15: Check Out with a Few Tears

The sun finally started to filter in through the window. It was hard to believe everything that occurred since my date the prior night. The nurse had mentioned possibly getting out this morning, as unbelievable as that sounds considering how badly off I had been during the night. Now all I had to do was worry about the other patients I’d be examining. I figured it would be nice to stop focusing on myself for a while. Although I was sure memories of Jennifer and worries about her condition would wear on me as Ryan and I went on our tour shortly.

Both Brooke and Rebecca had left a while earlier, despite the protests of the children. Brooke wanted to get them settled, and the moving trailer situated somewhere safe. They’d told me to inform Ryan that they’d be by later in the day when I was ready to leave. A kind of ‘handing off’ ceremony, I guess.

Just before Ryan was scheduled to return Cate slowly woke up. Before she made herself presentable, she snuggled into me.

“Have I told you today just how much I love you? As a combination of my favorite lover, my top brother and the owner of my heart?” I couldn’t help it, I blushed quite a bit. Sometimes it’s hard to listen to something quite that sappy, even if it is from someone you feel the same way towards.

“I love yo—” I started to reply before she placed her finger against my lips to prevent me from interrupting her.

“I also love that you finally opened up to Jennifer last night, and also for what you said to Allison,” and with that she kissed me. It was a shallow kiss, but it conveyed just how much I’d affected her.

“So, you heard that, did you?” I asked.

“Yeah, I did. It was sweet. You are really going to have to give each of your girls their own tasks, just so they can all feel like they are doing something specifically for you, other than just hanging around trying to be nice all the time.”

“I think you’re right. I’ve just been letting things go for too long. I need to start organizing things. But, in my own defense, I have had a few things on my mind.”

“I know that,” she said, kissing me again. “But I’m not about to apologize for being one of them. And I know for a fact that no one else will either. Although I wouldn’t mind hearing it from Brandon,” she replied with a mini-snarl.

Just then we heard someone approaching the door, so Cate quickly climbed down off of the bed. However, instead of Ryan, the policeman from last night knocked and entered. It was the quiet one, unaccompanied by his brusquer companion. He’d been more reasonable during our previous troubles, but I knew better than to fall for the old ‘good cop/bad cop’ routine. If he wanted to be nice to me he was going to have to demonstrate it with something besides mere words.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry to disturb you this early, but I was informed by Dr. Moore that if I wanted to interview you I’d have to get here before you were released. Let me tell you, it’s hell trying to get a policeman going before 6 in the morning! And they don’t even have any donuts here,” he added, laughing easily. I had to admit, his new attitude sure helped to assuage my previous fears, but I was still leery.

“That’s OK, you’re not disturbing me. I was getting ready for everything to start moving around here,” I told him. “I assume you want to speak to Anh and myself?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he told me. “Normally we like to speak to each of the witnesses separately, but we’d have to really search for anyone nearby who speaks Vietnamese, and we doubt the victim is likely to be colluding with anyone in his own attack.” He glanced around and noticed my girls, all still present in the room and rousing themselves around me. He tried to call to Anh but was unsuccessful in getting her attention.

“Anh,” I called, using the speech we’d prearranged. “Một tên cớm tốt sẽ cho cô biết cái mông của hắn ta ở đâu.” Though he’d never have a clue, I’d just informed Anh that our little policeman friend wanted her to know what an ass he was. I could see her smile even though she’d turned around as soon as I spoke her name.

“Tell him he can suck my overly large and exceedingly dry clit, will you?” she asked me.

“She says that she’s ready to answer any questions you have for her,” I managed to convey with an almost straight face.

“Very good, I’ll try to keep this short,” he informed us. “I’m glad to see you’ve managed to recover so swiftly, by the way.”

“Thanks, but let’s get this over with while it’s still fresh in our minds,” I reminded him. He didn’t need any further prompting.

“Ms. Ngo,” he began, immediately getting him a frown. She rattled off a little speech, which mainly consisted of a profanity strewn tirade comparing his tiny penis to a soggy useless noodle.

“She objects to the title you used, officer. She’s proud of her role as a mother, wife and grandmother, and even now that she has finally put those things behind her to do even more important work, she asks you to be respectful. You’ve got to understand,” I told him in a pretend whisper, “she’s really into the whole old school Asian respect for your elder’s thing.” The officer nodded politely, a bit taken aback.

“Very well, Mrs. Ngo,” he began again. “Can you describe for me what happened last night, and how you came to be holding a fireplace poker to Mr. Jones’ face?”

I translated her recollections to him, both of us speaking honestly, having gotten the teasing out of the way early. It was only so much fun insulting someone when they didn’t realize it. After a while it just seems petty and cruel.

She told him how they heard the knock on the door, but had held back because they knew I was with my date, saying goodbye – a little white lie – and thus only came into the room when they heard the front door crash open. She’d arrived just as Brandon began spewing his obscenities at both his sister and me. She then explained how I’d waved them all back, while I attempted to calm him down myself. About how Cate had run to Chalise’s side to help her after he struck her hard enough to lift her off of the floor, but stressed how everyone stayed back and didn’t interfere or say anything until after I’d been struck with the chair.

“At that point, Brandon was already lying on the floor screaming, but Shani Sharp and I ran out to protect Alex, because we saw how crazy Chalise’s brother had been acting, and we didn’t trust him to not attack Alex again,” I continued translating.

“And the reason why you kept the weapons on him until you were ordered to drop them, repeatedly by the police?” he asked.

“The police first yelled for us to drop them before they were close enough to do anything. We were willing to lay them down, but not if the police weren’t able or willing to provide protection themselves,” she said, glaring at the officer.

“Apparently you incapacitated him before they attacked him. Can you explain why they’d do that?” he asked me, which I duly translated before addressing it myself.

“Just because he was down doesn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. He was twice my size, even more for the both of them. He was acting like a maniac. He broke into our house unannounced, started shouting and cursing, and then he attacked me. He just hit me in the head with a fucking oak chair!”

I guess he accepted that answer because he turned back to Anh and asked, “You say you heard Brandon Johnson curse profanities several times. How did you know this if you don’t speak the language?”

“One tends to pick up the insults in a language long before one learns to speak it,” she explained. “It’s a lot more fun, and it helps provide the incentive to learn more.” He simply nodded, as if this was an already established fact.

“All right, moving on. After Alex, the victim, specifically gave us permission to search the house, we couldn’t help but notice that there were a variety of women’s clothing and personal items in his room. Could you explain why this would be so?” he asked, looking into her eyes as he said so.

“Oh, of course,” she replied. “Since we had all taken over so much of the house, Alex was kind enough to offer us his bedroom while he slept on the couch at night. Part of the arrangement I made, in offering to do the cooking, was that I’d repay his kindness by making up the couch for him every morning as well,” she explained, sounding perfectly reasonable doing so.

“So, are you willing to swear that you haven’t had any sexual relations with Alex?” he pressed.

“First, I don’t see as how it would make any difference, since he’s legally an adult. Secondly, look at me. I’m a grandmother. Most of my plumbing doesn’t even work anymore. Alex wouldn’t likely last long enough for me to even get started. Honestly, I owe him tremendously for what he’s done for me and the other women in the house, but I’m hardly likely to take a naïve young boy to bed. I don’t think he’d put up with it either,” she argued. I had the good sense to blush while she was saying this.

“Fine,” he said simply. “Do you know if any of the other women in the house are having sex with him?”

“And why are you asking this?” she asked. “There’s nothing you can do if they were, other than to satisfy your own twisted perversions. But no, as far as I’m aware, no one has slept with Alex yet. Including his girlfriend, Chalise. Her brother seemed to have attacked him before they ever had a chance to get past first base.”

This produced a laugh by the officer. “You seem to have figured out the baseball allegory as it applies to sex,” he humorously replied.

“I hate to break it to you, but you are hardly the only country in the world to watch or play baseball, or to have invented humorous sexual comments. That joke is old even in the countryside of remote Vietnam.”

He laughed again. He was doing that more and more and he seemed to be genuinely more relaxed. “So that’s a no, I take it?” he asked one last time.

“Yes, it most definitely is,” she replied.

Just then Shani returned, carrying a fresh box of donuts. The cop, Officer Daniel Cooper according to his name-tag, glanced from her to me.

“Man, I don’t know how you do it, but you have amazing timing between you and these women you aren’t having a relationship with. I’d be tempted to charge you with attempted bribery if those didn’t look so good. I’ll make you a deal, I’ll just take three. Two for me and one for my partner back at the station. You can offer the rest to the nurses outside. We always like to keep them on our side,” he informed us. “But I’d also like to ask you for your own account of the events,” he told me.

“That’s fine,” I told him, “the Starbucks’ lattes won’t arrive for a few more minutes yet.”

I told him the story from my perspective, covering the break in, the attack, his behavior, the actions of the girls, and basically anything I could remember.

“OK, I have to ask this but, are you now, or have you ever been, a member of any racial hate groups?” I simply rolled my eyes at his question.

“I’m dating his sister, and I’m doing it with the full knowledge and consent of her mother. Why would I do that if I hated blacks? What he was carrying on about after the attack was nonsense. He apparently knows how to play the system. Have you had his blood tested for any drugs? I’m pretty sure he was under the affects of something. I’m no expert, but I’d suspect he may have been taking steroids to beef up for football, and that was the source of his rage against me.”

“You understand he made some very specific accusations against you, don’t you? We’ve got to take his claims into consideration.”

“Yeah, a fellow that size is going to be terrorized by little old me and a frail grandmother, in our own home, after his sister has testified he broke in and attacked her?” He simply nodded, jotting it all down in his notebook and that seemed to be that.

After we wrapped up the interview, Officer Daniel turned and confided in me. “You know, next time you should remember that, as the dear Mrs. Ngo so succinctly put it, the first thing one learns in a new language are the insulting bits. Besides being fun, they are also useful to know when you are being insulted. Remind her of that the next time she mentions being respected,” he replied with a smile as he walked out of the room, clutching his donuts and his latte.

Once he left, Ryan entered, smiling at the retreating form of the police officer carrying his treats.

“You certainly have a knack for knowing how to deal with people,” he said.

“If you want to survive and avoid the public eye, you learn to be nice to the people in charge,” I told him.

“That makes a lot of sense. Well, I’ve already filed all your paperwork. If you’ll sign this, you can leave whenever you’d like. Although, if you have some spare time, you have a few fans scattered around the hospital who are concerned with your health,” he informed me, stressing the irony in the situation. I had to grin at the thought myself.

I quickly signed the form and Allison, Shani, Cate and I all accompanied the good Doctor Ryan down the hall. I stopped to thank the nurses along the way, blowing them kisses as I went. They all laughed at me and assured me they’d remember me.

“You know,” Ryan told us as we walked, “your recovery was exceptionally rapid, even assuming it was a minor concussion. Your symptoms were fairly significant for you to be fully functional already. So either I should be watching you for the next few hours, or somehow you’ve managed to speed up your own healing.”

“I was wondering about that,” I told him. “But frankly, all the women going in and out all night kept me too distracted to think about it much.” He laughed, but didn’t make any further comment about it.

“So, did you hear from your two friends, Brooke Knowles and Rebecca Boles?”

“Oh, yes, they were here early this morning, but Brooke wanted to drop her kids and their luggage off. They said they’d be here when we finish, so you can discuss whatever you need to with them. I think they’d appreciate knowing about that apartment you mentioned, as I don’t think Brooke will be able to stay with us with her kids. I don’t know about Rebecca’s plans though. If she’s like Natalie, she’ll want to move in with me, but we are a ways away, and she and Brooke seem to have gotten close. I’m not really sure which way she’ll go.”

“Are you sure you’re not still suffering from the effects of last night? You seem to be rambling a bit,” he teased. I figured I’d best be quiet for a while.

“Allison,” he said, not worried about my silence, “I’ve spoken to someone at the University. If you’ll stay after we’re finished, I’ll have you talk to them so you can get started on some studies. The sooner I can get you going, the happier I’ll be.”

“Yes, sir, I appreciate that. I’m looking forward to it,” she answered.

“Do you plan on working with your cohorts on what you’re learning?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t call them ‘cohorts’. Let’s just call them ‘Alex’s girls,” she corrected him. “So far, that seems to be the most frequently used term to describe all of us.”

“Sure, that’s fine. I’ve got no problem with that. It’s pretty clear you share something fairly odd. Granted, if it all becomes public I’ll have to distance myself, but I’ll support you as long as you can keep out of trouble. But that assumes you’ll be able to keep all of this out of the media,” he said, turning to look meaningfully at me.

“I understand, sir,” I told him. “I’m well aware of the dangers I’m facing. It’s something I think about quite a lot. I don’t seem to be able to avoid the information constantly leaking out, though. I’ve been lucky so far,” I admitted.

“You know,” I continued, “I’m a little curious just what you are getting out of this. You are clearly taking a risk engaging in what is a nonstandard, unproven and untested medical procedure. What are you looking to gain out of it?”

“That’s actually a good question, and I’ve been meaning to discuss it with you,” Ryan said, in answer to my question. “Mostly, I’m just bored with where my career and my life are right now, and you offer a bit of excitement in both that make it exciting to get up early each morning. More than that, though, I’m looking to push the hospital here. I’m assuming you’re going to stress to each patient to not reveal anything about you. That’ll help me out because, since they won’t be able to talk about you, they’ll have to talk up the hospital. If you can improve the overall success rate of the hospital, that’ll help as well. However I’m well aware I’m going to have trouble getting full time access to you, so I’m counting on your ‘girls’ giving me some additional insight into common problems that will boost our success statistics. I’m also looking at starting some outreach efforts that you and your girls can help with that should bring some recognition to the hospital.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” I admitted. “But aren’t you going to need some testing or some studies to justify the use of these ‘techniques’?” Ryan laughed briefly at this.

“Alex, I hate to burst your little bubble, but no one is going to pay for an extensive test of a new ‘procedure’ unless there’s substantial money to be made off of it. And no one is ever going to approve of a new medical approach unless there are lots and lots of documentation proving it works and is safe. So there is no way your abilities will ever be accepted by anyone. There just isn’t any way to patent and charge exorbitant fees for what you do.

“Partially, I’m hoping I can get you to help a few select well off clients that’ll reward the hospital with some grants. That would be the biggest benefit to me, but that’s not that likely, since we’re still not sure what you can and can’t do, nor what will be effective and what won’t. Yeah, it’s true I’m taking a big risk here, but we got into this because I’m a bit of a gambler, and I like the idea of a long shot, even if I know how rare they are. If I can make a low cost investment in a high yield bet, I’m willing to take a chance on it. In other words, you are essentially a medical lottery ticket for me. The chances it’ll pay off are abysmal, but it doesn’t cost very much to feed my dreams of a huge payoff.”

I simply thought about this, reviewing it in my mind. Clearly the myriad reasons why he was supporting me weren’t clear cut. I’d have to watch how his complicated motivations might impact me over time.

By this time we reached the first patient. Before we entered the room Ryan cautioned me.

“Now, I just want to warn you, the people I gave you to examine were all in pretty serious trouble, as there wasn’t much that we could do for them. Don’t get upset if some of them, like Jennifer, aren’t doing real well. The fact they’re doing well at all is a huge benefit to them, but you can’t expect to win every case. Failure is just a part of the game.” I nodded, getting a bad feeling he was telling me this for a specific reason.

“We still haven’t heard from the young man with the broken arm,” he continued, “but then it hasn’t been that long yet, and he really has no reason to have it examined yet. The earliest he’d be expected to check in again would be for a one week review.” I simply nodded. With that we entered the room.

Sitting there was Tim Reynolds, the man who had been in the coma just a few short days ago. He was with his family and was looking much brighter and healthier. He still looked weak, and his whole body was thin and gaunt, but he appeared to be quite chipper for someone who had recently been in a coma.

He brightened on seeing me, calling out to me by name. He was surrounded by his wife and kids and the room looked bright and happy.

“Alex, it’s so good to see you up and about. I heard about your troubles and I was really worried about you,” he told me.

“Me, too,” his wife, Tracy, told me, pulling me into a big hug. “You’ve done so much for us. The idea that someone would hurt you just made me want to go down and hurt them myself.”

“They’re releasing me today,” he told me. “The good doctor here tells me I’ll still need frequent visits to the physical therapist to regain my lost muscle tone, but that there’s really no reason to keep me here. I’m going to be able to resume my life again. The idea I’d lost so much time over something that had seemed so minor at the time is just unbelievable. But getting my life back still means a tremendous amount to me. I realize how close I came to never waking up again.”

They both had their kids give me hugs as well, and they all wished me well and I couldn’t help but grin over the difference between the unconscious figure I’d seen before and him now.

They made a big deal over the goodbyes and asked me to allow them to provide me a meal or something as a thank you memento sometime. I thanked them and told them I’d keep that in mind, but then gave them the warning that Ryan had expected me to give, telling them not to mention me or what I’d done to anyone. They thought it was terrible that anyone would take what I’d done the wrong way, but they respected my desires and promised they’d keep it quiet. That’s when I gently told them they could simply credit Ryan’s hospital for Tim’s cure. They seemed happy enough with that, and we parted on good terms.

As we made our exit, Ryan brought me up to speed again. “Jennifer isn’t available right now. We couldn’t arrange a non-emergency surgery until normal hours, so she’s under sedatives to keep her quiet until they begin. I don’t think you could do or learn much from visiting her at this point. I’ll have Allison or someone keep you informed on her progress, though.

“Now, we’re going into the restricted area. Here it’ll be a mixed bag. There’s both good news and some bad news. Try not to get upset by what you see, all right?”

This is what I had been expecting, and I wondered which person was taking a turn for the worst, but I figured I already knew.

I didn’t even notice it happening, but I found myself holding Cate’s hand. I don’t know if I grabbed hers or she anticipated my needs and took mine. I wondered how we appeared to Ryan, as caring siblings or intimate lovers. He didn’t give any outward signs of suspecting anything, so I put it out of my mind for the time being.

It took us a while to get down to the restricted ward, and we went into a room where we encountered the burn victim, Carlos Alvarez. He was awake now, and seemed much better, sitting up and speaking with a visitor. When he turned and saw me, he brightened visibly.

“Alex! I’d shake your hand, but I’m afraid I’m still not allowed to use my hands,” he called out.

“I’m glad to see you doing so well,” I greeted him, trying to resist the temptation to give him a big bear hug.

“I was sorry to hear about your attack. It’s apparently the talk of the entire hospital. Everyone seems concerned about you. I almost hate to tell you about my own minor problems,” he said with a slight grin, already anticipating that I seemed to be fine.

“Nonsense, I wouldn’t feel right if I couldn’t at least look at you again. I don’t know how much help I may have been, but it doesn’t do you any harm to have me pretend to do something, now does it.” He grinned in response.

I gave him the whole spiel about not telling anyone about what I’d done, including everyone else in the hospital, to which he admitted he’d talked a bit, but that most of the hospital staff already seemed to know a lot about it.