After she tiptoes out, I stand at the foot of the bed and speak softly, voicing words I should have said years ago. Decades, even. The problem is, I didn’t realize that until I’d been drowned on a bench in the Bienville jail.
“I’ve hated you most of my life,” I tell him. “You made my last three years of high school hell. You acted as if I didn’t exist. You blamed me for Adam’s death. I blamed myself for it, okay? But I didn’t kill him. I know he got in that river to look out for me, but that wasn’t all of it. He had his own reasons. Anyway . . . I know what it means to lose a son. And you lost two children. I can’t imagine that.”
I pause, feeling short of breath, only half hoping he’s heard me. He lies there with his mouth open, his arms jerking every few seconds as his brain misfires. Stepping closer to the bed, I lay my hand on his cold arm. He doesn’t stir.
“I’ve always said you blamed me all my life,” I go on. “But the truth is, you blamed me for three years. After that, I got the hell out of here and slammed the door behind me. You never reached out to me. But if you had, I wouldn’t have listened. That’s the truth of it. I blamed you for blaming me. And now . . . it all just seems stupid. A waste. I’ve spent years trying to prove I’m better than you were at this job, and you’ve drunk yourself to death. And for what? Nothing I can see.”
The glass door slides open behind me, and Mom leads in a male nurse carrying two folding chairs, which he sets up on the opposite side of the bed.
“Y’all must rate pretty high around here,” he says. “They don’t usually let us do this for folks, but Dr. Kirby called somebody and laid down the law.”
“He’s a good man,” Mom says. “Thank you for setting these up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After he goes out, Mom says, “Did I see you talking to your father?”
“Not really. I was just letting him know he’s not alone.”
She gives me a long look, but she asks no questions. “Well, I’m glad,” she says finally. “I hope you had a good talk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We sit in companionable silence for about ten minutes. Then the nurse returns to tell me I have a visitor in the ICU waiting room.
“Male or female?” I ask.
“Male. Said his name is Mr. Russo.”
Tommy Russo? Shit. Now I regret leaving Nadine’s gun in the Flex.
“Is everything all right?” Mom asks, with her preternatural perception of danger.
“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll just be a minute.”
I find Russo chatting up a young nurse in the ICU waiting room. He’s smiling at her, but when he sees me, he says something in a low voice and she scuttles down the hall.
“What can I do for you, Tommy?” I ask.
“I hear your father’s not doing good.”
“That why you’re here?”
Russo looks around the waiting room. “What a dump. Can you believe this is the best they can do?”
“Tommy—”
“That deal you made this morning. With Buckman and the others.”
“Yeah?”
“I can live with most of it. But you gotta tell ’em to forget that community development fund. That million-a-year bullshit.”
“Why’s that?”
“Buckman says I gotta fund that whole nut out of my new casino. I can’t do it. My partners won’t stand for it.”
At this moment the concerns of Tommy Russo’s partners don’t interest me in the slightest. “That’s your problem, Tommy, not mine.”
He shakes his head once. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. What you gonna do with that money, anyway? Repave some streets for the moolies, do some drainage projects? Their cars are for shit anyway. I should know. They fill up my parking lot night and day, while the owners gamble away their Social Security.”
“I don’t have time for this, Tommy. What’s a million to you? If that’s the price of a new casino, it’s cheap.”
“It’s a mil I don’t need to pay, Doc. I ain’t your only problem, either. Beau Holland ain’t goin’ to jail. I’m just telling you. He’ll kill you before that happens.”
My image of Russo as a snake with its fangs folded back returns, because now I sense the fangs being deployed. Tommy steps into my personal space, and I get a strong wave of his cologne mixed with sweat.
“Listen,” he says. “I feel bad about your old man.