Many Blessings

Chapter Three

“We’re not gay,” Ellis said by way of starting. “I don’t know where else to begin but there, so you can understand. As I said, he’s like a brother to me. We’ve been friends since first grade. His dad was arrested on drunk driving charges. Manslaughter. He went to jail.”

“Yikes.”

“Oh, that’s the good part of the story.”

“The good?”

“It goes downhill from there. His mom obviously had a hard time after that. His dad killed a bicyclist. She filed for divorce when it happened. He’d been drinking off and on for years, but that was the last straw for her. She lost everything when the family sued her husband. She basically had to start over as a single mom.

“My parents are good people. They didn’t turn their backs on her like a lot of people did. They knew her husband’s sins weren’t hers, or her son’s. My parents included Brad in everything, my after-school stuff, taking him on the weekends so she could work, became his family. He spent more time at our house than at his. So when I say we’re like brothers, that’s because we are.”

She sensed a great sadness envelop him. “He has good days and bad days,” he softly said. “He’s not crazy. He’s not autistic or mentally disabled. He’s suffered traumatic brain injuries. And it’s my fault.”

“What?”

“Long story short, his mom died when we were in high school. She couldn’t afford medical insurance. She had cancer, but she didn’t know it. By the time she was so sick she had to go to the ER, she was too far gone for the doctors to help her. My parents took him in and were granted custody of him, but they couldn’t afford two college tuitions. Fortunately, he scored an academic scholarship. Which was great, because we were both going to be lawyers. Our dream was to open an office together.

“But in college he kind of slacked off. I was busy with my own stuff and should have been riding his ass. He ended up losing his scholarship.”

“That’s not your fault.”

He slowly nodded. “Oh, yes it is. One night we were talking about options for him to try to make money to afford tuition. I made the mistake of suggesting he could enlist in the military and then go back to college after he did his time.” He looked down at his hands. “I didn’t think he’d really do it. I don’t even know why I said it. I wish I hadn’t said it.”

He finally looked up at her again. “He went and enlisted early the next morning without talking to me or my parents about it first. Ten months later, he was sent over to Afghanistan.”

She suspected she knew where this story was going, but she didn’t interrupt him.

“He served in the Middle East for nearly four years. One day, the vehicle he was in ran over an IED. After three weeks in a hospital in Germany, he was stable enough to be shipped stateside, where he spent a few more months in the hospital before they gave him a medical discharge.”

“He looks good.” She winced. “That came out wrong, I’m sorry.”

He waved it away with a smile. “No, he does look good. He caught the worst of the blast in his back. That’s why he wears his hair like he does. It hides the scars on the back of his head. That, unfortunately, wasn’t the worst.”

“What?”

“The blast left him with PTSD and some memory issues because of a fortunately fairly mild TBI. But once he physically healed, he could live independently, drive, no problems like that. He went back to college. He lived with my parents while he was putting his life back together. I graduated first and went to work for a firm in Tampa. He moved in with me while he was still going to school. He couldn’t afford a car, so he got a motorcycle. And that definitely is my fault.”

She didn’t ask. She let him spin the tale in his own way.

“I was going to cosign a car loan for him, but he wouldn’t let me. Said he didn’t want it to get weird between us if something happened and he couldn’t make the payments. A friend of mine was selling a motorcycle, and they met at our house one night. When Brad found out about the motorcycle, he decided that was what he wanted, and he bought it.

“He loved that thing. It was an older Harley. He wore a helmet, jacket, gloves, everything. All the safety gear. And he loved it. Rode it in all sorts of weather. He graduated college and law school and I got him into the firm I worked for. He finally got a car, but he kept the bike to ride on weekends. He still had issues with PTSD, and sometimes his memory, but the memory stuff he learned to work around by training himself to take notes about everything and keep them in his phone and on the computer. Unless you knew what he’d been through, you never would have known he had any problems.”

A deep sadness enveloped him, like a dark cloak around his aura. “Everything comes full circle, you know? It was my turn to stop for groceries on the way home one night nearly four years ago. I forgot. I’d been in court all day and I was exhausted and I just…forgot. We were out of milk, so he said no problem, he’d go get it. He grabbed the motorcycle, because he hadn’t ridden in a couple of weeks.”

She watched his chest hitch. “I got a visit an hour later from FHP doing a next-of-kin search. Drunk driver hit him as he was leaving the store. Pulled right out in front of him. He spent nearly nine months in the hospital. Months in a rehab center after that. They said because of the original injury, it probably did more damage than it would have. He spent months relearning how to walk. Months of PT and OT. That’s where the art started. They found out he did better when they put something in his hands to draw with and gave him something to copy. He’d never been into art before, but it was like this sudden Rain Man thing. He loved it and started creating his own stuff. And now…now he’s my responsibility.”

“None of what happened was your fault.”

“Yes, it was. It’s my fault he went into the military. I should have spent more time with him in college, and I never should have suggested he enlist. That makes it my fault he got hurt there. It’s my fault he got the motorcycle, and my fault he got hit because I forgot to go to the store.”

She suspected Ellis was the truly wounded one of the pair but kept her mouth shut on that opinion.

“So I take care of him. We found out who our true friends were when it happened. People suddenly didn’t have time to help out, to come sit with him when I had to go to the store and the nurse had left for the day, or they complained when I couldn’t go out to party and leave him home alone. I ended up leaving the firm and went to work for a friend of mine for a while at his private family law practice. Brad had me court-appointed as his caretaker because he just couldn’t keep track of everything while he was healing. I sued the crap out of the driver and the insurance company for him.

“The settlement was enough we could leave Tampa. I wanted to be somewhere close enough to easily get to the VA for his appointments, but far enough from the past. He can’t practice law anymore. The knowledge is there, but he can’t focus, can’t handle the long hours in court. He didn’t want to be around all those people and places anymore. That’s when I found the house here in town that I turned into my office, and the house we bought for us. He’s good with tools and his hands. It’s like the art, he just has a knack for it now. We wanted something large enough that on the off chance we found two unicorns willing to put up with us, we wouldn’t be crowded.” He smiled, and she smiled with him.

“Now, I run my law firm and he sells his artwork.” He let out a sad laugh. “I should say I sell his artwork for him. He’s not incompetent. He’s really not. Occasionally he has seizures. Not bad ones, but I don’t let him drive even though he still has his driver’s license. I didn’t have the heart to have it revoked and I trust him not to drive. He hasn’t had a seizure in over a year now. He just…doesn’t care about the details anymore.” He scrubbed at his face. “I mean, he’s like a child in some ways. It’s like all the cynicism and inherent caution you and I might feel about life is gone. Vanished.”

“That sounds like a blessing.”

“In some ways, it is. I think it’s what makes his artwork so beautiful. But it also puts him in danger. He could easily get taken advantage of. He can bathe and feed himself and all of that. He picks up after himself. Hell, he’s amazing with the renovation work. He could live alone if he wanted to. But he knows he shouldn’t. He doesn’t want to. He has no street smarts anymore. Two years ago, a woman tried to sucker him into marrying her. She was after his money. Then I put everything into a trust for him and when he told her he wanted me to stay on as the trustee to manage it and she couldn’t access the funds, she dumped him.”

“That’s horrible.”

He nodded. “Want to know the worst part?” He let out a sad laugh. “Brad told me after she left him that he knew from the start she was only after his money, but he hoped he was wrong.”

“Poor guy. Now I get the joke he made about rehabbing.”

Ellis sadly smiled as he nodded. “So we’re two bachelors. I haven’t had time for a social life, but the few times I’ve met women who might show an interest in me, when I tell them up front that I’m a package deal, they bolt.”

“What?”

He laughed. “Oh, I don’t mean like that. But I swore when he came home alive the first time that I would spend my life making it up to him.” Agonizing sadness crept into his tone. “When I stood in the ICU after his accident, I swore never again would I put anyone ahead of him in my life. Not even me. If he’d just wake up and live, I’d spend my life making sure he was taken care of.” He pursed his lips as if trying to hold back tears. “I suspect I won’t ever find a woman able to deal with never being first in my life.”

He let out a heavy sigh. “Again, it comes back to thank you for humoring him. I’m happy to pay whatever fee you want for your time.”

She shook her head. “No fee. We don’t charge for this. If you want to buy the house cleansing kit at the end for the ritual, that’s like thirty dollars. We don’t charge for that unless you want and are able to pay. Julie insisted what we do with the home investigations, we do it to help people, not for profit. I won’t change that.”

He nodded, suddenly looking choked up. “She seemed like a really nice lady. I’m sorry I didn’t get to know her better.”

“Thank you.”

A momentary silence enveloped the room. “So here’s why I gave you the long version,” he said. “The reason we were down at the VA is because I think he’s having problems. I honestly think what he’s going through is a new neurological symptom. But they tested him, MRIs and studies and stuff I don’t even know what they were, and said he’s not any worse than he was the last time he had a thorough physical.

“I also need to be honest with you that I don’t believe in…this. In all the metaphysical stuff. I’m a lawyer. I believe in facts. The fact is, Brad has had two traumatic brain injuries. The first far milder than the second. I believe what he’s experiencing now is a manifestation of something going on in his brain. I also believe he believes it’s supernatural. So I’m more than willing to do whatever you need to do, to go through the motions, for him. I’m hoping that it helps him deal with it so I can get him to focus more on the medical end of things.”

She nodded. “I understand. I appreciate your honesty.”

He shrugged. “I just want you to know what’s going on. Some people who don’t know Brad, if they catch him on a bad day, when he’s wound up in his work, or upset, or stressed, they might think he’s crazy or on drugs or…you know.”

She nodded.

“But he’s not any of those things. He’s just…different now. Special. There are plenty of days you see him, he’s as normal as you or me. And he has long stretches like that. But sometimes, when he gets upset like today, it can set him back while he tries to process it. He really took to Julie. I could tell she liked him, too. He has a way with people like that. When she shook hands with him the other day, it was like her whole face lit up. He’s special. He’s special in a good way. The best part is he has no idea how special in a good way he really is. His artwork can bring people to tears it’s so beautiful. It’s like the accident took stuff away, but it allowed him to tap into a primal part of his brain the rest of us can’t access. He doesn’t censor his art.”

“The activity he’s talking about, it started after you started living at the house, not before?”

He nodded. “It’s gotten worse the past couple of weeks. Well, he says it’s gotten worse. Like I said, I haven’t experienced it. I’m usually not home during the day unless I run home for lunch.”

“Please don’t take offense at what I’m about to ask. But could he be lying about it? Making it up?”

“No.” He wore a wry smile. “One of the ‘wonderful’ quirks we discovered about Brad’s new brain, as we like to call it, is his incapacity to lie. If you told him to tell you a lie, like lie about his name or whatever, he can’t. That’s why I know he thinks he is experiencing stuff. But he also knows if I can prove to him there isn’t any supernatural basis for what he’s experiencing, he’ll completely submit to more testing.”

“Another reason he can’t be a lawyer?”

That earned her an honest, amused smile. “Yes, you could say that. Believe me, he already has.”

She turned the notepad around and handed him the pen. “Please give me all your information. Address, phone number, e-mail address, that stuff. I need to get through the next couple of days and…this weekend.” She swallowed back tears that wanted to flow. For a few blessed minutes, she’d had respite from her crushing grief. “We’re having a tree planting in Julie’s memory over at the library on Saturday at noon, if you’d like to join us. I’ll have to look at the schedule, but maybe we can get together at your house next Monday evening?”

He nodded as he wrote. “And Brad’s not dangerous. He’s a very gentle man. I don’t want you to think I’m trying to scare you about him. If you need access to the house and I can’t be there because of work, you’re perfectly safe with Brad.” He put down the pen after he finished writing. “Others are more dangerous to him. The sad thing is, he knows it, but he’d still let it happen.”