Chapter Twenty-Seven

Mary made a point of being in her bedroom when Wade arrived home. If he would rather run off than talk to her about how he attacked a child molester, for God’s sake, she would leave him be about the situation for now. If he’d rather not talk about how he’d been keeping secrets from her for months, it upset her, but it made sense. Dark places aren’t easy to dwell in. And if her son didn’t want to talk about how his stupid girlfriend had left with their baby, Mary supposed she had no say in the matter. She was just a passenger on this ride while her son drove all of their lives off a cliff. But if he wanted to avoid talking about it for now, what else could Mary do?

Her son was sometimes so checked out. Other times, he was defensive, impulsive, violent, sad, funny and hurt. But Wade was never what she needed him to be when she needed him to be that. Without fail, he defied her, even if Mary thought she had better sense than her son about these things.

It made her fucking sick to think about it. How could she have been so blind? Lydie was distracting, certainly, constantly in need of food or holding or attention. But Mary felt like such a damned idiot for being so available to help her kid with one problem. All that did was free him up to cause or become involved in a whole set of new ones.

Wade was very much his father’s son, Mary thought. Lydon went for days sometimes without telling her what the doctors were saying about his cancer. Because she was a nurse, Lydon would say he was sparing her. Her husband argued that she would always assume the worst, no matter what.

Really, all Lydon was doing was saving himself the grief, not her. Because she would’ve kept him healthier for longer. She would’ve nagged him until he was living as well as he could, a restricted diet, good exercise, the most aggressive medicines. Mary was a fighter. Mary was the best advocate for her patients.

They would argue about it in the beginning of the illness. Eventually, Lydon just yelled at her that he wanted a wife, not a nurse.

“I’m a wife, and I’m a nurse,” Mary replied. “Damn it, Lydon.”

“Mary, I just can’t,” Lydon said. “Let me just go.”

By being good in one way, she wanted to be good in another. But Lydon didn’t want every one of his waking moments to be some kind of fight, either with her or with the cancer. And so, he spent his time, sometimes, checking out, avoiding her, not having the deep, necessary conversations as soon as possible. He’d throw around words like “intense” and “insufferable,” but Mary did keep him alive longer than the doctors said he had. And, in the end, Lydon thanked her for giving them time, even if he hated how she did it in the moments before.

Mary solved problems. People don’t really tolerate problem solvers. They appreciate the end of the problems, but they don’t like the process. Nobody buys champagne for their accountant with their tax refunds. They just show their appreciation by bringing back more receipts the next year.

Wade would never participate in the solutions, but her son would be grateful to her if she managed to clean up his mess.

With that in mind, she texted Stephanie at the hospital.

“If you need anyone to cover a shift tonight, let me know. Wake me up whenever. Jessa’s been awful to Wade. I have got to get out of the house.”

Within moments, Stephanie replied, “Will do. Jasmine wants to leave around 3 a.m., I think. Trying to catch her boyfriend cheating or something. That cool?”

“Hell yes,” Mary replied.

She heard Wade shuffling around the kitchen, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of an acknowledgement. Mary slid her legs under the covers and turned off her lamp.

Laying in the dark, she wondered if Wade was anything like her, some way that she just couldn’t see. At times, she could be angry or frustrated. At work, she would obsess over problems until they were done. And she didn’t really have a lot of friends that she spoke to about anything, not in this town. For a little while after Lydon died, Mary had gone to see a therapist to talk through her grief. That had helped some. Mary still had that therapist’s number in her phone.

That Celeste had been fun to talk with, maybe the two of them could’ve been friends under different circumstances, Mary thought. As it stood, Mary hoped to never see that woman ever again. Celeste had protected her own son and sacrificed Wade, in a way, to do that. Mary understood that. But Celeste could’ve taken care of the dentist in other ways.

To really help, Celeste could’ve exposed Dr. Emmett. But that would’ve cost her a paycheck. As a result, Mary’s son suffered. And Mary’s son fought to protect himself when no one else would help him. And now he was torturing himself over it. That made Mary’s blood boil.

Δ

At 2:30 a.m., Mary’s alarm went off. No need for a shower, she put on her scrubs quickly and headed downstairs to the kitchen. She grabbed a smoothie from out of the fridge, saw that the lights down in the basement were still on. Wade was still awake. Mary opened the door a crack, heard him rustling through some things. As the door opened, he stopped.

“Mom?” he asked her.

Mary hesitated and then replied, “I’m headed to work soon. What are you still doing up?”

“Packing up Jessa’s shit,” Wade muttered to himself more than to his mother, who didn’t cross the threshold or go down the steps. “She said she’d come by and get it tomorrow, and I don’t want her here any longer than necessary.”

“Is she bringing the baby?”

“I assume,” Wade said. “But I didn’t ask her.”

“She probably won’t,” Mary said from the top of the stairs. “She doesn’t want any reason to stick around here, either. Besides, Mrs. Lancaster is probably having too much fun finally, finally acknowledging that she has a damn granddaughter.”

“You and I are on the same page about that,” Wade said to his mom, laughing.

Then, Mary had an idea.

“You know what, Wade?”

“What, Mom?”

“Leave that box for her on the front porch. Don’t even bother to be here when she comes. She’ll want a scene. Don’t give that girl the satisfaction.”

“Good idea,” Wade said.

“When is she coming, anyway?” Mary asked.

“Probably after school or something,” her son said.

Mary took a breath, then dared to breach the topic again with her son. She was not going to let him suffer.

“Wade, I’m going to set up an appointment for you to talk to someone,” she said to him, taking full advantage of the fact that he couldn’t argue with her as easily when they weren’t face to face. “I’ll text you details later. Try to get some sleep.”

Then, as he started to ask her questions or bitch at her or object, Mary shut the door and then walked out her own front door to her car.

Δ

Mary clocked in at work at 3 a.m., then checked in with Stephanie.

She made small talk with her friend.

“I don’t think Jessa’s going to be a problem for Wade any longer,” she told Stephanie. “When I left, he was packing her stuff up.”

Stephanie sighed and said, “I did not like that girl. Was the baby OK?”

Mary paused, considering Lydie. “I never saw her, actually. But I assume I would hear something about it if there was trouble.”

“You’re probably right,” Stephanie said.

“Those kids can’t do anything without me,” Mary said.

“I think all new parents are like that, though,” Stephanie replied. “You’re probably right.”

Leaving Four West, Jasmine brushed past them both, thanking Mary for coming in early to cover and telling her that she’d not left anything pressing for Mary to do. Still, Mary went one round with Jasmine’s patients, checking on their needs, but, at that hour, most of them were asleep. She checked charts and vitals, gave pain meds to one of the elderly women recovering from surgery. While going through the closet for that medication, Mary passed by the blood thinners, the unused syringes, the insulin supply, grabbing everything she needed for the rounds.

And when Mary got to Jasmine’s patient nearest the elevator, a diabetic boy who’d just had his appendix removed who was out like a light, Mary left her cart for vitals outside his door. The hall was mostly empty. She walked toward the elevator at a regular pace, hands in her pockets.

Mary hit the button for 8. When the elevator doors opened, she stepped inside.

Arriving on her usual floor, she nodded at the folks manning the nursing station and, like it was no big deal because it was no big deal, she entered Max Emmett’s hospital room, where he still slept soundly.

She wanted to talk to him, and she wanted to yell. She wanted to torture him slowly, pulling out his fingernails. She wanted to cut off his dick, then shove it down his fucking throat. She wanted him to have kids so that she could track them down and hurt them in some way, just so he fucking knew what it goddamn felt like. She wanted to shout from the rooftops that the man in this bed, right here in this hospital, was a predator who hurt children and made them hate themselves. She wished her eyes could shoot lasers so that she could set him on fucking fire. She wanted to cry. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to stab him.

Instead, the expression was frozen on her face, the mood natural, the method completely professional. She injected three vials of insulin into his line. Then she pocketed the syringes, walked back into the hallway and pushed the button for the elevator again.

On the elevator, she took a deep breath. Returning to the fourth floor, Mary went back to her cart, then walked into the boy’s room. In the medical waste there, she tossed the empty insulin packets and the syringes, where they wouldn’t seem abnormal, just in case.

Nobody really monitored the insulin at Waverly General. Type-two diabetics were all too common. Since Max was already sedated, already expected to rest, no one would know or even think to check his blood sugar. If he became symptomatic from the hypoglycemia, his team would just treat him for the head injury. And, since Mary was on his medical team, she could assure it.

No one was asking questions. Nothing would seem abnormal.

He fell. He got a head injury. He never got completely better. These things were random. They just happen.

Dr. Emmett would never wake up again. In a couple of hours or days, he wouldn’t be a problem for any of his patients—or their mothers—ever again. And perhaps no one would even miss him, Mary thought.

Mary continued working the shift like nothing was amiss. She wouldn’t even permit herself a smile, even though the problem was solved. She wouldn’t laugh about it, either, even if it was sort of poetic to have sugar kill a dentist.