Previously

Somewhere on Eastbound Rt22 between Cranford and Mountainside

Pat was driving with a goal. A purpose. This was a challenge he was determined to meet head-on.

His self-indulgence had gotten the better of him once again; it almost always did. And while Pat wasn’t a crying sort of guy, he did get weepy when that self-indulgence took hold. He blinked back angry tears even as the rain outside began to pummel the car. In the midst of his self-pity he failed to notice the signs indicating a change in traffic pattern and lane shift. He was about to utter a seldom-heard curse when his car slammed into the back of a parked Mountainside DPW truck and everything went black.

One man come in the name of love
One man come and go.
One man come he to justify
One man to overthrow.

In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.

Trinitas Hospital…

“Hey, Lina? That McKenna boy still living with you?” Alice called from the nurses’ station. She could be forgiven the wrong noun gender since it wasn’t widely known outside of the home that Tim was now living as Hope McKenna. And the urgency in the woman’s voice pushed any need to correct the mistake aside.

“Yes? Why do you ask?” Lina walked up to the desk; her face already revealing her concern.

“His dad is down in the ER….Jackie says they brought him in and it’s not looking good. Car ran into dump truck on 22…holy shit…”

“Yeah….” Lina was already walking toward the elevator and she had her cell phone out. She hit a pre-set and waited a second.

“Danny? “ she asked even as the pre-recorded message announced he wasn’t able to come to the phone. She hit off and pressed another pre-set; waiting nervously as the phone rang repeatedly.

“Come on…Carlo…pick up, pick…” The phone on the other end clicked.

“Carlo? Is Danny home? He’s over at our place? Damn…” she paused.

“Listen…Pat McKenna has been in an accident…yeah…car….they don’t know…I don’t know what, but my supervisor just told me it’s touch and go… yeah….maybe you could drive over there and let them know…I don’t think Danny should be left to tell Hope alone….yeah….love you too…”

“Son of a bitch….”

In front of the McKenna home, a short while later…

“Damn it, Pat…pick up the phone….” Liz stared at the house. She didn’t want to confront him, and was hoping that the empty space in the driveway meant he was out on some visitation. She looked at her watch – eleven-eighteen. She sighed and then put her car in gear and drove away.

In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.

Lina’s home, at the same time…

Carlo pulled up in front of the house. He got out of the car and ran up the front steps. Opening the door, he found Hope sitting next to Danny on the couch. Danny seemed to be asleep and Hope looked up with a start; her face growing a rapidly deepening red. Carlo didn’t want to be rude, but he practically ignored the girl and walked over to the couch and shook Danny’s shoulder.

“What…oh, hey…” He looked up at Carlo and then over to Hope and his complexion began to mirror the redness of the girl’s face.

“We… “He paused and a smile came to his face; uncommonly peaceful and relieved.

“We talked.”

Carlo laughed softly but suddenly changed as he recalled the reason for his abrupt visit to Lina’s home.

“There…there’s been an accident.” His eyes widened anxiously before he continued.

“Hope?” She looked at him and tilted her head nervously.

“Your dad ….he’s been in an accident…. We need to get to the hospital….NOW!’ Carlo didn’t mean to be so loud, but the urgency of the moment demanded more than a mere request. She stood up and Danny shook his head before jumping up. He grabbed her hand and she went to pull away.

“No….no!” She turned her back and began to cry. He went to put his hand on her shoulder and she shrugged it off. Turning back to them again, her face was a mask of confused anger. Something that made her look oddly vulnerable; a look Danny hadn’t seen since they were in middle school when he realized she was being abused.

“I…” She shook her head vigorously; sending tears flying off her face.

“I don’t care…I don’t care.” Her appearance seemed almost boy-like at first until Carlo realized it was really something like a return to her recent past. They never knew that the bravado was a barely effective way of defending herself…the child had always been vulnerable. And her appearance still almost approximated that of a girlish boy in a way, since dressing and behaving like her true self was still somewhat foreign. That she already had gotten into the habit of saying she wasn’t pretty seemed to stress that misconception. Carlo used a head shake to urge Danny to help.

“I know….”

“What do you know, Danny? You can’t possibly know what this feels like. I hate him…I hate him…oh fuck…” She put her hand to her face in shame. He stepped closer and she stepped back and stumbled into the couch. Looking up at them, her eyes seemed to plead for understanding even as her words went to push Danny away.

“I hate him….” She turned her face to the back of the couch and she began to sob. Danny stood stock still, confused by the mixed signals. He felt a hand press against his back.

“Dan…. She needs you….. Come on, Bro. She needs you.” He pushed Danny softly closer to the couch and his brother sat down next to the sobbing girl.

“I don’t know what you’ve been through, but I know it hurts…bad. Like when our dad turned his back on Susan. She….” Danny choked up with the loss for words mixing with his own sadness. Carlo finished Danny’s thought.

“Daddy never realized it until the end that Susan never stopped loving him…after all that hurt….he pushed her away but she never left him…you know?” At the words Hope’s sobbing subsided a bit. She looked up at Carlo and then turned to Danny; seeing the same expression in his face as in Carlo’s. Danny nodded and spoke; haltingly from wanting to say the right words.

“You hate what your father has done to you….but you feel like….” He paused and looked over at his brother for support. Carlo nodded and Danny continued. Susan wasn’t there, but she would say the words herself if she was sitting there with them; a permission of sorts between three siblings to speak of anything of ‘theirs’ that would help anyone else.

“Susan felt sometimes like she betrayed herself… like if she still loved Daddy it was like hating herself. But she loved our father for her sake; not his, though it worked out for both of them in the end, you know?”

“But I hate him…why am I so ….why does this hurt?” The anticipation of losing the one person in life she had ever wanted to please seemed to strike her hard like a rude slap to the face. She fell into Danny’s arms and began to shake. Self-loathing and guilt and shame slammed hard into forgiveness and true love for her father.

“I hate him…I hate him….why….I’m so sorry…..”

She apologized haltingly even as Danny patted her back softly. Something seemed to change visually; not in the vision itself but in Danny’s perception. Hope almost began to look pretty to him. It might have been the protector in him seeing her as a girl for the first time even though he knew that already. Her face hadn’t changed at all. All of her features remained as they always had been but her demeanor seemed to show through…. Like sunlight breaking through a dark cloud.

And Danny fell in love all over again. If Danny had already loved Hope for her sake, something in that very painful moment redefined Danny Calabrese since he not only loved the girl in his arms for her sake, but for his as well. She continued to sob; speaking apologies and angry laments equally as Danny held her close.

“I know,” he said softly as he stroked her hair; as much a means of affection as consolation. Danny turned to Carlo and shrugged his shoulders in question. Carlo nodded and smiled. Time might be of the essence, but in the midst of the dire emergency that urged them to hurry to the hospital, there was more of a need for Danny and Hope to just sit there on the couch; holding each other. Carlo’s cell rang.

“Lina? Yeah…we’ll be outta here in a couple…yeah…she’s…” He paused and looked at Hope. Grief still lingered, but her expression seemed less…guilty?

“She’s okay…yeah. We’ll be there….yeah….twenty…maybe a half hour…yeah time is …okay, love you too.” He clicked off and turned to face the couple once again. Hope’s sobbing had subsided and she seemed relaxed if still very sad. Danny continued to hold her close; stroking her hair. Carlo shook his head and laughed softly; belying the urgency of the moment as he mouthed a line from an old movie.

“On any other day…”

On Lexington Avenue in Cranford on the way to the hospital

Carlo pushed the car as fast as was safe; the night time skies were filled with dark clouds; obscuring any ambient star light and the waning moon. Hope stared out the passenger- side rear window and watched the rain cascade heavily down the glass; her head propped against the frame with her cell next to her left temple. She brought it around and hit redial. After four rings she heard the click from the other end.

“Mom? Yes … no Mom…” She breathed out heavily.

“Dad he’s been in an acci… no… we’re almost at the hos…yes… Trinitas… the ER, Mom.” She waited a few moments while the line went silent.

“What? No…I don’t know. I’ll meet you in the waiting room…yes… I…I love you, too.” She clicked off and sighed.

“She’s on her way?” Danny grabbed hope’s hand and she turned to face him.

“Yeah…yes. She was on her way to my aunt’s house so she’s turned around.” Hope’s voice trailed off as she put her hand to her face. Danny urged her with a squeeze of her hand to face him, but she turned away.

“It’s…this too much….He could…he could die before I…. And my mother just told me she loved me…” Her voice turned from bitter to almost relaxed even as she sobbed.

“She…she called me…Hope.”

Danny looked completely lost and confused. He couldn’t remember Tim ever being so emotional. Not when they were younger and the boy kept a terrible secret about how cruel his father was. Not even in the recent past when he came out to his friends. But it was almost predictable; emotions kept repressed for so long burst to the surface like beach balls held under the water in a swimming pool; rising so much faster than when they were submerged. Where Tim’s emotions were rightly guarded against attack, the safety of being with friends and new family had stripped any strength the girl had to keep things under the surface. As painful as that felt, it was a good thing if entirely confusing to those around her. He looked straight ahead.

“Danny….” Her voice was soft, tentative, too deep for her own comfort and entirely vulnerable as she squeezed his wrist.

“Hold me?”

It felt odd; the thing about the haste of the girl’s emergence is that she was just as confused and feeling awkward as Danny; wanting to be exactly what a girl should be. Her therapist would remind her that she didn’t have to be anything she wasn’t and she didn’t have to be someone other than for herself. There would be a great deal of her who would always be Tim in a way because Tim had always been her. Danny half-smiled; his own awkwardness only getting a little in the way as he pulled her close.

“It’s going to be alright.” That way of assuring someone that comes from more than just trite sayings, but a deep faith inside the young man that pushed past his own defenses to the surface just in time to console the girl. She buried her face in his chest; pulling away in fear and confusion over how to react and act and behave. He touched her cheek gently. Where in times past their loving had been tentative but forceful, this caress was meaningful and gentle and well-timed in the midst of the girl’s sometimes sprint and sometimes saunter in to new womanhood.

“It will?”

“Yes,” he said with a confidence that surprised him. The sound of the rain against the car roof had abated, and Carlo heard their exchange. He breathed a sigh of relief before glancing upward with a nod and smile.

The ER waiting room, eleven minutes later…

Hope stood by the door into the ER from the waiting room; looking for a doctor…any doctor to emerge. Danny stood off only slightly to the side; Hope reached back blindly and he grabbed her hand, stepping closer. Liz had just walked up and looked at the girl in amazement. Hope turned to see her mother’s face; a study in deadpan. She pulled away from Liz despite an offer of open arms. The deadpan quickly changed into a mask of sadness. She shook her head.

“Mom….I’m….”

“I know… I don’t deserve you. I told that to your sister.” Hope’s eyes widened.

“You…you talk to Heather?”

“All the time… I went to see her… I am so sorry…. I should have said something… done something…” Liz put her head down. A second later she felt a hand gently grab her wrist. Danny led her closer to Hope. The girl had put her own head down, but had opened her arms in a very tentative welcome as she shook where she stood. She was crying and only noticed her mother’s presence when the woman wrapped her in an embrace. In a moment they both wept in each other’s arms. Danny nodded and smiled to himself.

“Alright,’ was all he managed to speak when a doctor emerged through the double door leading into the emergency room. He walked up to Liz and Hope and took his scrub hat off; looking frustrated. The doctor spoke for a few moments and then turned away. Liz began to shake and Hope held her as best she could as the woman fell to the floor. Danny rushed to her side and knelt down and supported Liz while Hope stood up. She walked to the intake desk and frantically waved at the woman behind the counter. A few seconds later a nurse and one of the interns were helping Liz into a wheelchair. As they helped her, Hope walked back to Danny and Carlo.

“It’s … it’s not good…. They….he lost his right leg….” She put her hand to her face once again and composed herself.

“He’s probably going to lose his spleen but they say he’ll be okay ….”

“What? They can tell???’

“They….won’t know until….they’re …he’s already in surgery, but they….” She smiled and wiped some of her tears from her face.

“I guess…. I guess it’s going to be alright…. “She was still crying but her face looked surprisingly peaceful.

“But they think he’ll need…. He lost one of his kidneys and they’re afraid there’s too much damage to the other one…he’s…. a transplant.” Danny shook his head no even as the odd smile grew wider; revealing a peace and a confidence that Danny hadn’t seen since he and Tim were in middle school. But that air of confidence masked the boy’s chaos and fear. This look was entirely different. She nodded yes to his no and spoke.

“A transplant….I’ve got to go…they have to run some tests real quick….Just in case?” She smiled again and went over to Liz and knelt down in front of the wheelchair. A few moments later she and the nurse walked through the ER doors and disappeared. Danny shook his head once again and lowered it before he he felt Carlo’s hand on his shoulder.

“It’s going to be alright” Carlo patted him on the back. He looked up to see that Lina had joined his brother and they both nodded in calm agreement.

“She’s going to be alright, Danny, okay?” He nodded sheepishly as Lina grabbed him by the hand and led him through the large doors leading out into the night air. The rain had stopped and the air had that nice post-shower feel to it.

“Breathe, Danny, okay?” He nodded and relaxed.

“Carlo and I are going over to Dunkin Donuts on Raritan…just a few minutes. Go and sit down…they got Pat stabilized. They’re not going to need to do the transplant right away, but it’s going to be a bit shaky until they figure out just what else if anything is wrong. Hang in there and pray, Danny, okay?” She ushered him back into the waiting room before walking out and into the cool fresh night.

In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.

Next: The Greatest of These is Love

Pride (In the Name of Love)
Words and Music by U2
As performed by
Tessa Belinfante
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLwJY5e0s98