Chapter 524) Triage

Willow Grace Medical Center
Just hours after the last chapter

Her eyes widened fearfully, Sophie stared at Rohan, who sighed deeply while looking through a thick patient file, leafing back and forth, before looking at Sophie, Chase and Bri with a grim expression.

“Is he dead? Did I touch a dead person, OMG. I am so sorry I was mean to him; I didn’t even recognize it was Stryker, let alone that he was so sick! Thought he was some wasted homeless addict … then again, he kinda is all that …” Bri blurted out, receiving a swat on the thigh from her father.

“Bri, don’t be rude! Sorry guys, my kid needs a gag sometimes.” Chase silenced her.

“Well Bri, Stryker’s alive, for now, but barely, thanks to your quick reaction, you and your dad might have saved his life. But I think maybe we should keep the further discussion among the adults?” Rohan looked at Chase.

“Rohan no, I wanna know! Dad, I found him!” Bri instantly protested, evoking an annoyed groan from Chase.

“Bri, Stryker is very ill and not an Easter egg hidden for you to find. You are not related to him and you are a minor, so please wait outside. Here’s my wallet, get yourself something from the cafeteria or a vending machine. Or walk down a block, there’s a Starbucks. Just try not to steal any cars while unsupervised.” Chase decided.

“Very funny, dad, and I am not a little kid you can silence with candy … plus I am not dressed to go out in public. I am in an apron!” Briar Rose protested.

“Then go eat a Snickers like a 16-year-old! NOW! I don’t care what you look like, I am not sending you out to find johns to make us some money to pay for all the crap you’ve been pulling of late, just go sit somewhere outside of this room and wait for my text!” Chase’s tone was unusually firm.

Briar Rose sighed and left.

“Okay Sophie, are you okay with me disclosing the info about your husband with Chase present? Nothing against you Chase, I have to get consent.” Rohan shrugged.

“EX-husband! I don’t even know that I should hear this, but if I can, Chase definitely can too.” Sophie said.

“Well, you are still listed as his emergency contact … Soph, listen, I know things are bad between you and him, but I need to share this with someone who can make decisions in Stryker’s best interest. I called his mother too but … ahem … that didn’t go well. She won’t be coming. He’s in a bad way guys. It was truly last minute for him to be brought in, just hours later he would have been dead. I am not trying to sound dramatic, it’s dire.”

“What’s wrong with him this time? I mean, other than the obvious.” Sophie looked scared.

“Well, what ISN’T wrong with him? I don’t even know where to start and there are still more results pending. Every single reading so far has been off, nothing is okay, we don’t even know where to start treating him, to be honest, I am shocked he is still alive, cos according to this file he shouldn’t be. We have him on a drip for basically everything imaginable, once he’s stable enough, his blood needs to go through dialysis as his kidneys were about to shut down, his heartrate is so irregular we have someone on standby with the defi at all times, his stomach lining is inflamed, meaning he can’t eat or drink, but we need him to gain a significant amount of weight, almost 15% of what he currently weighs, before we can really attempt to do anything meaningful, he seems to have some sort of strange muscular dystrophy for lack of better term, he can’t move anymore, possibly a drug induced toxicity and maybe curable, but too early to even guess. Normally, we’d put someone this dire into an induce coma, but we’re all afraid he’d not wake up from that. I called Connor, he’s actually with Stryker right now to take a second look, he doesn’t even work here but we know his triage skills are unsurpassed and exactly what we need now, I thought I’d seen it all, but am at a complete loss, and don’t know where to start without making it even worse. Truth be told, the next 24 hours will tell us if there even is anything we can do, aside from keep him as comfortable as possible before the inevitable happens, I hate to be so blunt, but there is no point sugarcoating it, as I want to be clear, his chance of survival are pretty low. Which is why I am going to suggest something I know is a big ask, Sophie, but clearly, he was trying to come to you, so if you could go see him and be encouraging, tell him things you know he needs to hear, it may be a great help in getting him through this. Choose your words carefully, be kind, don’t agitate him, no accusations. If he does make it, this is gonna be a long – LOOOONG – recovery process and … I hate to say this, but he has no insurance, so it’s only a matter of time that accounting is gonna hunt me down and tie my hands down to the bare minimum.”

“Don’t worry about the insurance. Do the best you can and bill me for it.” Chase said.

“Chase …” Sophie said, so Chase grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

“Soph, he’s sick and needs help, I can help with the financial part, but I can’t be there for him, I have the tour. That falls on you, as fucked up as that is. Just go see him, try to forget what happened and just remember the good times you two had. Hell, I’d go kiss his forehead and tell him I love him and to stay strong if I thought that would do anything but freak him out more. Think it would be more effective coming from you. He probably won’t remember much of that anyway.” Chase said.

“Chase is right. Of course I will help, but one thing Connor and I already agreed on is that he won’t be able to stay here long term. Hospital policy, we need to get him into palliative or long-term care somewhere else and he may have to stay there for a very long time, if he even gets well enough to be transferred anywhere. He’s absolutely instable now and it’s impossible to predict anything, I don’t feel comfortable giving any attempt at a prognosis and so is Connor and four other specialists we have in-house. He will stay here till we have him stable enough to be transported, a few weeks, two, three months tops, sounds long, but good long-term care facilities are usually booked out for many months ahead. I am just preparing you for this. I am sure Connor will help figure this out too.”

Windenburg Isle
Hayes Estate
Several weeks later

Lowering the mail in her hand, almost exclusively ads and more bills Sophie knew she couldn’t pay, when she saw her oldest son Spencer, who had recently turned 13, walk past the kitchen.

“Spencer, honey, can you take the soup up to your dad’s room?” she called, making the boy halt and turn to her, grimacing.

“What?! No! He can friggin starve for all I care!” the recent high school freshman grimaced angrily.

“Spencer! He is your father, and you are a big boy. You don’t have to feed him, I’ll do that, but I need to finish the frosting for the cake order, get started on some cupcakes for a baby shower order and then take the baskets of laundry up and put them away or your sisters have to go to school in their jammies tomorrow, then help your youngest sister with her homework! I can’t carry the laundry baskets and the soup, and I doubt YOU would go in your sisters’ rooms and put away clothing or help Indie with first grade homework assignments.”

“I’ll put away my sisters’ clothing all day long, maybe even try helping Indie again, even though she bit me last time I made her fix a mistake, I’ll even do the cupcakes for you, but I am not lifting a finger for my sperm donor, he can call his whore to come feed him! Screw him, mom. I can’t believe you brought him here. We are *THIS* close to losing the house, one foot out the door already, because of HIM, and now he’s lying around upstairs getting pampered, he completely missed my birthday because he literally almost croaked three days before that day, so I was expected to smile and eat cake while my own father is laying around some ICU ward knowing he might die while I was over here blowing out candles? Yeah, thanks daddy dearest, happy frickin birthday to me, he’s an asshole for that and for all he did to you. And now he’s lounging upstairs like a pasha, he needs to go lay around his hoe’s bedroom, not here! Feels like Groundhog Day in the worst way. What do you think school was like for us for months after he went on his public rampage?! He screwed us all! So – screw him!”

“Spencer! Language!”

“I didn’t even say what I was really thinking, mom, but here goes: your ex-husband can go fuck off and die, oh wait, he tried that and couldn’t even do that right! What a loser! Leave him in his room when we have to move out for whomever buys our house to deal with, you know that’s coming. We’re gonna be homeless. Yeah, let’s coddle the one responsible for all of this – NOT!”

He rushed off, so Sophie sighed.
She knew she should punish him for this, but didn’t have the heart, as she knew it came from a place of deep pain, disappointment and sadness. Spencer, and the rest of the kids, should probably see someone, a therapist, but there was no money for it.

“I can do the frosting mommy and I can help Indie with homework. Just please don’t make me go into dad’s room. I won’t. He’s scary. He’s like dead, but alive somehow. He doesn’t look like daddy at all. I don’t like him anymore.” Phoenix said.

“Okay, thank you sweetie. Daddy is not scary, he’s just sick. That’s why he acted so weird even before and did all those weird things before he … moved out. Thank you for helping, sweetheart, I’ll let you pick out a toy next time at the store.”

“No, mom, we don’t have money for that, I know that, we all do, and you already work so much. I don’t mind helping. And I know why daddy did all those things. They talked to us about it at school, a whole class about addictions. So, I know.”

“Oh, my sweet big girl. Speaking of, where is your older brother. Have you seen Keanu at all?”

“Soccer practice.”

“Oh crap, I was supposed to go that and watch him. Dammit. My poor baby is gonna be the only one there not being cheered on.”

“Uh, mom, Keanu isn’t stupid. He gets it. We all do. Even Indie. He knew you couldn’t make it, so he had grandma and grandpa take him, we both know they will be cheering him on like crazy people louder than all the other parents, totally embarrassing, which is why I think he only really asked them cos he’s too lazy to take the bus.”

Sophie had to chuckle as she snuggled and kissed her oldest daughter Phoenix, the third oldest child of her five, who was doing a remarkable job putting on the icing she had made from scratch, all with the ease and confidence well beyond her 9 years of age, so with another sigh Sophie took the soup up to the guest room.

She inhaled deeply before a brief curtesy knock, her hands shaking on the doorhandle, as Sophie felt nervous and scared to find him dead, just like every single time she entered this room. She even often woke up in the middle of the night and snuck in here to check if he was still breathing or moving. The anxiety always lasted way too long, as his movements were extremely delayed and very slow. Another reason she didn’t push any of the children to go into the guest room, too afraid they might be the one to find their father’s lifeless body.

Stryker looked like a skeleton against the white sheets of the medical bed that had been set up in the guest room, his eyes looked broken when they finally opened, the few very limited movements he could make where slow like that of an old person. He looked old. Phoenix wasn’t wrong saying he looked a lot more dead than alive. As a matter of fact, he WAS more dead than alive and not out of the woods yet. He seemed to be doing better, but Rohan had warned that this could change at the drop of a hat and make Stryker become an instant emergency. His heart and kidneys weren’t functioning properly, he could suffer strokes, heart failures and a slew of other issues without much, if any, warning. He could also just die at any given moment, which didn’t instill Sophie with good feelings.

“Just some soup. Again. I know you’re tired of soup, I can’t even do much with spices, cos your stomach has to heal before we can get fancy or even have you try some mash and such. Open wide.”

Stryker did let her feed him like a toddler, when some soup ran out of his mouth, Sophie took a napkin and gently wiped it off, about to give him the next spoonful when she saw a single tear roll down his face.

“Oh Stryker, no. Not THAT now. Please. I am already on crutches here with all this. I can’t take you having a meltdown.”

She took her sleeve and gently wiped his tear off, which was when his hand wrapped around her wrist, holding on, his fingers felt like bones to Sophie. It shocked her, all the penned-up pain, anger and disdain she had felt for him suddenly vanished, and gave way to a mixture of pity, genuine care and hope. For him. For her family.
Looking at his face, looking much older than his years, his eyes, dull and sad, Sophie’s heart ached, like every time she gave him sponge baths, shocked at how little he looked like the man he once was, and more like someone who should be in a coffin, emaciated, bruised, discolored, barely alive … It was rough on Sophie, for so many reasons.

At first, they had a nurse helping out, but Stryker kept getting agitated, throwing food and medications on the floor, throwing up on them, and refusing to let them wash him, so Sophie just took over. Not like she hadn’t seen it all before. For her, he behaved.

“Stryker, be a good boy and eat. You have to gain weight, you are so underweight, you are still dehydrated, and you need your strength back so Rohan and Connor can really help you more. Getting you to gain weight on soup and medical power drinks alone is hard enough. All right, mushy moment’s over, we don’t have the luxury to get sappy here, so here comes the airplane, vrooooooooooom!” Sophie fought back her emotions made airplane noises ‘flying’ the spoon to Stryker’s mouth like you would with a small child, which managed to evoke something like a chuckle from Stryker, who had been non-verbal and barely able to walk since his collapse. Rohan wasn’t certain if it was something physical, maybe a mini-stroke or a sort of toxic shock.

Once the bowl was empty, Sophie attempted to leave, tucking Stryker back into the blankets, he grabbed a hold of her again, getting agitated trying to speak.

“Stryker stop, STOP, please. You can’t right now. Do you need the bathroom?”

He shook his head, trying to form words, getting nervous until it finally worked.

“So..rry.”

“Yeah. Well. Stryker, I appreciate that, but what am I supposed to do with that now. I have been wondering, do you want me to contact Alycia? Let her know you are … well … alive since I can’t really call the state you are in ‘okay’.” saying that name almost caused physical pain to Sophie.

Stryker shook his head so hard and looked away, when he started crying again.

“Oh Gawd. Why this now? Stryker stop, calm down. I don’t need you to have strokes and heart attacks and all that now too from getting too worked up.”

He did get calmer, his lusterless eyes locked on to hers, as he mouthed the word ‘sorry’ over and over again.

Sophie put the bowl down, then sat down again, unlike usual, when she would leave the moment he finished his meal.

“Tha .. nk…”

“Man Stryker … I know I shouldn’t be doing this. And since I didn’t get to say this to your face, but I really need to, for my own sanity: you are an asshole. And do not for one second think that me helping you means anything more than that I am trying to make sure my children have both parents. This is not an ‘us’. There is no ‘us’ anymore and there won’t be one ever again. But I will help you because of our children, and if you want to be a good dad, try hard to get better. For them. Not me. I am done.”

Lacking better options, Stryker nodded.

“Yet, you are here. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Why do I still care at all? Huh? Am I really such a dumbass, huh? Did you cast some spell on me, making me care and help, no matter how you treat me? You always hear people after terrible divorces say they wished the other were dead, I never did and clearly, I’ve proven that I mean it. I want you better. But I don’t know if I have it in me to get you there again without you doing some of the heavy lifting too. You really screwed me, Stryker. Both of us. I wish I knew why.”

A croaking sound came from Stryker, followed by the usual failed attempts to speak and him getting agitated that it didn’t work, until finally he mustered a few words.

“She … what … I … deserve … failure … loser … me … want be dead …” he was trying to say more, but it wouldn’t work, frustrating him.

“As much as I appreciate the closest thing to an explanation you have given me for all of this torture so far, I really hope you are not saying what I think you are saying. You fell off the sober and clean wagon again and instead of seeking treatment immediately you went back to Alycia because she is what you think you deserve, because you – the father of my five very confused children – calls himself a loser and a failure and wants to be dead, because what? Because your career was dying off? That’s something EVERY musician has to deal with at some point, you KNEW that, I knew that. So, instead of finding an alternative to make money, you went back to drugs and alcohol … and then Alycia because that’s whom you deserve for doing what may happen to any addict? You better not be saying all that or I will strangle you myself right now!”

With great effort, Stryker took her hand and eventually placed it on his throat.

“Tempting, but this family already had way too much drama and media coverage. And for some idiotic reason do I really want you alive and better and I may not even get that, cos they are not making me much hope that you will get better. Do you know how that feels? I know you are hurting, you must be in a lot of pain, despite all the meds, most of which barely work on you because of your addiction history, but that is self-inflicted. I did NOTHING and this is torture for me, I am hurting so much for you and for our kids. So, since your idiotic plan failed, can we do mine then? Can I count on you for ONCE?”

Stryker nodded best he could, then turned his head, lifting Sophie’s hand enough to do what seemed to be kissing it, but hard to tell.

“Say … it …”

“What? That you’re an asshole? Try stopping me from saying that! And I don’t even curse … ever! That’s what you made me into. I curse now. As does our son. My baby Spencer is so hurt … cos of you. You got so much making up to do with your kids! And I am making YOU do that. YOU! So you better get well again, and I am making you kiss everyone’s asses whom you hurt with all that. There I go again with the cursing. That needs to stop!”

“… our … word …” Stryker pressed out, barely audible, evidently continuing from before.

“Our word? We have a word? Oh. OH! You need me to say THAT word. I already said that word to you in the hospital, but Rohan and Connor both told me you may not remember or hear me. You were pretty out of it.”

“I … heard …” he smiled faintly.

Sophie let her head fall onto Stryker’s bedside, closing her eyes, mumbling.

“Then why do you need me to say it again?! I don’t want to be nice to you, don’t you get it?! You’re an asshole. And so am I, cos you screwed me over, again, you hurt me so very badly, broke my heart, and yet, here I am helping you, again. Stryker, make this mean something, try to get better. If you feel bad about everything and want to find a way to redeem yourself, get well and make sure my babies have their daddy. They are all angry with you because they are hurt, but they need you. And I will do my part to get you better, at least for as long as I can. I can’t keep the house, Stryker, it’s obvious now, so you may have to go into some facility after all and I may have to let Chase pay for it. I am losing the house, Stryker. I tried to keep it as long as I could, for the kids, but I just can’t. So now where am I gonna find a house big enough for 5 children? All the ones I can even remotely afford are 3-4 bedrooms, am I really gonna have to ask my babies to bunk together now too? Gawd, why did you have to do what you did? But if you feel bad at all, don’t you dare check out of life now. Do not die on me, get better and help me, goddammit, you owe me. But if you need to hear it from me AGAIN, here goes: Stryker … stay.”