Under the Cypress Moon Read online

  "Shylah," T.L. said, his eyes bleary from lack of sleep, his countenance hanging, forlorn, frightened, yet firm in his convictions. "Look. We've been here for several hours. It's really late. I'm tired as hell. You're tired. You know you are. Now, if you make me call Daddy and wake him up just to get you to listen, you don't even wanna imagine what that's gonna bring. I'm your older brother. I know you're grown and all, but if you don't listen to me... hell, I don't even know, but this is gettin' old. You got one minute to start walkin' out that door with me. If not, I'm leavin' your ass here!" Though T.L. was quite mad and not wanting to deal with his sister's difficulties, he tried desperately to not make a scene, no matter how much anger his voice displayed, attempting to keep even the most adamant pleas to a whisper.

  "Good," Shylah shouted. "That's what I want!"

  Shaking his head, sighing in disgust, T.L. walked away. He knew that nothing short of physical force would persuade his sister. Leaving Shylah behind was something T.L. would never do under normal circumstances. Of course, it had never happened before like this, but T.L. was exhausted, stricken with worry and grief, agitated to no end, and far too unwilling to continue arguing. He made his way to his truck and quickly drove away toward home. Shylah was left to her own foolish errand. She would spend the remainder of the night dozing and worrying in a waiting room chair.

  When the sun began to peak its head through the sliver of glass not barricaded by concrete, it shone directly into Shylah's eyes, waking her instantly. She had slept, on and off, for maybe two hours. She desperately craved more sleep, but worrying about Mark was her instant concern. She immediately wondered, once more, how she had let all of this happen, why she had done what she did to him, why she ignored the feelings that were so obviously there, all because her father did not agree with the circumstances of it all.

  It had only been a few hours since Shylah heard Dr. Samuels' words. They still rang clearly in her mind... "surgery... metal plating... others have died from it." Shylah had no idea when Mark would go into surgery and doubted that anyone knew of her presence. Mark had likely been told nothing. For all that Shylah knew, Mark was already in surgery. Shylah immediately marched to the desk and asked to know all of the information that there was on Marcus Crady. The woman at the desk, however, had no information to give and said politely that she would do all that she could. Unfortunately, that would take a considerable length of time.

  Shylah waited, dreaded, feared, contemplated, felt an undying anxiety that nothing could quench. She had left her purse in T.L.'s truck and had no money with her, no phone, nothing. She felt her stomach grumble with its demand for food, but unless begging were an option, there would be none. In no time, Shylah had read every magazine available and watched what seemed like an endless supply of mind-numbing TV. There was nothing at all left for her to do but worry, not that she hadn't been doing that already.

  Shylah pondered the idea of throwing herself at Mark's mercy the first chance that she got and begging for his forgiveness and even for him to give her another chance, to put behind them what she had done, all of it. Though time had been drearily moving along, it was nearing nine o'clock. Shylah had been at the hospital for eight hours with no food, spending five of those hours with no company but her own troubled mind.

  Finally, at almost ten, T.L. strolled in, along with Mr. and Mrs. King. It was a much welcomed surprise for Shylah. Now, at least, she would have some company. Whether or not that would ease her worries, she did not know, but it would definitely make time go by more quickly.

  Mrs. King threw her arms around her daughter before Shylah could even rise from her seat, embracing so tightly that Shylah felt suffocated. "Mama, you gotta let go of me some. You're... you're choking me."

  "Sorry, Honey," laughed Mrs. King, releasing her hold completely. "What were you thinkin', stayin' here all night, not comin' home with your brother?"

  "I was worried, Mama."

  "I know. I'm worried, too, and believe it or not, so is your daddy. You know how we feel about Mark." Shylah knew that her mother loved Mark dearly, but she was pretty sure that her father's recent efforts to keep Mark and Shylah apart meant that he didn't quite feel the same way.

  "Yeah. I know YOU do, Mama," Shylah said with a voice so tremulous that it said just as much as did the words. As she said this, Shylah gave her father a look of deep-seated disgust, very unusual until the recent events.

  "Now, come on, child. Your father cares about Mark. He's like a son to us and always has been."

  "I don't think so, Mama. Daddy had to try to keep me away from Mark, and look what happened. Mark wouldn't be in the hospital right now and have to have a bunch of metal in his head for the rest of his life if it wasn't for all of Daddy's nonsense."

  "Honey," Mrs. King began, placing her hand on her daughter's wrist. "You know I don't care who you love, as long as he's a good man and a God-fearing man. You and Mark have known each other longer than I care to recall. I know Mark is a good man, and there probably ain't nobody in this world that could love you better than he could. I've talked to your father about this until I'm blue. You don't pay attention to what he says on the matter, and if he gives you one bit of trouble over it ever again, you tell him he can come speak to me about it. Ok?"

  This filled Shylah with a faint sliver of hope. She decided then and there that she would do what she wanted, despite what her father thought. He would eventually get used to it all, but of course, that was only if Mark could be convinced how incredibly sorry Shylah was and how much she wanted to make things right again. T.L., in the meantime, kept his father entertained, at a safe distance from Shylah. Shylah and her father had barely spoken to one another in the nearly two weeks since her breakup with Mark. Now, Shylah had no desire to see her father's face, and T.L. already knew that. Shylah did not have to say it. It was plain to everyone but Mr. King.

  "Crady. Anyone here for Mark Crady?" The voice rang out across the waiting room, but it took the King family a moment to realize what had been said. Before they could rise and make it to the woman at the door, she repeated, "Crady. Mark Crady. Anyone here for Mark Crady?"

  "Us. We're here for Mark Crady," T.L. stammered. For some reason, despite the fact that he often took charge of dire situations, he often had difficulty speaking to doctors, nurses, and law enforcement personnel. There was something about such serious situations that scared T.L. This one just happened to be the worst one he had ever had to deal with.

  "Are you family," asked the nurse, a little puzzled.

  "Well," replied T.L. "You could say that."

  "So you're not family," the nurse shot back, hastily and without any sort of feeling.

  "No,' T.L. reluctantly added.

  "Well, we would like to speak to someone from Mr. Crady's family, if at all possible, but if you want to come with me, I'll take ya'all to a waiting room where you can sit til he gets out of surgery. He's in with Dr. Armintraska right now, but he should be out soon. But to tell you the truth, he's probably gonna be out cold in recovery for a few hours after the surgery." The nurse beckoned for everyone to follow. They were all concerned enough and worried enough to want to wait out the next few hours, even Mr. King, no matter what his daughter believed.

  Another waiting room, another long wait to be had, a long day in all; it would all leave a sour taste. Boredom took its toll early. There really wasn't much of anything to do except talk, something that Shylah was not in the mood to do. She was normally a very talkative person, but being in the hospital, still worrying endlessly about Mark, talking just wasn't in her. Darius tried several times to make Shylah laugh, in order to get her mind off of things, but every time, Shylah turned her head and avoided all contact, verbal or otherwise.

  "What's wrong with her," Darius asked his son. It didn't really surprise T.L. He knew that his father was pretty clueless about a lot of things.

  T.L. didn't know what to say, but before he could even try, Shylah darted her head back toward her father, and holdi
ng back all urge to smack him, she screamed in his face, "What's the matter with me?! If you didn't put your nose in, this wouldn't have happened!"

  "I know," Mr. King sheepishly replied, his head hanging lowly. "I know that, Baby girl. You gotta understand somethin', though. I'm tryin' to look out for you. You're my only daughter. Maybe it was wrong of me to say the things I said. I was mad at the time. You know Mark... well, you might as well call him my second son. I love that boy. But you and him together, it just don't feel right to me. It's your life. You're a grown woman, and I've spent years tryin' to deny that fact. You can do whatever you want. You're a smart girl, and I know that Mark would be better than those other guys you've been with." Mr. King, hanging his back down, let out a sigh, a sigh somewhat of relief and somewhat of general worry and confusion. "I do wish you'd find you a good black man, but if you and Mark care about each other like you say you do, just be careful. Ok? And I don't wanna see your brother lose his one good friend over this. You and Mark might not work out, but him and your brother, they go back so far... I can't even tell you what that would do to Ty."

  As if Shylah did not have enough to worry about, she now had to think about her father' worries, too. Most of the time, Darius called his son either nothing at all, "Son," "Boy," or, on occasion, "T.L." He hadn't called T.L. by the name "Ty" in a very long time. Every time anyone heard it, they knew that it meant Darius was in a strange mood, a perplexed mood, a sentimental mood.

  T.L. had no inclination to get involved in it all. There was enough worry to be had without adding to the ill will between Shylah and Darius. Sitting, listening, waiting, thinking over a million things, T.L. felt overwhelmed with joy when his phone rang. It meant that he could exclude himself for a while from the tiresome family proceedings.

  "Hey, Dan. What's goin' on?"

  "I wanted to check and see how the patient's doin," came the voice on the other end.

  "Well, we haven't seen him yet, but he's in surgery right now. It's gonna be hours before he's awake."

  "Oh," came a stifled reply from Officer Brady. "Well, I guess that's good for him and bad for you, huh? I wanted to let you know we found Ronny Dean."

  "Good! What'd he have to say," asked T.L., lost in a world where his family and their squabbling did not exist.

  "He gave us a rundown of what happened last night and a description of the guy. So, with the description and the name your sister gave us, we got an A.P.B. out on this guy. Valdosta PD and the VSU PD are out lookin' for him. Believe me, they'll find him. The problem is, though, you got maybe two dozen witnesses that'll probably claim Mark attacked the guy and that he was only defendin' himself with the bottle. The only witnesses that'll say otherwise are Ronny Dean and your sister, and frankly, your sister's word won't mean much since she only heard the verbal threats. We need to find more witnesses that saw the actual fight."

  "So," began T.L. "We find some witnesses, and you got enough to arrest the guy?"

  "Yep," quickly chimed Brady. "We or VPD or whoever can arrest him on it, whoever finds him. In the meantime, we do have enough to ask him to come in for questioning... might not do a lot of good, but if he's found, he's ours, for a while."

  "Damn," muttered T.L., not really intending for Brady to hear him but more thinking to himself out loud. "I wish I went outside and saw it!"

  "I know, buddy," Brady said, trying to comfort T.L. a little. "Let me know when Mark is out and awake, and I'll swing by to see him. I'm off duty tonight, so no problem for me."

  "Alright, man. I'll keep you posted."

  It was good to have a friend to talk to and not just parents and a deeply worried sister. Now, however, T.L. had to go back to the other world, the world where tensions were flaring, feelings were hurt, and destitute minds prevailed.

  The hours dragged on. Stomachs churned and rumbled with both stress and hunger. Shylah could finally take no more and stormed off to find a vending machine. She wasn't even aware of the atmosphere her feelings were creating, did not even feel the stomp of her feet under her. Her mind was in one place and her body, in another.

  Shylah was relieved to be void of her family, but more than that, they were relieved to have her gone, at least T.L. and Darius were. They knew and understood that Shylah was going through a difficult time, but they did not want to hear anymore of her ranting or her belligerence. Eleven o'clock rolled around with Shylah still gone and nothing said among any of the three remaining people. Then, twelve came, much as it always does. When one o'clock struck, it seemed that it should bring with it an automatic announcement from a doctor or nurse that Mark was conscious and ready to receive guests. It had been almost exactly three hours since the nurse had given the three hour window of waiting, but there was no announcement. There was no message. The first three hours seemed to go by somewhat easily, but now, everyone found themselves watching the clock in earnest.

  It was much closer to one-thirty when the door to the waiting room swung open, a nurse stepping in, clipboard in hand. She was not the same nurse as earlier. This was satisfying to Shylah. The other nurse seemed hostile, uncaring, unsympathetic to the situation at hand.

  "Are you the ones waiting on Marcus Crady," the nurse asked. She even had a smile on her face. Shylah suddenly felt a little more cheerful and hopeful.

  "Yes," replied Darius King, patriarch of the King-Crady family, as it was sometimes thought of, and it definitely was thought of as that on this day.

  "Mr. Crady is awake now. You can go in and see him, but he's gonna be groggy."

  "Thank you, Ma'am," Darius responded firmly and happily. "Which room?"

  "Room 323, Sir."

  Shylah felt a lump deep in her throat and a hard knot in her stomach. She had waited so long to see Mark, but now that the moment had come, she had no idea what she would say to him or worse, what he might say back. Unprepared, mulling over all of the possibilities, Shylah remained behind her brother and her parents, not like a one second delay would matter, but somehow, it made her feel a little better, a little hidden and protected. She watched nervously as the elevator climbed to the second floor and then to the third. The lump grew bigger, and the knot grew courser. Shylah felt as though she might need a surgery of her own just to feel any ability to enter Mark's room.

  As the elevator stopped at the third floor, Shylah began to shake uncontrollably, almost convulsing. Losing her faculties, she fell back and hit her head on the elevator wall, nearly sliding to the floor, but luckily, Darius felt Shylah press against him before she fell, felt her tremor, and had turned at the moment that she began to fall, catching her before she could go all the way down to the floor. "Shylah, Baby? What's the matter, girl?!" Darius felt a seizing weight in his hands, Shylah's body emitting so much force in its attempt to slump, pulling Darius with her. "T.L., get over here! Help me with your sister!"

  T.L. immediately rushed to aid his father. He hadn't seen Shylah fall, and until Darius' shouts, had no idea that anything was amiss. The two men pulled Shylah to her feet and rested her against the wall.

  "Daddy?"

  "Yes, Baby?"

  "What... what happened?"

  "You fainted. You're ok. I think you just let all this stress get you too worked up. Me and T.L. got you, Baby. You ok to walk?" All the while that these words were spoken and Shylah was being supported by her brother and her father, Mrs. King had had to hold the elevator doors open and shoo away several people attempting to enter.

  "Darius," Mrs. King shouted. "We gotta get out of the elevator. There's too many people comin' on."

  "Ok, Lena. C'mon, kids. We gotta go." Darius, not wanting to cause Shylah pain or strain, nudged her gently to get her going, but she wouldn't budge. "Shylah, we gotta go. We got you."

  T.L. and his father untiringly led Shylah out of the elevator. Thankfully, they both thought, Mark's room was only a short distance down the hall. When the King family entered, Shylah immediately slunk down into a chair beside the bed, still feeling quite faint.

  Mark'
s eyes were barely open. He had very little awareness of his surroundings or even an idea of what day or time of day it might be.

  "Hey, buddy," T.L. started in, hoping that his voice would bring Mark around. "How ya feelin'?"

  "T.L.?"

  "Yup. It's me, buddy."

  T.L.'s hand flew to Mark's and grasped tightly, neither loosening their grip, though Mark's was greatly weakened.

  "I got the whole family here with me, man. We all wanted to see how you were. We've all been real worried."

  Mark's face lit up at these words. He was still mad at both Shylah and her father but at the moment, barely remembered this or why it was. No matter how mad he was, if he could remember it and its intensity, he would not make any of them leave. They were all welcome. Even Darius was still the father that Mark always wished he had.

  "How are ya, Son," asked Darius, a little slowly, choked up, a tear forming in the corner of his right eye.

  "Mr. King? I'm ok, I guess. Could be worse. I'm glad ya'all came. It means a lot."

  "You had us all scared. You know that," Darius stated more than asked, laughing as he did.

  "I know," replied Mark, fighting to get words out, as his breathing was hampered, and he had a great deal of morphine in his system.

  "I never meant for this to happen, Mark," Mr. King said, the laughter having left his voice. There was only sincerity in what he now said. "If I woulda known that what I said to Shylah was gonna cause this, I woulda... well, I shoulda kept my mouth shut anyway."

  Mark now felt as though he, too, might begin to cry. Darius' words proved that he was still the same man that Mark had always looked up to. He had made a mistake, a mistake that many fathers would have made in order to protect their daughters. For that, Mark both respected and nearly despised Darius King at the same time.

  No sooner than Darius finished what he had to say, Mrs. King leaned down and gave Mark a hug and a long, enduring kiss on the cheek, taking both of Mark's hands into hers. "We love you, Mark."