The Dirty Series 1(50)
When I get to her room, she doesn’t know who I am.
It takes half an hour for the staff to convince her that I’m not an intruder, and I spend several hours after that meeting with her nurses and doctors, every caretaker available, to come up with a solution.
The doctor is a nice fucking guy in his early forties.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hunter,” he says, my mother’s file spread out in front of him on the meeting table. He’s being way nicer than he needs to be, considering I came in here like a blustering asshole and demanded that everyone meet with me well past business hours. “There’s just been too much brain deterioration. Even with recent clinical trials…” He shakes his head, his disappointment seeming genuine enough. “We can’t reverse the damage. All we can do is make her more comfortable.”
I slam my fist down on the table, then cover my face with my hands. “She’s out of fucking control,” I say through gritted teeth. “She doesn’t know who I am. Why isn’t more being done to calm her?”
“We’re doing everything we can.” This is a man who doesn’t flinch at the first sign of an outburst. “We’re giving her every relaxation service we offer, but as you saw tonight, sometimes there’s nothing we can do outside of sedatives.”
“I don’t want her sedated.”
“Mr. Hunter, you have been very clear about that from day one, and I’ve made a careful note of each of your requests. But your mother is past the point where we can keep the possibility of sedatives off the table if she’s going to remain here. She’s becoming a danger to our staff members, and more pressing, she’s becoming a danger to herself.”
I hang my head, giving myself thirty seconds to feel fucking sorry for myself before I look into the doctor’s eyes.
“I want this carefully monitored,” I say, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice. “She’s not going to become one of the living dead, drugged out of her fucking mind until she’s barely living.”
He nods, acting like my opinion means something in the face of his medical experience. “You have my word, Mr. Hunter. We will only do what’s absolutely necessary, and no more.” He glances through the files in front of him again. “You should also know that although episodes like this are becoming more common, she’s still having many pleasant moments throughout the day. She always responds very well to our daily painting class. Most days, when she paints, she becomes lucid enough to share stories about her favorite topic.”
“What’s that?”
“You.”
My heart tears in two inside my chest.
It’s still torn when the elevator lets me out into my penthouse. I don’t want Cate to see me like this, so shaken up, so fucking weak, but she’s the only one I can even begin to speak to about this.
The moment I see her, I know that’s going to be off the table.
She stands in the middle of the living room, shoulders tight and tense, arms crossed in front of her face, feet planted. Her face is white with rage.
“Cate.”
She lets the silence hang between us for far longer than she needs to before she speaks.
“What the fuck, Jax?”
I run a hand through my hair, over my aching head. “You’re going to have to tell me what you’re talking about, Cate.”
A sharp burst of incredulous laughter escapes her lips. “Are you fucking serious?”
My chest still aches with the state I had to leave my mother in. I can’t even engage with her on this level. For the moment, at least, the fight has gone out of me. “I’m serious.”
“You got me fired from my job, you controlling bastard.”
It dawns on me all at once.
The nightmare with my mother kept me away from Cate all last evening, and this morning…and now I see what that bitch Sarzó has done.
“Cate, that’s not what I intended to have happen. What I meant was—”
“What gives you the right?” It would be better if she screamed at me, but her voice is deadly soft.
“I didn’t get you fired. You have to know that.”
“I went in this morning and they already had a replacement at my desk. You did this yesterday. Yesterday I had a job, and today I don’t. And it’s all because of you.” Her face is twisted from the betrayal.
I hold both of my hands up. “You have to believe me when I say that I never intended for you to be replaced overnight.”
“This wasn’t your business,” she spits at me. “Do you honestly think that just because you have a lot of money that you can fuck around with people’s lives?”