The specialists called at nine and by noon a facility in La Jolla had been secured. By the next day, a plan was created that no surgeon at the original hospital would have assembled. His parents spent that afternoon orbiting Jayson’s involvement like moths to a flame.
The legal paperwork arrived that week.
They were bound in navy leather. His mother spread it on the kitchen table and said, “We’ve had Alan look at it.”
“Alan who?”
“Alan at the firm. He’s looked at it. He says it’s standard.”
“Standard for what?” Piper asked not sure what was going on. His father and mother had been communicating with Jayson now about some sort of deal.
“For representation.”
His father was at the kitchen counter pouring a second glass of red wine at three in the afternoon. “Jayson wants to help us, wants to help you,” his father said as he drank his wine.
The ‘us’ sat in the kitchen for longer than it should have.
Piper didn’t need his parents to sign. He was twenty-one. His signature was the one that bound the contract. But his parents were on the contract as his co-managers, because the trust that paid for the surgery was going to pay his parents a monthly manager’s fee. The fee was structured as management, but did not require them to manage anything.
His mother spread the pages. His father reached for the pen.
Piper picked up the stack. His shoulder burned under the sling. The draft was months away and the projections had already slipped. He flipped to the signature pages. He read the first page carefully, the second page more quickly, the third page not at all. His ADHD made it hard for him to focus on legal jargon he did not understand. He trusted his parents’ lawyer, Alan, to have dug into the details.
He signed where they had marked.
His mother’s hand shook slightly when she took the pen next, which Piper attributed to lack of Chardonnay in her system. She signed. His father signed. His father’s signature was wet at the bottom and he apologized for it and poured another splash of red wine into his glass.
“This is going to be good, I promise. Really fucking good.”
She was not looking at Piper. She was looking at the room. His father raised his glass. “To us.” Piper remembered that later. The phrase. The wet signature. The way his mother had said that this was going to be good. He had thought he was signing away apercentage of his future earnings which was normal. What Piper did not understand was why a tech billionaire would sign him to one of his umbrella organizations. He did appreciate the help and liked the idea of being attached to someone with endless resources.
What Piper had actually signed would take him years to understand, and by the time he understood he’d be in too deep to get out.
***
The surgery was early in the morning. Piper woke a few hours later to an IV line in the back of his hand, a monitor softly beeping above him, and a room that was too cold and too clean and too quiet. His mother was not there. She had slept through her alarm, he was told. His father was golfing, he was told. His twin sister, Alexis, was in Dubai with her boyfriend at the time doing whatever she was doing, probably on a yacht surrounded by cocks and cocaine.
The nurse gave him another dose of something strong as he drifted off again. When he surfaced the next time, he didn’t immediately remember where he was. The room was dark. There was a small lamp across the room. Under the lamp’s light, in the chair against the wall, Jayson sat reading a book. Piper tried to speak and couldn’t.
Jayson looked up from the page.
“You’re fine,” he said.
Piper went back under.
When he surfaced again the light through the window was different and Jayson was still there. Piper noted how long he had been sleeping.
When he woke fully, hours later, Jayson was standing at the window with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking out at the parking lot. Piper’s mother still hadn’t arrived. His father was not going to.
Jayson turned and crossed the room without hurrying.
“How is the pain?”
“Manageable.”
“Good. They will give you more if you ask.”
“I’m fine.”
