No Ordinary Child

“That’s fine.” It wasn’t. Tomorrow afternoon he had an important meeting with the developers of Moonlight Grove that would undoubtedly run late. But what could he say? “It’s just fine.”

“Sam, I know this puts you in a bind, as far as child care and all. Maybe your mother could help you out.”

Andrea and his mother had always been friendly. His mother had once proclaimed Andrea the perfect daughter-in-law. These days they shared a mutual love and fierce protectiveness of Meggie. But his mother had her own life now—she was scheduled to leave for Central America on a photographic expedition in one week.

“We’ll be fine. If Mom can’t take care of Meggie, I know of a very nice older lady who can. Mrs. Waddle has baby-sat for me a couple of times. Very nice. Very grandmotherly.” This was a somewhat rosy description of Cloretta Waddle.

“Okay. Call me back later tonight.”

“Andrea?”

“Yeah?”

“When did you find out about this?”

“About a week ago.”

Oh, God, he thought. A life could change so dramatically in only a week. Hadn’t Andrea Haynes Solomon suffered enough in her life? First, bearing a severely brain-damaged child when she was only twenty years old, then having her marriage fall apart. And now this. Cancer. “Andrea, I’m so sorry. We will get you through this, all of us. Don’t worry about Meggie. I promise I will take very good care of her.”

“You always do.”

“Yes, well. I love her. She’s my baby.” He was glad he hadn’t said, She’ll always be my baby. Andrea didn’t need reminders of Meggie’s shortcomings any more than he did, certainly not now.

“I know, Sam. Call me back when you’re somewhere where you can write the plane information down. I’m really sorry to spring this on you so suddenly. I just didn’t want Meggie to have to see me in the hospital, you know? I don’t think she would understand any of this.”

“Does Meggie know you’re sick?”

“We told her I have to have an operation. She had a friend who had her tonsils out, so she understands that much. I told her she would probably get to stay with her daddy until I’m…until I’m well.” Andrea rushed on, her voice artificially bright again. “She was very excited about seeing you and her nonnie.”

Sam closed his eyes, but somehow the hot orange light of the sun seeped through his lids, anyway, egging on the tears. “I’ll call you back,” he croaked, trying not to choke up, “in a bit.”

“Okay. I’ll be here.”

Sam punched End and stared out over the shimmering apricot surface of the water again, feeling as if the world had suddenly shifted on its axis.

How could life change so completely in only a few minutes? Then again, hadn’t he learned already that life could change just that fast? Suddenly, completely, horribly. In those few tense moments when Meggie had been born, those tortured moments, he had wanted to rip the cord from his child’s neck with his own hands. Those moments had taught him that everything, positively everything, could spin out of control in an instant. When the nurses forced the mask over his tiny baby’s blue face and she did not breathe, hadn’t he seen, with his very own eyes, how in the span of less than five minutes, a life and all the lives around it could shift forever?

Soft-tissue sarcoma. Andrea was dying. No. He would not even think such a thought, would not even allow such a possibility. He would get on the Internet tonight and look it up, and he would find out everything he could about this…disease. He would help the mother of his child fight for her life. By God, he was a man who fixed things—restored things—and he would find a way to fix this, too.

But first, he had to find someone to drive to Oklahoma City and pick up Meggie at Will Rogers World Airport at seven in the evening. There was really no question as to who that someone would be.

GAYLE SOLOMON STOOD STARING out at the runways, thanking God that Will Rogers World Airport was quieter than most. Set on a grassy plain south of Oklahoma City, Will Rogers was a typical, vast, unadorned airport. At least here the parking lots were uncrowded and the traffic flowed smoothly. Even at seven o’clock on a Friday evening at the start of the Memorial Day weekend there weren’t that many people. Maybe Meggie wouldn’t be too scared, arriving in a relatively calm place like this. But the drive to Tulsa would seem unbearably long to the child, so Gayle had come armed with sing-along tapes. Meggie loved to sing.

The jet that carried her grandchild taxied in from a distant runway. She hated to think of little Meggie in a plane that big all by herself. She wondered if any of the other passengers had shown an interest in Meggie, if they’d talked to her. If they’d been kind.

Of course they’d been kind. People were always kind to children, weren’t they? But even if they were kind, they would still be expecting Meggie to behave like what she appeared to be—a normal ten-year-old. When in reality, the specialists estimated that Meggie was, at most, mentally a three-year-old. Meggie could fool people. She wasn’t slack-jawed or slow-moving. She was beautiful, thin and graceful. She moved like a tiny gazelle. And she could parrot the most astounding words, making her seem brighter than she actually was.

For an instant Gayle thought she saw Meggie’s bewildered little face framed in one of the oval windows of the plane, but in the next instant, the glare of the setting sun obliterated it. Envisioning her granddaughter’s face reminded Gayle of how simple, how sweet Meggie could be. Well, Meggie could be sweet if she wanted to be. At least when her routine wasn’t disrupted. Gayle sighed. Being separated from her mother and having to fly across the country was certainly a major disruption.

Not for the first time, Gayle wished Andrea hadn’t taken the child off to California. What was Sam supposed to have done? Abandon his struggling architectural partnership when it was just taking off? Building a reputation as a specialist in restoring historic buildings took time and persistence.

Gayle walked around the passengers waiting at the gate, positioning herself directly in front of the door of the boarding ramp, thankful that the airline security had allowed her to come this far down to meet Meggie.

Airports, Gayle thought, had become such somber, anxious places these days. The long, brightly lit corridor around her, with its boarding gates fanning out in a semicircle, felt subdued, vacant, compared to her last visit to Will Rogers.

Gayle walked over to a rounded bank of windows and folded her arms across her middle. The heat from the prairie sun setting low over the vast tarmac radiated through the glass. The holiday weekend promised to be a scorcher. Gayle watched as the blue-and-white jet aligned its door with the boarding ramp. Meggie was in there. She hoped her baby wasn’t scared. Meggie would remember her nonnie, wouldn’t she?

A stream of passengers emerged from the doorway. A little family. Some college students. A few tired-looking businessmen. Soon the area was filled with passengers. People assembled their parties, then rushed toward baggage claim. Gayle’s view became blocked by a large man. She ducked around him, but she still couldn’t see any sign of Meggie. In no time the stream dwindled to a trickle. Still no Meggie.

Anxious, Gayle took the paper on which she’d written Sam’s instructions from her purse. Flight 1292. She looked at the digital display behind the boarding desk. She was at the correct gate. She stepped toward the ramp and peered down the tunnel toward the door of the plane. Not a soul was in sight. What should she do? Surely they hadn’t let something happen to the child. Gayle’s mind flashed to the time her elderly mother-in-law had been left sitting in a wheelchair while her connecting flight took off in Salt Lake City. Her palms grew damp.

Sam should have flown to Los Angeles to pick up his daughter. Gayle had told him that in no uncertain terms.

In defiance of the rules, she was about to march down the ramp and look into the plane herself when she heard a shriek and then a child’s howling protests.

Behind Gayle, a small cluster of people had formed under a large sign that read Oklahoma City, the new Agenda for Business, next to a stunning blowup of a fire-red Oklahoma sunset. But there was nothing sunny about their faces as they turned anxious expressions toward the sound of the shrieking child.

The suspended alertness of the group fractured as they all heard the young child plainly yelling, “Help! Help me!”

As one, everyone rushed forward, expressions horrified. Gayle was overcome by a sinking feeling. Meggie was acting out again. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw security officers jogging down the concourse.

A man in a straw cowboy hat standing next to her muttered, “What the hell?”

“I think it’s my grandchild.”

Sure enough, around the corner came a flight attendant, tugging a screaming Meggie by the hand. Meggie, clutching her beloved stuffed companion, Mr. Bear, and wielding a pink Pokémon backpack at the flight attendant’s arm, dug in her heels and stopped their progress.

Meggie was incredibly strong for such a thin child. Gayle had to smile, though she was mortified that Meggie was making such a scene. The child did have a will of her own. Her little face was so red with exertion that it made her blond hair look almost white. Like the unfortunate flight attendant, Gayle herself had often been jerked to a halt when Meggie didn’t want to cooperate. There was no reasoning with a three-year-old in a ten-year-old’s body. The flight attendant bent forward at the waist, obviously trying to reason with the struggling child.

“Meggie!” Gayle called, “Meggie! It’s Nonnie!” Gayle put on a brave smile and waved frantically, trying to get the child to calm down and see that everything was okay. Nonnie was here.

The flight attendant turned. “Are you Mrs. Solomon?”

“Yes!”

Gayle was relieved when she was waved down the ramp. “Meggie, it’s okay, honey.” She tried to speak calmly above Meggie’s screaming as she took hold of the combative child. “Nonnie’s here.”

“I going back to Cal-forna!” Meggie screamed while trying to tug her hand out of the attendant’s grip and twisting her thin body away from Gayle, back toward the plane.

“She refused to get off the plane.” The woman had to holler to be heard above Meggie’s crying.

“I…want…my…mom-meeee!” Meggie wailed.

“Meggie, listen!” Gayle dropped to one knee and bracketed her hands on the child’s flushed, tear-streaked cheeks. “Remember Nonnie?” Gayle brushed back Meggie’s thick blond curls and tried to look into her eyes, but they were squeezed shut. “And Daddy? Daddy wants to see you. Remember? And Brutus. Brutus wants to see you. Remember Brutus?”

Gayle hated to use her poor little schnauzer as bait, but what choice did she have? It always worked. Instantly, Meggie’s body relaxed and her eyes opened wide.

“Bootus?” she said in quiet awe.