Chapter 7: A Crisis and a Change of Heart

The conversation pretty much broke up after the girls finished teasing me about my fear of commitment, both to them and to my role in this whole thing. We got into a more in-depth discussion about our new abilities, although trying to communicate with dear little Anh Ngo was agonizingly slow. Clearly she knew some English words but she simply didn’t trust herself to misspeak in front of me, so I bore with it. Victoria (or Vicky as I’d taken to calling her) was just a cutie, so it made it all worthwhile just to see how seriously she took her role as translator. She’d beam whenever one of us would tell her how well she was doing. I’m not sure how much she picked up herself, but as I said, she seemed to be very intelligent, so I’m guessing it was the majority.

We managed to duplicate some of Cate’s previous experiments and demonstrations. Anh was clearly amazed when she could not only understand me but also when I apparently picked her thoughts out of thin air. Still, she looked like she had expected no less of me.

Vicky was intrigued as well. “You read MINDS?” she asked, clearly excited.

“Not really, Vicky,” I replied with a gentle smile. “Well, actually I do read minds, but only four very specific minds. I can only talk crudely with your Grandma, Patricia, Allison and Shani. It’s nothing like in the movies.” I pitched my voice lower and leaned in, whispering as if telling her a secret. “But you can’t tell anyone, as it’ll create a lot of trouble, no one will believe it, and they’ll call us and your Grandma liars and cheats. I don’t think any of us want that. I doubt it will happen though, because we all know we can’t talk to anyone about this; not to your family or any strangers, nobody but us and your Grandma.”

I hoped I wasn’t piling the guilt on too far, but there really was no way of getting around it. I was afraid of the trouble a misspoken comment could provoke. After that, Cate played with her a bit to help alleviate the tension that I’d created, which helped, but it was still a very hard evening for a girl so young to handle.

It turned out that little Vicky was only eight and was in the third grade at a seaside elementary school. She lived with her parents, along with two sisters, three brothers, a couple cousins and a few other relatives. All in all, it was a pretty large household, which fit into a slightly larger Vietnamese fishing community on the shore. Anh kept the Vietnamese sensibilities strong in the family, but the children were becoming quite Americanized while still maintaining their sense of who they were and where they were from. They were as proud of their heritage as Shani was.

We got to talking again, and the conversation went on until I noticed Vicky standing beside me once again. It occurred to me then that I hadn’t heard from either her or Anh in the past several minutes, but I’d thought that was due to Cate’s playing with her. I had to correct myself—Cate had been involved in the latest discussion so I realized we’d been talking longer than I’d thought.

As I was considering this, Vicky spoke up.

“‘Scuse me, but Grandma says we need to get me back for school tomorrow. She’s sorry, but says she’ll try to be back tomorrow after school tomorrow.” Surprisingly, little Vicky looked just as stricken at leaving my side as her grandmother did, despite her not being able to detect my supposed energy.

“That’s OK,” I replied, smiling for her. “I’m sorry that we can’t spend time getting to know each other tonight. But don’t worry, there’s always tomorrow.” It was funny, when I gave her that simple smile, her whole face lit up, but I attributed it to Anh having filled her head with tales of friendly spirits in human garb.

The girls and I escorted them out to her nearby, little, used compact car. Both Anh and Vicky made a big deal out of kissing me goodbye, their actions still very formal, almost as if this was an important act in a special ceremony.

When we got back to the restaurant Mom and Dad had finished paying the bill and were waiting for us by the door along with Cate and Henry. We were discussing what was next when Patricia and Henry made their exit ... no doubt to have the discussion she’d been putting off. The rest of the women decided they’d accompany us back to our hotel. I tried to subtly dissuade them, but they made it clear that they had no plans to go home. Heck, Allison was still dressed in long white gloves from church this morning, and even she insisted upon accompanying me back to the hotel. No, the way things were going (and probably based on a few things that Shani might have mentioned when they were talking just out of my earshot), they seemed to expect to stay in Cate’s and my room tonight. I hoped my parents would have said something about that, but they were no help at all, merely smiling like Cate at my obvious discomfort.

The French Quarter’s streets were still busy, even after dark on a Sunday night, so it was still a pleasant walk. Everyone was busy discussing details about the issue my father had raised, so they mostly talked amongst themselves, the women moving into little groups to discuss things privately or with my parents or Cate. There always seemed to be someone watching me though, perhaps because they were afraid I’d become morose about all the plans they were making about my future without any input from me. Actually, it was probably more likely that they just felt it was their duty to watch out for me. In either event I knew that I had little choice in the matter, and as a result I had no private time to sulk. It wasn’t all bad, though. What sulking I was able to do was done with several attractive women clustered loosely around me.

Glancing at them, I considered the women I’d attracted so far. They covered a wide variety of ages, races, education and experiences. There didn’t seem to be many commonalities other than they all seemed to be quite bright, but I figured that was more likely either dumb luck or their trying extra hard to impress me. Oh, and there weren’t any heavy women yet either. I thought that odd considering just how heavy the residents of New Orleans were, but I simply attributed it to the fact that, so far, I’d only been exposed to busy professional women. Besides, the one black woman I’d pulled in was Jamaican, instead of a New Orleans native.

When we got back to the hotel my parents decided they wanted to continue the discussion, so we opened the connecting doorway between our rooms and everyone wandered back and forth. Natalie had to head home to prepare for work the next day, although she casually announced she would also put in her resignation notice. Most of the discussion was still about future plans—specifically regarding what everyone wanted to do about me, and as nobody was really all that interested in my opinion I pretty much stayed out of it. They sat and continued to hash out details for quite some time, while I tried to focus on issues that didn’t involve multiple women moving in with me.

I think I was starting to doze off as it had been, once again, a very busy day when a cell phone rang, shocking me awake. Cate pulled her phone out while the others continued their quiet conversation.

“Yeah?” she answered informally, figuring it wouldn’t be a stranger given the late hour.

“Oh, hi, Becky!” she responded happily, enthused to get information about the man we’d encountered from our sister.

“Wow! Really? Well, while something like that is never great news, I’m glad they’re finally dealing with it.” She covered the phone and addressed us. “She says that guy is having emergency surgery on his brain as we speak.” As the other discussions halted and we all leaned in, eager to hear more, Cate looked a little unnerved, leaned away from the phone and added, “Here, you’d better talk to Alex. It was his women that figured it out.” As she handed me the phone (and the women started to crowd around me), she smiled an innocent smile that was betrayed by the wicked glint in her eyes. “She wants to know how we knew something was wrong.”

“Uh, hello,” I said hesitantly. “Becky?” I was already dreading questions about new insights and strange women.

“Hey there, hope you’re having a good time,” she greeted me. It’d been a while since we’d spoken. “What’s this about ‘your women’? Does Cate mean her and Mom?” Having made the basic assumption Becky was off and running, so I didn’t feel any pressing need to correct her. “Anyway, getting back on target, the hospital staff is very interested in how you detected his condition. They said it was completely asymptomatic but that there was a sizable tumor about the size of a large plum in the right hemisphere of his brain. They said he might have noticed it sooner if it had been in his left hemisphere. Since it was asymptomatic they’re questioning how I detected it,” she stated, emphasizing how they thought she was there when she had made her ‘discovery’ instead of working in a lab in Illinois.

“Wow, it sounds like we caught it just in time,” I replied, ignoring her implied question. Oh, I knew the subject would come up again, but I was hoping to postpone it as long as possible until I had more of a feel of how much trouble I was in.

“He walked into the emergency room and demanded a brain scan. As a result of what they saw when they finally ran one, they rushed him straight into surgery. It took a bit to organize a team that fast, but they wanted to address it right away. It seems the tumor was impacting areas of the brain around it and was causing them to atrophy. They’re not sure what effects the surgery will have on his cognitive functions, but they are hopeful since it hadn’t yet affected his performance, but every brain surgery is major so they’re closely monitoring him.

“Anyway, how’d you detect it?” she continued. “They said there were no obvious signs.”

Ah, here it is, I thought to myself, the heart of the problem. “Just lucky, I guess. A friend of ours saw him walking funny and thought we should ask him about it.”

“Hmm, is this friend a doctor by any chance? And if so, why couldn’t you use him as a reference? And how’d he notice his walk when the neurologists at the hospital didn’t notice it?” she pressed.

“Boy, you’re just full of questions,” I stalled.

“Yeah, the local doctors grilled me for a while. They seemed to think it was me who saw him on the street and spotted it. I had to bluff my way through and it made me sound like a real idiot, especially since I have no medical training whatsoever. What’s more, I have no actual experience with patients, just lab work and theoretical situations.”

“Ouch,” I commiserated. “Don’t you get any brownie points for spotting it?” I hated putting Becky into a difficult situation.

“Not really. Doctors always want answers. They’re not very good at giving credit; they seem to think it makes them look fallible. If I were you, I’d avoid the hospital for a bit. The doctors are full of questions and the guy and his wife aren’t very likely to be speaking with you right now. The guy will be out of it, and his wife is facing the sudden onset of crippling medical bills.”

“Geez, you just can’t win for losing, huh?” It was amazing just how complicated saving someone’s life could be.

“Nope. Not in today’s world with lawyers around every corner searching for malpractice lawsuits. Anyway, you should be OK. But I’m dying to hear the full story,” she stressed, already guessing there was more to it than just lying to the authorities.

“We’ll explain it when we get back, if then. It’s pretty complicated, but we shouldn’t discuss it over the phone,” I told her.

“Ahh, suddenly all mysterious are we?”

“Yeah, you know me, living the life of mystery and intrigue.” I normally wasn’t very quick with the clever responses when things got awkward.

“The only mystery you’re full of is the mysterious smells coming from your bedroom,” she joked, returning to our old teasing ways. Unlike Cate, both Becky and Melinda teased me more like typical siblings, giving me a hard time about my perceived failings. “Anyway, I’ll talk to you later. I had a long day and I’ve got to get ready for a lot of questions tomorrow. Bye,” she said, finishing off without giving me time to respond to her last statement.

“Bye,” I finished, hanging up and relaying the information to the others. We discussed the implications of this additional knowledge. Soon it was getting late, nearly 11 p.m., when I was suddenly struck with a feeling of dread and then a sudden feeling of being wet, cold, miserable and alone, and a single image of a dark empty road stretched out before me. Reacting quickly I was instantly on my feet.

“Quick, Anh’s in trouble, we’ve got to help her,” I informed everyone, wanting to do something but not quite sure what.

“Whoa, whoa, what the hell?” my father protested, demonstrating he was personally exempt from Mom’s warpath concerning inappropriate language.

“Dad, she’s cold and lonely out on the street. She might have had an accident or something. We’ve got to do something.”

“Surely it is late enough that she’s been home for some time,” he said, glancing at his watch. “She shouldn’t be on the road at this hour.”

“She’s on the road, wet and upset,” I answered with certainty, becoming more agitated with each passing second. “We have to go rescue her now!”