The General (Professionals 4)

“Traumatic Brain Injury is his official diagnosis. Not that it means anything. It’s a… what’s the term they used…”

“Umbrella diagnosis,” I supplied. “It encompasses dozens – hundreds – of things.”

“Exactly.”

“Is he…” Was there a nice way to say braindead?

“No,” she said, shaking her head, knowing where my mind was. “No. He has brain activity. Actually, when he’s awake, you might not even realize anything is wrong right away.”

“But there is,” I prompted, letting her know it was okay to share the details, that she didn’t need to keep them all buried inside.

“Sometimes, it is little things. Confusion. Memory issues. He has trouble finding the words he wants, or understanding yours at times. Sometimes he doesn’t even know who I am, is annoyed at me for being here. The mood swings are one of the worst things. My father was a pushover in life, letting my mom bully him around a lot since she was such a strong personality, but he was always soft, kind. Now… now he’s unpredictable. Violent. Angry. He lashes out at the nurses, the doctors, me.”

“So bad that he needs to be here permanently?” I asked, never being a fan of people being committed to hospitals for their lives.

“Some days you might think so. But he’s here because he seizes. Unpredictably. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. He will be sitting there just talking, then he will be shaking violently. Sometimes it happens if he tries to stand – though he never really recovered from the leg fractures. He doesn’t walk well. Can’t hold his weight for more than a few minutes. But if he was on his own – or if he had a live-in who just walked away to go to the bathroom, and he decided to get up and seized, he could fall. And if he hit his head again, the doctors are sure he wouldn’t survive.” She took and let out a deep breath. “Not that I think he wants to live like this, but I just… I couldn’t live with myself if that happened just because I didn’t like him being in a hospital.”

“You come here often to visit?”

“Every week after the club,” she told me. “For a few hours. And then when Dr. Patterson is here. Even though, clearly, he is sick of me hoping for new news.”

“It’s his job to check on him, to answer your questions. Fuck him if he gives you attitude. He’s getting paid for his time.” We fell silent for a long time, both of us watching the rise and fall of her father’s chest, calm in sleep even if he was unpredictable when he was conscious. “It’s not your fault, Jenny,” I told her, knowing to my marrow that no one had told her that, that she desperately needed to hear it, know it, start to believe it.

“It is,” she countered, shaking her head. “I didn’t even try to fight, didn’t try to demand they be invited despite Teddy and the senator’s objections. I was… young. And I was surrounded by all these worldly adults who were telling me all the reasons it was a bad idea. And I just… caved. I didn’t invite them. I didn’t even tell them when I was getting married. They found out because it was in the paper. It was my fault that they were upset.”

“You didn’t put the drinks in front of them. You didn’t press the keys into their hands and tell them to drive home even though they couldn’t walk a straight line. You didn’t do any of that. Those were their choices. You can’t be at fault for someone else’s poor decisions. And I know that sounds harsh given the situation, but it’s the truth.”

“I still should have insisted.”

“How old were you?”

“Eighteen,” she supplied, shrugging it off.

But it wasn’t something to shrug off. Sure, the government thought it was old enough when I had enlisted. But, looking back with a mature mind, it wasn’t. Not old enough to give my future to those who’d make me kill even when I didn’t agree with it.

And it damn sure wasn’t old enough to sign your future over to the devil in man’s clothing. One who had been courting her when she was underage.

“You didn’t know any better,” I told her, curling her deeper into my side. “And the way the senator acts now, I see that there was no way you stood a chance against him at that age, as green as you were to this world. Their world.”

Her cheek pressed into my chest, exhaling a deep breath. “Honestly, if it happened today, I still don’t think it would have been any different. I’ve never been able to stand up to Bertram.”

“I think you underestima…”

“Get out of my room!” a voice pierced through the air, making both of us jolt, surprised. We broke apart like guilty teenagers caught necking, both turning to face the bed where Bobby was sitting up, eyes bugging, jaw tight.