“You’re so tight here. I can see why it’s bothering you.” I worked my thumb into a particularly knotted muscle. “You need a real massage. Once things have calmed down with Ted, you should go get one.”
“I’ve never had a massage,” Deacon said, his words slurry with sleep. “I don’t like the idea of some stranger touching me all over.”
“Never? Oh, my God, they’re the best. Maybe we should get a couple’s massage someday.”
His brow furrowed. “Is that where we lay in a room together while some other dude gets to rub his hands all over your naked body while I watch? No, thanks. That doesn’t sound like fun to me.”
I smiled. “We’ll see. Darcy hooked me up with a friend of hers who’s a massage therapist. That woman has magic hands.”
“Hmph. Now that might be different. I could probably enjoy watching you get rubbed all over by a woman with magic hands. That scenario has possibilities.”
“Hey.” I swatted his shoulder. “Get your mind out of the gutter, buddy.”
His mouth tipped up again, but he didn’t reply, and as his breathing evened out, I felt him relax into sleep.
My fingers ran over his hair and traced the line of his jaw. “Deacon . . . I know you’re asleep, but I need to tell you . . . I don’t regret last night. Or any of the nights we were together. I don’t regret being with you before, even though I was so hurt when you left. No matter what happens, now or in the future . . . I will never regret us.”
His breath hitched, and I thought he might wake up, but he didn’t stir. I sighed and leaned back against the cushions of the sofa, settling in for a long night.
13
Deacon
“Well, Ted, welcome back to the oncology floor.” I leaned against the doorjamb outside my father’s hospital room. He was propped up in the bed, looking much better than anyone in his condition had a right to be.
After a week in the ICU during which we thought we were losing him more than once, Ted had taken a sudden turn for the better. His improvement had been rapid and unexplainable.
“Sometimes it happens like this,” one of the doctors up there had observed to me, shrugging. “They surprise us.”
Now whether this was a pleasant surprise or not, I hadn’t decided. My father watched me with shrewd eyes as I came into his room.
“I wasn’t sure I was going to see you alert again. But here you are.”
Ted grinned. “Heaven won’t have me, and the devil’s afraid if I get down there, I’ll take over and run the damn place into the ground.” He coughed and adjusted the nasal cannula. “Guess I’m like a bad penny, boy. You just ain’t getting rid of me yet.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not out of the woods yet, either. Recovering from the infection is one thing, but the cancer’s still there to treat. Also, being this sick has set us back some, so we’ll need to get the chemo started right away. I have a consult set up with the best pulmonologist in the area, and I’m looking into immunotherapy, too.” I paused, unsure if I should mention the other avenue I was pursuing. “And Emma—Dr. Carson, that is—she has some suggestions to make the process better and more effective for you.”
“Emma—she’s the pretty redhead?” Ted’s mouth twisted into a parody of a smile. “You’re tapping that one, huh? She’s got a great rack and a decent ass, too. Nice work, boy. Maybe there’s some of me in you, after all.”
I took a step away, mostly so I wasn’t tempted to take a swing at the old man. My temper was climbing, and I struggled to rein it in. “Dr. Carson is a respected member of our team, and if you make one off-color comment around her, if you’re rude to her in any way, I’ll send you packing to the nearest charity hospital, and you can see how you like the care there. Got it?” I exhaled. “And I am nothing like you. Nothing. There’s not one part of me that has anything to do with you or your influence or your DNA or any shit like that.”
“Eh, I don’t know. I been talking to some of the people up on that ICU floor, and I listened to plenty of gossip. You ran off last year, huh? Blew out of town without a word to anyone, that’s the way I heard.” He wheezed a chuckle. “Sounds exactly like something I’d do. Something I did. I’d say you’re a chip off the ol’ block.”
“Then you’d be wrong.” I kept my voice even, and it wasn’t that difficult, actually, because the more Ted talked, the more I realized that he reallywaswrong. “I went away to work with a charitable organization in Europe. I didn’t hit the road to satisfy my own selfishness. I did leave Gram and Pop, yes, but I didn’t leave a dying wife and a baby son. And what’s more, I came back.” I smiled. “I came back because this is my home, and this is where I belong. It’s where I want to be. The people here are my people. I’m staying, and I’m going to build a life here—and let me tell you something, Ted, that life is going to be a hell of a lot better than the existence you’ve made on the road.”
“You don’t know nothing, boy.” All laughter was gone from his face. “Nothing. You don’t know what it’s like to grow up bein’ told your future is decided for you, that you’re gonna farm and be the same damn man your daddy was and his daddy was and so on. You don’t know what it’s like to have the fire in you and nowhere to burn it.” He sneered, turning his face from me. “They brainwashed you. They got you good, didn’t they? And now, you’re stuck here, just as sure as I would’ve been if I hadn’t had the balls to throw it in their faces and tell them no.”
“I’m not stuck. I made the choice. That’s the difference.”
Ted’s shoulders quivered. “I shoulda taken you with me after your ma died. Shoulda raised you to be the kind of boy you were meant to be. Not hanging around in a place like this, lordin’ over everyone else that you’re the high and mighty doctor. Taking people’s lives in your hands and actin’ like you’re better than everyone else. Just like them. They raised you to be them. Shoulda taken you. Best thing in the world.”
“The best thing you ever did in your miserable life was to leave me with Gram and Pop.” I had never doubted the veracity of those words, but now, they rang even truer. “For all the heartache you gave them, letting us have each other was the kindest, most generous move you ever made, and you didn’t even do it for them or for me—you did it for yourself. And in case you wondered, I never missed out by not having you in my life. Never. I have a family, and they love me. I have people who I love, who taught me right and wrong and how to be a decent person.”
I thought of Gram and Pop, and even Miss Sissie, who I still missed. I thought of Mira and her sister Maybelle. I thought of this whole town full of people who had made me into who I was. I was never so grateful for them as I was in that moment.
Ted was silent, which was probably for the best, because I didn’t want to hear anything else he might have to say. I tapped the bed rail and stepped backward.
“I’m going to put in the order for your chemo to start tomorrow. You think about it tonight, and if you want to have a chance at a few extra months that could be spent making up some time with your parents—and with me, for that matter—then we’ll go forward. But if you decide you want to go off on your own and die like an animal, on your own terms, that’s your choice.”
