Chapter 22: The Second Worst Week

It was the second worst week of her life, thought Lauren. The first had certainly been when Gary had died, and truth be told, that was above and beyond anything that was happening now. Still, this was by far the second worst. It wasn’t personally painful, like that other week. Instead, it was the pain of watching someone she loved being torn to shreds in front of her eyes, with little that could be done but watch the entire awful process in slow motion.

It had begun the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. Heather was right; her mother was deteriorating rapidly. She died Wednesday night, with Heather and her father at the hospital. Jim MacKenzie was already half in the bag, sipping bourbon from an ill-concealed hip flask, but he was sober enough to hold his crying daughter and begin the paperwork with the hospital. Heather skipped school the rest of the week. Viewing hours were the next evening at Moriarty’s Funeral Home and Lauren and her mother and mother-in-law stayed with the teen to support her. The funeral was Friday and Lauren took the morning off to go with the girl.

She wasn’t overly surprised when Heather continued staying in the basement apartment over the weekend. She was perfectly happy to have the teen stay as long as she wanted, and Heather’s father was not in any shape to be a father to the girl. She wasn’t entirely sure how he stayed employed, considering the level his drinking had risen to. The only thing she could guess was that he stayed sober in the mornings and didn’t begin hitting the hip flask until lunch or afterwards. Certainly, by after dinner he was pie-eyed and reeling.

Robby Jones was vastly helpful. Lauren had called him over to the house after school on Thursday and laid down the law to the boy. “Listen, Robby, Heather needs your help now. She is in so much pain it is killing her. Forget about anything but helping her. This is where you show her what kind of man you are.”

Robby was confused but he simply nodded. “Uh, yeah, sure. Whatever. What should I do?”

For the first time that day, Lauren smiled. Robby was clueless but caring. “Simple, just do what she wants. Let her cry on your shoulder. Give her lots of hugs. Let her hit you if she wants...”

“Hit me?”

“ ... Whatever she needs to do.” Then she wagged her finger accusingly at Robby. “And Robby, that means no sex! You got me? She’s in too fragile a state right now. This is not an excuse for you to try to help her out by getting your rocks off. You got that?”

Robby was too shocked by Lauren’s language to do anything more than nod agreement. He stood there gaping as Lauren turned away, then went down to the basement and wrapped his girlfriend in his arms. She fell into a dreamless sleep crying on his chest.

Still, while painful, Heather’s mother dying was not the shock it could have been. It had been painfully obvious for months that this day had been coming, and though unpleasant, was expected. Heather could be comforted and helped through the mourning, regardless of her father’s drunkenness. What was not expected and could not be planned for was Jim MacKenzie’s death.

It was clear in hindsight, but his drinking killed him as surely as his wife’s cancer had killed her. Driving late Monday night, after stopping at a bar after work, Heather’s father drove into a bridge abutment at seventy miles an hour, with neither a seat belt nor functioning air bags. When the police came to the house to tell Heather, Lauren couldn’t do anything but catch the teen as she collapsed in her arms.

Heather woke in the same hospital her father had been brought to, with Lauren holding her hand. Lauren looked down and smiled wanly. “I’m so sorry, honey.” Heather struggled upright and Lauren reached out to help. “Why don’t you just stay here,” she suggested.

Heather looked around the room and saw the feeble sunlight beginning to come through the windows. “What time is it?” she asked. She looked down and saw that she was still dressed in her clothing from the evening before, though her shoes were missing, and that she was laying on the hospital bed with a light blanket around her. “What happened?”

Lauren reached out and took her hand. “You fainted last night. Do you remember when the police came by the house?”

Heather’s eyes focused and she gulped down the bile which rose in her throat. She fought for breath, then calmed herself and looked up at her friend. “Daddy’s dead, isn’t he?” Lauren simply nodded. Heather swung her legs off the bed and sat upright. “I guess I’d better get up then. I’ve got another funeral to go to,” she said bitterly.

Lauren pushed the girl back down. “Honey, I think you can stay here a few minutes more. That can all wait until after breakfast.”

Heather nodded in mute agreement, lifelessly accepting Lauren’s suggestion. Lauren tried in vain to get the teen to open up, saying that Heather would be staying with her as long as she wanted, and how it would all work out in the end. The girl inanely tried to discuss the funeral arrangements as if it was a simple matter of logistics and planning, and Lauren vainly tried to get her to stay quiet and calm.

Shortly after breakfast the situation deteriorated completely. A rather officious looking nurse came through, shortly after a much more pleasant nurse looked Heather over and pronounced her able to leave. The second nurse was from the morgue, where Heather’s father was located and had been examined and autopsied. She carried a clipboard with a sheaf of paperwork attached, and a pen. “I’m sorry for your loss. I’ll need some signatures so that we can release the body.”

Lauren considered this a rather cold introduction, but Heather didn’t notice the brusque nature of the request. She reached out for the clipboard, but the nurse stopped her. “Excuse me, but how old are you?”

Heather looked at her curiously. “Sixteen,” she answered.

The nurse ignored Heather and looked over at Lauren. She held out the clipboard to Lauren and asked, “Are you related to the deceased?”

“I’m Heather’s next-door neighbor; Heather’s his daughter. Why?”

The nurse pulled the clipboard back and slammed the cover closed on it. “When will the next of kin arrive to claim the body?” she asked Lauren, continuing to ignore Heather.

“I’m the next of kin!” Heather protested.

“You are sixteen. You can’t sign anything,” the nurse told Heather. Turning back to Lauren, she reiterated her need for an adult relative.

Lauren looked at the teen for a moment. She had learned at Heather’s mother’s funeral that there were no other relatives. Both parents had been only children, as was Heather. There were no cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, or long-lost kinfolk hiding in the wings. Heather was it. “You’ll have to let Heather sign, then. She is the only relative available. I’ll help her take care of things.”

The nurse looked at Lauren as if she was crazy. “We can’t allow a minor to sign for a corpse! And you have no standing in this!” Turning on her heel, she marched purposefully towards the door, taking her clipboard with her.

Lauren was astonished by the behavior of the morgue nurse, but not so much that she couldn’t wrap her arms around Heather as the girl began weeping plaintively. It took a visit from the doctor and a sedative before Heather could be put down on the bed asleep. As soon as she could, Lauren snuck away and found the hospital administrator’s office.

Unfortunately, while the administrator was much more polite than the nurse had been, she was no less inflexible. Heather was a minor and as such could not sign legal paperwork. Furthermore, Lauren had no legal standing to sign paperwork for her neighbor. She repeatedly tried to get Lauren to come up with a name for a relative, any relative, but Lauren simply repeated that there were no other relatives. Finally, the administrator suggested she contact a lawyer to sort things out.

“Can I use your phone?” asked Lauren.

“Please,” answered the administrator pleasantly. The woman smiled and turned the desk telephone towards Lauren. “Dial 9 to get an outside line.”

Lauren dialed the 9 and then Peter’s cell phone. She hadn’t used a lawyer since she and Gary had purchased their home, and he had only done some paperwork and a title search. Maybe Peter knew a lawyer. When he answered she asked, “Peter, do you know any good lawyers?”

Peter Tallman stared at his phone briefly, then put it back to his ear. Lauren was about the last person on the planet he would have expected to be needing a lawyer. “What’s going on, honey?” He ignored the amused looks of his staffers.

Lauren’s explanation tumbled out, confused and garbled, and Peter shook his head in resignation. “Uh, yeah, I know a lawyer or two. Can I come over later? I can make it sometime this afternoon...”

“Peter, please!” she pleaded.

“Okay, okay, give me a bit. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” He snapped the cover closed on his cell phone and looked up at his staff. “Okay, meeting’s over. Reschedule anything else for me today, starting now. I’ll call if I can’t make it in tomorrow.” Several people raised an eyebrow at him, having caught the reference to the lawyer, but he shooed them out without explanation. Sitting back down at his desk, he picked up his telephone and dialed a number.

It was early afternoon before Peter was able to make it to the hospital. He found Heather awake but sleepy, and Lauren sitting on the bed and holding the girl’s hand. Smiling broadly, he came in and kissed Lauren quickly, then stood upright and announced, “Okay, things are moving forward.”

Heather opened her eyes and sat up, “What? You mean...”

“I mean, tomorrow morning, the three of us have a meeting with my lawyers at nine o’clock. I’ll go with you.” Heather looked downcast at this, so he continued, “We need to see a lawyer about this, Heather, but he assured me that it can all be fixed.” Reaching out, he took her hand, and Lauren’s. “Please, just trust me on this. We can take care of this.”

Heather looked over at Lauren hopefully, who nodded and said, “I told you, honey, you’re not alone. We’re your family now, and families stick together.” Heather gave a tentative smile and began crying again, but this time they were tears of relief and joy.

“Can we go now?”

Lauren stood up and went out into the hallway to find a nurse. She returned fifteen minutes later after having falsely signed for the girl and receiving a small packet with another couple of sedative pills. She was not worried about being caught; there was a higher need than this rule, she needed to get Heather home and in happier surroundings. They quickly got Heather up and out of the hospital.

Both Lauren’s and Gary’s mothers were waiting for them at the house. Peter busied himself with Jimmy and Holly, explaining what had happened in the vaguest of fashions, saying simply that Heather’s daddy had passed away and that Heather was going to keep living with them. This suited both children fine.

It wasn’t until later that evening, after dinner, that Heather finally was coaxed downstairs to bed. She was exhausted, but only another sedative would put her to sleep. Lauren sat up with her until she dozed off, then turned out the lights and went back upstairs. She found Peter sitting in an armchair in the living room, reading Time magazine. He looked up at her as she came closer, then closed the magazine and tossed it aside. Lauren came around and sat sideways in his lap, and Peter wrapped his arms around her loosely.

“She finally out?” he asked quietly.

Lauren nodded. “Can your lawyer really fix this?” she asked.

“I don’t see why not. This can’t be the first time this sort of thing has ever happened. What about you? Are you going to be all right?”

“I’m just so tired. Just hold me for a little while, then I’ll go to bed.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. Minutes later, Peter found she had gone to sleep on his lap. Picking her up in his arms, he carried her upstairs and placed her under the covers.

Lauren stirred awake, and he said, “Go to sleep. I’ll be here by eight in the morning.” He kissed her goodnight and left.

By the time Lauren came down to the kitchen the next morning, Peter had let himself into the house and prepared a pot of coffee. He had also crept into her room and turned off the alarm clock, then got the children off to school. “Morning, babe. Sleep well?” he asked.

Lauren blinked away her surprise. “What are you...”

“We’re going to the lawyer’s, remember?” Lauren’s mouth moved silently as it came back to her, and Peter continued, “I’ve already called down to Heather. She’ll be up in a few minutes.” He poured her a cup of coffee.

Lauren took her coffee cup and mumbled some thanks, then turned around and went back up the stairs. By the time she had showered, dressed, and come back to the kitchen, Heather was waiting for her. The girl’s eyes were red and puffy from crying, but she seemed calm and collected. She silently sipped her own coffee, then wordlessly rose and followed Peter and Lauren out the door.

The only times that Lauren had ever met a lawyer professionally were when she and Gary had bought their house and had attended the closing, and later when Gary’s will had been probated. Like most Americans, she obeyed the law, paid her speeding tickets, and grumbled about lawyers. Certainly, she had never been to a fancy corporate law office, which was the only way she could describe where Peter took her and Heather. He drove downtown, to one of the tallest buildings in town, and took them to the sixteenth floor. The only thing above them was the maintenance machinery on the roof. The law offices of Kahler, Siebel, Locke, and Royce occupied the entirety of both the fifteenth and sixteenth floors of the Trust Building.

The receptionist greeted them professionally and placed a call, announcing their arrival. Standing, she said, “Mr. Locke will be just a couple of minutes, but he asked me to seat you in the small conference room. Follow me, please.”