A Different Kind of Normal

  But we had a killer witness, mark my words.

  Who?

  Beatrice.

  Mr. Hassells, Senior’s loving, caring daughter and Dirk’s sister.

  She’d heard about the lawsuit, called me, then Sandra, who had eagerly invited her to come.

  Sandra flashed those teeth, the teeth that seem to shine before she goes in for the kill, and said, “Dirk, I’m going to get one more person in here to give us another perspective, if you don’t mind.” She opened the door to the conference room, and Beatrice walked in.

  Beatrice had lost forty pounds since her father died. It was the first time she didn’t seem exhausted. Her hair was brushed, she wore makeup. She had greeted me with a hug in the hallway, a kiss on my cheek, and said, “Don’t worry, Jaden. Dirk has an asshole for a brain.”

  Sandra asked Beatrice questions and gave her time to be completely honest, at length. Some of what she said:

  “Jaden was at my father’s house all the time. She offered my dad, my kids, and me care, comfort, and friendship. In my years of working with medical people, and I had to work with them with my mother’s illness, my ex-husband’s heart attack, and two friends’ bouts with cancer, I found Jaden to be the most competent of all medical personnel.” She leaned toward Dr. Baharri. “No offense, Dr. Baharri. You’re in second place, but Jaden was with us all the time.”

  Dr. Baharri smiled and nodded his head. “No offense. It is an honor to be second place to Miss Bruxelle.”

  Beatrice also detailed how Dirk never did anything to help with his father or his care, and only rarely came to visit his father until he met me. “He started to bring his ‘too busy’ self on over after he saw Jaden and began pestering her to sleep with him and ‘ride him like his Porsche,’ that’s a direct quote from my brother.”

  “That’s a lie!” Dirk said, flushed and seething.

  “Only truths, please,” Ralph the attorney intoned.

  “My client disputes her claim,” Nigel said. He peeked at his cell phone.

  “It is not a lie,” Beatrice said, chin up. “You accused Jaden of killing Dad, and I will tell the truth to defend her.”

  “You’re going to defend our father’s murderer?” Dirk shot me a malevolent glance. It said, If you had hooked up with me, this wouldn’t be happening.

  “Shut up, asshole brain,” Beatrice said mildly. “Jaden didn’t kill him. The liver cancer killed him.”

  “Let’s be kind, stick to the facts,” Nigel the attorney interjected. He seemed bored.

  “Beatrice wasn’t in there one night, sometimes she was out with her bratty kids, and that’s”—Dirk paused—“that’s when it happened.”

  “When what happened?” Sandra asked. Teeth flashed.

  “When Jaden poured that morphine into my dad. If she hadn’t overdosed him, my father would have had more time.”

  Sydney said, “False.”

  “The last time you came to see Dad was a month before he died, Dirk,” Beatrice said.

  “But I know she used the morphine the same way many more times! Pouring it down him!”

  “Again, you are wrong. You are wrong often, aren’t you, Mr. Hassells?” Dr. Baharri said, smooth as silk. “Jaden did not overdose your father. Let me tell you once again about liver cancer and your father’s medical history.” He went off on another medical lecture while Dirk squirmed.

  “You have to understand me, Dirk Hassells,” Dirk tried again, interrupting Dr. Baharri. “I don’t want more trouble.”

  “What do you want?” Sandra asked.

  “I want an apology from her.” He stabbed a fat finger at me, then leaned back, arms crossed on his chest. “You, Jaden. A nice apology, too. Where you tell me you did wrong and ask for my forgiveness and tell me you’re willing to start over and you mean it. A few tears wouldn’t hurt.”

  Sydney flung her head back, hands in the air, her braids swinging, as if searching for divine intervention. “Not in my lifetime on this planet.”

  “I will not allow that,” Dr. Baharri said. “As she did nothing wrong.”

  “You will have to wait forever for that, Dirk,” I said. Gall, he was obsessed with me and bringing me down, smashing me, controlling me. “It will not happen.”

  “And I want a payout for the early death of my father, who was my best friend, and because of poor treatment and poor care and poor bandages and a hospice nurse who would not do as she was told to do to help me, I mean to help my dad, and to tend to my needs as a grieving son, same as she did for Beatrice, which is part of her job to help all the members of the family!” He banged his hand again.

  Beatrice laughed.

  “How come you’re not supporting me, Beatrice?” he semi-shouted.

  “Because you’re a liar.”

  “I am not. I will never speak to you again after this, Beatrice.”

  “My relationship with you was over years ago, Dirk. You just didn’t know it because you’re wrapped up tight in your narcissistic self.”

  Nigel said, and I knew that he knew there was no case here, but he is a slimy slick lawyer and Dirk was paying him, “We feel our client needs to be compensated for the preventable death of his father, incompetent medical care, medical malpractice.”

  “Shouldn’t have happened,” Ralph droned. He needed to earn his outrageous fees. “The father had more time. Payment for lack of companionship is due.”

  “You’re as likely to get that money as I am to grow a lemon tree in Antarctica,” Sandra said, smiling.

  “And along with the money I want her”—Dirk stabbed a finger at me again; his ego had taken such a hit when I’d turned him down—“to acknowledge that she over-morphined my dad and to say she’s sorry to me personally, she and I, in a room alone, sorry, that’s what she has to do. A profuse sorry. On her knees, sorry.”

  “I will not do that,” I said. “I especially will never be in a room alone with you on my knees. The image disgusts me. I provided excellent care to your father. I’m sorry that you’re pissed off that I didn’t want to sleep with you, but you are a vomitous creature with slits for eyes and slobber constantly on your mouth and a forest of hair growing out of your ears and you are egotistical, boring, and have a personality disorder so I wasn’t interested at all. My rejection of you doesn’t mean you are justified in bringing a false lawsuit against me.”

  Dirk’s mouth gaped open and shut.

  Nigel said, “Let’s not be brutal, Miss Bruxelle.”

  Ralph said, “I think that was rather mean.”

  Dirk stood up, shaking, “I don’t have to sit and take this shit anymore. Come on, Nigel, come on, Ralph. Jaden Bruxelle, I will see you and your sorry, tight, thin ass and those weird blue and green eyes of yours in court, and you will regret crossing me, you’ll regret being such a snit and a snob and a snit and you will get on your knees and give me a . . . a sorry! On your knees!”

  Dirk lumbered out, ran into a chair, and tried to shove it out of the way. It got caught on another chair and he had to push that one out of the way, too, and the first one fell on his foot. I laughed out loud. Beatrice laughed louder than me.

  The expensive attorneys stood up and, after saying good-bye to us, have a pleasant day, thanks for your time, no vindictiveness or anger in their voices, they followed Dirk.

  They were there for Dirk’s money.

  What did they care?

  The next day was tough, too. Not all deaths are fair, we all know that. When my patients are over seventy, I honestly feel that they had a fair shot at life. Seventy years. That’s a long time. Not long enough, but a gift.

  And often I have patients in hospice care who have run themselves into the ground. They’re smokers, drinkers, obese, addicts or ex-addicts, with sedentary lives, junk food diets, etc. They didn’t need to die so young, but they do because of consistent and unbelievably poor lifestyle choices.

  But sometimes I am caring for younger people. In their twenties, thirties, forties . . . most are married or have part
ners. Many have children. They lived healthy yet, for some inexplicable reason, death came knocking.

  It was a young one I lost today, and his wife’s wailing, the young daughter’s sobbing, the son who ran to hide in the closet with a stuffed purple giraffe his dad gave him . . . it was still in my head. Unfair. Not right. It was as if death made a mistake, took the wrong corner and hit the wrong house, the wrong person.

  Several days before the young father died, of a disease no one could predict he would have, he held my hand and said, “Thank you, Jaden. You made this easier for me.”

  I had to eat a dozen red cinnamon Gummi Bears after that and cry in my greenhouse under my Chinese lanterns and hanging lavender.

  Some people, emotionally, are ready to die for whatever reason. Maybe they’re old and grateful for the time they’ve had. Maybe they’ve had it with being critically ill. Maybe they’ve grieved for the life they’re losing but have reached some sort of philosophical, religious, or spiritual peace.

  But others are anxious, panicked, depressed, regretful, grieving, angry, and confused. The treatment they received previously has worn them out, physically and emotionally. They are not accepting of their deaths. They will fight for their lives until the last millisecond, usually because of their children. They are “not ready.” They’re leaving a first grader with an interest in cheetahs or an eighth grader who is headed off the tracks, behaviorally speaking, and nothing can make them ready.

  The ending of their life is unfair, and they know it. We all know it.

  Death is not always fair or right. I’ve stopped asking why not.

  Sometimes my patients seem to be getting better, a surge of energy, they finally eat a full meal one night, they sit up, even walk around, laugh and talk, and their bodies shut down overnight.

  Sometimes patients won’t die until they get permission from family to go; other times they seem to wait until everyone is out of the room, as if they can’t get their death done with relatives crying over them. Patients have also waited, in semiconscious or unconscious states, for relatives to arrive. I’ve seen that happen many, many times, with family members saying, “Grandpa, Beth will be here in six hours, can you wait?” Within an hour of Beth being there, Grandpa starts to shut down.

  It is different for each person.

  As everyone’s life is different, too.

  Thank you, Jaden. You made this easier for me.

  I make the journey easier. That’s what I do.

  It does not stop the tears, though, shed in my greenhouse or rocking chair, staring out at the fields, the roses and red poppies, the herb and vegetable gardens in summer, the columns of maple trees down the drive, the same scenes that generations of women in my family have stared at, as they rode the joys and sorrows of life, tears coursing down their cheeks, too.

  Tate’s team won their next game by twenty-two points.

  They were on a winning streak, and it revitalized our town.

  During the next game, Tate passed the ball off even more than usual. All the players scored. In fact two kids scored who never did so. Both made four points.

  Coach called time-out in the fourth quarter and pulled Tate to him. I knew what he was telling him. We all did: Quit passing, let’s make some points, we’re down by five.

  So, Tate shot. And shot. And shot. When we were ahead by eight with one minute to go, Tate started passing the ball off again. In the last seconds, he passed it off to Baron, the one with the problem with dyslexia who thinks he’s stupid and who doesn’t get to play much.

  It was a two-pointer for Baron, top of the key, it was the last basket of the game. The ball swooshed, the whistle blew, and his parents, who had had Baron as a surprise when the mother was forty-five, who were sitting next to me, flew out of their seats, arms raised high in the air, screaming.

  They both cried. Their Baron had made a basket. To top it off, Tate, dear Tate, hugged the shocked and grateful Baron, and the other kids surrounded Baron, hugging him, slapping him on the back.

  We had a winner. His name was Baron. In all the years I’ve known him, I have never, ever seen a smile like that on that kid’s face. Never.

  I cried, too. I’m such a baby.

  “Tate is the kindest damn kid I know,” my mother said to me. She had flown in from Los Angeles and made it in the second quarter. She wore a couture black dress with a Mid Court Mob shirt over it. “Certainly didn’t get that from me. I have a mean streak the size of the Mississippi River and you have Witch Mavis, but he has none of our mean and threatening volcanic qualities. None.”

  She called down to him, fist shaking. “Busted their balls, Tate! You busted their balls!”

  “Really, Mother?”

  She wiggled her eyebrows at me, then flicked the crystals in my hair. “I say the truth.”

  “He did bust their balls, he did!” Damini said. “Busted ’em wide open, Aunt Jaden! Wiiiiiide open!”

  “Do you think this is proper grandmothering? See what you’ve done, Mother? Damini’s talking about balls!”

  She put her hand on Damini’s shoulder. “You’re a witchly fire breather, Damini.”

  “Yeah, I know it. I’m a Bruxelle! I’ve heard all the stories about the royal witch line and Faith and Grace.”

  “They’re all true. Their spells worked. Don’t you listen to your aunt Jaden telling you different.”

  “I won’t, Nana,” she said solemnly.

  Caden led a cheer about Baron and the greatest shot in town. The rest of the team got in on it, too. The triplets ran onto the court to hug Tate. They were wearing hippie outfits with bandannas and peace signs. Damini threw her hands up in the air and screamed, “He’s a pain in my keester, but I still love him!”

  TATE’S AWESOME PIGSKIN BLOG

  Today I am going to post a photo of myself. See. Here it is. That’s General Noggin and I. Here’s a photo of my hands around a model of a brain. Remember my hands, Billy and Bob? As in Billy Bob Thornton, the greatest actor ever? Here are profile photos, too, so you can see the famous ears, Bert and Ernie. As you can see, I drew a smiley face on Bert.

  Yes, I was born with that thing. Yes, my eyes, Mickey Mouse and Road Runner, are uneven. Here are Mickey Mouse and Road Runner studying neurological anatomy.

  I’m done hiding on my own blog because it feels as if I’m insulting myself. This is me. I have a big head.

  The thing is, if you’re different in America you get a different perspective of life. There are a lot of different people here. Not all of us are blond, thin, with blue or green eyes. We have all colors here, all religions, all shapes. But if you don’t fit in with the “norm” of America, then you often feel you’re on the outside looking in and you’ll never be fully in the club, this silent American club. You’re a beat off, a step away, you’re off rhythm.

  I’ve been looking in, stuck on the outside of some glass bubble, my whole life, and a whole bunch of people don’t want me in the bubble and will hit me to keep me out.

  But I’ve also been able to figure things out. Figure people out. I have had to do a lot of thinking, which is something I think a lot of people don’t do, and don’t have to do, because they fit in. They are just there. I think some people don’t even realize how good they have it.

  But lately, I’ve been wondering. Fitting in perfectly means that you never have to reach outside yourself. You don’t have to go through the same kinds of challenges, prejudice, judgment. Is it actually the best thing to fit in with everyone else? It’s easiest. But, man, how do you grow? How do you learn to think on your own, or do you simply think what everyone around you thinks? How do you learn to be more compassionate of others, more generous, if you’ve never had to feel like you’ve been lost and stuck on the outside with no one being compassionate or generous to you?

  I know people who seem to have perfect lives, no problem has ever split their world, but they seem shallow to me. There’s nothing of depth on the inside, nothing interesting. It’s as if being perfect has ta
ken away their ability to have an intellect. They’ve never had to reach inside and pull out their strength, or their courage, and see who they are deep down. They seem ... empty somehow.

  Do I like having a big head? Not really. But I don’t dislike it, either. This is me. Tate Bruxelle. Oh, and General Noggin, too, Billy and Bob, and Bert and Ernie. Mickey Mouse and Road Runner, practically the bionic eye.

  Hello.

  From all of us.

  How you doing today?

  Blog count: 8,000. The comments from people who read his blog? Tate came downstairs grinning. “I’m definitely getting braver about getting out of Tillamina and seeing the world. It seems a lot friendlier now.”

  “We’re gonna win the state title, Boss Mom.”

  “And I will be there with the Mid Court Mob cheering for you.”

  “Nuclear fusion and splitting atoms, we’re gonna kick some butt.” Tate was tinkering in his Experiment Room with wires, a mini-motor, and wood. Now and then small sparks sprinkled around and about. He moved a research article aside that a neurosurgeon had sent him. No sense burning that up.

  “Please don’t set the house on fire.”

  “Boss Mom, I ain’t gonna be burnin’ no house down. I know what I’m doing. I’m a wannabe Einstein, he’s da man, but first I’m gonna kick some butt on the court.”

  “I will enjoy the kick butt show. You don’t have fireworks in here anymore, do you?” I ran a hand over his curls, nervous already for the game. Please don’t get hurt.