My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Acting surprised
"No!" Sheets Ah shouted. "You can't see your cousin Quinn ever again!"
"Why?" his daughter Lily shouted back. "What happened 21 years ago to make you and your brother quit speaking? What was so terrible that you tore a family apart?"
"Lily," her mother Grace intervened. "Now is not a good time for this."
"Why not?" And why did her mother seem to be such an integral part of the brothers' feud?
"I don't want to disturb Lance."
Lance, Lily's baby brother, lay in a coma with wires and tubes running into and out of his head, after he fell and hit the back of his head on a curb during the hate crimes bill rally at the capitol.
They heard a knock on the door. A doctor entered.
Dr. Hassan Fahrakeem had seen it before. Sometimes an emergency brings a family closer together. Other times, it frays pre-existing stresses and fissures. Not much he could do about that. Only one thing in fact.
"I'd suggest you all go home and get some sleep," Dr. Fahrakeem said. "If there is any change, we'll call. But I don't expect any change right away. And there's really nothing you can do here. The best thing you can do now is to get some rest and take care of yourselves." He gave them an arched glance as he departed.
"Good idea," Lily said. She glared at her father, stepped past her mother, and whispered in Lance's ear: "Hang in there, Lance, I love you. And Greg sends his, um, regards too." Lily thought of herself as liberal, but she just couldn't make herself say "love" when it came to her brother's gay.
Lily turned to leave, faced her father. "I'm going to find out, you know. I'm going to find out what happened 21 years ago to make you and your brother quit speaking. I'm going to find out why you kept me and my cousin apart until today!"
"I told you before," Sheets replied sadly. "A disagreement over money."
"Must have been an awful lot of money," Lily said, "to tear a family apart."
She paused at the door. "By the way, your long-lost brother is just down the hall, visiting his son. Did you know Uncle Mits has a new wife, probably younger than me, from Thailand or some place?"
"What?!" Grace was shocked.
Sheets tried to look surprised, and hoped he succeeded. He didn't need to give Lily any clues. She must never learn the truth that revolved entirely around her life.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com