Harkham's Corner (Harkham's Series Book 3) (36 page)

She sighed. “I know.”

“You know?” The back of Adam’s neck prickled. His scalp tingled. It felt like every hair on his body above his heart was on end. How could she know?

“How? Who told you all this?” Zach repeated the same long strokes on her back over and over.

Adam was uncertain if the drugs they gave her had kicked in or if this was all Zach’s doing, but her eyes looked clearer, and their mother spoke with her normal, sweet voice.

“Is this the drugs, making her this way?” Adam whispered to Sally.

She was standing back, watching the entire interaction.

“No. They take about twenty minutes to take hold. Usually, I have to sing to her or play her music to calm her down in the interim.” Sally looked at Zach like she was completely impressed with his soothing ways.

“Wow.” Adam gave Zach the same look Sally did.

“Yeah, he’s good.” Sally crossed her arms over her chest.

“Thomas told me. He came and visited me a week ago,” Sarah replied. “He looked terrible. He coughed a lot. He cried. I told him not to, but he did. I stopped eating after that. If he’s going to be all thin as a rail, then so will I. It’s not his job to do that—it’s mine, since it was all my fault. I tried to kill Adam when he was inside me, and I tried to give him away for money. I wanted Thomas to be a musical star. But he wouldn’t listen.” She got a little agitated and tried to smack her head again with her hands, but Zach was too quick. He stopped her, gripping her arms tight.

It looked like a hug somehow, not a controlling hold. Her eyes were a raging war. Was she internally screaming at herself for all her past wrongs as they sat and watched her?

“You’re really good at this,” Adam blurted to his brother.

“At what?” Zach mouthed. Was he trying to stay completely in the moment with their mom and keep from interrupting their mother’s volatile thoughts, emotions and behavior?

Should Adam be doing that, too? Should he be playing into whatever her psychosis was at the moment?

Was that how this worked?

When he thought about it—any time he had an episode, Mari was completely enveloped in him and his world, ignoring everything else unless it was an emergency. Even Meg had learned that if she saw her mommy holding her daddy or helping him and he was lying down, she needed to wait patiently for her mom to attend to her.

So, unless Button was crying, Mari was all his. And even then, she’d just attach the baby to her breast and keep going—coaxing Adam through it.

How did she do that?

His heart filled with gratitude, and his eyes reacted by flooding.

He had to grip his chest to keep his heart inside his ribs.

“I love you, Zach,” Adam said out loud. He didn’t care who heard him.

“I love you, too, man.” Zach’s lips trembled. He smiled, and his eyes moistened, too.

“And Mom loves both of us,” Adam said, nodding.

He pulled the piano back over, made sure it was plugged in and did his best to play Sarah a song.

It was all he could do, since Zach already had the peaceful talking and holding part down.

He played and smiled at her. It was the song he’d created with Thomas as a child.

Sarah swayed, sung along and went into this tranquil space, her eyes glassy and her voice soft.

They stayed as long as they could, chatting about nothing at all.

“We have to go now, but we’ll come back next week on visiting day, okay?” Zach said, lifting her up and placing her gently back into the seat.

She lunged at him, clung to his waist, crying and wailing, “No! Don’t go! Thomas left, too, and he’s dead. I can feel it! He’s gone. He’s not in my heart anymore. There’s only black sludge there, and now I’m sick, too.” In a matter of seconds, she drenched a portion of Zach’s shirt.

He squatted down to get eye level with her. “He’s sick, but he’s not gone. We’re here. We’re healthy, and we care about you. We love you, all right?”

Adam squatted next to him. “Yeah, and when you love someone you don’t abandon them.”

HIs mother’s eyes turned dark when she looked over at Adam. “Now, you know. I never abandoned you. I loved you. I was shoved away like a piece of vile shit. Now.” She stood. “You.” She poked a bony finger into his chest. “Know!” She dribbled a little bit on the floor. “Don’t you ever blame me again. I said I was sorry, and I am. But I hate that you think it’s all my fault.” She was about to hurt herself again, by tossing her body at the table.

Zach caught her.

Sally came up behind him.

“Can I stay a little longer? I’ll calm her down and then go,” Zach asked Sally.

“Please do. I’ll get the okay.” Sally left.

Adam gave Zach a questioning look. What was he supposed to do? Sally didn’t say Adam could hang out, too.

“Just go, man. I got this.” Zach jerked his head toward the door.

Adam smiled. “This is why you’re so great, and why you’re my hero.”

He left his brother behind, knowing that both him and his mom would be good.

They had each other and him.

There was nothing else they could need anymore, since they had a good family where there was happiness.

* * *

Adam revolved around Thomas.

“I have to quit my job. I can’t be there. I have to be here with you,” Adam told his dad, lying in bed, looking paler than ever.

“You can’t do that,” Thomas wheezed.

Adam got him some water, helped him sit up and then fed him small sips.

“I can, too. I’ve got all that money still sitting in my account from the music. We’re going to start looking for a bigger house soon, but we can wait on that. We love our home, so we’re not in a rush.”

“Stop that.” Thomas shooed him away.

“No. I won’t. You need me. That hospice nurse is good, but she’s not me.” Adam grinned.

Thomas tried to avoid smiling, but he couldn’t help it.

“You need the happiness that is me. I make your room smell better since I shower daily, and I also make it brighter, because I have a nice smile and I sing to you.”

“Yeah, you do all those things, but you have a life. You have a family. I don’t expect your life to be all about me.” Thomas coughed, then lowered himself back down to lying flat.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adam said, putting the water down.

Thomas coughed so hard for several minutes, his face turned purple as he tried to hack something that simply wouldn’t come up.

Adam sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his dad’s arm. He hummed and was amazed once more at how the numbers were truly gone. They never surfaced anymore. The music wasn’t doing that either. Notes were only notes—nothing more.

They were his friends he put to music. They didn’t bug him and make him feel out of control.

He’d never felt so adult and completely in control in his entire life.

“Life is good,” Adam said after his dad finished his bout of coughing.

“It is. That’s why it sucks to leave it sometimes.” Thomas offered a small friendly smile.

“When I die, I’ll know my dad Thomas loved me more than anything. He did what he thought was best, and he
did
save me. He made me what I am—a decent, hard-working, talented
man
. I’ll always be grateful for that.” Adam patted his dad’s arm. “You helped turn me into Harkham’s first case, and that gave all of my life direction. That means my thanks is for you.” He leaned over and kissed his dad’s forehead.

“You give me credit for stuff I don’t deserve to feel good about. I know your life turned out great, but it’s not because of your issues, it’s in spite of them and me. You did all that on your own with your amazing personality and persevering attitude. You don’t quit. You never do, not even on me. And I’m constantly wowed by it.” Thomas rolled onto his side with some difficulty, so Adam helped him.

“Tomorrow we’ll write a new song together. How does that sound?”

Thomas made a choking, gurgling sound. His face turned blue, and he stopped breathing.

He went limp.

Adam hollered, “Nurse Sharon! Help! He’s . . . He’s not breathing!”

His father shook like an explosion was taking place inside him and then made a gagging, popping sound. “Aaaa-daaaahhhmmm,” Thomas whimpered.

“I’m right here. We’ll fix this. We have medicine. We know how to help.” Adam checked the IV, making sure it was in correctly.

He grabbed the bottle of pain medicine, but the next thing he knew, his father was unconscious.

Adam kicked into action, going into doctor mode.

He checked for a pulse. It was weak.

There was no breath, and his breathing pathway was clear.

He started CPR, and the nurse yelled a few orders at him.

“He has a strict no resuscitation order!” the nurse said, trying to push him off.

“Tough shit! He’s my dad, and we’re going to make music tomorrow. He wants to!” Adam kept going until she managed to knock him off.

“He’s got orders in place,” she reiterated, her spit flying on him as she said it forcefully.

“He never told
me
.” Adam scrambled back after his dad, trying to return into position to resume chest compressions.

But the nurse was much stronger than she looked.

She barred him from doing anything, until he whispered with a hoarse voice, “Please—I’m all he has. Just let me hold him so he won’t be scared if he’s dying.”

“All right.” She rolled him out of her grip and placed him by his dad.

Adam pushed an arm under his bony father, tugged him up into his lap, and he sang while crying, stroking his father’s shoulder and arm.

It was the song he played on their guitar. He kept screwing up the lyrics, but it didn’t matter.

Thomas sputtered a final breath with a final whisper of, “I looooove yooooou. M-my sonnnn.”

When he stopped, didn’t come back and the nursed noted the time of passing, Adam let his raging emotions scatter into the air with a new song.

“When it’s time to go, I hold you tight. You say you will, I say you won’t, but it’s not for us to say. It’s for the night and the stars. Go to pieces, that’s what I’ll do, because you are the light that helped me through. And I’m the boy you couldn’t prove, but I’m your boy. I’m always your boy. In this world and in the next—the boy you taught to be a man.”

Adam held his father’s rag-of-a-body, cried some more and all he had left to say was, “Thank you, Dad. I love you, too.”

Chapter 19

“I have so many happy thoughts,” Adam began, facing the group of people watching him. He swallowed a sip of water, then continued on. “Thomas turned out to be one of my best friends in the end. I never thought I could ever say that, but he was a mentor. He was a bright source of light even when my life is already so beautiful and colorful. He was such a source of knowledge about music and life in general that I don’t even like to think about what it will be like without him.”

Zach was in the front row, filming Adam for their mom.

“For years, I blamed him for my disabilities. But I learned along the way that most of the good things in my life—the things I enjoy, the things I learned, the people I met—they were all a direct result of his parenting and his influence.” Adam’s eyes wrinkled as he cried.

The funeral was being held in his dad’s backyard. Dustin paid for everything, including the burial to come directly after.

It seemed fitting to have it here, where Adam and Mari had married four years ago.

“Thomas never was one for a whole lot of talk. He preferred music to convey his thoughts and emotions. And even if my blood isn’t from him, I feel the same way. A song is the only way to come even close to doing justice in explaining what this man meant to me—my second father and dear friend.” Adam stepped away from his spot at the front and went to the piano Zach and he had brought outside.

He sat down and played that same song he’d played for Sarah only a few days ago. Hours before Thomas passed.

Somehow she intuitively knew he was going to die that day. She was off by a few hours, but still . . .

His arms broke into chills as he played and sang and cried.

Meg hopped up out of her seat, sat next to him and tinkered at the piano a little bit, singing, too.

She knew this song very well.

Mari got up, sat on the other side of him, and she joined in, too.

The song was almost done, but the other dozen people sitting down, all got up and surrounded the piano. They all sang or hummed along if they didn’t know the words.

Adam looked at each person in turn, and when he got to his dad, he burst into racking sobs.

His fingers kept going, but his voice couldn’t contain it.

It didn’t matter—his dad took up the slack and sang louder than anyone else.

He had an amazing voice. Dustin was the angel in the room in attendance, sending Thomas off on the wings of a dove.