CHAPTER 13

Michael's car landed near the shore, where a bunch of kids were hanging out. One of the kids called the police as soon as he heard the cars crash and a couple of others swam to the car to see if they could help. They managed to pull open the door and drag an unconscious Michael out of the car, then to the shore before the car went under the water. Unfortunately, the other car had landed upside down in deeper water and because the windows were smashed it had submerged immediately. The paramedics, police with divers, and fire department were there within two minutes, and even though the divers jumped right in they were unable to find the other car since the sun was setting.

Soon it was too dark, and they had been forced to call off the search until morning. In the meantime, Michael had been taken to the hospital, while the police started their investigation of the accident. One of the first officers on the scene was a friend of Carl's, and recognized Michael on sight. He called Carl right away, so that he could tell the man's mother. Deb and Carl arrived at the hospital right after the ambulance, each worried, but for different reasons.

Michael was with the doctor, and had obviously regained consciousness. As was his wont lately, he was yelling and being belligerent. Neither were sure they wanted to deal with the man just yet, but knew they needed to gather as many facts as they could before having to deal with Michael.

"Carl, Michael sounds drunk. I hope he didn't hurt anyone else. He may be my son, but he has made some stupid decisions lately. I know you're off-duty, but can you see if you can find out anything about the accident?" Deb asked, concerned that Michael may have done something that could have long lasting consequences.

While Carl made the call to see if he could find out the details of the accident, the doctor came out to speak with Deb. "Ms Novotny, I'm Dr Harrison. I've examined your son and it appears his spine was severed in the accident. He also appears to be drunk and possibly high. He is very hostile towards the both the staff and me. At this point, we have had to restrain him. Would you like to come speak with him before we take him upstairs?"

"Yes, I would like to see him. Does he know what's happened?" Deb asked, as the doctor walked her back to see Michael.

"I told him, but I'm not sure he has really taken it all in yet. That's a normal response under these circumstances though,"

"Do you happen to know if there was anyone else involved in the accident, doctor?"

"I do know that two cars were seen going off the bridge, but I have no idea about any other victims. I do know that your son was the only victim brought in so far,"

Seeing her son restrained to the bed, Deb starts to cry, "Michael, what happened?"

"IT'S NOT MY FAULT! YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE KEEPS PISSING ME OFF! That fucking hustler took Brian away from me, Ben is off fucking someone else, Ted won't talk to me, and Emmett hit me when I made a comment about that slut. Now you're too busy with that damned cop to do anything for me and YOU WON'T EVEN HELP ME PAY THAT FUCKER OFF! You and the rest of them can GO TO HELL! Get the fuck away from me UNLESS YOU'RE GOING TO DO WHAT I WANT!"

"And exactly what is it you want, Michael?"

Michael smiled, his inebriated mind reveling in the fact that he had her right where he wanted her. It's about fucking time she remembers that I'm her son; that I'm the ONLY important person in her life!! He thought as he began to make his demands. "You are to get rid of that fucking cop! You are to give me the money I want! You are to talk to Brian again and make him understand that I COME FIRST! And you are to refuse to serve or help anyone who doesn't want to be MY friend! Now, you have five minutes to decide,"

"I don't need five minutes. Goodbye, Michael. Have a nice life!"

With tears for her lost son, Debbie walked out of the emergency room to find Carl. She could hear Michael screaming for her to return to his side. She knew that she's shocked him; knew that he didn't expect her to choose herself, and finally put her wants and needs before his own. Although it hurt like hell to do, Deb knows within herself that she just made the best possible decision. Oh, but it fucking HURTS!

Carl saw Deb coming out of the back crying and opened his arms to the woman he loved. He hated to be the one to have to tell her what he had found out, but she deserved to know.

"Hey, Beautiful. Why don't we sit down?"

"No, Carl, I just want to get out of here. Let's go home and talk,"

The ride back to the house was quiet, with both occupants of the car lost in their own thoughts. Once in the house Carl led Deb to the couch, not looking forward to what he needed to tell her.

"Deb, I did as you asked and spoke to the crew investigating the accident. The news is not good. According to witness accounts, and what they are discovering about the accident, it looks like Michael was totally at fault. Two cars went off the bridge, the other one hasn't been recovered yet. The divers went right in, but couldn't find it. Now they have had to suspend the search until morning," Carl told the woman he loved sadly.

"Oh my God! Carl, I feel horrible for the other driver. Well, Michael has really done it this time! The doctor said that he was clearly drunk and possibly high, too. In addition to that, his spine was severed in the accident," Deb told Carl, then she went on to tell him about Michael's demands and her answer to him. He then held her, trying to comfort her in her grief.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Two weeks after Craig and Catherine's funerals, Jen stopped by the house to visit her grandbabies and speak with Justin. Justin happily let his mother in and sees a smirk on her face.

"What's up Mom? You look like you're about to burst,"

"Well, I have something for you. You know that Craig's estate was settled. Well, he had insurance policies in both yours and your sister's names. They were started when you were born,"

"I figured he would have let that go, when he decided I was no longer his son,"

"I guess he forgot that he had them. When we divorced I made sure they were still in force and continued to use some of the support money to make sure the premiums were kept up. Well, I have your check for the policy that was in your name. Here it is," Jennifer told her son as she handed him the check.

Taking the check from his mother, Justin looked at the amount. "WHAT THE FUCK?! Mom, this check is for ten million dollars,"

"Yes, because Craig was killed in an accident the policy paid double,"

"Mom, I'll sign this over to you. You should use this for you and Molly,"

"No Justin, this is yours. Molly and I also have policies, both for the same amount. I made sure I kept up the one that he had for me, too. I figured you might not want to take the money, but just listen to me. You could use this money to do something that would make that homophobic asshole turn over in his grave. I will not take this from you, Justin. After what he did to you, he owes you. I've already contacted Ted about investing the money for Molly and me,"

That night Brian and Justin had a long talk about what to do with the money. They both liked Jen's idea of doing something with the money that would be totally against anything Craig would ever want.

"You know, Justin, there are a lot of kids that are thrown away by their families for the same reason you were. What do you think about a place- maybe like a boarding house- where they could live and learn how to do something? You could teach art classes and maybe even open a gallery. Craig always hated that you were an artist. That could be the perfect FUCK YOU to him,"

"I like both those ideas, Irish. Especially opening a gallery. We could showcase art done by LGBT teens and young adults. I even have a name for it. ‘THE RAINBOW CONNECTION',"

"If you want, you can have Ted take care of investing some of the money, while we keep the rest as cash on hand. He's good and he could make sure there would be enough to keep up with both your projects. He'll also find self-sustaining investments so that they will never be without funding. If anyone else wants to invest, by all means they can. But we should come up with a board, so that a private investor won't be able to bully any one person into making a self-serving decision to glorify, or further their own personal agendas," Brian told him.

Turning in Brian's arms, Justin kissed the man he loved with all his heart. "I am so lucky to have you, Irish. And it's OUR money, not just mine. You and our children are the best things that ever happened to me,"

"I'm the lucky one. The three of you have made my life complete. I love you, Azure,"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Carl and Deb showed up at Kinnetik, needing to talk to Brian. They needed a favor and were hoping that Brian, and the others, would help them out. Brian had seen that he had an appointment with his mom and her detective, and was curious. Getting up to greet the couple Brian asked, "Is everything alright? I was surprised to see I had an appointment with you two,"

"Everything is fine. We are hoping that you and the boys would help us with something. Deb and I want to get married," Carl announced.

Getting up, Brian embraced Deb and then Carl. "That's wonderful! What do you need?"

Carl spoke first, "Well, I'd be honored if you would be my best man,"

Then Deb added, "After you give me away,"

Brian was thrilled and couldn't help the tears that were threatening to fall. "I would be honored to be there for both of you, and to be a part of your wedding. Would you like to do it at our house?"

"That would be wonderful. We'd also like the rest of the gang to be a part of the wedding," Deb told him.

"Deb, why don't you go talk to Justin? I need to talk to Brian for a minute," Carl said.

After Deb went into Justin's office, Carl and Brian sat on the sofa. "Brian, I'm also hoping that you can find a way to help me convince Deb to retire from the diner. I will be retiring soon, and I have enough between savings and my pension that she doesn't need to keep working,"

"Carl, I have an idea, but I need to go over some things with Justin tonight. I will give you a call in the morning. I do agree about Deb getting out of the diner though. Too many memories, for all of us. Let me see what we can come up with,"

"Thanks, Brian. I'm so glad Deb has one son that cares,"

"Don't worry about it, Carl. And really, she has five,"

LATER THAT EVENING

"Azure, Carl asked me today to help him convince Deb to retire from the diner. Carl is also planning to retire from the police department. What do you think of asking them to run the Sunbow Safe House?"

"I think that's a perfect idea, Irish. You know that Deb needs to be needed, and this would certainly be something she would be good at. But I'm thinking we should do something for them first. See if they can come to Kinnetik in the morning,"

NEXT MORNING AT KINNETIK

Sitting down in Brian's office, Justin hands Carl and Deb an envelope. Opening the envelope Deb starts crying and Carl looks confused. "Boys, we can't let you do this," Deb says, handing the paper to Carl. Carl looks at the page and shakes his head. On the page is the itinerary for a three month honeymoon cruise on a private yacht with a full crew.

"We want to do this for you. If you want to change any of the ports, just let us know and it will be changed," Brian told the stunned couple.

"We also want to tell you about a couple of things. One is I will be opening a gallery called The Rainbow Connection. I want to showcase work from LGBT youth. Another thing we will be doing is opening what will essentially be a boarding house and training center for LGBT kids that can't live at home because they have parents like Craig. The best part is that all of this will be financed by Craig's insurance policy that he had in my name," Justin announced.

"And Deb, we would also like to ask you something. Would you be willing to retire from the diner, and run the center for us?" Brian asked, smiling his best ‘puppy dog' smile. "You wouldn't be doing it alone. There will be counselors, and teachers. And hopefully a retired detective..." 

"You don't need to answer right away. The building still has to be remodeled, and we need to get a lot of things set up. It's just that you are the two people we thought of first for this. Please think about it," Justin added, hoping that they would decide to take the positions.

"What building are you remodeling for this?" Deb asked, wondering where they found something big enough to do all the things they were talking about doing.

"The old Catholic school, two blocks off Liberty. It's been closed for a couple of years. It's huge and the Archdiocese decided to put it up for sale, so we bought it. It has an attached convent that we will probably use for the offices and whatever else we need," Brian answered.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Brian and Justin sent the couple out for a special dinner, hoping that they would talk and see that this would be a good thing for both of them. They ate and enjoyed dinner, deciding to think over the offer later. They would rather discuss their honeymoon that they were looking forward to so much.

Later on in bed after ‘relaxing' for an hour, they started to discuss Brian and Justin's proposal to work together at the Sunbow Safe House.

Carl started "Well I'm already planning on retiring, so it is something I would have plenty of time to do. I like the idea of being able to help these kids."

"Honestly, the only reason I've never wanted to retire is because I worry about these kids. I always try to look out for and help kids that stupid people have thrown away, for no other reason than the way they were born. Being able to help kids like this makes me feel good. What happened to Justin should never happen to any child. I just thank God that he and Brian found each other. Those two are so perfectly matched. I think I'd like to take the boys up on the offer. I was also thinking about what he said about the convent. I've been there; it's huge. Maybe we could take one floor to live on and then Vic and Rodney could move in here. They rent and this place is paid for, all they'd have to do is pay the taxes. It would save them money. What do you think?"

"I think I'm marrying the most wonderful woman in the world. I love you, Deb. We'll call the boys in the morning and talk to them,"

"I really hate that I did such a horrible job with my own son that he ended up where he is. I feel like I failed by protecting him so much. He thought he had the right to do anything he wanted and that I would always be there to fix it for him. It was only after he and Ben moved into the house that I saw how selfish and nasty he had really become. He suddenly acted like he was so above everyone else. No matter what I said to him, he felt he had a right to demand and get everything he wanted. Maybe doing this will help to make up for that,"

"Honey, you have nothing to make up for. Michael was an adult; he made the decisions he did as an adult. He decided to act like that all on his own. He knew better. You taught him better,"

Deb let the matter rest as she snuggled into Carl. She knew deep down that he was right, but she still felt the weight of responsibility. Because of her son, people were dead. Granted, they weren't nice folks, but they were still family to somebody. A lot of people were hurt repeatedly by Michael, but none more than Brian and Justin. If she could atone for the part she played in that by raising that egocentric little monster, she was prepared to spend the rest of her life doing that.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Calling Brian in the morning, Deb told him that they would like to accept the offer and also asked what he thought about them moving into one floor of the convent so she could give Vic and Rodney the house. Justin and Brian loved that idea, and asked Deb to come to Kinnetik for lunch so that they could discuss the renovations for the convent. Once all the plans were set for the renovations, Brian found contractors and the work started on their dreams.