––––––––
"What?" the girls screamed.
"He thinks because he gave his liver, that gives him grounds."
"Money! That son of a bitch wants your money. I had no idea what a sh—"
Susan said, "Calm down! Stop it now. Remember the baby."
Adam said, "Yes. Don't worry, Angel, he has no grounds, no precedent. It does irritate the hell out of me, though. Body parts and blood don't make a daddy. It's what's in my heart. He's my son, no matter what the DNA says."
Susan asked, "What?"
"Lauren. She trapped me into marriage. I found out when little Adam got so sick. I'm not his biological father. And the bitch had two more babies by some other man!" Tears were forming.
"I'm so very sorry."
"I wasted years with her. When my destiny was suffering in her own hell." He hugged Melody.
* * * *
Bush General Hospital, Austin, Texas
Penelope and her digital camera slithered around the hospital corridors. She smiled at every passing gentleman, most of whom nodded and said "Hello" to the shapely cowgirl. She paused to lean against a brick column near the office of Dr. Lauren Wright. She watched a Brad Pitt look-enough-alike enter the office.
He emerged immediately with Dr. Wright. They slinked down the hall toward the outpatient surgery department. Penelope followed at a respectable distance. Her trigger hand was ready to swing the camera into action. The duo entered a stairwell next to the elevator.
Penelope excitedly squeezed onto the elevator with two nurses. It was headed down, so she pushed the button for the next floor.
Speeding off the lift, she made a beeline to the stairwell. Two hospital employees passed her as she hesitated on the landing, her ears perked for conversation. She put one red boot in front of the other, surreptitiously ascending half a flight of stairs to the turned landing. She readied her camera as she listened.
"Adam, Junior will have a much better life with me. Can't you see that? I can be a full time dad to him, I'm not busy pluckin' a gee-tar or savin' the world. I'm independently wealthy. I can homeschool him, and we will be inseparable. After all, he has a big part of me now."
"Stop it, you strange, sick man! Just because you donated a lobe of liver does not give you parental rights to my child! My husband and I will never give our precious son to the likes of a stranger!"
Zander grabbed Lauren's gestational belly. "You can have plenty more."
A flash startled the duo as Lauren pulled away. She lost her balance and grabbed onto Zander's neck. The two tumbled down the thirteen concrete stairs, landing in a heap.
Penelope ran down three steps, clicking off several photos. She shoved her camera under her new cowgirl hat as blood gushed down the concrete.
Penelope exited the stairwell and grabbed the first nurse she encountered.
"On the stairs. Accident. Two people fell. Dr. Wright. Bleeding."
* * * *
Melody and Susan waved to Adam as the taxi drove away. Melody closed the storm door and Susan pushed the front door shut and locked it.
Susan asked, "Well?"
Melody waddled into the living room and sat on the couch. "Well, what?"
"What's it like having a pop star for a—"
"For a what? That's what I'd like to know. I guess he's just someone that I used to know."
"But the way you two were sleeping. You with your head in his lap, curled on your side with your big tummy nearly hanging over the edge of my couch. That was such a tender scene."
"Scenes of my life. Interacting in space with scenes from his life. That's all there ever was and ever will be."
"But he said he was divorcing his wife."
Melody eased her feet onto the glass topped coffee table. "So says he. But he doesn't really want to leave her. Get this, he wants to divorce her, have joint custody of the kids, and live in the same house. Tell me that isn't...isn't...?"
"Live in the same house?"
"Yep. Well, supposedly she'll only sleep there when he's away on tour. So the kids don't get uprooted. Says she's a good mother. He's overlooking her three little indiscretions. I know a guy in love and in lust when I see him. There will be more babies for them."
Susan tossed another log on the fire Adam had built that morning. And three more. Then she yanked the wire mesh cinder curtains shut as it popped and sparked. "So you don't see a future happily ever after with Mister Wright then?"
Melody chuckled. "Never did."
"What about Zander?"
"No, that marriage is over. I'm not raising my baby in a home with a father that doesn't want her. Not an option. And he's not supportive of my dreams, could care less actually. Selfish son of a bitch..."
"Well, it's settled then." Susan said.
"Yeah, you'd think."
"No, I mean us. You and the baby will live here with me. We're family."
Tears dripped as Melody looked at her cousin. "Thank you. So much. But...it will just be for a little while, I promise. Just until I can get a job and get a little place for the two of us."
"Nonsense. Don't think for one minute I'm letting my girls out of my reach. I need the company. Need someone to eat with and watch TV with and giggle with and bicker with."
"Um, Susan dear, did you forget Johnny?"
"Absolutely. Not. Wish I could toss him out of my mind. It's not fair. That darned Cupid and his dart."
Melody giggled. "You mean Johnny's dart."
"That too. Addictive." She got a visual that sent heat to her privates.
Melody rubbed her tummy. "Well, what kind of lifestyle does Johnny envision for you two?"
"Oh, he probably wants to keep me bare-bottomed in high heels in the kitchen, pouring coffee..."
Melody laughed.
Susan said, "Hmm...doesn't sound like the best surroundings to bring up a little girl in, hunh?"
"My point. What about kids? Does he want kids?"
"Yep. Right away. But not me. I went back on the Pill. And, by the way, I've accepted a full time teaching position at our old elementary school. Second grade. I start January third."
"Congratulations, Mrs. Cervini."
Susan rubbed her bare ring finger. Boy, it seemed awkward being called Mrs. Cervini now. That was a lifetime ago. She said, "Johnny wants to get married."
"Yeah, you told me."
"I don't. Not now. Not yet. Some time maybe. Do you know I never even got to date as an adult? Yes, I guess you did know that. But I've never been on my own except since September Eleventh..."
Melody looked at her. "You want to date other guys?"
"Are you crazy? My heart and body belong to Johnny. No other guys exist."
"So you'll have a long engagement. That's all. Problem solved."
"Hey, yeah, that'll work. That way you and little Susan..." she shot her cousin a silly look "...can live with me as long as you will grace me with your companionship."
* * * *
In a jet on the tarmac of LaGuardia Airport, Adam Wright tightened his seatbelt and made darned sure his business class seat was in the full upright position. He observed each passenger filing by, wondering which one might be a terrorist, or an air marshal.
He frowned as a gargantuan French-accented man's belt buckle grazed his shoulder as he heaved his garment bag inside the compartment over Adam's seat. A thin fifty-something church lady type excused her chicken legs past Adam, shimmying into the window seat.
The pilot gave the order for all electronic devices to be turned off, so Adam shut off his cellular phone. The battery was almost dead anyhow. As the plane taxied and waited for clearance to depart, Adam closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. "Dear God and Jesus in heaven, Please watch over my children, especially little Adam and continue his full recovery. Bless little Connor and little Tyler and give them long healthy safe sane wonderful lives. Bless my daughter-to-be and give me the strength to do what I must to ensure their happiness and well being. May Lauren be safely delivered and go on to find her own happily ever after. And God bless my angel, Melody, and her little daughter. Soon we will all be one big happy family. Amen."
The turbine engines rushed and zoomed. Adam held onto his armrests until he felt the plane level out. He opened his eyes. Taking a small blue spiral bound notebook out of his pocket, he smiled. Flipping the cover open, he studied the purple ink on the inside of the white cardboard cover.
Adam loves his angel.
A heart with an arrow through it surrounded the simple script she wrote, all those years ago. He flashed back to her throwing the book over her shoulder when she walked out of his life. He'd carried it everywhere.
Taking out a click pen, he wrote on the first page:
1.) Contact Attorney. Begin divorce proceedings. Draw up joint custody papers.
2.) Rent a villa on the Disney World property for the month of January.
3.) Screen and hire three nurses for the trip.
4.) Get referral for local doctor.
5.) Have "go" bag ready for baby's birth.
6.) Put security on standby to drive getaway car.
7.) Pull a Michael Jackson and snatch baby as soon as you cut the cord. Take her and run.
8.) Hire decorator to redo east wing for Melody and her daughter.
9.) Once family is in place, write last song for new studio album. Promo tour to begin in May.
10.) Day after divorce is final, marry my angel.
11.) Adopt her baby.
12.) Live happily ever after.
* * * *
Adam switched his cell phone on as he stood in the taxi line outside Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Seven messages were waiting. He played the first one.
"This is Bush General. Your wife has had an accident. Baby—" The phone went dead.
"Damn it!" Adam forced his way into the next cab and slammed the door.
"To Bush General Hospital. Now!"
* * * *
Adam stormed through a crowd of reporters and made his way to the labor and delivery unit. He'd been there three times before and knew it well. He ran to the nurse's station.
"What happened? Where's Lauren?"
The unit secretary led him to an operating room. A middle-aged male lab technician shoved by with two pints of blood. A guard stood outside the door and stopped Adam.
"That's my wife." Adam knocked him out of the way. Three, no four doctors hovered over Lauren. Blood everywhere. A shunt in her neck infused new blood. Across the room a neonatal team worked on his baby, pumping blood from her stomach.
Adam tried to squeeze in to see the baby. The team whisked the premature newborn out the door. Adam slipped in a current of blood flowing like hot lava off the operating table. He slid into the back of bleached blond obstetrician Dr. Tad McCutcheon.
The doctor said, "Get the hell out of here!"
The lab technician hung a new bag on the I.V. pole. He helped Adam up, guiding him out of the operating room.
"What's going on?" Adam pleaded.
The technician said, "She fell down the stairs. The placenta completely abrupted. Detached. They did an emergency Cesarean to try to save the baby. Your wife is hemorrhaging uncontrollably. They're trying to remove her uterus before...she..."
Dr. Rachel Ravensworth emerged from the operating room. She untied her mask as tears flowed down her cheeks. "Lauren just gave up the ghost."
* * * *
New York
Melody peeled red bliss potatoes as she stared out the window over her cousin's kitchen sink. She counted the boards in one section of the scalloped fence. Thirteen.
Susan gazed at the clouds in her coffee, remembering the surrender on Johnny's chiseled face. The telephone rang. She sighed and answered. "Hello?"
"It's Hank. Turn on the TV. Quick!"
"What? Why?"
"Turn on the TV!"
Susan bolted into the living room and turned on the television. She asked Hank, "What channel?"
"All of them."
The image of the hospital was familiar. Catching the end of the breaking story, she heard "Wife of nineties pop star Mister Wright, Doctor Lauren Wright, dead at the age of thirty-eight."
Susan screamed and dropped the phone.
Melody rushed in from the kitchen, potato in one hand, peeler in the other. Bob trailed her. She slid into Susan and asked her, "Are you hurt?"
Susan grabbed Melody's arms and demanded, "What did Adam tell you about his wife?"
"What?"
"What did he say he was going to do?"
"Divorce her. And live together."
"Did he hate her enough to...?"
"To what?"
"She's dead."
"What?"
"That was Hank on the phone. Mrs. Wright is dead."
"Susan! You take that back!"
"No."
"Yes!"
"I didn't say it."
"He didn't murder his wife!"
* * * *
Bush General Hospital, Austin, Texas
Adam kicked the steel door open and stomped over to his wife. A nurse draped the sheet over her head. He yanked it back. Grabbing Lauren's face, he yelled, "No, damn it. Wake up. What the hell is wrong with you?"
His chest heaved. "Open your eyes, Lauren. I said open your eyes." He leaned down to yell in her ear. Adam looked at her beautiful face. His gaze ran methodically down her breasts to the incision that began at her sternum and ended at her pubic bone, splitting her wide open, down the middle.
"They mutilated you! Lauren, I'm so sorry, I never would have let them do this. They will pay—"
Dr. Tad McCutcheon pulled Adam away from the table. "We did everything we could. I'm very sorry." He led Adam out to a conference room. "Nurse, get the chaplain."
Adam said, "I just don't understand. Why did you mutilate her?"
"Sit down."
He didn't.
"She fell down a flight of stairs, in a heap with another person. Luckily someone witnessed it and summoned help, stat. She had a full placental abruption. The placenta pulled away from the uterine lining and she hemorrhaged. We immediately did a Cesarean and saved your baby. The bleeding was horrific. We inserted a shunt in her neck and the blood bank was literally running transfusions up the stairs as fast as they could cross-match it. We attempted a hysterectomy but...I'm so sorry."
"My baby. How is my baby?"
"She's in the NIC Unit. They pumped a lot of blood out of her stomach, we're hopeful she'll make it."
"What do you mean? My baby is hemorrhaging, too?"
"No. The baby swallowed a lot of Lauren's blood inutero. We're hopeful we got her out in time and she didn't go without oxygen too long."
"Why would she be without oxygen?"
"Because once the placenta pulled away from the uterine wall, no new blood was being pumped to the baby. But like I said, I think we got her out in time."
"Can I see her? I need to see my baby. I need my baby..."
* * * *
Susan shoved past her cousin and stumbled over Bob on her mission to reach the computer. She booted it up. Eighty-four messages loaded into her inbox. All spam. "Shoot! I unsubbed from the mailing list. Shoot shoot shoot shoot shoot."
Melody waddled in and said, "Get up."
Susan gave her cousin her chair. Melody logged into her web mail account. Messages from the Rose Luvs Wright group loaded. She clicked on the first one dated today.
TO: Roseluvswright@gobbledygroups.com
FROM: Penelope Unger
SUBJECT: I SAW THE WHOLE THING!
Lauren was making out with her lover in the hospital stairwell. They tried to do it standing up and lost their balance. They tumbled down the stairs, @$$ over head and landed in a big heap. I did C.P.R. on her and shouted for help.
I got some good pics and I think I might be able to sell one of them to the tabloids. So don't pass this one along. I put my watermark on it.
I'll write more later, I'm going back down to the hospital in the event they need some eyewitnesses to interview.
Penelope
The photo opened. "Don't look, Mel, don't look!" Susan turned off the surge protector. The computer screen went black.
It was too late. Melody saw her husband, Zander, wrapped around Lauren.
Bob ran to the front door before the bell rang. Susan scurried down the hall. She opened the door without peeking. Hank charged in.
"Oh, my God. Can you believe it? What a horrible freak accident. Poor Adam. We should do something for him. Flowers don't seem appropriate. Maybe we could fly down and answer phones or something?"
Susan shivered as the wind blew in. She slammed the door and locked it. "Hank. Zander, the man that was with her. Is he...?"
"Critical condition. Haven't found the next of kin."
"His wife is in the kitchen."
"Oh, my God!" Hank ran into the kitchen and enveloped Melody in a bear hug. "I am so sorry, dear. Tell me what to do. I'll take you to the airport. I'll fly down with you. Right away. You should be there. He'll make it, don't worry."
* * * *
Susan sent a request to rejoin the Rose Luvs Wright group. Rose must have been online, as she was instantaneously approved.
She put the kettle on to boil and ran upstairs to begin a load of laundry while eagerly awaiting news from Austin. She checked the upstairs phone, making sure it wasn't off the hook. Melody hadn't checked in yet.
Susan had really wanted to go with her cousin for support, but her new full time job was starting on Monday. She finally had responsibilities, a job to report to. The children needed her. At last, she would be needed again. A warm feeling, a sense of her place in the world washed over Susan.
Melody swore she was all right. Hank had driven her to the airport but she refused his offer of accompaniment. Just as well, he tended to babble while being helpful and usually ended up saying the wrong thing.
Susan returned to a low roar in the kitchen, the water wasn't quite boiling yet, but she knew that signaled it was hot enough to steep her tea bag. She poured water into a green mug and scooped sugar in, on top of the tea bag.
The chime alerted her to incoming e-mail. Susan sat at the desk and clicked on the first post.
To: Roseluvswright@gobbledygroups.com
From: Nancy Ingalls
Subject: Prayers for Baby Wright
I called Bush General Hospital and was connected to an automatic response about Mister Wright's baby. She was born eight weeks premature and is doing as well as can be expected.
Let us all say a prayer that this sweet little life be given peace and health in this big bad world. Amen.
Nancy
God Bless America
Susan swallowed hard and hit delete. The next post opened.
To: Roseluvswright@gobbledygroups.com
From: Rose M. Smith
Subject: fREE aT LAST
I JUST GOT THE CALL TO COME AND PICK UP GRANMA. THEY SENTCED HER TO TIEM SERVED. MY GRANMA IS A CONVICTED SEX FELLON NOW AND ON PROBATION. I DON"T THINK THEY LET HER BACK IN COUNTRY AGAIN. .
THANK YIU ALL FOR YOIUR SUPPORT IN THIS TERRIBLE TIME. WE WILL ALWAYS LFOVE YOU.
LOVE YOUR FRIEND rOSE IN bARBEDOS.
P>S> tHEY KEPT HER TEETH AS EVIDENCE> POOR GRANMA>
Susan clicked delete and tongued a tentative sip of steamy tea. The next post opened.
To: Roseluvswright@gobbledygroups.com
From: Freddie Peters
Subject: SAD NEWS PLEASE READ
Dear Friends,
There is no way for me to say this gently. As you all know, our beloved friend, Cookies Crumble, aka Mildred Potter, hasn't been heard from in quite awhile. I telephoned her mother and my worst fears were shocked. Brace yourselves. Cookie left this world between midnight and the early hours of Monday morning. She fell asleep smoking in her car and died from smoke inhalation.
Seeing as how Mildred sort of started the process, the family will be cremating her in a private ceremony. Her Mom asks that in lieu of flowers, please send donations in Mildred's name to one of the charities for fallen firefighters and police officers in your town.
Cookie we hardly knew ye. Rest in Peace.
Eternal Love,
Freddie
Susan shuddered as she deleted the post. Bob plopped his chin in her lap. She petted her pal. The next e-mail opened.
To: Roseluvswright@gobbledygroups.com
From: Penelope Unger
Subject: Update
Don't know how long my battery will last, so I'm typing this out quick, I'm in the parking lot of the hospital. There seems to be a police investigation going on, surrounding the suspiciousness of the man with the late Mrs. Wright. Foul play.
I peeked in the window of the neonatal intensive care unit. Couldn't sneak my camera out though. I overheard the nurses. Baby Girl Wright isn't breathing on her own. Five pounds one ounce.
Mister Wright is completely shattered. I comforted him and we prayed in the hospital chapel. I will be moving into the mansion to serve as nanny for his pitiful motherless children.
Oh, they want to interview me now. Later.
Penelope
Susan's irritation with Penelope escalated. Who did she think she was, writing all those lies about comforting Adam and moving in? Who the Hell would believe her? Susan deleted the post. It was the last one.
* * * *
Austin, Texas
Zander heard a rhythmic bleeping and footsteps. Small, familiar footsteps pacing on an uncarpeted floor. A tiny smile made its way onto his swollen contused face. He said, "Melody..." as he blinked open his eyes.
She stroked his hand and then squeezed it, careful not to compress the I.V. cord in his wrist.
Zander said, "I'm gettin' you the kid you always wanted. Boy. Seven years old. Gave him my liver. Good kid. We'll have everything you've ever dreamed of, Melody. And you don't have to work no more. I hit the slots good. Got smart and invested the money with that Mr. Winslow down at the bank. Soon as I get outta here, we'll all take a 'lil vacation. How about Hawaii? You always wanted to travel. I knew you'd come home to me, Melody. True love never stays away."