Carbon, Dash, Ember, James, and I sat in the waiting room while Reese had surgery to repair her ankle two days after we brought her back to Croftridge. I don’t know who was more nervous, me or Carbon. Both of us were doing a piss poor job of hiding it.
Ember was quietly playing with James while I alternated between pacing the waiting room and sitting in the chair bouncing my knee. If anything happened to her, shit, if anything else happened to her, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. This had to go smoothly. I needed her. My boy needed her.
“Family of Reese Walker,” Reese’s surgeon called from the door. Carbon and I stood quickly and made our way to him.
“How is she?” I asked at the same time Carbon demanded, “She okay?”
The surgeon smiled. “She’s doing just fine. The surgery went better than expected. She had less damage than we originally thought. Still, it is going to be a long recovery for her. We were able to stabilize the joint with a plate and seven screws. I cannot stress this enough, for her to make an almost full recovery, she has to follow the postoperative instructions to the letter. That means no walking on her operative foot for six weeks. None whatsoever. I’m happy to arrange a wheelchair for her, but she previously stated she didn’t want one.”
“Arrange it. I’ll make sure she uses it and stays off her foot,” Carbon stated as if it were law.
“Great. Thank you for your help, Mr. Walker. The nurses are getting her settled now and you should be able to go back and see her soon. Oh, and I make sure you bring her son with you when you go back. She was quite adamant about making sure she saw him immediately after she woke up.” He smiled and turned to go back into the recovery area.
Getting Reese home from the hospital was a horrid experience I never want to repeat again. She was okay as long as she wasn’t being moved, but every bump or sway of the car caused her to cry out in pain. When she cried, James cried, and maybe Ember, too. About halfway home, Reese uttered one word, “Sick.”
“Pull over, Carbon, now!” I demanded. He did just that and with little finesse. Reese screamed in pain followed by a choking sound. I quickly pushed her door open and held her steady while she leaned over and threw up nothing but bile. Then, she started sobbing. She cried the rest of the way home. I held her to my chest and tried to soothe her, but nothing I did seemed to help.
When we got her upstairs, I asked Ember to watch James for the rest of the day so I could focus on caring for Reese. Once she had James settled, I climbed into bed with Reese and held her while she slept. I was still angry with her, but I was also glad she was there for me to be angry with.
The first day went pretty much as expected. She woke, took pain medicine, and went back to sleep. The second and third days were much the same with the addition of a little food and drink. By the fourth day, she was ready to get out of bed, but refused to use the wheelchair.
“Reese, you can’t put any weight on that foot. You have to use the wheelchair if you want to get out of bed,” I insisted.
“The fuck I do,” she growled.
“The fuck you do,” Carbon stated.
“I can hop on my other foot just like I did before the surgery,” she returned.
“Not happening. You could fall and undo all the work they just did and even injure yourself further. How do you think life would be with two broken arms? You want somebody wiping your ass for you?” Carbon gave it right back to her.
She attempted to cross her arms, but with one in a sling, it didn’t have the effect she was going for. “Fine,” she huffed, “I’ll use the chair.”
“Ember is on her way up. Carbon and I have to get to Church. I’ll be back this afternoon and then we have Church again tonight,” I told her.
She rolled her eyes. “You’ve met my brother, right? I’m well aware of when you guys have Church.” She turned her head away from me and muttered, “Just go.”
I should have asked her what was wrong, made her talk to me, but I didn’t. I did as she asked and left.
***
We had Church on the same day every week. Since I was the SAA, I had to be there for the meeting with just the officers at lunchtime and then go back for the meeting with all the brothers later that night.
Phoenix was never one to waste time. As soon as he banged his gavel, we started going over any business issues, revenue, etc… That didn’t take long at all. All of our businesses had been running smoothly the past few months and we were turning a decent profit, particularly from Ember’s new projects. Phoenix addressed Carbon, “I’ll do the storytelling for tonight’s meeting. Do you want to fill in the officers or you want me to do it?”
“You,” Carbon spoke through clenched teeth, “I can’t say it all again.”
I noticed his knuckles were turning white from the tight grip he had on the arms of his chair. Apparently, Phoenix did, too. “You need to step out until I’m done?”
“Yep.” That was all he said before he stood and abruptly left the room.
Phoenix turned to the officers and told them everything going on with Reese, most of which they already knew. Then, he told them the story behind the story of the murder of Carbon’s and Reese’s family.
“If the Manglers killed Tank and his family, why didn’t the club get involved? Why didn’t we even know about it?” Badger asked.
“Carbon said there was no evidence that the Manglers did it. He just always believed they were responsible. He could have brought it to me, but he was more focused on taking care of Reese. By the time they got back from their trip, I had moved the club to Croftridge. He had Reese set up with their grandmother and she was doing okay, so he pushed his suspicions to the back of his mind and focused on moving forward. Honestly, I think he completely blocked it out, but it all resurfaced when he found out Reese had been dating Omen,” Phoenix explained.
“That’s why he flipped out like he did on the way back from Devil Springs,” I added.
