Ego Maniac(53)

“Alexa, I’m not going to a fucking party tonight. Alright?”

She stopped rubbing. “You don’t have to be a jerk about it.”

I sat up. “A jerk? You expect me to go to a party on the day of my father’s funeral? I don’t think I’m the one acting like a jerk.”

My wife huffed. Our five-year age difference felt more like twenty sometimes. “I need a party. The last few months have been depressing.”#p#分页标题#e#

It wasn’t like she’d helped me with my father or anything. Every weekend while I was taking care of him, she was out with her friends, usually shopping or having lunch God knows where. Her selfishness had finally gotten to me.

“Which part of the last few months was depressing? Living on Park Avenue and spending thousands on shopping every week? Or maybe it was the nanny who watched our son so you could take acting classes and go out to lunch? How about the three week-long trips you took back to Atlanta to visit your immature friends—the ones where you flew first-class and stayed at the St. Regis downtown instead of your brother’s double wide in the sticks? That must have been depressing.”

“My friends are not immature.”

I scoffed and went to reply, but decided I’d rather have another drink than continue this conversation. Out of everything I’d said, what hurt her feelings was that her friends were immature? She had a warped fucking sense of priority. I walked to the kitchen, which was open to the living room where she still sat, and poured myself another drink.

“Go to the party by yourself, Alexa.”





The sun was setting by the time I opened my eyes. Alexa had taken Beck to the mall to shop for yet another new dress, and I’d passed out on the couch after finishing my drink and the argument with her. Sitting up, I ran my fingers through my hair. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Alexa had planned to go to a party tonight. God forbid she miss a party, especially New Year’s Eve. I’d given her more credit than she deserved in the selflessness department, apparently.

My stomach growled. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually eaten. Yesterday, maybe? Dinner at that Italian place in between the morning and afternoon wake sessions at the funeral parlor, I think. Rummaging through the refrigerator, I took out the platter we’d ordered for this morning and picked at the antipasto with my fingers. As I was stuffing my face, my cell phone started to ring, and at first, I ignored it. But after it immediately began ringing again, I reached over to check the caller ID. It was a local number—one that was very familiar. By the third ring, my brain had searched my internal phonebook and finally recalled why I knew it.

I’d dialed it off and on for the last few months, each time my father’s health took a turn for the worse. Lenox Hill Hospital was calling.





The cab driver screamed at me as I bolted toward the emergency room entrance. Apparently, I’d gotten out in such a rush, I’d forgotten to close the car door.

“My wife and son were in a car accident. They were brought in by ambulance,” I yelled through a round hole to the woman behind thick Plexiglas.

“Last name?”

“Jagger.”

She looked up and perked one eyebrow. “Those lips, I have to ask. Any relation to Mick?”

“No.”

She made a face, but pointed at a door to my left. “Room 1A. I’ll buzz you back.”





Blunt abdominal trauma. That’s what the doctor had told us two hours ago. Alexa had needed a few stitches in her head, but Beck wasn’t as lucky. His car seat had felt the full impact of the collision when a floral delivery van lost its brakes and ran a red light into moving crosstown traffic. He’d swerved to try to avoid the crash, but ended up colliding with the back driver’s side of Alexa’s car. Exactly where Beck had been sitting.

The doctors had assured us his injuries didn’t appear to be life threatening, but an ultrasound showed there was damage to his left kidney—at least a small nick that needed to be repaired right away. I was now waiting for the nurses to bring me consent forms for surgery. Beck slept peacefully as I sat by his bedside. Alexa was getting another neurological exam in the room next to us.#p#分页标题#e#

After the doctor came in and told me the risks of the procedure, the nurse brought me in a stack of forms to fill out. Medical consent, privacy act, insurance authorizations, the last form was for directed blood transfusions.

The nurse explained that there wasn’t time before Beck’s surgery to collect blood from us, so in the off-chance he needed blood, he’d be given blood from the blood bank. However, we could donate our blood and store it for him for future use, if necessary. I filled out the form to get typed and cross-matched while we waited and asked the nurse to have Alexa sign everything next door. I didn’t want to leave Beck alone in case he woke up.