Winter Miracle Read online

  I go to call her when a nurse emerges from the corridor, looking down at a clipboard. “Mr. Beckett?”

  “Yes,” we reply.

  *

  Pops passed away last time I was in a hospital. It was a minor operation, something about his hip. He wanted to see me alone. Dad agreed, ushering twelve-year-old me into the room. Pops was weak, the color of limestone, but otherwise his usual, merry self. He took my hand firmly and said, his eyes drilling into my own, “Don’t become your father, Cay. You are your own man. Always remember that, no matter what happens.”

  He died five minutes later while I was down the hall getting a cup of coffee for my father. I remember the crash cart racing by, wondering what poor sod was on his way to Saint Peter.

  Like Pops, Hunter’s skin seems sapped of color as he lies there in the hospital bed shirtless, patches and cables running from his chest.

  It’s been almost eight hours since they brought him in. I was starting to fear the worst.

  I sit on the bed and take his hand. “It’s good to see you back in the land of the living, bro.”

  “You gave us quite the scare,” adds Colton.

  “Did we win?” Hunter asks.

  I look at Colton before turning back to Hunter. “Why don’t you just concentrate on resting up so you can get back out there and kick some ass, yeah?”

  Hunter nods, distant, his breathing oddly labored.

  The cavern expands inside me, arms of ice spreading, because I know whatever this is, it’s not going to be a simple fix.

  A doctor enters the room, his coat floating behind him. He doesn’t look much older than any of us. He stands at the end of Hunter’s bed. “How are you feeling, Mr. Beckett?”

  Colton sniggers. “Mr. Beckett—I like that.”

  “Shut up,” I whisper.

  Hunter sits up and addresses the doc. “I’m alright. I’m a bit tired, but I’ll live. When can I get out of here?”

  “I’m afraid you won’t be leaving tonight,” says the doctor.

  “Why the hell not?” asks Colton.

  “Easy,” I warn him.

  “You’re family?” the doctor asks, looking between Colton and I.

  “Yeah,” I nod. “We’re brothers.”

  “We notified your father,” continues the doctor, “but he can’t make it at present.”

  Figures. Hunter could be here on his literal death bed and Dad would be too busy wrapping up a case or fucking some bimbo.

  “We couldn’t get a hold of your mother either, I’m afraid”

  Because she’s drugged up to the hilt in rehab, I think. You’d need an entire liquor store to lure her out of that hole.

  The doctor takes a breath before speaking again. “I’ll cut to it. You have aplastic anemia, Hunter.”

  “Plastic what?” says Colton.

  The doctor focuses on Hunter. “It’s a rare condition where the body stops producing enough new blood cells.”

  “But all this is new?” I tell him. “He’s been fine up until now.”

  The doctor faces us. “It can develop at any age, and quite suddenly, but you should know, all of you, that it’s a very serious condition.”

  Hunter speaks, weak, but trying to put on a brave face. “Okay. How do you treat it? The facts.”

  The doctor nods, he likes facts. That he can provide—cold, scientific truths. “You’ll need medication, and most likely a stem-cell transplant, otherwise known as a bone-marrow transplant. We’ll need to run more tests, but given the severity of your case, a transplant is likely the best option.”

  Hunter takes it in. I watch his Adam’s apple drop. “I need a donor, right?”

  The doctor nods. “That’s right. This is a good choice for someone younger, like yourself, with siblings. It’s very important possible donors are a strong genetic match.”

  I step forward and pull up my sleeves. “I’ll do it. Right now. Let’s go.”

  “Cay…” says Hunter.

  “No,” I state. “Fuck that. I’m your brother. We’re blood. You’d do the same for me.”

  Colton and Hunter exchange a strange look. I suddenly feel like I’m missing out on something, something I can’t quite grasp. “What?”

  Hunter trains his eyes on me. “You can’t, Cay.”

  “Can’t what? Donate?”

  Hunter exhales, knowing the impact his next words will have, because somewhere, somehow, my head’s already cluing in. “You’re not a genetic match, Cay.”

  I laugh, nervous, looking to the doctor for support. “What do you fucking mean I’m not a genetic match.”

  Silence builds, the room closing in.

  Indy, where are you?

  Colton takes a step towards me, his hands out. “Cay, you were adopted.”

  I take a step back. “Bullshit. This isn’t funny.”

  Hunter says, “He’s telling the truth, Cay. It’s a bitch you had to find out this way, I know, but…” He can’t even finish the sentence.

  The doctor squeezes between us. “Perhaps I’ll come back later.”

  I block his path. “No, stay. We’re just having a little family prank here, right, boys?”

  The expression on their faces tell me this is no prank.

  The room grows smaller and smaller. I can’t take it anymore. I throw my arms up. “Fuck it. I’m out of here.”

  I stumble back for the door, shoving it open and half-walking, half-running down the hall, not stopping until I’m clear of the hospital completely, sitting in the driver’s seat of the Mustang unable to move, aware only of the tick-tock of my pulse and the sweaty film on the back of my hands, the cold creep that’s crawling under my skin.

  Adopted.

  No. No way. I’d know.

  Would you? Even you admit you don’t look anything like your brothers.

  I smash my hand against the top of the steering wheel. “Fuck!”

  Everything is going to hell.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  INDY

  The knot in my gut is twisting tighter. Kneeling beside Cayden, his brother being carted away, I could feel it again—the stony hand of uncertainty reaching into me. I know Cayden could feel it too, his skin ice cold when I reached out to comfort him.

  Here, back at campus, I’m powerless. I’ve tried to call, text, but Cayden must be too tied up at the hospital. I considered going down there, showing my support, but the last thing I want to do is impose.

  That’s not true. It’s because you’re a coward.

  Perhaps. Ever since my time in the burn unit at New York Presbyterian, I’m scared witless of hospitals. I think of them and only ‘pain’ echoes back at me, hours of agony lying on my side, unable to put any pressure on the burn, hot ants burrowing under my skin twenty four hours a day. I had no one save for the nurses, their shifts changing too frequently to build any kind of genuine rapport. The skin grafts were the worst of all, not that they did much good. My shoulder still looks like it’s covered in bubble wrap.

  I pace around the dorm room thinking, trying to work out what to do.

  The door opens. Naomi enters. She immediately knows something is up, that motherly spidey-sense in action. “What happened?” she asks.

  I take a seat on the bed, fiddling with my cell. Breathe. “Something happened at the game tonight.”

  She sits on her bed opposite. “The game?”

  I thought everybody on campus was there, but apparently not Naomi. “Hunter, Cayden’s brother, was taken to hospital. He collapsed on the field.”

  She soaks it in. “Is it serious?”

  I check my cell again. No missed calls, no texts. I hold it up. “I don’t know. I can’t reach Cayden.”

  He needs you.

  “Damn,” says Naomi, “but maybe it’s best, if you just wait it out a bit, I mean. He might need space”.

  “He needs me. What if…?” I don’t want to verbalize what I’m thinking in fear it might somehow force it into reality. But no. No one dies on the football fie
ld like that, especially with no other players around.

  Concussion? I didn’t see Hunter take any hits to the head.

  Naomi reaches forward and takes my hands. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t like hospitals very much. That’s all.”

  Naomi smiles. “Who does? I had my tonsils out when I was five. Talk about a traumatic experience…”

  I could confide in her, tell her about my burns, but that would only raise questions—questions I cannot answer.

  “Look,” she says, “do you know where they took him?”

  “Who?” I’m not thinking straight.

  “This Hunter?”

  “Elmore County, I think.”

  “Why don’t I go and make some calls? I’ve got some contacts in that area, see what I can find out?”

  “That would be great.”

  Naomi squeezes my hands again, smiling, before getting up and walking out.

  I sit there playing with the edge of my pillow, wishing none of this had happened tonight, that the Trojans had won, that Hunter had never fallen, that Cayden and I could celebrate.

  Naomi returns in fifteen minutes.

  “Okay,” she says, standing before me with cell in hand. “From what I was able to find out, Hunter’s okay. He came to an hour or two ago, but that’s all I got. I asked about your friend, but the nurse said only the younger brother was there. The other left a while ago.”

  Left? Why didn’t he call me? “Do they know what happened to him, to Hunter?”

  Naomi shakes her head. “They wouldn’t give out any more information—patient confidentiality and all that.”

  “Thanks,” I say, but I can’t stop the questions coming. Here I thought I mattered to Cayden, but he can’t even bring himself to send me a simple text?

  You’re being selfish.

  I pick up my bag and stand. “I’m going to their house, see if he’s there.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Like I said, maybe he wants some space?”

  I know Naomi means well, but it sounds insulting. No, he needs my support, whether he knows it or not, whether he wants it or not. No one was there to support me. I’m not going to let the same befall someone I’ve come to care for.

  “Indy…” begins Naomi, full mother mode engaged, but I’m already out the door.

  *

  I knock and call. “Cayden?”

  I peer through the glass of the Beckett house, sure I can make him out.

  “Cayden?” I call again. “It’s me.”

  The door flies open. I reel back.

  It’s Cayden.

  “What?” he barks.

  The tone of his voice is unexpected.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “No,” he says, elaborating no further. “It’s not.”

  “Can I come in?”

  He steps aside.

  I walk into the house, but given the welcome, it may as well be an ice cave.

  You can’t blame him. Who knows what he’s been through in the last couple of hours?

  I stand in the middle of the longue. “The hospital said you left.”

  He walks away from me towards the kitchen. “I had shit to do.”

  I shake my head behind his back, following him in. “Your brother’s in hospital.”

  He spins around with a beer in hand, aggressive. “You think I don’t know that? Fuck him. Fuck both of them.”

  He uses his jersey to unscrew the top and sinks half the beer, looking away from me.

  What’s going on? What don’t I know? “You don’t mean that.”

  He finishes the beer, slamming it down on the counter before speaking, practically stabbing the words at me. “They don’t give a fuck about me. Why should I care about them?”

  I come closer but stop. “Cayden, what happened?”

  He laughs, shaking his head, his hands pressed to the marble. “You want to know what happened? Okay, I’ll tell you what fucking happened. They told us Hunter’s got some rare-as-shit disease, some blood disorder that only a bone-marrow transplant is going to fix.”

  I don’t know what the disease is, but I can infer what needs to happen. “But you and Colton are family, right? Either of you could donate, or your mother, your father…”

  Cayden laughs again, looking up to the roof. He brings his hand down hard on the bench. “Father was ‘too busy’ to fly down. Mother? She’s not donating shit given what she’s pumped into her body over the last decade. Colton? Sure. He’s good to go, but not me. No, no, no.”

  He’s manic, which is understandable, but I’m still missing something. I try to approach him, but he steps back. “You’re not making any sense.”

  He slaps his hand down again.

  I flinch, for the first time, scared in front of him.

  “You know what they told me, my so-called brothers?”

  “I don’t.”

  He steps forward and now I take a step back. “They told me I was fucking adopted. Can you believe that?”

  The pain of the words is distorting his features. “What?”

  He spells it out by hitting the counter. “I. Am. Fucking. Adopted. I’m not a Beckett. I never was. The joke’s on me, right? And the worst part? My fucking father never had the balls to tell me. I had to hear it from those two, who knew all along, by the way, who have known for years and never thought to tell me”

  “Maybe they were waiting for the right time, protecting you?”

  He’s shouting now, losing it. “Bullshit. They wait until one of them almost drops dead before saying anything? What if this never happened? What if I never found out?”

  “Does it really matter?” But as soon as the words are out, I know they’re only going to enflame the situation.

  “Does. It. Matter?” he bellows, eyes wide, his frame huge, towering over me. And I want to leave. I came here to help, but my presence is proving to be the exact opposite. Naomi was right. He needs time to process this, whatever it is, this new development.

  “I’m trying to help you, Cayden,” I plead, close to tears seeing him torn up like this.

  He nods. “Help, you say? You want to be in a relationship with me. You want us to be open, but how the fuck am I supposed to do that when you won’t tell me anything about why you’re here, where you’ve come from?” He’s deflecting, directing his anger at me because I’m the only person standing in front of him right now.

  “Cayden, you don’t understand…” I start.

  “I do fucking understand!” he shouts. “I understand that you don’t trust me. I understand you don’t want anyone knowing about us become you’ve got some reputation, some high and mighty image to protect.” He’s pantomiming. “Because god forbid you hooked up with the quarterback, let him fuck you.”

  I hold the tears back. “You’re angry. I get that, but there’s no reason to take it out on me.”

  “Yeah,” he says, simmering. “I’m angry alright. I’m angry because you’re just as bad as them, keeping things from me, hiding things from me and expecting the complete opposite in return. Well, I’m here to tell you I’ve had enough.”

  A tear slips down my face. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you should fuck off to wherever you came from, go hang out with your fucking daddy figure.”

  “My what?” I ask, lost.

  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed. I’ve seen you speaking with him. He’s old enough to be your fucking father, Indy.”

  And now it makes sense.

  “You don’t understand,” I beg, but I’m repeating myself, making it worse.

  He raps on the counter beside the beer bottle. “And there it is—the big freeze. In fact, I think this is entirely the other way around, isn’t it? You just wanted my cock, didn’t you? You wanted a story to tell?”

  I’m almost hysterical, blinded by tears. “Cayden, you’re not yourself. Talk to me.”

  “No!” he screams, his arm lashing out at the beer bottle, projecting it acro
ss the room.

  We both turn, follow its trajectory, watching in horror as it heads straight for the giant mirror on the lounge room wall.

  They shatter—the mirror and the bottle as one, green glass and mercurial fragments of silver spilling to the carpet.

  Seven years of bad luck.

  It’s a sign.

  It’s settled.

  Cayden realizes it, sees it on my face, but it’s too late.

  I’m running, running even though he’s calling my name.

  I get outside and I sprint, my legs the only thing I feel, my body and mind numb.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CAYDEN

  You know this isn’t a good idea.

  I’m walking around campus looking for Indy. I didn’t sleep at all last night, my head tossing over and over what we fought about, how my stupid fucking mouth got the better of me.

  Yep, a Beckett through and through.

  But I’m not. The idea seems so abstract now, that all these years I’ve grown up with my so-called brothers when in reality they’re strangers. I’m as far from a blood relative as the maid and cleaner back in New York.

  They don’t see it like that.

  Bullshit. And my so-called parents? Even worse, and they knew—everyone except for me, a big, family joke. My real parents could be crack addicts for all I know, carnies, criminals… My head pounds with the possibilities, with genuine pain unlike any I’ve felt before. It’s worse than the hardest tackle, the biggest pile-driver. It’s deep down inside my gut where no one can get to it, a physical, all-consuming pain.

  Coach passes by me, doubling back. “Cayden.”

  I stop. “Coach.”

  “Where were you this morning?”

  Hunter’s lying in the hospital and Coach still runs training, but that’s Coach for you.

  “I couldn’t make it.”

  I expect a tirade, but maybe he sees I’m not in a good place right now, maybe he knows. He takes off his cap, swatting at invisible insects. “Son, I know you’re hurting, thinking about your brother, but he’s alive, isn’t he?”

  “For now.”

  “And you? Are you alive?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Which means that if you’re here, on campus, you need to be at training, even if the world is ending, even if an A-bomb’s falling from the sky. Hunter’s out for who knows how long, my safety’s missing a brain, which is why I need my quarterback in fine, fucking form.” He taps my chest with the brim of his cap. “Is he in there, Beckett?” the name nothing but offensive now.