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Montie threw his hands up in the air and smirked.
“At least tell me more about how she is doing,” I reasoned with Ms. Clara.
“She is doing better, Jacob. She opened her eyes this morning and is responding by squeezing hands and blinking. She’s going to be just fine, but the doctors want her to rest,” Ms. Clara said. For the first time, she offered me a warm look. “If you wouldn’t mind giving us time to figure things out, I will call you when, or if, you can come and see her.”
“You all have to keep the noise down while on ICU, or else I’ll have to ask you to leave,” Destiny’s new ICU doctor walked over and said.
I nodded. “Thanks Ms. Clara. I know you don’t know me that well, but Destiny means a lot to me. You’ll know how much one day soon.”
“Jacob, I will call you if anything changes,” Ms. Clara said pulling my business card out of her pocket and holding it up.
“Ms. Clara?” She turned around and looked me in the eye.
“Yes.”
“I love your daughter,” I said, brooking no room for confusion in my tone.
“Love can hurt people,” she said, looking towards Destiny’s room and walking away without another word.
Montie had the look of a winner of a million-dollar bet as he walked past me heading to Destiny’s room. I walked behind them stopping at the window
. I could see her battered face; her eyes were closed. I watched as Montie fixed the pillow behind her head and sat in the chair beside her. Ms. Clara was tidying up the room. Neither noticed that I was stood in the doorway.
A part of me was tempted to walk in to be at the side of my woman. The logical side knew that it would only cause an unnecessary scene.
“Sir, the patient already has two family members in. I’m going to have to ask you to go back into the waiting room,” a nurse said, breaking me away from my thoughts.
“I was just leaving,” I said, as I took one final look at Destiny and walked off the ward.
I left Grady Memorial headed straight to Piedmont. I felt bile rising into my throat as I walked through the halls of Piedmont Hospital. Wanda had used one of my connections to find out what floor Justine was on. She was in medical detainment, so information about her stay was not accessible to the public.
“I’m here to see Justine Parker,” I said once I arrived at her nurse’s station. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was taking my chances.
“Sir, she is in medical detainment, so she can’t have visitors,” the guard who was standing close by answered.
“How long will she be here?” I asked out of curiosity.
“She’ll be going to the jail tomorrow, so you can check there for visiting hours,” the guard said.
“Thanks,” I said to the officer, walking by him as I exited the unit. I looked into the room he was guarding and caught Justine’s stare. I guessed I had to see for myself what kind of monster my best friend had become. I felt the urge to go in that room and squeeze the monster right out of her.
“Jacob! Jacob come in here! Jacob!” she started hollering once she saw me.
“You’re going to have to leave now,” the officer said. He walked over to me as the medical team ran into Justine’s room.
“I’m leaving!” I said shaking my arm free of his hand.
When I got to my car, I told Henry to take me somewhere to get a drink. Henry knew me well, so I was confident he would choose a place I could go in and de-stress. He punched some digits into his GPS and we were on our way.
When Henry pulled up to the Northside Tavern, I exited the vehicle and went in to find a seat. There was a Blues band playing and that helped take my mind off the idiocy in my life. As I sat in the tavern, I kept rethinking the things I could have done differently. It was my phone vibrating on my hip that shook me from the buzz of my third drink.
“Hello,” I said as I fumbled to get the phone positioned in my hand.
“How are you holding up, Son?” Dad asked.
“Not so good. How about you?”
“There is something majorly wrong in the accounting department at Turner Enterprises. I’m not happy about it and I need you to come fix it, right now.”
