Kathleen Hale - No One Else Can Have You

“Dom . . .”

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” he gushes, reaching for my hand, then changing his mind. “They say they can’t give you any more pain stuff for an hour and I know it must hurt. I feel all messed up over this. Not to say it’s about me, not at all, I know that’s selfish. Looking back it’s just—” He runs his fingers through his hair. “Did you know he confessed to killing that Klitch woman, too? I’m your father and I should have protected you, and I should have seen the signs. I should have known before anyone that something was the matter with Ralph Johnston. For goodness sake, I’m a . . . I’m a trained professional.” He shakes his head. “You know, your mother never liked him. She said he was weird.”

I reach out and wiggle my fingers for his hand.

Dom squeezes my wrist. “It won’t happen again.”

“I’m not going to tell you it’s okay because I really need you to be my dad right now,” I blurt.

He nods, and when I start to cry—because my leg hurts, mostly—he plucks some tissues from the box beside my bed and wipes my face so gently that it barely hurts my swollen cheeks.

I went through the list of names Dom had and circled the people I wanted to see. The rest of them I didn’t even know. Colt was one of those names I circled, but he called instead of coming by.

“This is awesome, Kippy—I mean, seriously, like, really,” he said, “it was totally worth you getting fucked up for.”

“Thanks?”

His parents got on the phone after that and said they might stop by, so I added them to Dom’s list. Who knows, maybe I’ll get some kind of reward out of it. I’m not supposed to have too many visitors, apparently, but I’m sort of a local celebrity now, and the hospital is bending the rules.

“Is that really her?” one of the nurses asked.

I vaguely remember signing an autograph for a doctor—though I’m not totally sure because I finally got more pain pills and keep falling asleep. I’m pretty sure I just saw Jim Steele trying to shake Miss Rosa’s hand and her throwing up her arms, aghast, and explaining to him the importance of distance. It seems like every time I open up my eyes there’s more NVCG members in the room. They seem to be having a good time talking among themselves and to Dom, but I’d really like to participate.

“Dommy,” I murmur, and he leans over the safety rail to hear me better. “Could you please get me some caffeine?” I ask.

“Sure, Pimple, sure,” he says, and excuses himself. Jim Steele clears his throat and stands, and Miss Rosa scuttles toward me.

“Oh Banzai!” she exclaims. “Marion and Mildred are confessing just now their relapse in Federal Express vehicle.”

“Hi Kippy,” Mildred and Marion sing in unison from the foot of my bed, sounding forlorn, like maybe Miss Rosa has already reprimanded them. Behind them, Luther and Big Jason are leaning against the wall, playing with balloons. Jim Steele is standing off to the side, looking uncomfortable.

“She can’t see you, dummies,” Luther snaps, bopping Big Jason in the head with a balloon covered in flowers that says Feeling Better Is Like Sunshine! Big Jason wrestles the balloon from Luther’s hands. Miss Rosa doesn’t reproach either of them; she’s too busy staring at me.

“I’m just saying, look at her eyes, they’re barely open,” Luther adds. “This is Luther by the way, Kippy, in case you can’t see shit.”

“I know,” I croak.

“And Mildred and Marion and Big Jason,” Mildred adds. “And this attorney dude.”

“Hi guys.”

“Why you did not call Miss Rosa, hm?” Miss Rosa tucks her chin over the safety bar, her eyes magnified behind her glasses. “Mildred tells me that at this Cloudy Meadows they give only pills, no therapy!” She makes a spitting noise. “Despicable! Miss Rosa would get you from this horrible place in, as they say, ‘jiffy.’” She nods and pets my arm roughly, cooing like an amorous pigeon. “There, touching is okay currently. I have already now written to this Cloudy Meadows doctor my displeasure at his antics.”

“How are you feeling?” Jim Steele asks, making his way to the other side of my bed.

“I feel very old,” I mutter. I put my hand on Miss Rosa’s, mostly out of affection, but also to stop her from petting me so violently. She recoils, yelping.

“You don’t age until you age, and then you age ,” Jim Steele says, staring at Miss Rosa and looking confused. “Enjoy your youth while you can.”

“This man here with his gray hair”—Miss Rosa tentatively makes her way back to the side of my bed and points at Jim Steele—“he has alerted all newspapers about your victories. The evil policeman—Steak person—he will not comment.”

I squint at Miss Rosa. “Sometimes I wish your English were better.”

“She means you’re all over the news, Kippy,” Luther says. “None of us even knew about all those charges against you till they’d been dropped.”

“You’re getting credit everywhere for solving the whole thing because of this guy,” Mildred grumbles, nodding to Jim Steele.

I look up at Jim Steele, who seems embarrassed.

“You were bragging about it just a second ago, Lawyer Man,” Marion booms.

“Yes, stop pretending this modesty,” Miss Rosa adds, wagging her finger at Jim Steele.

“What are they talking about?” I ask.

Jim Steele sighs. “Your father got in touch with me.” He explains that Dom told him about the mistake with Cloudy Meadows, Ralph’s shrine to Ruth, my broken bones. “If there hadn’t been anyone representing your legal interests, you would have had to go back to Cloudy Meadows and finish out your stay. You were contractually bound.”

“But you hate me,” I say.

“I don’t hate anybody,” Jim Steele snaps. “People around here continually misunderstand my affect.” He shrugs. “You’d bothered the hell out of me with your little investigation, but the more I heard about what had really gone on, the more firmly I believed that Staake had been negligent in his duties.” He chuckles. “Now you can’t just go suing sheriffs—it’ll take the rest of your life, for starters, and nothing will happen—especially not in Bumbafuck, Wisconsin, where everyone has a hard-on for their law enforcement.” He clears his throat. “Excuse me. Anyhow, I decided that the only way to approach it was to leak the story, get you famous, turn public sentiment, and let Staake stew in his embarrassment for a while. Simple.”

“Tell her about how they got Diane Sawyer to comment on it,” Mildred says, playing with Marion’s hair.

“You’re kidding,” I blurt.

“That young-looking old woman? Oh, for sure, I saw it with my own eyes,” Luther says. “She called you an inspiration. YouTube that shit.”

“Staake’s not man enough to fight public sentiment,” Jim Steele adds. “He dropped the charges this morning. Though he still won’t talk to the press.”

“But he’s got the gall to show up at this hospital,” Dom adds, standing in the doorway. Everyone turns to stare at him. Two cups of coffee are steaming in his hands, and he looks furious. “It’s true. The asshole’s here right now—you want me to turn him away, Cactus?”

I roll my eyes. “No, Dom.”

“Would you rather one of these guys did it, so it’s less embarrassing?” Dom gestures at Luther and Big Jason, who are once again preoccupied with the balloons. Their muscled forearms are flexing as they turn the balloons over in their hands—reveling in the notion, I guess, that they could easily pop these things and won’t.

I shake my head. “No, that’s why I circled his name on the list. I want to see him.”

“Honey—”