On the Mend

Roger tried to use the distraction to come at me again, still feeling his bulk was enough to take me down. I stepped forward to meet him, put a jab to his throat, and it called him up short. For a moment, he stood there stunned, his mouth moving like a fish out of water before collapsing to the ground. He looked up at me, not entirely understanding what had happened.

"Sara, look away baby girl," I said.

Once she was looking the other way, I took a wind-up kick to Rogers's balls putting as much force as possible to the guy's neither region. He rolled to the side, gasping for breath. When he moaned, Sara looked back.

"Sweetie, can you please go call 000 Emergency, letting them know your dad has been attacked, and I defended us both. Can you also let them know we have a recording of the entire incident and expect both Police and an ambulance here as soon as possible?" I said.

Sara, who had now wrestled her way out of Louise's grip, ran back to her room, slamming her door shut. Good girl.

I grabbed Roger by the ear, then learned in speaking quietly into the held ear while looking at Louise, my eyes burning hatred.

"Listen up fucktard, you took my wife and came to my house thinking I was going to be something I'm not, but now you're lying on the floor in pain, about to be arrested. You have no idea what you've unleashed or how I am going to fuck up your miserable life. Think you're a big man, I've just made you a eunuch."

I let him drop to the ground as I released his ear.

"What have you done?" Louse yelled as Roger slumped, then she ran around me to him. "Cameron, what the hell have you done to Roger?"

I shrugged, looking at the woman who, but a few months ago, I would have given my own life up for, today I wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire.

"Doesn't matter, Louise, tonight you and the eunuch here didn't even ask after myself or my daughters before you both laid into me. You didn't ask Sara how she was or where any of us have been. You just went along with shithead here and his agenda."

She looked at me, staring as she crouched over her fallen lover.

After a few moments of silence, I filled the dead air. "Not going to ask? Then let me tell you. Because you ran off with the fat fuck for the weekend, our daughter and her boyfriend came to spend time with me because she's not dumb and figured out something was wrong even when I tried to deny it. Before long, Rose and Toby were here as well."

"Oh, Cameron you didn't," She whined.

"No, I didn't. Carrie and Robbie did. They're smart, intelligent and knew how to read between the lines," I responded. "Anyway, they came round to be there for me unlike you were, then went home later that night with a promise to bring breakfast Saturday morning while we figured out how to deal with you and lover boy here." I thumbed my way over at a groaning Roger on the floor.

"Anyways...." I said, drawing the word out, knowing I was getting the hard part. My voice went quiet. "Rose and Toby were on their way over here with breakfast from Mumma's when they were t-boned by an out of control semi, Toby is dead, and Rose is fighting for her life in hospital. It's been all over the news, so if you and nutsack here had bothered to look at the news or even ask, then you may have found out that because of you, one of our friends is dead, and another may not live..."

I let that sink in, but after a moment, Louise had the nerve to snarl at me.

"It's not my fault Cameron. We told you to say nothing. If you had kept your mouth shut, they would be alive. It's your fault they are dead, not mine."

"No, it's not mother; it's yours," our daughter said, standing in the doorway. She looked at me. "Police and Ambulance are on the way." She looked back at her mother.

"I have no idea who you are, but you are not my mother, it's your fault that uncle Toby is dead, not dad's. If you hadn't cheated on dad, this never would have happened." She looked down at her hands. "And it's my fault too. Maybe if I said something to dad, he could have stopped this."

"Sara..." I started to say.

"No dad, I know I should have said something, but the blame lays at her feet!" she said, pointing at her mother. She retreated to her room again, Louise and I just stared at each other.

We could hear the emergency sirens now, no one said anything as two police cars turned up and suddenly mayhem was everywhere. Louise tried to explain that I had assaulted Roger, the reject groaning on the ground. When questioned if this was her husband, she stuttered, explaining that I was, but I had still beat Roger. I gave my version of the story, the ambulance arrived, and a very sore Roger was taken out on a stretcher.

The ambulance left, and I think the police were closer to arresting me because I was the guy assaulting someone, my wife was again swearing that I was to blame for everything when Sara came back into the room.

"Um, I'm sorry, Mr Officer," she said to the guy interviewing us. "But I have a recording here that confirms everything that my dad said, including that the man said he would kill my father and that my mum would lie to protect him against my dad."

She handed the officer a USB drive.

"What, how, Roger smashed your phone?" Louise said, not understanding the police were still in the room listening.

"Mum, dad had a feeling that something might happen, so when I went to my room, I put my phone at the base of the door to record everything." She looked over at the officer. "I'm sorry that I have to say after hearing everything, I don't feel safe around mum. Can you please not make me stay with her? But, she did say that she would back that man up regardless of what he did to dad. I heard him hit my dad at least once. So, I'm scared." Sara said, moving to me and hugging me while glaring daggers at her mother.

It didn't matter after that. Sara, as a minor, had evidence and made a statement against Louise. So, my wife was arrested, taken to the watchhouse for the night. As Louise was led out, she glared at me but said nothing.

After everything, we didn't have time for sleep, so tired as I was, we had a shower and changed. Then, I had a coffee, then drove back to the hospital. When we walked into Rose's room, Carrie and Robbie were sitting in a couple of chairs, leaning on each other. When Carrie saw my face, she gasped.

"What happened dad?" when she saw the bruise beginning to form on my face where I had been struck. We spent the next few minutes explaining the visit from her mother and Roger. I then explained I had kicked him in the nuts making sure he knew I was no cuckold. We heard a muffled grunt from Rose, finding her awake eyes looking at me with sadness.

"Rose," I stammered, "I'm sorry, Petal, if I had known you were awake..." I trailed off, realising I had been relating part of Toby's demise in front of her. Of course, she knew when I'd acknowledged it from earlier, but I still should have been a little more sensitive.

I saw her right arm move slightly, like most of her body, it was covered in bandages, at least one of her fingers was broken, but she tried to lift her hand, I was there instantly, trying to grasp it without causing her further harm.

"Are you okay Rose? Can I get you anything? Do you need a nurse?" I asked then added. "Give me one blink for yes and two blinks for no. She blinked twice, three times slowly. But curled her unbroken fingers against my hand, I didn't move for the rest of the night.

[:::: - 5 - ::::]

The next couple of weeks moved very quickly. Louise's parents bailed her out of jail the following day, then proceeded to call me every name under the sun until Carrie set them straight.

When Louise got to work a few days later, she was just in time to be served by the process server her divorce papers then see the same process server serve papers to the company owner. As a result, Louise was on leave without pay, suspended pending a review and living in her parent's spare room by the end of the day.

She had returned to the house while Carrie and Robbie were there resting, they watched her like a hawk as she gathered a few belongings then did the walk of shame back to her parent's waiting car. Carrie hugged her grandparents but let it be known that her mother would never be welcome in the house again. In Carrie's view, after the altercation with Roger and I, she not only viewed that her mother was a shameless slut, but had blood on her hands due to the accident.

It took almost that first week before they felt comfortable removing Rose's breathing tube even though she was awake. But when they did, her first croaky words were for me.

"Cameron, are you alright?"

I baulked. "Rose, how can you ask that?"

She smiled sadly. "It's alright, honey. I knew about Toby before you told me. I hoped beyond hope, but in the minutes after the accident, we were stunned but awake. We professed our love for each other, but somehow he knew he wasn't going to make it, but I was."

She was crying now. "After I woke up the first time, I was so out of it, but I recall your eyes confirming he was gone."

I sat down in the chair beside the bed, taking hold of her right hand, still damaged, but it was whole, unlike her missing left hand. She whispered to me in a conspiratory tone, even though it was currently just the two of us in the room.

"Last night, I had a dream, though, Toby came to me in the dream, and he was beautiful. He wasn't hurt and looked good." She smiled, "He told me that it was alright, it was his time, the accident was no one's fault, not even Louise's." I looked at her and her smile wained a little.

"I know, right, just like Toby to not blame anyone. Anyway, he told me that he loved me, but it was now my job to look after you. Cameron, he truly loved you like a brother and was so upset at what happened to you."

I looked at her, "Rose, you're the one that needs looking after. Seriously, have you not noticed that you're missing a hand?"

She laughed then, holding up her stump a little, "I am pretty armless now, aren't I?"

I couldn't help it. I snorted.

"I suppose it's my job now to give you a hand when you need it." I retorted.

She groaned, then laughed good-naturedly.

"I'm serious Cam. I miss Toby something fierce, but that dream, I feel peaceful, and he made me promise to look after you."

I held up my hands, she giggled. I smiled back. "Alright, you win. You can look after me." Rose looked smug. "But only after you're out of here. Until then, it's my job to look after you."

[ :::: - 7 - ::::]

As opposed to those first two weeks, the next few months went by slowly. If I wasn't at work, I was at the hospital with Rose. If I wasn't at the hospital, I was packing up the house at home. The girls and I had decided that we would sell the house and move. There was a place just outside of Crow's Nest in Northern Sydney I managed to get for a reasonable price as well as get a decent deal on our current place. The new house was smaller but was close to transport as well as the medical centre. It had three bedrooms plus a study nook, and if you looked out the master bedroom window while standing on your tiptoes, you could see Sydney Harbour in the distance.

My divorce from Louise was in full swing. The girls refused anything to do with her, the few calls they had with their mother did not end well for Louise. Sara, our easy-going daughter, had turned as tough as nails scowling anytime her mother was mentioned.

Carrie had all but moved in with Robbie during the past month, which I didn't mind, though Louise had called me out on it a dozen times, in between calling me a gutless cuckold and pathetic lover. She was not doing well living in her parent's house in a spare bedroom. They had called me a couple of times to see if I could reconcile, but after I played them the audio recording from that night with Roger and Louise from Sara's phone, they apologised then stopped trying to fix our issues.

If Louise's life was on a spiral downwards, Roger's had plummeted like a rock to the bottom of a pond. He had to have one of his testicles removed, and while he named me in a lawsuit, the police have told him he could sue me, but it would end badly for him because he was the one at fault, I could easily argue the defence of my house and family. After a single week's review, his workplace had promptly dismissed him for bringing their firm into such disrepute. They did this to try to get me to drop the suit against them. However, my lawyer had sniffed blood in the water and was negotiating a settlement with them.

Roger's wife had also gotten a copy of the recording somehow. I swear it wasn't me, but I did get some sly looks from Sara a few times. I had no idea how she found her, but one evening I got a call from a Miranda Fellworth, then over an hour, we exchanged stories. She had suspected Roger cheating on her several times, but this was the first time she had solid evidence. It turned out that much of the Fellworth money came from a trust from Miranda's grandparents. It had put Roger through law school many years ago, due to it being a family trust he was not a part of, Miranda told me he would get nothing. They also had kids, one of them had aspirations to be a lawyer, but Miranda suspected that might not be the case once he found out about his father's philandering ways.

Roger was now living in a cheap, night by night hotel on a credit card approaching its limit. He was having little success finding a new job, I honestly hoped it stayed that way.

Rose was doing a little better each day, so a month after the accident, she was able to leave the hospital with a nurse for a few hours so we could all say a formal farewell to Toby. It was strange, we were all sad, but Rose, of all people, smiled a lot, she laughed with people around stories they told, and when she did cry, she always ended up making the other person feel better about themselves.

In terms of injuries, Rose's legs were still in casts. She still had a number of bandages wrapped around her, including her head and her left forearm was wrapped up tight. She had a scar that was still red that ran from above her left eyebrow on her forehead, down over the bridge of her nose and over her right cheek. The doctors said they would be able to fix it with plastic surgery in the future if it didn't heal and fade like they expected it would.

At the funeral, I made sure I was the one to push Rose's wheelchair around as she greeted people. Her nurse smiled at me, never more than a few steps away, but she deferred to me to help Rose.

A further month after the funeral, I was sitting in Rose's hospital room doing accounts and paperwork when I felt her gaze upon me. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, putting down the invoice I was working on.

"What is it, Petal? Do you need something?" I asked, turning to face her.

When I turned to look at her, I was surprised. Rose was staring at me, tears streaming down her face.

"Cameron, I..." she tried to say. Instantly I was there, my arms around her. I held her as she cried, I looked at her monitors, aside from a slightly elevated heartbeat, she was fine. This was emotional. The hospital psychiatrists said this might happen. From the moment she woke, she was concerned for others, not herself.

"Shhh, Rose, it will all be alright, I'm here, I've got you. You will never need to walk alone; you know that?" I said, comforting her.

She cried more, nodded, holding onto me with her good arm, now free of bandages.

"I know Cameron. I just miss him, you know." She looked at me pleadingly.

"I do, Rose. Trust me, I do. Toby was my best friend. I miss him. When Louise did what she did if it wasn't for you and Toby..."

She hugged me tighter.

"Will it get better?" she said in a moment of pain and weakness.

"I don't know," I responded quietly. "I want to believe it will. Toby is gone, but you are still here, and we have our kids. That has to count for something."

She said nothing for a moment. Then I felt her relax.

"Thanks, Cam. I don't know if I would be able to hold it together without you. You're getting wise in your old age; you know that." She giggled softly and nervously.

I stroked her hair a moment, running my hands through her thick curly mane of red hair, then leant in kissing her on the top of her hairline.

"You're welcome, Rose. Without Toby with us or Louise in my life, I find that I require a best friend. You interested in the job?" I asked.

Still holding me close, Rose did the last thing I expected. She reached up and kissed me. I found I kissed her back feeling my heart stir with something that I never thought I would feel for Rose again, romantic love. Then I realised what I was doing and pulled back.

"Rose, I'm sorry, you are my best friend, indeed my oldest friend, and I love you so much, but I don't know, shit, we're still mourning for Toby.

She sighed snuggling into me, without thinking, I wrapped my arm around her as we sat on her hospital bed.

"I know Cam, I get what you say, but I feel something; it's never ever gone away from high school..." she said.

[:::: - 8 - ::::]

That night I fell into a restless sleep. I must have tossed and turned for hours until I, at last, entered what I immediately for some reason understood was a dream. The dream was of a bar that I had never seen before. It was a big bar, I had a feeling that if I tried to walk it from end to end, I would be walking a long time. There were tables everywhere, lots of people were sitting and drinking, playing darts or playing pool. The problem was that everyone was out of focus, I knew they were there, I even said hi to a number of the people I passed, I even got greetings from the fuzzy outline of people, I got they were smiling at me, but regardless of how I looked, they were still out of focus. That aside, it was a pleasant dream, I was considering walking to the bar when I spotted someone who wasn't fuzzy. He was sitting at a table by himself, as I approached, he turned and stood up to greet me.

"TOBY!" I exclaimed, rushing to hug him, but a moment before I did, I skidded to a stop.

He laughed at me. "It's good to see you to Cam, it is alright. You can hug me."

We embraced, then I held him back looking at him, he was looking as good as the evening before the accident, he caught me inspecting him laughing again.

"You look good mate," I said, "For some reason, I know this is a dream, but it is so good to see you."

He smiled, then we sat down at the table; in front of me was a Kraken and Coke, Toby had a pint of Guinness, we sipped our drinks for a moment.

"Ah," he sighed, "Good stuff!" He looked at me.

"So, how are you Cam?" he asked.

I deflated a bit, the dream becoming real.

"Not great, mate," I said to the dream of my best friend. "The divorce from Louise is a pain. The girls are angry all the time. I'm trying to support Rose in her recovery, but it's hard, and I feel like I'm just drowning in it all."

Toby nodded.

"What about you and Rose?" he asked, eyebrow raised.

I sat back to contemplate the dream version of Toby for a minute. He smiled at me, keeping the eyebrow raised.

"What about us?" I asked.

"Come on Cam. We've been friends for more years than I can imagine. You are my closest mate, I know things about you and Rose that could make anyone blush. I know you two love each other."

I snorted, "Of course Toby, she is as close to me as both you and Louise were. Without the two of you in my life, she's now my closest friend. I want to see her get better."

He sighed, "I get that Cam, but what about the kiss this afternoon that had you so restless before you fell asleep and came here, you can't say that meant nothing?"

Of course, my subconscious would dream up a figment of my best friend throwing him at me to make me feel guilty for kissing his wife.