RE: Trailer Trash, 6 pt 11 (Patreon)

   After a short session and some mild discomfort with a doctor gently examining her wrist and hand, Tabitha’s temporary brace was replaced with another cast. The weight of it was almost familiar, it was fragrant in that peculiar way only new casts are, and at her request it was once again blue. The only complaint she had about it was how bare it looked—completely bereft of her friend’s signatures. That would be fixed as soon as she could find someone with a marker and see everyone again.

   “It’s so dreadful thinking what happened!” Mrs. Williams sighed. “That awful girl. What she did to you. How close we all were to losing you!”

   The heavyset woman had waved away the nurse who’d intended to wheel Tabitha back to her room, insisting she take Tabitha herself. She seemed to have been touched by Tabitha’s willingness to consider her one of her Moms, and determined to play her part in the role to the fullest at the first opportunity.

   “I’m just sorry I ruined your party,” Tabitha said. “It really was a great—”

   “Oh, don’t you ever say that!” Mrs. Williams fussed. “You were an absolute doll, you didn’t ruin anything. I can’t believe we didn’t get a polaroid of you in your Ariel costume—you looked so pretty!”

   “You know what I mean,” Tabitha smiled. “I’m sorry that things happened like that and ruined it for everyone.”

   “I think we really need to talk about your priorities,” Mrs. Williams retorted. “Didn’t you just tell me you have a December birthday? It seems to me like we should be planning a big party for you!”

   “That…” Tabitha’s reflexive refusal stuck in her throat. “Might be what I’ve always wanted more than anything in the world.”

   “Really?” Mrs. William’s voice rose in excitement. “Well, hm hm hmm. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, Missy. You let Mama Williams take care of everything.”

   “You really don’t have to,” Tabitha laughed. “God only knows what would go wrong this time. Some new crazy person’ll climb out of the woodworks to make a big mess of it.”

   “We’ll pack the whole place full of angry cops,” Mrs. Williams insisted. “Wall to wall. I’ll make sure they’re all armed to the teeth and on the lookout to shoot up anything that so much as looks at you funny.”

   “Goodness,” Tabitha remarked, shaking her head. “It’ll sure be a loud party, then.”

   “You know, we really weren’t kidding back then,” Mrs. Williams said. “They want to have a big ceremony and give you some kind of award—they were really only waiting on our good friend Mr. Macintire to be up and on his feet again for it! Do you want to roll on by and see if he’s awake? I remember I took you all the way out to that Louisville hospital to visit him, and he didn’t even have the good decency to be conscious so you two could talk!”

   “Not exactly his fault,” Tabitha replied with a wry smile. “I’d love to actually meet him, though. Mrs. Macintire and Hannah come in almost every day to see me.”

   “I still haven’t figured out how to break it to the Macintires that Hannah’s too good for them and that I’ll have to just keep her all to myself,” Mrs. Williams laughed as she slowly guided Tabitha’s chair down the hospital hallway. “Did you know the other day Hannah said she prefers Mama Williams cooking over her mother’s? That’s how you always win them over, you know.”

   “I’m just fortunate that my parents have tolerated my cooking,” Tabitha laughed. “Trying to get them to eat healthy is like pulling teeth, sometimes.”

   “Aw, that’s so sweet!” Mrs. Williams patted her shoulder. “You even cook for your family?”

   “Well… not lately, no,” Tabitha sighed. “With everything happening. I really hope they’ve been eating okay.”

   “Just listen to you,” Mrs. Williams said, sounding exasperated again. “You’re going to be a great Mom someday, I can tell.”

   “Me, a Mom?” Tabitha retorted. “Yeah, right. As if.”

   “Well, I’ve never been wrong about anything before,” Mrs. Williams joked. “Ask my husband! But, who knows? I’m sure there’s a first time for everything. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be wrong someday—that’ll be something.”

   “I bet.” Tabitha wore an amused smile as she let the woman whisk her down the corridor towards the ward where Officer Macintire was staying. 

   “Knock knock knock!” Mrs. Williams called into the room before entering. “I brought you a visitor, you ungrateful dirtbag— make yourself decent so I can wheel her in!”

   “Yeah, right—just let me shower and shave real quick,” a male voice called back. “You know how it is getting halfway presentable around here.”

   They were apparently joking, because Mrs. Williams abruptly pushed Tabitha’s wheelchair into the room. It was almost identical to the layout of Tabitha’s own hospital room, although she noted that Officer Macintire still had one of those tall rolling stands from which an IV bag hung just beside his bed. The man himself wasn’t like Tabitha remembered from that fateful day over a month ago, nor did he resemble the clean-cut photograph they’d put up on the news channel so often.

   He sported a beard now, which made him look older, and the ordeal he’d been through seemed to have added additional age lines along his face. Officer Macintire was still handsome, though, he still had the rugged if slightly drooping good looks one expected to see from an actor, and Tabitha could see why he’d made such a presentable posterboy for the media to flaunt in the weeks following the shooting.

   “This is Tabitha Moore,” Mrs. Williams presented the wheelchair forward a little too proudly. “Tabby honey—meet Darren Macintire.”

   “Hi,” Tabitha said with an embarrassed wave.

   “Oh, wow, hi,” Officer Macintire seemed startled but pleased to see her. “It’s great to finally meet you— it’s an honor. The girls tell me about you every day, and I can’t thank you enough for what you did for me back then.”

   “It— it was nothing,” Tabitha said. “Really. Anyone would have—”

   “Oh shush, you,” Mrs. Williams scolded her. “You’re a hero, and we’re getting you a medal, and that’s final.”

   “I’d just gotten transferred here to Springton General when we got word here what happened to you at that party,” Officer Macintire said. “Everyone was completely heartbroken when we thought you weren’t going to make it. I’m really, honestly glad you pulled through. Look at you, they’re already letting you roam around! I keep telling them I’m fine, but no one will let me out of bed. I’m ready to face the galloping hordes, fight a thousand bad guys with swords!”

   “That sounds suspiciously like yet another Disney song,” Mrs. Williams remarked.

   “It’s all I know anymore! They have me trapped in here, at Hannah’s mercy, all day every day,” Officer Macintire chuckled. “You’ve gotta get me out of here!”

   “As you can see Tabitha, he’s doing just fine,” Mrs. Williams rolled her eyes.

   “It is really nice to finally meet you,” Tabitha said politely. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. Hannah has been just amazing, she visits me all the time.”

   “She thinks the world of you,” Officer Macintire gave her a handsome smile. “I do, too. We all do. What you did was amazing.”

   “It, it really wasn’t,” Tabitha denied in a fluster. “I just helped a tiny bit, the paramedics did all the actual—”

   “No, she’s in fact the most incredible young woman I’ve ever met,” Mrs. Williams interrupted again.

   “I can tell!” Officer Macintire nodded with a slight grin. “Actually, Karen here tells me you might just have an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme at your place that might need a bit of work. I love cars. I’d be more than happy to spend some time working on it while the force has me off-duty. Honestly, you’d be doing me a favor—I’m already going nuts cooped up all the time with nothing to do.”

   “I… appreciate the thought,” Tabitha smiled. “But, I think that Uncle Danny’s old car is headed straight to the junkyard. I really wouldn’t want to trouble you with something that just can’t be fixed.”

   “Can’t hurt to take a look,” Officer Macintire seemed undaunted. “I don’t mean to brag, and Karen’ll vouch for how gosh-darned humble I am—”

   “Uh-huh,” Mrs. Williams snorted.

   “—but, I do have a way with machines,” Officer Macintire finished. “Back when I was in my teens, I was big into rebuilding classic cars. Whenever a friend of ours needs something looked at, they always take it to me first.”

   “I heard it was something with the battery,” Mrs. Williams spoke up. “But they swapped it out for another one, and it still wasn’t working right?”

   “Could be an issue with the alternator, then,” Officer Macintire surmised. “Easy way to tell— disconnect the positive terminal and see if the engine quits.”

   “It’s a problem with the alternator,” Tabitha nodded, taking a deep breath, “...and a small leak in the fuel line. It needs new tires, the brakes need replaced. The controller for the idle air intake and the entire electronic control module itself are both shot. Even if we could find junkyard replacement PROM chips for a ten-year-old control module computer, they’d need to be reprogrammed. As far as I’m aware, only General Motors can do that—and they wouldn’t do it for cheap. Considering all the costs involved in getting it running again, it’s really just not worth the effort.”

   Darren Macintire blinked, seeming to reevaluate his first impression of Tabitha, and then turned to throw Mrs. Williams a look with an arched eyebrow.

   “That’s—well—” Mrs. Williams looked speechless. “Your parents didn’t say anything about any of that!”

   “I know,” Tabitha winced. “I, um. Secretly had a… neighbor look into what it would take to get it running again. I really don’t want the car rusting in our yard forever. It makes us look like trailer trash.”

   “You are not trailer trash,” Mrs. Williams insisted.

    “Trying really hard not to be,” Tabitha said with a weak smile. “Dad felt obligated to buy the Oldsmobile to help out our Aunt Lisa, because Uncle Danny’s headed to jail. But, as soon as she had the money... she walked out on her four kids and just disappeared. It’s… yeah, no matter how you look at it, it’s all a pretty trashy story.”

   “She what?” Mrs. Williams exclaimed, looking personally affronted. “Surely there’s some way of contacting her?”

   “None that she’s answered,” Tabitha said with an uneasy shrug. “We mostly don’t talk about it. It’s a sore subject for Dad, and I don’t ever want to make Grandma Laurie upset. She’s the one who’s taking care of those four cousins right now.”

   “That’s terrible!” Mrs. Williams shot Officer Macintire a glare. “There has to be some way for authorities to track her down right away.”

   “No,” Tabitha shook her head. “Please don’t. I, um, I know it sounds cruel of me to say, but. Aunt Lisa wasn’t a good mother, and I hope we never find her. Anyone who’ll abandon their children isn’t someone I can trust with them, and the boys deserve better than her.”

   “Well—she can still be held accountable,” Mrs. Williams fumed, unwilling to let it go. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Let’s not talk about this now, I didn’t mean to bring everything down today with all of this. I’ll speak to your parents about it later.”

   “I really do want to take a look under the hood of that Cutlass Supreme now,” Officer Macintire tactfully changed the subject. “I’ve never run into a problem I couldn’t fix, and hey, you never know—maybe whoever checked it out before was exaggerating the damage.”

   “Maybe?” Tabitha nodded, trying not to sound too doubtful.

   “I’m really in your debt, Miss Tabitha,” Officer Macintire said with a determined smile. “There’s gotta be some way I can start to pay you back a little. Heck, between us cops and Karen here, you wouldn’t believe the kind of pull we have around town.”

   “Look at you being humble again!” Mrs. Williams huffed, putting her hands on her hips. “I really don’t know how Sandy puts up with your ego.”

   “There... is something important you can do for me,” Tabitha said after a moment of thought. “I want you to be the best Dad ever for Hannah. She almost lost you forever, an-and it terrifies me imagining what that would have done to her. How things would have been without you for her and Mrs. Macintire. For the Williams family, for all of the people who care about you.”

   Officer Macintire shared another meaningful look with Mrs. Williams for a moment before turning back towards Tabitha to regard her with a solemn look for several moments.

   “I can absolutely promise you that,” he finally said.

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/// Might rework this one a bit later so that it doesn't feel so stilted in some parts. Today's my birthday! Probably taking the rest of today and tomorrow off, then I'll resume writing AnimeCon Harem the day after that, so I should have a section for you guys either the 17th or 18th.