We shook hands again before he went back into the room, and I headed down the hall to the elevator. I texted Nesto to let him know I was coming down; grateful the visit had gone better than I expected.
As I stepped out of the elevator I looked up and came face to face with my older brother Amos, who did not seem happy at all to see me there.
Nesto
I was walking up to the elevator to meet Jude when I saw some guy getting in his face. He was taller and with dark hair, but they were definitely related.
I debated for a second whether I should intervene, since I knew Jude didn’t want to make waves during this visit. But when I saw him grab Jude’s arm like he was going to walk him out of the fucking hospital, I got my ass moving. This asshole was not going to manhandle Jude.
I stepped up to them, so I was inches away from the guy’s face and growled, “Get your hands off him, my man,” in a tone which evoked a very clear “Don’t test me, motherfucker.”
The guy turned to look at me and startled. I wasn’t even trying to control my face at the moment either and thankfully he noticed I wasn’t above throwing hands in this hospital lobby.
He let go of Jude and sneered at me. “Who are you?” Then he turned around and looked at Jude like he was repulsed by him. “You know what? Never mind, I don’t need to know.”
Jude’s face was completely devoid of emotion when he looked at the guy.
“Amos, this is Ernesto. Ernesto this is my oldest brother, Amos.”
His brother.
This fucker knew Jude had just come from seeing his sister who was dying of cancer, and he couldn’t take a break from being a douchebag and let him leave in peace. No wonder he’d been a mess about seeing these people again.
Amos stepped up to me like he was going to do something.
“I’ll fight you right here, my dude.” I was pissed and knew my body language was giving off a pretty menacing vibe.
After a moment he scoffed like an asshole and just walked into the elevator.
Jude turned toward the exit, taking my hand. He looked at his brother and said quietly, “Take care, Amos.” Then he walked away. I did the same, following him out of the building.
“What’s up with that guy, is he always like that?” I asked as we got closer to the sliding glass doors.
Once we were outside, he smiled at me and squeezed my hand. “Looks like Amos is taking up for my dad in the excessively aggressive department. Thanks for rescuing me.”
I did not like the sound of thatat all. It also freaked me out a little how placid Jude looked. I knew all this shit affected him, so this blank stare thing must be some kind of defense mechanism, which he apparently had perfected to be around his family.
“I’m glad I was here, and if you decide to visit again, I’m coming with you.Every. Time. No one’s going to be putting their hands on you like that again. Period.”
Jude just gave me a tiny smile as we walked to my car in silence. It was midday and the sun was out in full force. I gave him time to digest how he felt about seeing his sister, hoping he wouldn’t shut down again, but once we were in the car he spoke.
“I’m really glad you’re here, too. The visit went okay, but it helped so much to know you were waiting for me downstairs.” His eyes were trained ahead, and he sounded eerily calm. “Things were a bit tense at first and Mary wanted to rehashthings. Thankfully she realized it wasn’t the best thing to do and pulled out a book.” He smiled at that. “I read to her for a bit.”
“That’s good, babe.” I knew he wouldn’t say much unless I pushed him a little. Jude was a master at keeping it all surface when it came to the hard stuff.
I reached out to run my hand over his hair. I just really needed to touch him.
“How did it feel to see her again?”
He sighed and turned his face to the window, his hand squeezing mine hard. “It was weird, to be honest. The last time I’d talked to her was about a week after I came out to them, when she told me not to contact the family.”
I almost regretted not popping that fucker Amos on the mouth.
His face looked so bleak and sad. I wanted to wrap him in my arms and protect him from the world, take this hurt from him. “Even after that conversation I still thought once there was some distance between us, we would find a way to fix things, but we never did. Everything was too broken by then.”
He squeezed his eyes closed again, his face pained, like he was trying to vanish something from his mind.
It took him a minute to speak again. “My dad had a heart attack about a month after Mary came to see me.” The look of despair on his face was almost unbearable. “It was a minor one, but he never really bounced back, he’d had cardiac issues for years and never really took care of himself. He died a year after I left. I wasn’t invited to the funeral.”
