Filed To Story: The Lingering Kiss of Farewell Novel
All of Marilyn’s communications to Lisa, even back in the day, had the name Marilyn written on them, but Lisa had never once checked with accounting or legal to see if that was her real name or a pen name. She didn’t handle the drawing up of the contract or the signing of it, she was just her agent through the publishing house, and was the one to pass on the offer of a book contract from the publishing house director. But it was the big boss who signed all Marilyn’s contracts back then in the beginning, and now here in the present as well. The company had its own lawyers for drawing up contracts and all other legal matters. She herself sat in a nice office in the editing department 90% of the time.
So it was entirely possible that the very first few contracts she’d signed when she was just an unknown, might have a different name on them. They could well have the name Marrin Reeves attached to them. Her job was proofreading and editing, and to let the boss know when a new book was being written and was finished. To help organise book tours with the PR department, now that she’d managed to get Marilyn to do that.
She would have to go back to the publishing house and physically check the contracts, have one of the company’s lawyers dig through the archives for them. They might not even be there now. Marilyn had been an author for ten years now, and legally five to seven years was all that was required to be kept for taxation purposes.
Lisa had only ever known her as Marilyn Riddley. Not once had she ever written her name as Marin, and she’d seen the mail at the house, the hospital bills from her previous accident over the years. They all stated Marilyn Riddley, so why would she think she was anyone else, that she was a different person? There was no need for her to think that.
Lisa had hunkered down in front of the boys, looked at them and then sighed heavily before telling them, Tm sorry boys, your mum has fallen down a set of stairs. I’ve had to send her to the hospital. Hamilton is going with her, so I can come and get you.”
Their hazel??reen eyes had gone wide at first, as they’d stared at her, and then they were filled with worry, turning very green as their emotions came into play.
“Is she alright? Callum had asked her, a tremor in his small voice.
“I don’t know to be honest, she was unconscious, she hit her head during the fall. The paramedics also said she possibly broke her wrist as well.”
She could see fear welling in them as she tried to explain it calmly to them. They both knew their mother had long??erm amnesia and this could well mean she’d suffer it again. She was certain that was what they were thinking, and how could they not when it was kind of a running joke in that house between the three of them? They were now, however, worried that she’d wake up and actually not recall them for real, and it was probably a full possibility. Hell, she could wake up and be Marrin Reeves and have no memory of being Marilyn Riddley, mother of two. That wouldn’t go down so well with her children. She was going to have to look that one up.
“I’ll pack a few of your mother’s things, extend our stay here at the hotel, but you’ll have to stay with me for the time being… or me here with you. My room is only a single room, not a suite.”
And it was.
Marilyn had paid for her own accommodation on this book tour, seeing as she’d insisted on bringing the boys, but the publishing house was paying for Lisa’s room. The boys just nodded at her, it wasn’t unusual for Lisa to stay at their house out in Maine.
Marilyn had created a nice guest house out in the barn just off the side of her house, built a one??edroom apartment with a loft bedroom and a carport. She’d actually kept the size and the barn style as well, but the inside was like a luxury hotel room. Marilyn and the boys had stayed in it when she’d remodeled her own home as well.
It had originally been a two??edroom cottage but was now a three??edroom cottage. The boys had the entire upstairs floor and Marilyn had added a master bedroom and ensuite off the back of the house on the ground floor, so as not to change the aesthetic of the front of the house, which she liked. Marilyn liked the quaint country??tyle look of the home and had wanted to keep that
“We’ll go and see your mum, but I don’t know yet how long she’ll be in the hospital for. You might want to bring your tablets for something to do okay.”
She’d told them, and then she had just hugged them and apologised to them for this happening under her watch.
She’d seen them go off and get their backpacks that they took everywhere, and had run a hand through her hair after dismissing the sitter. She placed a call to the hotel reception desk and the man that answered the phone had put her right through to hotel management.
They’d already heard of the accident that had happened in their hotel, and seen someone get wheeled out injured and unconscious. The manager had apologised and offered to comp the rest of their stay, when she’d told him that she needed to extend it due to unforeseen circumstances.
Lisa had accepted it, knew why he’d done it even, the hotel manager was trying to save the hotel from getting bad publicity from all of this, and being sued as well. Marilyn, looking like Marrin, had been leaked by this hotel’s employees in the very first place. Which had brought about the very situation Marilyn now found herself in.
It technically could be seen as it was all the hotel’s fault in the overall grand scheme of things, but she didn’t say anything about that. As far as she was concerned, it was actually Calvin Reeves’ fault, he was the man obsessed.
The boys were ready to go, and she took them down to the car and drove to the hospital, found Hamilton and what was going on. Marilyn had been taken off for an MRI and X??ays, the nurses and doctors hadn’t been able to rouse her as of yet.
She was asked about Marilyn’s medical history. Seeing as she was her next of kin, she’d only been able to give them a brief rundown of her history, but as the next of kin had been able to sign papers to allow this hospital to have access to Marilyn’s medical files from the hospital in Virginia.
She and the boys had to sit and wait with Hamilton in the ED while the tests were run, and they both stood and stared at their mother when she was brought back. There was a cast on her right wrist and her index finger was strapped to her middle finger, also broken. That was going to make Marilyn unhappy. How she would write or type now, that was her dominant hand as well, and There was also a cast on her right leg, her ankle was fractured, injured during the fall, and she had six stitches to the right side of her temple, and there was extensive bruising and grazes to both her legs arms. She’d come back wearing a hospital gown, not her clothes, likely they’d been removed to attend to her wounds.
Calvin
He was standing in his penthouse apartment listening to the doctor as he listed out Marilyn’s injuries, and all he could do was sigh heavily and scrub a hand over his face. It had been three and a half hours, and she’d still not woken up. Her lawyer and her agent were there along with her two children.
Dr. Casey Jonston, who was now in charge of her case, had hesitated when mentioning them to him, and then he’d just sighed and murmured
“I was told not to mention them to anyone from your legal team, or yourself, Calvin.”
To which he’d simply sighed once more, and let it go. That was actually understandable considering the circumstances. He’d likely be no different if he was her, or her legal team. Not wanting the assailant to have any more information on her or her family, it wasn’t at all necessary.
She had three fractures that needed setting, a wrist and ankle and one of her fingers; he knew she’d tried to protect her head in the fall. She also had a sprained and severely swollen knee and three cracked ribs. Multiple contusions over her entire body and several lacerations, including one to her head, that needed stitches.
They’d not seen any signs of spinal damage, but she was suffering from a moderately severe closed traumatic brain injury, and that was why she was currently unconscious. Casey had stated,
“The longer she remains unconscious, the worse her symptoms upon waking up were likely going to be.”
Then he’d listed out the possible symptoms to come from her brain injury
They’d moved Marilyn from the ED to the ICU to closely monitor her until she woke up. She had minimal responses to external stimuli, but no bleeding within the brain itself had been seen in the MRI. But there was swelling and their neurosurgeon that had looked at her results was hopeful that the swelling would resolve itself, and was monitoring her closely for that.
Though the amount of time it would take, was always something that was an unknown factor with all brain injuries, it was dependent on the individual. All head injuries were considered to be different from each other, even if they’d seen the same thing before.
Calvin closed his eyes as he realised the utter seriousness of his actions, unwarranted actions he also now knew, and asked the one question he did not really want to know the answer to, but had to know at the same time,
“Worst??ase scenario, Casey?”
“Unable to remember who she is, loss of concentration and thinking capabilities, and loss of motor control for a time, if those things happened it could take years for her to recover,”
Casey had inform him honestly.
“So, the loss of her career,”
Calvin murmured, pushing a hand through his hair.
“She’s an author, and relies on her brain solely for that. This could well affect her ability to write, and for the rest of her life; that is what you’re telling me, right?”
“Yes. That is the worst??ase scenario, Casey stated.
“But it could also be none of that, Calvin. We won’t know until she actually regains consciousness, and Jacob Holdings, our neurosurgeon, comes in here to test her neurological abilities. Though he did state it does seem that she has recovered from a brain injury before, so she could do this one as well, though it could also go the other way and be even worse than expected due to previous damage.”
CH??0
What do you mean? Calvin frowned
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“She is covered in scars, Calvin. I’ve got her medical records from her home hospital in Virginia and, reading her history, there was note of an old brain injury, to confirm what our neurosurgeon picked up. He saw what looked like previous damage and the bone scaring as well; from where he believed she has had a hole drilled In her scull to likely release pressure from it. That has now been confirmed.
“She was likely lucky to survive her injuries the first time, is what I read. Her doctors in Virginia didn’t think she was going to. She was a broken mess. The x??ays we took here have confirmed everything in the files I’ve read and shared with the team, to understand her medical history. She had multiple broken bones all down her left side, both her legs, and a head wound though…”