Daddy,” Alicia said, crying and hurrying toward her father’s bed. Tanya walked in behind her and hugged Mariah.
Curtis had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance and was immediately taken into emergency surgery. The surgeons had removed the first bullet from his shoulder and then the other one, which, according to his doctors, should have killed him. The bullet had only missed puncturing his heart by a quarter of an inch. He was now resting in the intensive care unit, and the nurses were allowing only immediate family to see him for a few minutes.
“Baby girl,” Curtis said, forcing a smile and reaching out his hand. There was an IV needle inserted in the center of it, so Alicia lifted it carefully.
“I’m so sorry,” Alicia said.
“I am too.” Curtis’s voice was weak and groggy.
“Are you going to be okay?” Alicia asked.
“Of course,” Curtis said, trying to smile again. “Daddy . . . is . . . going . . . to . . . be . . . just . . . fine.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Alicia asked Mariah, and Mariah could tell she was worried.
“They have him on a lot of pain medication, so he goes in and out from time to time. But he’s okay,” Mariah said, rubbing Alicia’s back. But to Mariah’s surprise, Alicia turned and laid her head on Mariah’s shoulder and sobbed.
Mariah wrapped her arms around Alicia.
“Honey, he’s going to be fine. I know all these monitors and tubes are scary, but he will pull through this.”
“You know your daddy is a fighter,” Tanya said, moving closer to where they were standing. She looked over at Curtis.
Mariah glanced over at Curtis, too, and felt sorry for him. She knew he’d brought the entire shooting and that whole scene with Adrienne on himself, but she still had sympathy for him. Although, she was sad to say, she didn’t think she had enough sympathy to stay with him. Too much had been said, too much had gone wrong, too much had happened between them. She would stay with him until he recuperated, but that would have to be the end of it.
Alicia saw Curtis move his head to the side and open his eyes again. She went toward the bed and again stood over him.
“Where’s your mom?” he asked.
“She’s right here.” Alicia reached past Mariah and pulled her mother’s arm.
“Leave it to you to scare all of us like this,” Tanya said, smiling. Curtis smiled back at her.
Mariah knew that shouldn’t have bothered her because he and Tanya had been divorced for years. Not to mention Mariah was preparing to divorce him herself. But it was just the way Curtis fixed his eyes on his ex-wife. He gazed at Tanya in a way that Mariah had always wanted him to look at her. But he never had.
“Baby girl, I’m sorry about everything,” Curtis said to Alicia.
“It’s okay, Daddy. You just get better.”
“No, it’s not okay. I’ve . . . been . . . a . . . hor-ri-ble . . . fath . . .” Curtis dropped off to sleep again.
“We probably need to let him rest,” Tanya said.
“I think so,” Mariah agreed.
Alicia bent over and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, Daddy, and I’ll be back in here to see you in a little while.”
One of the nurses came over.
“He really is doing well, considering what he’s gone through,” she said.
“I know,” Mariah said. “He’s very blessed.”
“When will he get to go home?” Alicia asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but over the next few days his doctor should be able to answer that,” the nurse answered.
“Oh,” Alicia said, sounding disappointed.
Mariah, Alicia, and Tanya walked toward the waiting area.
“Mom, can I use your cell phone to call Danielle?” Alicia asked.
“Sure, and when you finish you can go get me a diet soda,” Tanya said, reaching into her handbag for money. She also pulled out her cell phone.
“Okay.”
“Mariah, do you want anything?” Tanya asked.
“No, thanks.”
Alicia took off down the hallway and Mariah broke into tears.
“I know this is hard for you,” Tanya said.
“It is, and it’s still hard to believe that Adrienne shot him like that. In the church. And I don’t even want to think about her turning the gun on herself. It just didn’t make any sense. I mean, why would she want to kill herself over Curtis?”
“Especially after all these years,” Tanya said.
“Well, that’s the other thing. He’d starting seeing her again almost two months ago.”
“No,” Tanya said.
“Yes. And he was seeing Charlotte again, too, just like we thought.”
“Unbelievable,” Tanya said.
“Yeah, but with Curtis, what isn’t?”
“I know.”
“He is who he is, and there’s nothing anyone can do to change that.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I definitely won’t stay married to him.”
“Well, no one can blame you, that’s for sure.”
Mariah waved at some of the church members walking toward them. There had been a few others who had followed the ambulance but had already gone home. Vivian had also left, but said she would be back in a few hours. Mariah suspected that over the next few days there would be a good number of people coming to visit Curtis. Because regardless of what had happened, she knew he’d still have loyal supporters.
Mariah wondered if she should call Curtis’s mother, because she was sure she’d want to know about her son being in the hospital. But since Curtis was so adamant on not contacting her, Mariah would wait to ask him before doing so.
Mariah thought about a number of things as some of the members reacquainted themselves with Tanya. But mostly she wondered how Adrienne’s family was handling the news. She wondered how they were dealing with such a terrible tragedy.