“Sure,” I reply. “Text me the name of the hospital. I’ll head down there now.”
I don’t mention to her that I’m not in my apartment. She doesn’t need to know anything of what’s happening with Lila. I can only imagine what she would think of me, if she found out that I’d hooked up with a woman barely half my age and gone on to have kids with her. When we were together, Martha made her opinion on the kind of men who went after much younger women clear, and I doubt I would be spared from that judgment.
I emerge from the bedroom to find Lila feeding the twins—Ross at her breast, Mathilda perched in a chair beside her. She looks over at me with a smile on her face, and my heart twists in my chest. God, I wish more than anything that I could just find a reason to stay, but I know I have no choice.
“Sorry, I know I should have gotten you up when they woke,” she remarks. “But you looked so peaceful. And I don’t know how much old people need to sleep…”
I grin, chuckling, as I run my hand through my hair.
“I just got a call,” I tell her, gesturing to my phone. “I need to head in to the hospital, take care of a case there. Can I use your shower before I go?”
Her face falls slightly, but she nods. “Yeah, of course,” she replies. “The water pressure is pretty crummy, but you’re welcome to see what you can get out of it.”
“Thanks,” I murmur, and I make my way over to the twins, greeting Ross by holding out my finger for him to take hold of. He does so at once, hanging on tight, as though he has no intention of letting go. “I wish I could stay longer?—”
“Maybe another time,” she suggests, without any hint of pointedness in her tone. I feel even guiltier now, knowing that I’m misleading her about my reasons for getting out of here, but I’m not ready to put into words everything that has happened to bring me here.
I wash up, get dressed, and kiss Lila goodbye. It all feels domestic, in a way, though not the part where I have to go deal with my son, who’s managed to land himself in more trouble than he can handle again.
When I get to the hospital Martha texted to me, I introduce myself at reception, and the woman at the desk shoots her eyebrows upward.
“Oh, you must be here for the man in room two-forty,” she remarks. “Good luck. I heard he hasn’t been easy.”
I manage a tight smile in return and head for the stairs, taking them slowly so I can put this off a while longer. All too soon, I arrive at the door, and the guard who seems to have been placed on it pushes it open for me. Jesus, what kind of trouble has he been causing that they need to have someone here to keep him on lockdown?
As I step inside, my heart sinks. It doesn’t matter how used to it I am by now, I will never be anything other than hurt seeing my son like this. There’s a cut over his head that has bled prodigiously over his face, and a bruise on the side of his jaw that looks to be turning purple already. His knuckles are cut up and bloody, and he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, staring straight ahead, refusing to so much as make eye contact with me.
“Thomas?”
Finally, he seems to register that I’m in the room, and he casts a look in my direction. For a moment, we just stand there, staring at each other, neither with anything to say. How long has it been since I last saw him in person? I should probably be ashamed by the answer, whatever it is.
His jaw clenches when he sees me. “Mom sent you?”
I nod. “She told me that you got brought in this morning,” I explain, as I clean myself up and go to find some antiseptic and something to cover the wound above his brow. “But she didn’t know what happened to you, or what kind of state you were in.”
“I’m fine,” he mutters. “Just stopped to catch my breath, and someone called an ambulance because of the blood.”
He winces as I press a cotton ball against his skin, cleaning him up as best I can. He doesn’t protest or pull back, which means he must be truly exhausted. He’s usually got something to say about people trying to help him, constantly digging his heels in to make it as difficult as possible for those who give a damn about him.
In silence, I cover the wound, using a small bandage to pull the two split pieces together. The bleeding has mostly stopped, so I wipe the rest of it off his face. For a moment, he looks like a little boy to me again, like I’m just a worried dad cleaning the mess up after he fell off his bike or something.
I move to the sink. With my back to him, I decide it’s as good a time as any to try and figure out the truth.
“What happened, Thomas?”
“What do you mean?”
He’s playing dumb. I gesture to his knuckles. “You didn’t get those by accident,” I point out. “You were fighting someone. Someone who got the better of you, by the looks of it. So, you going to tell me who it was? And why you were trying to fight him?”
“Decided you’re going to start acting like my dad all of a sudden, huh?” he mocks me, an edge to his voice that I can’t ignore.
I tense. “I’m trying to help you, Thomas. If someone out there is going to press charges, the more I know about it, the better.”
He pushes a hand through his hair, a gesture I recognize all too well as one of my own, when I’m under pressure. Nobody has pressed charges against him before, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t start now. Normally, when they take a look at his mother’s social status, they decide it isn’t worth the hassle, but I’ve found myself almost willing them to risk it, just to show him that he can’t keep doing anything and everything he wants.
“Some fucker was out with my girl. I had to deal with him.”
“Your girl?”
