“What the fuck you mean you putting me in a fuckin’ home? I’m not going to no fucking home! Remedy, you knew this muhfucka was trying to put me away?! I’m not fucking going! I ain’t fucking going!” Ernie bellowed.
Erys had been watching his father for two whole days and now he saw what Remedy was keeping at bay. Yeah, Ernie had cussed him out. Yeah, Ernie was attached to Remedy but he was attached to her because she was literally his security. He was safe with her, even in and out of his delusions she’d been a constant.
“Pop, listen,” Erys tried to intervene, only earning a shove. The nurses that came to assist with the pickup stepped up, but Remedy blocked him.
“Do not touch him,” she warned.
“It’s a nice place. You’ll have Remedy tonight, and by tomorrow-”
“Ain’t no by tomorrow, nigga. I said I ain’t fucking going. What if your momma comes back? How is she going to know where I am? Huh? No!” Ernie continued.
Erys was learning there was no reasoning with him, which is why Remedy found space in the world he lived in. Erys had been planted in reality and logic for years and he couldn’t make himself play pretend. But if he wanted to honor his mother’s final wishes, he had to and he needed Remedy to do it.
Remedy pushed the orderly holding Ernie back out of her way and grabbed Ernie’s hands. “Hey, Ernest. Look at me.”
Ernie looked at her with fire darting from his eyes. “You gon’ let them take me?”
“No, I’m going with you. Do you want me to ride with you? Will that calm you down?”
“You can’t leave me, Remedy,” he said, voice broken, tears pricking his eyes and there went Erys, feeling things again. And this one hit him in the pit of his stomach.
“I won’t ever leave you. You hear me? You and I until the end, I promised you,” Remedy comforted him before looking at the director. “Can I ride with him?”
“We typically don’t allow that,” the director said.
“I’m asking you out of courtesy. I’m going. Come on, Ernie.” With her hand clasped in his, she walked him toward the van. Before she got in, she looked back at Erys and shot him a look that read, ‘thanks a lot.’
Getting into his truck, he let out a heavy puff of air and scrubbed his face.
“What the fuck is happening?” he asked himself. The tightly wound fabric of who he had to be when he was taking lives, whether perched on top of buildings, laying on his stomach on a mountain for days, or walking through a crowded club to drop a body, no longer existed. That chapter of his life was gone and he was sitting here, watching a father he’d hated for the better part of his life dwindle to nothing.
The pain of that almost mirrored what it felt like to see his mother’s body riddled with cancer. Two parts of him he never had fully. Two forms of loneliness and abandonment, even at thirty-five, his heart still longed for family. Mentally, he’d prepared himself to never have it. But those final words from his mother’s mouth unlocked something.
“Forgive your father.”
The nursing home van pulled off and he forced himself to pull off behind it. Instead of going home or meeting Tone’s cousin in the studio. For the sake of honoring his mother and proving to his father that the knuckle-headed wild boy he remembered was gone.
The ride felt like an eternity. When they arrived, Ernie was calmer, still mad as hell, but calmer. He held on to Remedy’s hand as if she would run away. With his bags and hers flung over her shoulder, she walked into the building. Erys’ parkedhis truck nearby and roamed in behind them. Taking none of Remedy’s threats to heart, he took the bags off of her shoulder and placed them on his. He knew she hadn’t eaten and probably hadn’t slept judging by the redness of her eyes behind the thick lenses of the glasses. He had to undo some of the chaos he caused.
“Alright, Mr. Moore, are you ready to see your new suite?” the bubbly intake admin asked.
Ernie curled his lip. “Why the fuck would I want to see a suite when I have a house?”
“Ernie,” Remedy’s voice was like a balm. “We promised we were going to try it out.”
“I said that shit to get you to stop talking. I don’t want to be here, I want to be in my damn house,” he grumbled.
Remedy sighed. “Yeah, lead the way.”
She wasn’t lying when she said where she went, he went. She took one step and Ernie followed in a compliant silence. In the room, Erys stowed their things in his closet and took a seat nearby. The intake admin gave Ernie a tour of his space and he wasn’t interested in any of it. In fact, he sat in a chair and stared out the window.
“Mr. Moore, do you have high blood pressure?” the admin asked, moving on to the next part.
“He does. He’s not medicated for it, I just control it with his diet, every so often I let him splurge. The last time he got blood work, from what I found in his mail, was about two years ago. His A1C was 6.2. He doesn’t smoke, no alcohol. No known drug use.”
“He did coke,” Erys spoke up. “Thirty-five years ago.”
“Oh, well good thing we aren’t running any drug rings here,” the admin said through a nervous chuckle, finding Remedy glaring at him.
