Lifers (41 page)

Outrage was still pulsing through me, and Gloria was sitting there, the whiff of sulfur foul in the air.

Lopez nodded again, handed me his card in case I ‘remembered anything else’. As if I could ever forget it: every blow, every kick was imprinted on my brain, burned behind my eyelids.

As soon as it was just the three of us, I turned to Gloria.

“Tell me again why you’re here?” I growled at her.

“Don’t speak to me! I don’t answer to you,” she sneered.

“Gloria, that’s enough!” barked Paul. “Either you’re here for our son or you’re not. I know that Torrey is.”

Gloria ground her teeth together.

“Are you takin’ her side now? The preacher’s trashy daughter, that’s what you called her.”

My eyes flicked to Paul, and his dull skin reddened, revealing the truth of her hateful words.

“I was mistaken,” he said. “I’m sorry, Torrey. Sorry about a lot of things. Look, we’re all tired. It’s been a bad, bad day. I think we should go home. Then in the mornin’, we can be back here for Jordan. He’s the important one right now.”

I thought Gloria was going to argue, but instead she picked up her purse and abruptly left the room.

Paul offered me a sheepish smile. I didn’t feel like returning it.

“You go,” I said. “I’m staying.”

He nodded slowly, but sank back into his seat to wait with me.

In silence, we watched the hands of the clock shuffle forward. We were joined by a woman who was weeping quietly, her eyes swollen with tears. I glanced at her tiredly, but didn’t have anything to say that could make it better for her. No one could. We could only wait.

Finally, as the night stretched toward a new day, Dr. Linden reappeared.

“Everything went as well as can be expected, given the level of swelling around the eye. But there’s a good chance that your son won’t require a further operation.”

“Can we see him?” I asked.

“He’s in recovery so I can only let you look through the window, but I’d really suggest that you go home and get some rest yourselves. Come back tomorrow.”

I wondered why he’d bother to say that.

We shook hands, and he wished us goodnight. He was probably going home to have dinner with his family. No, it was way too late for that. He’d probably take a snack from the fridge that his wife had left for him, shower, and slip between clean sheets, with a clean conscience and no bad dreams to trouble him. Maybe. We never really know the troubles that haunt the lives of others.

A nurse showed us to the recovery room, and I stood on tiptoe to look through the window.

Jordan’s face was turned away from us, so I couldn’t see much. He was hooked up to lots of machines, but he was breathing on his own.

My throat tightened, and I fought back the tears of relief that threatened to fall.

Paul touched my arm.

“We should go home now, get some sleep, like the doc said. Then we can be here for him later.”

I nodded, and let him lead me from the hospital.

At the parking lot, I finally spoke.

“Could you please drive me to the bank in town?”

Paul looked surprised.

“The bank? At this hour?”

“I want to get my car. I’ll be coming to the hospital as soon as I can in the morning.”

He cleared his throat.

“Well, I can do that, darlin’, but I’d be happy to give you a ride to the hospital in the mornin’.”

“No, thank you.”

He shook his head sadly but didn’t reply, and we drove home in silence. I ignored the glances he threw my way every couple of minutes. I knew it had taken him a while to warm up to me, but hearing what he’d said, what he’d accused me of—it hurt.

Once we reached the bank, I slipped out of the car.

“Thanks,” I said, without looking in his direction.

I heard him sigh, and then the car pulled away.

When I arrived back, lights were shining from every window like beacons, or warning lights. Gloria hadn’t drawn the curtains and I could see her going from room to room, observing the changes wrought on her home. It seemed like a violation of my makeshift family, and I had to remind myself it was still her home and not mine, despite everything that had happened in the last couple of months. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stay with her in the house, her spite and hatred seeping into the air.

I climbed out of the car wearily, feeling the ache in my arms and ribs where Leather Jacket had manhandled me.

I walked in to find Paul hovering in the hallway.

Then Gloria was suddenly standing in front of me.

“So you live here now,” she said.

Her voice carried no inflection, which seemed odd after the way she’d spoken to me at the hospital.

I nodded, and started to walk around her and up the stairs to Jordan’s room, to
our
room.

“Why?” she called after me.

“What?”

“Why do you live here?”

I didn’t know what to make of her question.

“Because Jordan lives here,” I said, tired and irritated by this bizarre Q&A.

“It looks like you have
all
your things here.”

I locked my eyes on hers. “You’ve been in our bedroom.”

She seemed almost nervous. “I didn’t know you’d moved in. Paul didn’t tell me…”

I nodded slowly. “Well, now you know. Stay out of our room.”

I turned to carry on walking up the stairs.

“Why aren’t you at the Rectory?” she asked, her tone insistent.

I stared at her tiredly. “Because my mother made me choose and I chose Jordan. Don’t worry, Gloria, as soon as his parole is done, we’ll be gone. Long gone, nothing but a cloud of dust behind us.”

She didn’t reply and neither did Paul. I hadn’t spoken to him since the hospital. Maybe Gloria had got the result she’d wanted when she unleashed her forked tongue.

I was about to leave them at the bottom of the stairs, when I turned to face her once more.

“You know what your problem is? You’ve turned Mikey’s death into a life sentence for all of you—for Paul, for Jordan. You turned them into lifers. That’s what you’re doing here—and that’s what you want for Jordan. But I’m not going to let it happen. I’m not going to let him suffer anymore. What you do with your lives is up to you, but Jordan deserves better than that. And I’ll spend the rest of my life with him, making sure he knows he’s loved and forgiven.”

I didn’t wait to hear any reply. I trudged up the stairs and into our room. I flipped the light switch on and stared around. Jordan had made the bed. That didn’t surprise me, he was so tidy. He felt like he was breaking a law if he left a wrinkle in the sheets.

His towel was still damp from showering before we’d gone out, and it was hanging neatly over the back of the chair. I picked it up and held it to my face, breathing deeply. I managed to get to the bathroom before the tears came. I peeled off my clothes and crawled into the shower, my stomach heaving as I washed Jordan’s blood from my hair.

I was too tired to dry it, so I wrapped myself in Jordan’s towel and fell onto the bed, my wet hair falling around me like tears.

The sheets smelled of Jordan, too. He didn’t wear cologne but I could smell the soap he used and his sweet, spicy, natural scent.

It felt wrong sleeping in our bed without him. I hated it. There hadn’t been a night since we’d been together when we hadn’t made love. Even when I got home from work and it was after one in the morning, his warm body would wake and stretch as I slid in next to him. And even if we were both bone weary, we needed that connection at the end of our day.

I’d learned a lot about Jordan in the last couple of months. I’d learned how his body responded to my touch. I’d learned the little tells he had that told me when he was desperate to come but wanted me to get there first. He’d bite his lip and stare into the corner of the room. I teased him about that and asked him what he was thinking. He never did tell me. For all I knew, he was going over baseball stats. But ya know, that wasn’t really something I was desperate to hear. I just appreciated that he cared about my satisfaction.

He went crazy when I dragged my fingernails down his back, even when we weren’t in bed. He didn’t really have a favorite position but I’d learned that he loved fast, rough sex followed by slow, gentle, sensuous love-making. Through and through, Jordan was an intriguing mix of contradictions: his hard body, his soft lips; his serious, sensible nature; his wild and passionate side; the scary, prison demeanor he could switch on; his gentle soul.

I don’t think Jordan realized half of these things. It seemed as if he was rediscovering himself, the person he was going to become since prison. He had no idea that all the other women at Starbucks drooled over him, and quite a few of the girls who worked in the mall would suddenly come in for coffee when they saw his truck in the parking lot. Or maybe he noticed but just wasn’t interested. Either way, it was one of the things that I’d grown to love about him.

And he definitely had no clue how intimidating he could be. He’d scared the crap out of my manager one day. Gus had been yelling at me and the rest of the staff about some supposed misdemeanor, when Jordan had made one of his after work visits to the coffee shop. Gus saw this tall, tattooed guy with rippling muscles and cold stare, and had totally abandoned trying to ream us out. I knew that Jordan had switched to his defensive, prison mode, because he was meeting a guy he didn’t know. But Gus, the little jerk, had just about shit his shorts when I introduced them and he realized that Jordan was my boyfriend. Things at work eased up a lot after that.

And then there were all the little things Jordan did that showed me he loved me.

He didn’t think I noticed, but I did. Making me breakfast at 5 AM even though he didn’t have to be up for work himself; starting the shower before I got in it so the water would be warm; turning over the Princess’ engine so she started first time for me; putting my shoes away and hanging up my jacket so it didn’t get wrinkled; making sure he recorded my favorite TV shows when I was working.

Small things, for sure, but gestures that told me more than words how much he loved me.

I pulled the cold sheets closer around me. I knew I no longer had a choice. I was with Jordan Kane and always would be. He was my life, my forever, ‘til death us do part. And maybe not even then.

I woke up suddenly. There was no sleepy confusion, no sense of quietly slipping between the dream world and the waking world. I knew instantly where I was and what had happened. I knew I had to be at the hospital.

Not normally a morning person, today I moved quickly and with purpose.

Today I marched to the shower, uncaring who I met or what they might say to me. I felt like a gladiator about to go into battle.

I showered quickly and tugged my hair into a damp clump at the back of my head.

I wondered whether it would be worth phoning the hospital, but then I figured it would be easier to just get there. I contemplated going straight to my car, but my stomach growled and I decided that Gloria wasn’t chasing me out of the place that had become my home with Jordan. If she wanted to avoid me,
she
could leave.

Paul and Gloria were sitting with plates of scrambled eggs and toast in front of them. Paul was distractedly pushing the eggs around his plate, and neither seemed to be eating. He looked up when he saw me.

“How are you, Torrey?”

“Tired, sore, pissed. You?”

He winced at my blunt tone. Gloria didn’t say anything.

I put some bread in the toaster and helped myself to coffee.

“There’s eggs. If you want them.”

I nearly dropped my mug and managed to splash hot coffee over my jeans.

“What?”

I turned and stared at Gloria.

“I’ve made plenty,” she said. “I thought you might be hungry.”

“Why are you talking to me?” I asked, suspicion making my words snap and crackle.

Paul coughed, obviously ill at ease with the duel starting up in front of him.

“I phoned the hospital,” he said, cutting off my anger at Gloria. “They say Jordan had a good night.”

I gave a staccato nod. I knew it was irrational, but I felt jealous that Paul had done something that I’d wanted to do, that I should have done.

“The nurse said he was askin’ for you,” Paul added.

I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of my mouth. “He was?”

Paul nodded. “Of course. He loves you.”

My eyes flickered toward Gloria, wondering what expression of hatred and distaste I’d see on her face. But instead she was staring at her untouched food.

A tiny bud of hope planted itself in my stomach. I tried to ignore it, but it was definitely there.

The popping of the toaster called for my attention and I slathered two slices thickly with butter. As an afterthought, I heaped three spoonfuls of eggs onto the plate, as well.

“Do you want to ride to the hospital with us?” Paul asked, tentatively.

“No thanks. I’ll make my own way.”

“Okay,” he said, quietly. “We’ll see you there.”

I nodded and occupied myself with eating.

I finished before them and cleaned off my plate in the sink. Paul called after me as I left the room.