The Artist's Wife (BWWM)

Chapter 22~ Stay

Listen to 'Mirrors' by Justin Timberlake.

I drummed my fingers over the steering wheel of Bubble, tired and frustrated of everything and nothing in particular. My head was against the window and my phone pressed against my ear with my mum's voice filling the silent car.

"Rina!" she yelled, nearly making my eardrums bleed. I placed the phone on the dashboard after that, glaring warily at the device.  "Are you still there?"

"Yes, mom. I'm listening to you," I replied, pulling out a piece of juicy fruit gum and popping it into my mouth. "You were telling me about how Grace made you take those pills."

"Yes, Grace is so incompetent and..." She continued talking but I wasn't listening anymore, my mind had not even been with her in the first place. She and Dad were in Ethiopia for her final surgery to regain full use of her legs, and she apparently hated her nurse, Grace and I was deemed the perfect victim to complain to. Not that I was annoyed, but I honestly had things to do and sitting in the car for about an hour now was not one of them. I was coming from the office and was supposed to meet up with JT at his workshop today, and I was currently at the workshop sitting inside my car.

"Mom, why don't you tell dad all about this nurse?"

"I have told Tim about Grace, but he says he can tell the doctors to change her, but that'll be rude. I was a nurse too and I'm telling you, that's a rude move." She made a tsk sound at the back of her throat emphasising what she just stated like it was the height of rudeness.

Yeah, she was a nurse before. That was how she met me and decided to adopt the child with the dying father, out of the goodness of her heart.

Lord bless the few selfless people remaining in this world.

"...I guess I'm a little scared too," she was saying and I returned my attention to her.

"Don't be, mom, you'll finally walk again. You're so strong, you've always been so strong," I told her, genuinely meaning it. "I'll be there for you whenever you need me."

"You're so sweet," she sniffed, her voice breaking slightly, she got so very emotional quickly lately. "You got married because of us and now you're so supportive. I wish Mindy was this supportive, she hasn't been picking our calls and I'm worried. Have you two talked lately?"

"Yes, we've talked, I even saw her at an event the other night," I answered, remembering the night of the art show when I met her in the bathroom and we fought but I thought it best not to include that. "She's doing fine, she hasn't called because she's probably really busy."

"You're right, sweetheart. I'm glad you girls are finally trying to getting along," she said, her breaking voice showing her happiness and pride in us.

If only she knew.

"Yeah, we're getting along just fine," I said, through gritted teeth. "I'll call you later, mom. Bye."

"Bye, sweetheart. Grace is coming again soon to..." I hung up before we could get into another hour of discussion about the infamous Grace.

I got out of the car, dropping my brown leather jacket on the seat and headed towards the entrance of the building. This place wasn't too hard to locate with the help of Jamal, JT's assistant.