Saddled, chapter 34 (Patreon)

Clive followed Logan back into the hospital room. Beverly sat up in bed, her complexion still far too pale although the tension appeared to have eased significantly. Clive smiled at the middle aged woman. “I assume you’re Fawn. I’m Clive Davidson.” He offered his hand.

Fawn stood and took it. “Fawn Kremer. It’s nice to meet you.” Her gaze darted over toward John, pinning him with a suspicious look, but John appeared oblivious. He leaned against the window sill and watched the city. “My brother hasn’t mentioned you much.”

Clive assumed John hadn’t mentioned him at all. “I think he’s trying to keep his private life private. It’s a little awkward that I’m a producer and Logan would have recognized my name.”

John turned his attention back to the room. “So, is Logan any good at his job?”

“I have no idea,” Clive said, “I’ve never worked with him; however, he did see the potential in the characters.”

“Huh. Good for him.” Despite the words, John sounded largely uninterested.

“The ‘he’ in question is standing right here,” Logan said. “You could, for politeness sake, avoid talking about me like I’m not.”

“Or we could be honest,” Clive countered. Frankly, after Logan’s smug reaction to Clive’s mildest of complements, Clive didn’t feel a need to be polite. He moved to a spot near John and leaned against the tiny closet. “Your brother thinks that if we break up, it’s going to end in screaming and recrimination and he’s scared of getting caught in the middle.”

John snorted. “Screw that. He’d side with you even if you weren’t some big shot producer.”

Logan crossed his arms. “I don’t know. The way you two both talk about me while I’m standing here, I might decide I don’t like either of you.”

“I’ll take the risk,” Clive said.

“You two really deserve each other.” Logan waggled his finger back and forth between John and Clive. Clive certainly wasn’t going to argue with that conclusion. “You’re both bastards.”

Clive looked over at John, and John looked back. They both shrugged. “Yep,” John agreed.

Beverly spoke. “Relationships require people to be kind to each other, not to anyone outside the relationship. Your father certainly had a certain reputation for being irritable.”

“Assholish, more like,” Logan said under his breath, but Fawn must have heard. Her glare turned vicious.

“I, for one, believe Clive and John will be just fine,” Beverly said. It was a far more supportive position than Clive had gotten from his wife’s family. They had all been convinced that Clive and Sharon were marrying too young. And they had been right. 

“Nice, Fawn,” John said in a disgusted voice.

Clive looked over, and Fawn had a guilty expression on her face. “What?” she asked in a too high voice.

John took a step toward her. “Just because you like to tell everyone what a perfect domestic goddess you are, don’t roll your eyes like I’m incapable of having a relationship.”

“John!” Beverly cried out, and two seconds later, Fawn fled in tears. John stood with a dumbfounded expression. Clive felt completely at a loss about what had happened, but clearly it had been bad.

“Way to be insensitive,” Logan said. “That was low, even for you.”

John glared at his brother, but it was Beverly who spoke. “Kace left her. Apparently he decided to set up house with one of the lawyers who works in his corporate office.”

John grimaced, and Clive could practically feel the guilt radiating off him in waves. “Fuck,” John cursed softly.

“Johnathan Elijah Michaud! Don’t use that language.” Beverly’s sharp tone made John flinch, and Clive had an instinctive urge to get in the middle and protect John from the very real emotional damage of this moment. Unfortunately, he figured two generations of Michauds would eviscerate him if he tried. So he stood back and let John flail through the moment on his own.

“I didn’t know.” John definitely sounded defensive. “She never told me.”

Logan’s huff was rudely dismissive. “Even I knew something was wrong. She’s not bringing the kids around, and Kace normally hovers over her like she can’t make a decision about which shirt to put on in the morning.”

“You are not helping!” Beverly snapped, and Logan’s gaze skittered away. “Johnathan, go apologize to your sister right now.” She didn’t wait even two seconds before she added, “Now!”

“Yes, ma’am.” John gave Clive a pained expression and then left before giving Clive any hints about what he wanted Clive to do.

Logan inched toward the door. “I’m going to see if I can’t get some work done.”

“Leave them alone. I swear, Logan Zachary Michaud, if you torment your sister, I will make this life and your next one miserable.” She poked a finger toward Logan, but despite the strength in her voice, her hand shook slightly.

Logan held both hands up. “I am not saying anything to Fawn. I’m really going to get some work done. Promise.” And with that, he fled as quickly as his sister had. Beverly sighed, and Clive found himself alone with her again. Under other circumstances, he would excuse himself, but he wasn’t sure enough of his relationship with John to risk angering a parent.

“We’re not treating you the way we should treat a guest,” she said wearily. She dropped both her hands to the blanket.

“I’m not here to be entertained,” Clive said. He moved to the foot of her bed and rested his hands on the silver rail. “I’m not sure all this drama is good for you, though.”

She laughed. “This is nothing. When Albert died and all four children were staying in the old house, that was drama. I’m surprised none of them ended up in the grave next to Albert.” She stared off into the distance and for a time, silence reigned. “I take it your family is less volatile?”

“I was an only child.”

She ran her fingers over the hospital blanket. “Family creates drama. It’s a rule, and the more people you have in the family, the more drama follows. However, it’s also a great source of love and comfort.”

Clive nodded. His parents had supported him and given him a solid start in life. His father struggled to express emotions, but he’d introduced Clive to anyone who might have even a small shot at helping Clive move into the writing rooms. His mother had come over to that first tiny apartment he and Sharon had shared and would clean and leave groceries behind. Sharon had assumed it was a passive aggressive way of calling Sharon a bad housekeeper, but Clive had always known he had love. “I know.”

“Do you have any family left?”

The conversation was intensely personal, but Clive had just seen Beverly’s personal business, so it seemed fair that she should have some small part of his. “No. Sharon and I never had children, and she died far too young.”

“You make John happy. He has family, but he doesn’t reach out to us unless we need something. His father taught him too much self reliance. When did you and John meet?”

The red alert alarms in the back of Clive’s head all went off. This was damn dangerous territory. “We have a friend in common,” he said as casually as he could.

“Oh?”

“The woman who hires him to scare rich kids into working hard is the same person I hired to help keep my actors happy,” Clive said, and then he offered Beverly a conspiratorial grin. “And sometimes I hire her to make them miserable for their own good.”

“You haven’t been together long, though, have you? My son has been happier in the last few weeks. I suspect that’s when you either committed to each other or started sleeping together.”

“Excuse me?” Clive was ashamed of the way his tone went up as panic set in. He definitely didn’t want to have this conversation.

“I’m old, not dead. Sex makes people happier, and even with my cancer, John has found some source of joy in the last few weeks.”

No way was Clive going to try and verbally spar with Beverly. The woman was sharp as a tack and she had the lack of social boundaries that sometimes showed up in the elderly. Clive lived by one rule: avoid children and old people. Both were cursed with an abundance of honestly and too little filter. “No offense, but talking to you about sex is on my list of things to never do.” Since Clive couldn’t directly attack, which was his favorite strategy in an argument, he went for distraction. “John doesn’t talk about his younger brother much.”

“Logan?” she frowned in confusion.

“Kevin,” Clive clarified. “He’s talked about his addiction, and honestly he sounds a little judgmental. Drugs don’t just target weak or damaged individuals. I’ve worked with a lot of people who lost themselves to drugs, most of whom had enviable careers and strong families.”

Beverly pressed her lips into a thin line for a moment. “I’m surprised John would talk about Kevin at all. He feels like he failed Kevin.”

Clive wasn’t sure of that. John seemed to have more anger than guilt, but he could be hiding his shame more deeply than his resentment and anger. “Oh?”

“Why are you asking about him?” Beverly asked.

Clive sat in the visitor’s chair where Fawn had been sitting. “Money can’t fix everything, but it can hire some outstanding addiction counselors.”

She shook her head. “Albert and I paid for three rounds of drug counseling at three different facilities. Albert always wanted to give John his boat, but in the end, we had to mortgage it and have John take over the payments so we could do a third round. I’m sure that made John resentful.”

“He’s never mentioned it. Does he even know what you used the money for?” Clive doubted John would have discussed anything so personally painful, but he wanted to offer Beverly some comfort.

“Maybe not. He’s a brilliant man, but he can be a little oblivious.”

“We all can,” Clive countered. Logan might have noticed that Fawn was hurting, but he seemed oblivious about the pain this was causing their mother. And Clive never understood anyone he loved. “The programs you sent Kevin to… were they standard thirty or ninety day programs?”

Beverly studied him for several seconds, as if trying to decide whether to trust him with such personal information. Sadly Clive had a lot of experience with drug use and family issues around drug use, so he waited for her to make up her mind. “The first program was one month. He came home and seemed to be clean for several months before his father found drugs in his room his senior year. Then we sent him to a ninety day program and a halfway house after that. By the time he left the halfway house and came home, he was worse than ever.”

That fit a pattern. “It could be the halfway house wasn’t supervised well enough. If drug users live together, sometimes they teach each other bad habits. One of the services I hire Elena to handle is surprise inspections of facilities where I have sent my people. More than once she ordered her employees to load my client into a car and get them out before the situation could deteriorate.”

Beverly looked away, and Clive could almost see her putting up emotional bricks as she built her wall. She was so much like John it hurt. 

“I could find him a bed in a place that specializes in not only getting him clean but also teaches him a skill so he can build a new life without drugs. I can’t guarantee anything,” Clive said quickly as Beverly whipped her head around to stare at him with wide, hopeful eyes.  Clive wanted to make her promises, but she was too smart of a woman to believe them anyway. “I can say that I’ve gotten a number of my people clean.”

“Why would you do that?”

Clive shrugged. “What good is having money if you can’t help people?”

“I can think of any number of things,” Beverly said dryly.

“Yeah, but those wouldn’t make you or John happy,” Clive said. He was in grave danger of ruining his reputation as a hard-ass—a reputation he had spent years cultivating. However, he had never denied himself, and he wanted to do this, so in a way, he was acting as selfishly as ever.

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you buying John’s affections? If you are, I’m going to warn you that my son has an unforgiving streak as wide as the one he has for altruism. He would cut his arm off to help someone, but if he feels like he’s being manipulated, he is remarkably unforgiving.”

“We have that in common,” Clive said. “But I don’t plan to do anything unless you ask me to. And at that point, I will honestly tell John that I put the money up because you asked for a favor.”

“And why would I turn to you?” she asked.

Clive smiled at her. “I’m fairly sure that you’re not so naïve that you are unaware of the drug problem in Hollywood or in the New York theater scene. Some might call it natural for you to ask for someone with so much experience to give you some advice. For example, you might ask me how I would have handled whatever happened when Kevin visited you when you first came here. That could have led us to discussing treatment.”

“John told you,” Beverly said quietly. “I didn’t want him to know what Kevin had said.”

“He doesn’t. He just knows it was bad enough that the hospital security banned him from coming back.”

Beverly grimaced. “Thank God for small mercies.”

Clive headed across the small room and pushed the door closed. “Is there anything I can say to Kevin to try to get him to take the help? If he has something to feel guilty about, it could help me manipulate him.” Clive didn’t know if he could talk someone into treatment without holding a plum job hostage. Most of the time, the actors agreed to his terms only because they knew if they didn’t, he had the power to make them miserable. Clive wouldn’t have that power over Kevin. On the other hand, he could ask Elena to send someone along—maybe her pet psychiatrist would have some insight.

Beverly picked at a threat on the edge of her blanket. “I don’t even know where he is.”

“John’s boss is very good at what she does. If I call her, she can track him down.”

“And that would cost even more money.”

“What am I going to do with it? Buy myself a gold-covered coffin?”

She sat up in bed. “Are you sick?” The fear in her voice made Clive reach for her hand.

“No. I’m fine. But I’ve passed the age where I want to sow any wild oats, I love my job so money is going to keep coming in, and I don’t need the money.”

She huffed. “You’re a strange man.”

Clive nodded. “More than you know. However, I can occasionally pull off a miracle.”

After a time, Beverly settled back into her pillows. “Kevin was just honest. The nurses didn’t think that much truth was good for me in this condition.” She raised her hand where the IV was attached and taped down to her arm.

“What sort of honesty?”

She frowned. “That I never protected him. That even John, who was only four years older, tried to protect Kevin when Albert lost his temper, but that I never did.” She looked up at the ceiling, and moisture gathered at the corners of her eyes. “I thought fathers were just like that with boys. My own father was the same, and no one suggested he was abusive.”

“Did your husband cross that line with Kevin?” Clive kept his voice soft, and he wished he could avoid poking this sore, but he also wanted to be able to look her in the eye and tell her that he’d succeeded at getting Kevin into treatment, and that required some ammunition.

She nodded slowly. “He was tough on John, but John was always so quick to listen to his father that it never went beyond a few whippings. But Kevin argued and that set Albert off. Kevin was right, though. At eight years old, John knew Albert was going too far and he would try to get between them. At eight, he was better at protecting my son than I was. Is it any wonder Kevin told me that I deserved to die of cancer?”

Clive kept his expression carefully neutral. Kevin was an asshole for saying that to his mother, and he deserved to get banned from the hospital. However, saying that wasn’t going to make Beverly feel better. “It was a different time, then. None of us understood the psychological damage of what we were doing,” Clive said. He’d certainly hurt Sharon without meaning to. “So, John was close to Kevin?”

“Until Kevin did drugs.” Beverly sighed. “Then he acted like Kevin had intentionally stabbed him in the back. Sometimes I wonder if John’s anger pushed Kevin farther into drugs, but then I feel horrible because I know I’m to blame.”

“Kevin is to blame,” Clive said firmly. “People make choices about how they’re going to handle pain, and he chose his path. However, if we can get Kevin into treatment, family therapy is definitely going to be needed to keep him sober.” Clive frowned. “I can threaten Logan into attending, and if we double team John, we might get him to cooperate.” 

Beverly gave him an incredulous look, but Clive figured John trusted Dr. Noah, so Clive would lean on that relationship a little to get him to start bending. If they started now, John might be able to have a calm conversation by the time Kevin finished a six or twelve month program. Maybe. He was a stubborn bastard who would let the bit rub his lips raw before he’d signal for a stop. Clive had learned to stop waiting for a safe word and just check for physical damage himself.

“Can you get Fawn to agree… assuming we can get Kevin to take the help?”

“Why are you doing this? Really?” Beverly asked.

Clive opened his mouth to give her another glib answer, but her serious expression demanded a real answer. He took some time to collect his thoughts. “I like to take care of things—to protect my projects. But it’s been a long time since I had anyone to take care of, to love or protect.”

“John is easy to love, but not easy to protect,” Beverly warned him in a soft voice.

Clive grinned. “That makes it even more satisfying when I manage to do it anyway.”

She laughed and reached over to pat his arm. “That it does. You two. Logan is right—you deserve each other.” Her eyes still glistened with unshed tears, but her smile felt real. Clive had the same giddy anticipation he felt any time he started a new project. This was going to be hard, but he could do it. 

“So, are you asking me for help?” he asked.

“I am.” She patted him again. “And if you can go toe to toe with one Michaud boy, maybe you can handle another.”

“And if I can’t, then we can both know that we did everything we could, and his choices are completely his own,” Clive said. He didn’t want her to get her hopes up too high. Clive was a miracle worker, but drugs destroyed a person’s ability to recognize or appreciate miracles.

She held out her hand to shake. “Deal,” she said.

Clive took her hand and sealed their deal.

Chapter 35: https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-chapter-22204867 

Chapter 36: https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-chapter-22342250 

Chapter 37: https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-chapter-22436580 

Chapter 38 (Epilogue): https://www.patreon.com/posts/saddled-epilogue-22779789