15. Steph

CHAPTER 15

Steph

“I need to know that she is going to have someone around to care for her for the time being. Truthfully, I think she should be admitted for a few more days.”

“Doc, my mom and I will be there for her twenty four hours a day, seven days a week until she’s feeling more like herself. She didn’t try to harm herself, she was just overwhelmed by her situation. It happens to the best of us, just so happens my sister has pregnancy hormones on top of all the other shit to contend with.”

“I happen to agree,” The obstetrician who came to check on me stated. “I’ve spoken with Ms. Burton, and don’t believe she would harm herself or her baby. This was a combination of being overly emotional, hormonal, and dehydrated. All three can happen to a pregnant woman on a good day, but add in all the stress she has been under, and frankly, I’m surprised she made it this long without having an incident. I am happy with the family involvement Steph will have, and will sign her release order myself if you won’t.”

I had a lot of respect for the woman for sticking up for me that way. The sad part was that it meant everyone else thought that my mental health had taken a huge tumble. They weren’t entirely wrong, but I was mostly recovered from the initial shock after viewing that video. My phone still hadn’t been returned me, but I honestly didn’t want it back. I asked my brother to get me a new phone, complete with a new number.

I also made the request that my future ex-husband not be given the new number. When I was ready to hear from him, I’d reach out and not a moment sooner. He was on my timeline now.

“Mom, where are my clothes?”

She turned in a half circle before she spotted the bag my brother had gone to pack for me. The two doctors went over my dos and don’ts before they left me with signed discharge instructions.

“Do you need help or would you rather me step out for a minute while you get dressed?”

“Privacy would be nice.” She nodded at me and then walked out of the room. I wasn’t sure where Steve had wandered off to. It looked like he had the hots for my obstetrician, so knowing my twin, he went to make sure that the opportunity to talk to her did not slip away from him.

I felt so much better after getting plenty of rest and fluids. Physically, at least. Mentally, emotionally, I wasn’t so sure anything had changed. Beating myself up for not taking better care of my pregnant self, had become a refrain that my obstetrician tried to get me to let go of.

I understood that it wouldn’t do anyone any good to dwell on what could have happened, but it was all still so fresh. She was able to see if my baby was a boy or girl during the ultrasound, but I didn’t want to know. It felt a little icky not to know because I’d made the decision spur of the moment. My anger toward Ollie made that decision as it was one more thing I wouldn’t have to share with him.

Eventually, I’d have to share my child with him, and whoever else he conned into a relationship. It hurt to think about that inevitable future, so those thoughts were dismissed while I worked to get myself cleaned up and ready to leave the hospital. Dread settled heavily in the pit of my stomach as the thought of facing a gauntlet of reporters taking pictures of me came to mind. I wasn’t entirely coherent when my brother brought me into the hospital, but I remembered the camera flashes and shouted questions.

Someone knocked on the room door. “Come in,” I answered and then mentally kicked myself for not checking who it was first.

“Are you about ready?” I turned to see my mom and brother standing there. Neither of them appeared happy, as if they’d just gone twelve rounds with the cameras I dreaded.

“Yeah. Everything okay?”

My mom’s tight-lipped nod spoke volumes, but Stevie pasted a huge smile on his face and came to wrap me up in a huge hug. His smile dropped when he noticed the bloody jeans that were set aside. “I’ll buy you a new pair of jeans, sis. Throw those away.”

I nodded because I hadn’t planned to bring them home. They were a vivid reminder of what I almost lost. After the jeans were tossed in the garbage and we checked the room one more time for all my belongings, we walked out.

“Do you know where my phone is?” I asked. “The old one?”

Steve shook his head. “No, but I have the new phone with the new number you asked me for. Mom, Dad, Hutch, and me are the only ones who have the number. It’s up to you who else you give it to. Monica probably needs it because of Den, but if you aren’t comfortable with that, I can have a landline installed at home that she can call.”

“No. Monica won’t give my number to her son if I ask her not to.”

“If you’re sure,” My mom mentioned in a disbelieving tone. She was never a fan of Monica’s. There had never been a good reason for it other than Monica had insisted on calling me her daughter. I think my mom felt some kind of way about having her own daughter poached out from underneath her. It made me want to giggle every time she got all territorial.

“Mom, I know you have some kind of beef with Monica, but she would never do that.” I glanced over at Steve. “She’s probably upset that I never called her from the hospital to let her know what happened.”

Mom scoffed. “As if you needed to handle other people in your condition.”

“You could have called her. She was babysitting Den for me.”

“No, she was babysitting Den for your no-good husband. The man can’t find time to be a husband or a father these days. He’s left it to all the women in his life to pick up the slack. I’m honestly not sure Monica is the right person to babysit Denmark, or the baby when it comes, look at how her own son turned out.” Mom sniffed and stuck her nose in the air as we walked down the long, sterile hallway.

I glanced over her head to see my brother as he attempted to hide his amusement. I rolled my eyes and prayed that my maternal instincts never meant that my children were left in a war zone because I was frightened about someone else loving them.

The closer we got to the front door the worse my anxiety grew. “Maybe we should find a back door somewhere?” I suggested.

Steve came over and hugged me close to his side. “I promise, it will be okay when you leave here.”

“The cameras,” I whispered my concerns because there were a few people gathered around the lobby who didn’t mind us knowing they were staring.

“There won’t be any cameras, Sis.”

“There already are.”

Steve stopped us and looked around. He finally seemed to notice the people standing around with their cell phones raised. He glanced around to the woman stationed at the information desk. “Get security here, now!” Steve handed me off to my mother. “How about I start filming all of you?” Steve pointed at a couple as he held his cell phone up to them. “You’re wearing a wedding ring and she isn’t. Maybe, you don’t want anyone to know you’re here with your arm wrapped around her.” The man removed his arm as if it was on fire. My brother was ridiculously observant.

“Let’s go.” He ordered as soon as everyone in the lobby started to scramble out of the way. “Sorry. Ollie took care of the press yesterday, but none of us really thought about everyday people with cameras.”

“What do you mean, he took care of the press?”

“Well, when Ollie left the hospital yesterday, he stirred up an angry hornet’s nest and made sure those stingers landed in all the right places.” Steve chuckled.

“Why was he at the hospital?”

Steve cocked a brow up as we made it to Mom’s Ford Bronco. “Why do you think? The assholes had pictures and videos of me carrying you into the emergency room yesterday. They were all plastered on TV and the internet within minutes. As soon as he saw, he made his way here.”

“I didn’t see him.” It took me a minute of sifting through my memories to realize I’d heard him in the hallway. More importantly, I heard Steve yell at him and refuse to let him in to see me. Then my brother had called the nurse’s station and told them to get rid of him as he was upsetting me.

“You had him kicked out.”

“I did. You were in no state to deal with anything he had to say. Even his apologies would have hurt you in the state you were in yesterday.” I nodded because it was true.

Once I was in the back seat, Steve climbed in beside me. “You’re letting Mom drive?” I tried to whisper, but apparently failed.

“I heard that, young lady. I’ll have you know, I’ve had my driver’s license for 42 years and never been in an accident.”

“Yet,” Steve and I both said at once and then giggled. “Shit! Where’s the wood when you need to knock on it?” Steve asked.

“Oh hush!” My mother called out jovially as she backed out of the space only to immediately hear someone beep at her. “Oops!” She giggled. “Didn’t see them there.” I didn’t miss the wink she threw at my brother. It was good to know she’d risk her Bronco to get my mind off the darker parts of my life, but my twin had said something else I couldn’t ignore.

“What did you mean by him stirring up a hornet’s nest and making sure the cameras wouldn’t be here?” He hadn’t been wrong. Other than some of the people in the hospital lobby who recognized me, there were no other cameras pointed my way.

“Let’s wait until we’re at my place to talk about that shit.”

“Steve!” I demanded.

“No. Steph, I have never been so scared in my life as I was yesterday when we found you in the middle of that mess, crying, bleeding.” He clutched his fist to his chest. “We won’t discuss this until we’re in a place where you are safe, comfortable, and relaxed. I’m not trying to hide things from you, but I’m not going to upset you while we’re driving down the road either.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” He mocked me back.

“You’re such a child,” I growled.

“You’re such a child.” He teased and then stuck his tongue out at me. I rolled my eyes but couldn’t hide my smile from him. “That’s better.” My brother said as he patted my leg placatingly.

Once we were settled at Steve’s place, Mom immediately posted herself up in the kitchen and started to whip up some of my favorite comfort foods. Steve sat on the couch with me.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

He shook his head. “I took a few days off.”

“I hate that you’re missing work for me. Your firm doesn’t like when you take time off.”

“Then my firm can kiss my ass,” my twin suggested with a shrug of his shoulders. “I make my clients plenty of money and can watch things from my home office. If the firm has any issues, I will just leave and start my own sooner than I planned to originally. No biggie, Sis. Besides, you think I’m just investing other people’s money? I have my own money invested as well.”

That was true enough. My brother had gone to college for finance to make the adults in our community richer while I’d been more concerned with building a strong foundation for the children of our community and their futures.

“Okay, as long as you aren’t messing yourself up to take care of your dumb sister.”

“You’re not dumb, Steph.”

“I trusted the wrong people.” I looked him in the eye then to make my point. “Even when my brother warned me not to do it.”

Steve sighed. “I don’t want to say a fucking thing in his favor, but I can tell you one thing. I was right in the beginning, but you were right in the end. That man couldn’t help himself. He fell head over heels for you, Sis. The idiot just didn’t realize it until it was too late.”

“If he had fallen for me like that, he would have never gone there with Jia. Besides, I watched the video, Steve. I heard the things he said about me. That was only four months ago. Conveniently, it was also the day he stopped pretending we were a real married couple.”

“Nah, that part was guilt for what he had done and continued to do in order to hide it all from you. That man stood in front of a bunch of reporters yesterday and threatened their jobs, their homes, cars, and bank accounts if they bothered you again. Then he put Jia under into the fire by insinuating her car accident that disfigured her hadn’t been the only one she was in that night. Since then, the reporters have been too busy digging up all her skeletons to bother with anything else.” My twin laughed.

“Shit, Steph, I think that bitch is going to go to prison for a long fucking time. Her crimes keep adding up. She was hit with another charge of revenge porn yesterday, harassment, and a couple other things just because she sent you that video. Then there are the charges she’s facing in California for vehicular homicide, hit and run, and some other shit.”

I sat there gape-mouthed in complete shock that so much had happened in a single 24-hour period. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, Sis. Ollie’s the one who put it all out there to get everyone off your back. He also told them they’re free to keep the cameras on him, because he deserves the ridicule and shaming, since he was the one who did wrong by you. He told them in no uncertain terms that you and Den are off fucking limits, though. He also called out the school board and they’re now under investigation for the wrongful termination of a pregnant woman. So, he helped the case Hutch was building against them for you.”

“That’s all well and good, but his actions are the reason all of this was necessary in the first place.”

“Truer words were never spoken. I just wanted you to understand that you aren’t stupid. Ollie might have started things with you for the wrong reasons, but you weren’t dumb. He was. Your husband was an idiot for thinking that he wouldn’t fall for someone as perfect as my sister.”

“Thanks for saying that.”

“You don’t get to thank me for speaking the truth.”

Mom brought out a tall glass of water for me. “Drink. You don’t have an IV anymore. You need to stay hydrated.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I’d forgotten what it was like to be taken care of. My thoughts trailed off to the last time I felt pampered by anyone.

It had been a couple weeks before my husband stopped touching me. I’d had a crappy day at work. A parent yelled and screamed at me for daring to suggest that their child might need extra help to be successful in school. The woman’s husband had to pull her away before she hit me. She had done that in front of her children. I felt horrible for them and after the couple finally left, the principal had come in and told me the student was removed from my classroom. As if I had done something wrong.

Four months earlier

When I got home that day, I’d made dinner and helped Denmark with his homework. Then, I’d retreated to the bedroom and sat at the chair by the window and stared outside as I reflected on if I could have handled it any better. There didn’t seem to be a better way, though. No parent wanted to hear that their child struggled, but to behave the way she did in the face of it meant that child probably wouldn’t get the help they needed to do well. It made me incredibly sad to think that there was nothing I could do.

“What’s going on Steph?” I glanced toward our bedroom door to find Ollie standing there. “You okay?”

“It’s been a bad day and I needed a minute to reflect and think about things.”

“Anything I can help with?”

I shook my head and went back to staring out the window. In a way, it felt like a huge failure on my part, even though I couldn’t see another way that would have made things better. Ollie moved past me into our ensuite and started to run a bath. All of it was noise on the periphery of my thoughts.

“Come on, Precious. Let’s get you naked and in the tub to relax. Then, I’ll go down and get you a drink.”

“What?” I finally snapped back to reality. “You ran me a bath?”

Ollie grinned down at me as he held a hand out. I took it and he pulled me from the chair before he immediately whipped the shirt I was wearing up and over my head. “You need to relax, not wallow in whatever happened today. I guarantee, whatever it was, it’s not your fault even if you are sitting here beating yourself up for it.”

I tipped my head to the side and sighed. “It might not have been my fault, but maybe there was a better way to-”

His finger came down on top of my lips as my husband shook his head. “Nope. What happened is already in the past. You need to let it go and leave it where it is. I know you, Steph. If there is a gentle way to do something, that is what you try first. Always. You are the sweetest,” He planted a kiss on my temple as he said that. “Kindest.” Another kiss to the middle of my forehead. “Caring.” My husband dropped a third kiss to my other temple as he reached down and unbuttoned my pants. “Most loving person I know.” He kissed the tip of my nose then.

“You can’t convince me that whatever happened today landed anywhere near your shoulders, because there’s no way it was your burden to bear.” He leaned down and tapped my left calf. “Up.” I obeyed his order and raised my foot in the air. Ollie immediately removed my shoe and sock and then slid my pant leg down until it was free. He gently placed my foot back on the ground and kissed my belly. “Up.” His order was again immediately obeyed.

After everything was removed, I stood in front of him in just my bra and panties. “Into the bathroom now, sweet Steph. It’s time to go relax.”

“You’re not going to finish undressing me?” I asked in a teasing tone.

He shook his head, but the grin on his face didn’t match the denial. “If I do that, you won’t be relaxing. We’ll be doing different things. Energetic things.” He winked at me. “I’m going to get your drink. Then, I’m going to keep Den busy until bedtime. You are going to think of all the ways I can make your boneless-self feel even better once he’s asleep later. What you aren’t going to do is dwell on the things that can’t be changed.”

Ollie held true to his word that night. After my relaxing bath, long after Den had gone to bed, he had given me a few more reasons to turn all the thoughts in my head off. His words still haunted me though. It was almost like he knew they’d apply to him one day. “ What you aren’t going to do is dwell on the things that can’t be changed.”

“Do you really think Jia will end up in prison for what she’s done?” I asked Steve.

“Yeah, Sis. It’s looking like it. I don’t want you on the internet, but I will tell you that there are a lot of people coming out of the woodwork now. The wife of the producer who she was blowing in her car before the accident is one of them. Apparently, he is facing hit and run charges and a few others as well because he didn’t come forward.”

“If she was blowing him, how is the accident her fault?”

“She was performing a sex act on the person driving. His happy ending caused the wreck.”

“Oh. I guess that makes them both responsible.”

“It does.” He grinned at me. “The wife of the producer is now telling her side of the story and how Jia is the home wrecking whore she accused you of being.” Steve winked at me.

“I guess the tables turned on her.”

“Ollie turned them on her. No one had even bothered to look into what happened that night before your husband and Caleb had someone dig into her past to look for dirt they could use to impugn her character.”

“Don’t go idolizing my lying, cheating bastard of a husband, Steve. He still caused this whole circus.”

“Not saying he didn’t. You needed to know what was going on, though. Even if we go get your phone from the house, I don’t think you’ll ever hear from that woman again.”

“I never want to see that cell phone or that house again as long as I live.”

“I know,” my brother whispered as I leaned into him and closed my eyes. It used to be my favorite place. Home. It was our home until he blew our family up. I didn’t think there was any way to forgive what Ollie had done to me, to his son, to us as a family.