Upping the Ante – Chapter Two – emersli1

Reading Time:
10 Minutes

The last person Eddie expected to find on his porch when he got home from his group therapy meeting was Maddie Buckley.

The past two weeks have been hard.  Buck was gone, and the Diazes were missing him.

The video calls had been reassuring, but they couldn’t take the place of an arm around his shoulders…a sunshine smile when he was down … a partner in parenting…

But at least it seemed as though Buck’s new team was solid.

Eddie ruefully acknowledged that it was a good thing he was in therapy.  This situation was rife with opportunities for his abandonment issues to cause interference and jealousy.  He had had his first meeting with his therapist, Dr. Yost, and had been sure to get out ahead of things.

So now here he was, with five group meetings and one therapy session under his belt, getting ready to confront someone in what he expected would be a highly emotional interaction.

Oh boy.

Maddie lifted her head as he put the truck in park, then came flying off the porch towards him.

“Do you know where he is?  Oh God, please tell me you know where he is!”  She latched onto him like a Fury, all flying hair and frantic voice.

Her hands were shaking as she clutched at his arm.

This seemed a little over the top.

“Maddie… what on earth is going on?”  This woman had let Buck go weeks without acknowledgement.  She didn’t get to make demands of him now.

“I got out three days ago and sent Evan a text as soon as I was settled at home.  He hasn’t responded.  I thought maybe he was busy, or needed space.  We talked about recognizing boundaries, and I thought maybe he was laying one down.”  Tears had started flowing from her eyes, and she wasn’t making a lot of sense.

“When I asked Howie about it, he said Evan was fine.  A little quiet, but blending back into the shift and getting back on calls.  Then the police came.”  

Now Eddie was really confused.  “Maddie, Buck hasn’t been back at work.  And I know he hasn’t talked to Chimney in weeks.  Or you.  What is going on?”

Maddie blinked at him in seeming confusion of her own.  “Well, of course he hasn’t talked to me.  They didn’t allow phones.  But Howie said he’d make sure Evan knew…”  She trailed off, as though in sudden, horrible realization.

“He didn’t tell him, did he?  Howie promised me…told me not to worry about anything but getting better…but he didn’t tell Evan anything, did he?  Oh my God!”  The tears picked up steam, sliding down her cheeks almost unnoticed.  “Evan must have thought… he did, didn’t he?  He thought I’d left him.”

Eddie knew the answer to that one.  “Yes.  Yes he did.  You went from hounding him with texts about his health and safer jobs and responsibility and maturity to dead silence.  Yes, Evan thought you’d cut him loose.  Again.”

Maddie dropped to the ground as though her strings had been cut, beginning to rock back and forth as her tears dripped from her chin.  Eddie was starting to worry that he’d have to call 9-1-1 himself, when she suddenly looked at him intently.

“Please Eddie, please tell me you know where he is.  Please tell me he’s had you…you and Christopher.  Please Eddie, tell me he hasn’t been alone.”

Nothing was adding up to any conclusion that made sense, but Eddie knew one thing for sure.  “He will always have me and Chris.”

She nodded, rocking slower now.  “Thank you.  Thank you Eddie.  You’ll keep him safe now.  Maybe I can rest.”

Chills suddenly shot down his spine.  “Maddie, I think we should go inside and calm down a little.  I don’t think I’m understanding you very well.  Maybe if we go inside…”  Strained relationship or not, Buck would be devastated if anything happened to his sister.

Gently but firmly Eddie took hold of her arms and helped her stand.  “Come on.   We’re gonna go inside now, and get this all figured out.  Come on Maddie.”

Slowly they made their way up onto the porch, through the door, and into the living room.

Eddie helped Maddie sit down on the sofa and went to the kitchen to get her a bottle of water.  When he got back, the tears had slowed to a trickle and Maddie was looking around curiously.  She reached out with a still slightly shaking hand to carefully lift a picture of Buck, Chris and Eddie off the side table.

Smiling, she traced her brother’s features with a look so loving Eddie almost couldn’t believe it. 

What was going on?

“Maddie?”  He handed her the bottle of water, sitting on the coffee table in front of her.  “Please, start at the beginning.  None of this is making any sense.”

Maddie took a deep, shaking breath and twisted the cap off the top of her water bottle.  Taking a drink, she put the cap back before answering.  “No.  I can see that.  I’m sorry for the breakdown.  We’re probably going to wind up on YouTube somewhere as ‘Those Neighbors’.”

A surprised laugh escaped Eddie.  “It probably did look like a lawn tantrum from a distance.”

Maddie’s grin was just a shadow of its usual self.  “The beginning…well… the beginning was almost thirty years ago, and I need to talk to Evan about it first.  But as far as what’s been going on recently… I got over-involved with a client and almost got myself fired.  Sue sent me to therapy, but I couldn’t… it wasn’t… what I needed.  I was still… anyway… my therapist and I decided I should try inpatient therapy, so I voluntarily committed myself for a twenty-one-day stay at UCLA-Resnick.”

Eddie felt as though he were holding his breath.  These last few weeks he’d been cursing her name for abandoning her brother and instead she’d been trying to get better, fighting her dragons alone.  “Maddie…why didn’t you tell Buck?  He would have been right there with you, in your corner.  He’d be so proud of you.”

Eddie and Buck had talked about Maddie’s need for therapy, and her avoidance of it, as they’d been trying to hash out their own.  Buck was certain Maddie had been clinically depressed since childhood, and factoring in Doug, and the bomb, and the clot, and the tsunami… well, suffice to say Eddie shared Buck’s opinion that his sister needed professional help.  But neither of them had thought she’d be open to it.

“Howie tried to argue me out of going.  He said he could help me… that it wasn’t like I was crazy.  I pulled up my text message stream with Evan, and oh, Eddie…it was so …unhinged.  I was standing there trying to figure out what to say, when my Uber arrived.  Howie told me to go if I was determined to go, and not to worry about Evan…that he’d be sure to explain.  About how I’d be out of contact for several days since the facility doesn’t allow devices during the intensive programs.  But that I’d contact him as soon as I got home.  Howie didn’t tell him any of that, did he?”  Maddie’s shoulders were slumped in disappointment.

“No Maddie.  He didn’t.  From Buck’s perspective, you just stopped even reading his texts … wouldn’t take his calls.  I don’t want to cause you more pain, but with your past behavior it felt to him like history repeating itself.”  Eddie’s voice was gentle.

Maddie took a deep breath and gave a rueful sort of laugh.  “I really do have completely appalling taste in men, don’t I?”

“Well, at least Chimney doesn’t beat you up.  That’s got to be a step in the right direction.”  

Somehow that had sounded better in his head.

More concerning was the fact that Maddie’s hand had immediately gone to the side of her face.

“Maddie, Howard Han hasn’t hit you…has he?”

Her eyes darted away from his, and Eddie felt the rage rising up.  Forget that he had been furious with Maddie herself half an hour ago.  Right now, thinking of Sophia or Adriana in her position…thinking of how much Buck loved his sister…Eddie felt ready to hunt Han down like a dog.

‘Don’t try to stop the anger.  Let it flow past you, though you, and let it go.’  Dr. Yost’s words rang through his mind.  ‘Build a dam behind it so it doesn’t flow back to you.’  Eddie built his dam, and prayed that it would hold.  The last thing Maddie needed right now was another angry, out-of-control man.

“Maddie?”  He kept his voice calm, steady.  “Let me see your face.”

She slowly dropped her hand, and Eddie could see it now… the bruise blooming on her cheek.

“I’m going to reach out and touch your face Maddie.”  Eddie slowly reached forward, probing gently along her cheekbone and then down to her jaw.  “Can you open and close your mouth for me?  Good.  Thank you.”  Everything seemed to be working, so he relaxed a little, but without an x-ray he really couldn’t be sure about her cheekbone.

“In a few minutes I’ll put together an ice pack for you.  But first, I think I need the rest of the story.  You left for therapy, trusting your partner to let your family know.  Then what?”  Eddie felt like they needed to get everything straight before any other decisions could be made.

“Um.  It was good.  Yeah.  Therapy helped, a lot.  It helped me realize that I had more to unpack than just Doug.  I wanted to tell Evan… but Dr. Crenshaw and I had talked about boundaries and learning to see Evan as the adult he is rather than the boy he was… and Evan wasn’t responding.  So I tried to be patient.”  Another rueful laugh.  “I’m not very good at that.”

Eddie had to chuckle himself.  “Yeah, neither am I.  But I’m working on it.”

Maddie gave him a real smile then.  It was small, but it was there.  “Me too.”

She took another drink, as though steeling herself for the next part.  “Howard  had come over after his shift and I was fixing breakfast.  The doorbell rang.”

“This was this morning?”  Eddie asked for clarification.

“Yes.  About nine o’clock.  I answered the door and there was a LAPD detective there with a uniformed officer.  He said his name was Frank Columbo, and he asked to speak to Howard.  When he found out I was Evan’s sister, he asked to talk to me too.  I showed him into the living room and he started asking Howard questions.  I probably shouldn’t say much…”  Maddie hesitated.

Eddie was quick to reassure her.  “Would it help to know that I went with Buck to make the report?  I’m aware of everything to do with Dr. Wells.”

Maddie relaxed.  “Oh, I’m so glad he had you with him.”  She drew in another deep breath.  “So, Lt. Columbo was asking Howard questions about when he learned about the… incident, and what he did after that.  Howard didn’t seem to be taking any of it seriously, but I was…livid.  And I didn’t understand why HE didn’t seem to understand how…how wrong it all was.  It seemed like to him it was just some… joke.  I was going to have it out with him as soon as the police left, but then they arrested him for failure to report.”

Maddie shook her head.  “He was going on and on about how Evan was a slut and slept with anything with a pulse and it was all his fault.  And then he asked me to follow him to the station to post any bail, if they charged him.”

She sat up straight in remembered ire.  “I said absolutely not!  I couldn’t believe he’d even ask me that.  He’d hurt my baby brother, and he actually thought I’d post his bail?  Well, when I said no, he slapped me.”

Maddie stopped for a moment and breathed.  Eddie recognized a therapy technique when he saw one, so he gave her a moment.

“I think, he was as surprised as I was.  And then he was being arrested for assault.  Lt. Columbo told me I didn’t have to press charges, since it happened in front of him.  But I told him that I was never again going to let a man hit me.  That I’d press charges as well.  I have to go in to the police station sometime this afternoon or tomorrow morning to sign something.  And I’m supposed to get checked out by a medical professional.  I guess I’ve already done that now, right?”

Eddie shook his head.  “I don’t think I count.  I’m too close to the situation, and while I’m US Army trained, that’s not the same as being a civilian medical professional.  Sorry.  But good for you, Maddie.  I know it would’ve been easier to just let the police handle it, but I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself.  And I know Buck will be too.”

Maddie looked relieved at his assurance that Buck wouldn’t be mad at her.  “All I could think of was getting to Evan.  I know intellectually that the … assault… was months ago, but emotionally… I just needed to see him.  To see that he was OK.  But then I got to the loft…”

She gulped in remembered fright.  “And he was gone.  They were cleaning the carpets for the next tenant, and the office didn’t have a forwarding address…and all I could think of was that of everyone, he would have gone to you.  So I came here.”