Monk had seen a glimmer of that strength, and the eventual recovery it promised, later, when Gray came to visit Kat at the hospital, to see the baby. Monk had never told his friend what he and Kat had both decided. The revelation brought a sad, but genuine smile to Gray’s lips.
Monk lifted his girl around to stare her in the face. “Are you hungry, Harriet?”
Gray sat in the bedside hospital chair, his face in his hands.
His father was snoring softly, stretched out under a thin sheet and blanket. He looked like a frail shadow of his formerly robust self. Gray had arranged for a private room here at the memory-care unit, to allow his father some measure of privacy in which to grieve. His mother had brought his father to the hospital a week ago.
He’d not left.
The MRI revealed that he’d suffered a very small stroke, but he was recovering well. It was more an incidental finding than anything. The real reason for the sudden worsening of his dementia — the hallucinations, the nighttime panic attacks, the sundowner’s syndrome — had mostly to do with a dosage imbalance in his medication. His father had been accidentally overmedicating himself and became toxic and dehydrated, which led to the stroke. The doctors were currently correcting his meds and seemed to think that in another week he would be doing well enough to be moved to an assisted-living facility.
That would be the next battle.
After his mother’s funeral, Gray had to decide what to do about his parents’ house. His brother, Kenny, had flown in from California for the funeral and was talking to a lawyer and some real-estate people today. There remained some friction between the two brothers over a range of issues, and a lot of guilt, resentment, and blame. Kenny didn’t know the exact details of his mother’s death, only that it had been collateral damage in an act of revenge against Gray.
A voice rose behind him, speaking softly. “We’ll be serving breakfast soon. Can I bring you a tray?”
Gray turned. “No, but thanks, Mary.”
Mary Benning was an RN on the floor. She was a charming woman with a brownish-gray bobbed hairstyle and blue scrubs. Her own mother suffered from Lewy body dementia, so she understood what Gray and his father were going through. Gray appreciated such personal experience. It allowed them to shorthand their conversations.
“How did he do last night?” Gray asked.
Mary stepped more fully into the room. “Good. The new lower dose of Sinemet seems to be keeping him much calmer at night.”
“Did you bring Cutie or Shiner with you today?”
She smiled. “Both.”
They were Mary’s two rehabilitation assistants, two dachshunds. Alzheimer patients showed a great response to interaction with animals. Gray never thought such a thing would work with his father, but he had come to the facility last Sunday to find Shiner sleeping in bed with his father as he watched a football game.
Still, even that day had been hard.
They all were.
He turned back to his father as Mary left.
Gray tried to come each morning, to be at his side when his father woke up. That was always the worst time. Twice now, he’d found his father had no memory of his wife’s death. The neurologists believed it would take time for things to fully settle.
So Gray had to explain about the tragic loss over and over again. His father had always been quick to anger — the Alzheimer’s made things worse. Three times, Gray had to face that wrath, the tears, the accusations. Gray took it all without protest; perhaps a part of him even wanted it.
A shuffling behind him drew his attention back to the door.
Mary poked her head in. “Are you okay with a visitor?”
Seichan stepped into view, looking uncomfortable, ready to bolt. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a thin blouse, carrying her motorcycle jacket over her arm.
Gray waved her inside and asked Mary to close the door.
Seichan crossed over, dragging another chair, and sat down next to him. “Knew I’d catch you here. I wanted to go over what I found out — then I’m riding up to New York. Something I want to follow up on. Thought maybe you’d want to come.”
“What did you find out?”
“Heisman and that assistant of his—”
“Sharyn.”
“Both clean. They weren’t involved at all in the bombing. Waldorf seems to have orchestrated it all himself, using personal connections. I doubt he even got authorization from his Guild superiors. I think he acted alone, tried to murder both you and Monk in a cowardly act of vengeance. From the fact that the bombs were set hours before he killed himself, I think they were planted as backup, in case he failed to eliminate you in Tennessee.”
Gray remembered the bastard’s last words.
This isn’t over.
His and Seichan’s voices must have stirred Gray’s father, who raised an arm, stretched. He opened his eyes and slowly focused, blinking a few times, then cleared his throat. It took him an extra moment to get his bearings, looking around the room, eyeing Seichan up and down, lingering there a bit, in fact.
“Seichan, isn’t it?” he asked hoarsely.
“That’s right.” She stood up, ready to leave.
It always surprised Gray what his father remembered and what he didn’t.
Bleary eyes turned to Gray. “Where’s your mother?”
Gray took a deep breath, facing the confusion and anxiety in his father’s face. The small bubble of hope inside his chest popped and deflated.
“Dad… Mom’s—”
Rather than leaving, Seichan leaned between Gray and his father. She squeezed the old man’s hand. “She’ll be by later. She needed some time to rest, to get her hair done.”
His father nodded and leaned back into his bed, the anxiety draining from his face. “Good. She’s always doing too much, that woman.”
Seichan patted his hand, turned to Gray and nodded toward the door. Then she straightened, said her good-byes, and drew Gray out of the room with her.
“Where’s breakfast?” his father called after them.
“It’s coming,” Gray said as he left, letting the door close behind him.
Outside, Seichan moved him into a quiet side hall.
“What are you doing?” Gray said, anger rising, gesturing halfheartedly toward his father’s room.
“Saving you, saving him,” she said, and pushed him against the wall. “You’re just punishing yourself, torturing him. He deserves better than that — and so do you, Gray. I’ve been reading up on situations like this. He’ll work through it in his own time. Quit forcing him to remember.”
Gray opened his mouth to argue.
“Don’t you see, Gray. He knows. It’s in there, buried where it doesn’t hurt as much right now. He’s working through it.”
Gray pictured the anxiety in his father’s face. It had been there every morning. Even the relief he’d shown a moment ago hadn’t completely erased it. Buried deep in those eyes, a trickle of fear remained.
He rubbed his face with his palm, scratching stubble, unsure.
Seichan pulled his arm down. “Sometimes delusions are a good thing, a necessary thing.”
He swallowed hard, trying to accept these words. He was enough of his father to want to fight, to dismiss what wasn’t solid and graspable with a callused hand. Just then his phone chirped in his pocket, allowing him a moment to collect himself.
He pulled it free, his fingers trembling with everything inside him. He fumbled the phone open and saw he had a text message. The caller ID read BLOCKED. But the message made clear who had sent it.
IT WAS NOT OUR INTENTION