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“It hurts!”
His cry alerts a nurse.
“Mr. Hartley, please step aside.” The nurse rushes in. “Why didn’t you tell us your brother was awake?”
I should have, but my mind was somewhere else. I just wanted to be there comforting Matty.
The nurse calls the doctor.
“I want Mom!” Matty bucks, only to jerk back down, halted by the pain.
This time he wails hysterically, wrenching my gut and making me wish it was me on that bed with whatever injuries my baby brother is suffering from. Soon the medical team takes over and starts to kick us out of the room.
“What’s wrong with him?” I hold my position, not wanting to leave my brother.
“Please wait outside, guys,” a nurse says, herding me and Clay out of the room.
I glance at Matty through the window, watching the doctor trying to calm him. “We’ve gotta get Bjork to that mender,” I tell Clay, my voice trembling.
“Yeah. I’ll go.”
I look at my sidekick brother. While I keep staying in the hospital to keep an eye on Matty, Clay has been tirelessly running around LA—talking to the police, looking for someone to repair Bjork, and the hardest task of all, organizing our parents’ funerals. Just by looking at him, I know he’s got nothing left in the tank. I can’t ask him to go to Santa Maria now.
“Get Wyatt to pick me up in the chopper. I’ll take the bear.”
“The airport there is probably closed.”
“Well, get him to call the tower. Pay them, make them rich; I don’t give a damn. We’ve got to get Bjork there now. We promised Matty, and he’ll ask for the bear again.”
“Rob!” Matty calls from the room. “Rob, where are you?”
The doctor lets us in, saying, “We’ve just given him more painkillers. He should be alright for a while, but if he starts crying and screaming again, please call us. He is suffering from heightened anxiety.”
“I’m here. I’m here.” I rush to Matty’s side, and Clay follows.
Matty looks calm now, but his questions remain. “Where’s Bjork? Where’s Mom?”
The pain in my chest is past swallowing a sword. This is like being stabbed with a blunt knife. The agony is slow to arrive, yet when it does, it stretches long. “Mom and Dad won’t be coming back,” my voice breaks.
“What do you mean?”
I stay silent. Clay has closed his eyes, drowning in his own quiet sobs.
Matty shakes my hand feebly. “Rob?”
“It’s just the three of us now, okay?” I whisper to my baby brother.
“Okay…” Matty murmurs. “When will Mom and Dad be here?”
“They won’t be here, Matty. We have to go on without them.”
Matty weeps, perhaps because he sees his other big brother overwhelmed with tears. But the boy knows this is a loss like he’s never experienced before. All we can do is hug each other. We’re the Three Musketeers—we always will be, come what may.
But things will have to change from now on. No matter how broken I am, I’m in charge of this family now. Whoever Rob Hartley is in the eyes of the world—a daredevil, a billionaire, a bad boy—I’ll have to be a brother, a father and a mother to Matty. How I’m going to do it, I don’t know.
For now, I have to get Bjork the bear to Santa Maria.
5
