Forever Sheltered (25 page)

“You have to help me finish the image! The cliff!”

He clasped his other hand around mine. “You already know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t!”

He smiled. “But you do. What did you paint first?”

I thought about the oranges and pinks on the canvas. “The sunset.”

“Not the drop? Not the danger?”

“No.”

“See? What would you have painted first before?”

He had me there. “The rocks. The fall.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve changed.”

“Exactly.”

Was Darion the change? Or was it me?

“Are we supposed to change? Do artists change?” I asked.

He coughed weakly, and said, “All my life I was known for these dark images.”

I thought of the clowns. Yes, they had a definite sinister look.

“But for a while, I drew unicorns.”

I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Unicorns?”

He laughed until he gasped. He let go of my hand to press his palm to his chest. “I know. But they were gorgeous.”

“Did you paint them as Claude?”

He dropped his hand to his lap. “So, you know.”

“I figured it out just ten minutes ago. It was the clown on the cliff.”

“My silly redundancy,” he said. “I never could get that face out of my head. They said to paint your demons until they had no power. Never worked for me.”

“Maybe you are what you paint,” I said. “And not the other way around.”

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it? I should have stuck to unicorns.”

“What started the unicorns?”

“A little girl a lot like you. Blond. Dramatic. Her own person.”

“Your daughter?”

His face scrunched with emotion. “She was. Her mother was a true psychopath. Viciously disappointed that I hadn’t ‘made it.’ Drove the two of them into a lake when she was six. They both drowned.”

“Oh my God.”

He swiped at his eyes. “That was long, long ago. I switched to sinister clowns. Only then did I become the artist she had always expected me to be. Funny how it works. Or not funny. Satirical, really.”

“The world thinks you’re dead.”

“Ah, yes. When I lived, my assistant was embarrassed for saying I was dead. I pay a boy to edit the Wikipedia entry if it gets changed. I like being dead. In fact, the world lamenting my demise was one of the things that kept me going after I botched my own real death.”

I reached over. “I thought I was what kept you going,” I teased.

“And the doctor keeps you going. You still haven’t drawn him, have you?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“There’s your assignment. Your trouble in paradise with three-point perspective.”

He relaxed into the pillow. “And don’t let Duffrey bully you into being a therapist OR a social worker if you don’t want it.”

Had I told him about that?

He closed his eyes, and I rose slowly from the bed.

“I’ll be by tomorrow,” I said.

He unlaced his hands and lifted one shaky finger but did not open his eyes. “With a draft!” he said.

“With a draft.”

But as I wandered back to my room, I realized something. I had NOT told him about the new position. I referred to my one-day absence only as an administrative hiccup.

And then it dawned.

The wealthy powerful man funding my position.

Was him.

Chapter 44: Darion

Cynthia and I were deep into a cutthroat game of Go Fish when two orderlies arrived with a gurney.

“Where is she going?” I asked. When I sent Angela home, she hadn’t mentioned any procedures.

“For a bone marrow aspiration,” they said. “We have the papers here, signed yesterday.”

We put down her cards. Right. I had ordered it myself, assuming I’d be doing it. “Have they done the PET scan on her kidney?” I asked.

They stared at the paper. “Not listed.”

Damn it. They were already dropping the ball. I’d have Clements paged.

“Are you coming with me?” Cynthia asked.

“You can walk with her until we get to the room,” they said.

Cynthia clutched my hand. “You won’t be there?”

“Not this time, Cyn.”

Her eyes got wet. “But you’re always there.”

I tried to muster all my sincerity when I said, “You’re in good hands.”

The orderlies helped her move from the bed to the gurney and locked the side rails into place. I walked with her as we rolled down the familiar halls. We were buzzed into the surgical hall, and I glanced over at Surgical Suite B.

The orderlies pushed Cynthia into another suite. Inside, two nurses I didn’t know were waiting.

“Hello, Cynthia,” one said. “You ready for this?”

She nodded.

“You’ve had this done many times, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Many times.”

“Lay on your side for me, okay, sweetheart?”

Dr. Hammonds, a pediatric oncologist I worked with often, came in. He stopped short when he spotted me. “I didn’t expect to see you,” he said.

I took him aside. “She’s my sister.”

His confused expression told me everything. The staff knew I was on leave, but not why.

“Time for you to wait outside,” one of the nurses said.

“How about you let me stay with her?” I asked Hammonds.

He hesitated. “I think you should wait in her room. We’ll have her right back.” He turned to Cynthia. “Hello, Cynthia!” He gave his usual silly introduction that he did with pediatric patients.

One of the orderlies held open the door. “This way,” he said.

The nurses watched me. Probably ready to give a report.

Be a normal parent, Duffrey had said.

I hated to go. I didn’t want to go. But I did.

I went straight to the admin offices. When Duffrey’s secretary saw me, she jumped straight up. “Not again!” she said.

“Pardon?” I knew she was confusing me with my father. He must have caused a scene.

“Oh,” she said. “You looked like…someone else.” She sat back down. “Dr. Duffrey isn’t in at the moment.”

“When will he be back?”

“I had to cancel everything until midafternoon,” she said. “Didn’t exactly make MY day.”

I backed away. For all I knew, he was at lunch with my father, plotting my next career move. He was probably striking some sort of deal I didn’t need or want.

I went back up to Cynthia’s ward to wait in her room. I half wished I hadn’t sent Angela home. I might be needing her still.

At the last minute, I veered down Tina’s hall. She had a group of teen girls with her, but she waved when I passed.

That was pretty much the only thing going right at the moment.

And thank God for that.

When I got into Cynthia’s room, it wasn’t empty. My father was sitting in the rocking chair, staring at his phone.

“Fancy seeing you here, Dad,” I said. “I thought Cynthia didn’t exist in your skewed little world.”

“Hello, son.” He tucked his phone in his pocket. “Didn’t realize you’d resort to involving your supervisor in our little family matter.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Duffrey. He faxed me Cynthia’s file. Including your bone marrow HLAs. You should have told me you were a ten-point match.”

“It’s not my fault you were a blindsided idiot.”

My father jumped out of the chair. “If you discovered that you two were one-hundred-percent siblings, you should have told me.”

“I always knew. She’s been fine without you for eight years. And you turned out not to be worthy of my mother. Why would I give you my sister?”

He whipped around to face the window. “Your mother was living in communes, staying at artist colonies. No telling who might have fathered that child.”

“The only father that mattered was you.”

“The paternity test was negative.”

“It happens. You should have figured it out for your own damn self.”

“Where is she?”

“Getting a bone marrow aspiration.”

He sighed. “I flipped through her file. Are you going to do another stem cell transplant?”

“We’re not eligible for another three months.”

“Have you contacted Mayo? St. Jude’s? M. D. Anderson?”

“Yes. M. D. Anderson had the best match for a trial.”

“You took it?”

“Yes. I pulled a thousand strings, but I got her on it.”

He turned back around. “What’s the prognosis?”

“I’m not sure you deserve to know.”

“Damn it, Darion. I’m trying to do the right thing here.”

The door pushed open, and an orderly bumped the gurney through. Cynthia lay on her side, sleepy from the sedative.

“Dary, I think I see two of you,” she said.

I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t exactly introduce him as her father. Not after all this time.

“I think you should go,” I said to him. “This is not a good time whatsoever.”

The orderlies carefully transferred Cynthia back to her bed.

“Is this your friend, Dary?” Cynthia asked. “I have seen his picture in Mommy’s photo books.”

“Yes, Cynthia, it is. His name is Gerald.”

“Hi, Gerald,” she said.

“She looks like your mother,” he said.

“I know.”

“Were you friends with Mommy? What was she like before I was born?” she asked. She could barely keep her eyes open.

My father glanced at me, then pulled the chair closer to her bed. “Your mommy loved to sing,” he said.

The orderlies left us. I backed against the wall, so full of rage I could punch a hole in it. He could not just walk right in here. He could not mess with her now. He didn’t deserve her.

“I remember,” Cynthia said. “I know her favorite song.”

“What was that?”

She yawned, but still she managed to sing a few lines.

I spent my life in old Kentucky.

Moved to Cali when I got real lucky in love.

I knew exactly when my father realized the lyrics were about him. His jaw clamped down.

Then you found a whole new love to make you happy.

T’weren’t another woman but a job overseas.

You traded workin’ for my love.

Cynthia’s voice faded out. My father sat there a minute, then he said to me, “Your mother wouldn’t come with me.”

“You asked too much of her.”

He stood up, his voice charged with emotion I had never heard in him, not when his own mother died, and certainly not when he left mine.

“I can’t have this conversation now,” he said.

And he walked out.

Again.

Big surprise.

Chapter 45: Tina

When I finally got free of my therapy sessions to get to Cynthia’s room, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.

Cynthia was sitting up, coloring on her pad. And Darion was fast asleep in a chair, leaning over her bed with his head on his arms.

“Shhh,” Cynthia said. “He’s sleeping.” She giggled. “I don’t think doctors are supposed to sleep in the rooms.”

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to let on that I knew they were brother and sister.

Cynthia turned the pad around. “Dr. Darion wanted me to make you green, but I said you weren’t an ogre.”

The drawing was of me, dressed as a princess. Darion had drawn it. I could tell by the sweep of the lines. “That’s very good,” I said. “I’m glad I’m not green.”

“I missed art class,” she said. “I had to get an aspiration.”

“That doesn’t sound very fun.”

“They stuck a needle in my butt.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Not really.”

I wanted to reach over and run my fingers through Darion’s hair. He really was out. “Does he do this often? Fall asleep in your room?”

Cynthia opened her mouth to answer, then changed her mind. “He’s just my doctor.”

I decided enough was enough. “He’s also your brother.”

Her eyes got very big.

“It’s okay that I know,” I said. “I’m a friend now. Not just the art teacher.”

Cynthia set the drawing pad down. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”

“I probably wasn’t supposed to tell you!”

She giggled. “We have secrets!”

“We do.”

“You want to draw with the new markers?” she asked. “I’ve been saving them.”

“Sure.”

She reached over carefully to the table by her bed and opened the drawer. I saw a twinge of pain cross her face, but it didn’t stop her. She pulled the package out.

She took out the purple. “This is my favorite color,” she said. She set it in her lap. Then she pulled out the black. “Here’s yours.”

I regretted my choice so much. Stupid goth phase. Dumb reflexive answer. I could see it for what it was. Rebellion. Anything to stand out, impress the other antisocial kids.

But I took it.

“Let’s see what color they make,” she said.

I opened the cap. “I’m not sure the black one works like the others. I think it’s just for making edges. Maybe I should take a different one. I think I have a new favorite color.”

“Oh, no,” Cynthia said solemnly. “You can’t change your favorite color. That would be like changing your mom.”

I wouldn’t have minded that either.

“Let’s just try it,” she said. She drew the shape of a butterfly and colored it in. “Now you make the dots,” she said. “Make them shaped like hearts.”

“Okay,” I said, smiling at her. “But it might be a funny butterfly with black hearts on it.”

“I won’t mind,” she said.

We both watched as I drew the first heart.

It turned blue.

“I knew it,” Cynthia said. “Another favorite color!”

“Is blue Darion’s favorite?” I asked, actually surprised the black ink could change.

Cynthia shook her head. “It was my mother’s.”

Now I remembered her telling me that before. The color of forever.

My hands shook a little as I closed the cap on the marker. Just a coincidence.

Darion woke up then, startled. When he saw me, he smiled sleepily. “Am I dreaming?”

“No!” Cynthia cried. “She’s here! And purple and black make blue!”

Then she leaned toward me and whispered loudly, “Can we tell him?”

“Tell me what?” Darion yawned, pushing back a lock of errant hair.

“That you should sleep more,” I said.

“Tina!” Cynthia said.

I leaned back near her. “Tell him what?”

“About what you know,” she whispered.

“Maybe we should wait until he tells me you’re his sister, and then it won’t have to be a secret.” Our whispers were so loud, they could probably be heard in the hall. I was trying not to laugh.