go. I need to call the police and tell them what happened.”

  “Okay, Chris, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Without a word, he climbed back into his car and left. I stood there for a moment and tried to process what had just happened. Then I walked over to one of the benches outside and prayed for Chris. I knew that much of what he’d said was due to the pain he was in. I told myself not to internalize it, but it’d hurt my feelings for him to attack me like that.

  I sat there for ten minutes, praying for the man I loved and his son, before returning to the ER.

  Twenty

  “The Moon and the Sky”

  By the time my shift ended the next morning, I really wasn’t sure if Chris was going to pick me up. He hadn’t called even once since leaving the ER, and he hadn’t answered any of my calls. Sure enough, when I walked out the lobby doors, there was no sign of him. I stood and looked around for a moment and then sat on a bench and dialed his number—no answer. I sighed and rested my back against the seat. I should’ve driven my car. I sat for twenty minutes before finally deciding to call Carla. Luckily, I caught her before she left the hospital. During the ride home, I filled her in on what had happened with Russell.

  “Man, Marli, I bet Chris is really upset,” she said.

  “Yeah, but he seems more upset with me than anything. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he blamed me for the whole thing.”

  She shook her head. “No, he doesn’t. He’s just upset and worried about his son. Everything’ll be okay. You just be there for him.”

  I nodded. “Of course I will.”

  A few minutes later, I stepped out of Carla’s vehicle and made my way up to the fifth floor. I let myself into the condo and dropped my purse by the front door.

  “Chris!” I yelled. “Chris, I’m home!”

  “In here!”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. When I couldn’t hear from him, I’d started to worry. I walked into the bedroom to find him busily packing a suitcase.

  “Are you going somewhere?” I asked.

  “Yeah, the police think Fatima’s been living in Chicago. Right under my damn nose!” He paused and shook his head. “Anyway, a boy fitting Russ’s description was admitted to a hospital there early this morning. I booked a flight. I’m leaving in a few minutes.”

  “Well, I’ll go with you. Give me a second to throw some things in a bag.”

  He looked up at me for a second and then resumed packing his bag. “Naw, you stay. No sense in uprooting both of us. It may not even be him.”

  “I don’t care, Chris. I wanna be there for you.”

  He zipped up the bag and lifted it off of the bed. “I don’t want you to go.”

  I frowned. “What? Why?”

  “Look, Marli. I need to do this alone. He’s not your son or your concern.”

  “He is my concern. He’s your son so that makes him my concern. Why are you acting like this?”

  He released an exasperated sigh. “Like what, Marli?”

  “Like you’re mad at me. Are you upset with me about something?”

  He shook his head. “No. I just know I can’t expect you to be too concerned about Russ. Your child’s already all grown up. Why would you wanna worry yourself with my kid?”

  “Chris, what are you ta
lking about? You know I’m not like that. Why are you saying this stuff?”

  Chris sighed. “Look, I don’t have time to go round and round about this with you. I need to go and try to get my son back. I need to focus on this instead of other things.”

  “Other things being me? So I’ve just been a distraction? Is that what you’re getting at, Chris?”

  He walked over to me and peered down at my face. “Like I said, I don’t have time for this right now.”

  I followed him from the bedroom out into the hallway. “When will you be back?”

  “When I find my son.”

  “And what should I do?”

  He turned and looked me in the eye. “Whatever you want. I really don’t care,” he said, slamming the door behind him.

  I walked over to the couch and sat down, tears rolling down my cheeks. The look in Chris’s eyes had been so cold and detached. Maybe it was my fault he’d missed seeing his son. Maybe I should’ve called him as soon as I recognized him. Or maybe I should’ve called the police. Maybe I really had distracted him from finding Russ.

  I sat there for over an hour, deep in thought and despair, before my exhaustion finally overtook me.

  ~*~

  I sat up on the sofa, feeling a little disoriented. After a few seconds, it registered in my mind that my phone was ringing and I picked it up from the coffee table. I didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello?” I said through a yawn.

  “Marli?” said a female voice on the other end.

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “It’s Ava. Chris’s sister.”

  I leaned forward. “Ava? What’s going on?”

  “It’s Russell.”

  “Chris found him?” Oh dear Lord, please let him have found him.

  “Yes, he found him in Chicago.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  “Marli, Russell… he didn’t make it.”

  “What?” I doubled over on the sofa. It felt like someone had punched me in the gut.

  “Fatima drove Russ all the way to Chicago without an inhaler. He had another asthma attack, and by the time she got him to the hospital, it was too late for them to save him. He’s… he’s gone. He was already gone when Chris got there.”

  I placed my hand over my mouth. “Oh, no. Oh, Lord no! Where’s Chris? Is he okay?”

  “He’s in pretty bad shape. My dad went to get him,” Ava said, her voice breaking.

  I felt my eyes begin to fill with tears. “Okay. I’ll be here when he gets home.”

  “I’m glad. He needs you. Bye, Marli.”

  “Bye.”

  I spent the next few hours pacing around the condo, or sitting on the couch and crying, or cleaning up the already spotless rooms. By the time Chris finally made it home, I was very close to losing my mind. When I heard him walk through the door, I raced from the kitchen to meet him. He looked at me with weary, exhausted eyes and dropped his bags by the door.

  I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck as he collapsed against me. I rubbed the back of his head as he buried his face in my chest and dissolved into tears. He let out a loud, painful, heart-wrenching wail.

  “Oh, baby. I don’t know what to do!” he groaned. His body shook as he clawed at my shirt as if trying to find something, anything to grasp onto.

  I squeezed him tightly, tried to sooth him with my voice. “I’m here. I’m here for you. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Oh, God! Oh, God! Help me… please, help me! Please, please, help me!” he pleaded over and over again. “Please… somebody help me!”

  Help him, God. Please help him, I prayed.

  He gripped me tightly, as if letting me go would be the death of him. He yelled and screamed and moaned until he was hoarse. And then we slid to the floor, and I spent the night holding him and crying with him.

  Twenty-One

  “Hang On To Your Love”

  “Where is he now?” Carla asked. She’d finished her assignment and was back in Arkansas with her boys. She and Bryan were trying to work things out but were still separated.

  I pulled the phone from my ear and stepped into the kitchen doorway. From there I could see Chris sitting in his usual spot on the sofa.

  I reclaimed my seat at the kitchen table. “He’s on the couch. He just sits there all day long, watching TV until bedtime.”

  “So he’s not any better? It’s been, what, two months now?”

  I sighed. “Yeah. He’s just having a hard time coping. He blames himself for not trying harder to find Russell. He thinks if he’d found him earlier, he’d still be alive.”

  “He doesn’t really believe that, does he? He’s got to know that it’s not his fault.”

  “A lot of what Chris knows is in the back of his mind. He’s just blocking it out. He’s… he’s just not Chris anymore. I don’t know who he is.”

  “I’m sorry, Marli.”

  I placed my elbow on the table and my free hand on my forehead. “And the worst thing is that I don’t know how to get him back. He hasn’t picked up a Bible since Russell died, won’t step foot in a church. He’s cancelled all of the band’s shows. He just sits and stares at the TV or stares into space. He won’t talk to me. The only thing he will do with me is have sex with me.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. I thought you two were waiting until after you got married or did I miss something? Did you get married and forget to tell me?”

  “No. After all that’s happened, I just don’t think it would be right to bring up us getting married. It just seems selfish.”

  “Well, who brought up y’all having sex?”

  “Um, I did. I just wanted to help him, Carla. I would’ve done anything to make him feel better. So one night it just happened. Now it happens all the time, several times a day.”

  “Several times a day? Dang, girl. You must’ve really put it on him.”

  “Carla…”

  “Seriously, Marli, I don’t know how you held out so long in the first place. You have the discipline of a nun.”

  “Carla…”

  “Okay, okay, just tell me this, is he any good?”

  “Very.”

  “Daaaang, girl.”

  “Carla!”

  “Okay, sorry. Look, if you feel so bad about it, don’t do it.”

  “To be honest, it’s the only connection I have with him now. Like I said, he won’t talk to me or even look at me otherwise. I never dreamed things would end up like this. I was supposed to be wife but now I feel more like a jump-off.”

  “No, you’re definitely not a jump-off. Jump-off’s don’t get marriage proposals or big rings, and they don’t get to live in luxury condos.”

  I sighed. “What am I gonna do, Carla? I just want my old Chris back. That’s all I want.”

  “Stop trying to make him better. Stop trying to fix him.”

  “And do what, Carla? Sit back and watch him disappear? Desert him? I love him. I can’t do that.”

  “I didn’t say desert him. But what you’re doing now is enabling him to stay in that rut. Pray for him, be there for him. Doing things that you know are wrong just to try to make him happy won’t help him.”

  I shut my eyes tightly and rubbed my forehead. “Yeah, you’re right. Look, I need to get off and see if he’ll eat some dinner. Pray for us. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Sure thing. Bye, girl.”

  “Bye.”

  I walked into the living room and stood next to the couch. “You hungry, Chris? I made lasagna.”

  Chris looked up at me and shook his head. “No, I’m not hungry.”

  “Okay, well, there’s plenty. Let me know if you get hungry. You need to eat, baby.”

  I turned to leave, but before I could, he grabbed my arm.

  “Come sit down with me,” he said as he looked up at me. His eyes were still so full of sadness.

  I smiled down at him. “Okay.”

  I sat down, and Chris grasped my hand. I looked into his eyes as he brought
my hand to his lips and kissed it.