Lakeside Reunion

He needed to get a grip. He had a job to do.

His cell phone vibrated again. Probably Melissa letting him know she talked to Ma. He grabbed it and answered. “Chase.”

“Mr. Chase, this is Carolyn Patry, the school nurse at Shelby Lake Elementary. I’m afraid there’s been a little accident.”

“What sort of accident?” A child wailed in the background. Familiar sobs that knifed his insides. “What’s wrong with Tyler?”

“He and another child collided while playing indoor soccer in gym class. Tyler fell and hurt his arm. I’m afraid it may be broken. He needs medical attention. Would you like me to call the paramedics, or do you want to take him to the emergency room?”

“I’ll take him. I’m on my way.” He ended the call, radioed the station to let them know where he was headed and shifted the patrol car into Drive. He pulled away from the shoulder, spitting gravel beneath the tires.

A broken arm wasn’t life-threatening. But the poor kid’d had a rough year and didn’t need anything else to make it worse. Especially a trip to the hospital—a place they’d come to know all too well and hated.

What if he ran into Lindsey in the E.R.?

Second chances didn’t come along every day. Now that she was back in town, maybe, just maybe he could make amends—fix what he had broken in the past. Next time she left town, it wouldn’t be because of him. Or maybe, God willing, he’d make sure she never wanted to leave again.

Chapter Two

Lindsey rushed into Shelby Lake Memorial’s emergency department. Her feet stopped at the edge of the rubber mat. The automatic doors hissed open and closed behind her. Her brain told her to move. But her legs … well, they refused to cooperate.

The stench of antiseptic saturated the air, coating the back of her throat and unleashing a flood of memories. Sea of blue uniforms swarming the waiting room. Mom’s body hunched in repetitious prayer. The waiting for word about Dad’s condition … praying for a miracle.

Beads of sweat dotted her upper lip and forehead. Inside her skin, her muscles tightened, nerve endings pulsed. Chills crawled across her flesh.

She couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t go back to the exam rooms, only to have the doctors say how sorry they were, but there was nothing more they could do. She couldn’t bear to listen to Mom’s griefstricken howls. Except, this time, those cries would be hers.

Ringing.

From the registration desk. Focus, girl.

Lindsey blinked a couple of times.

Emergency department.

Right.

Mom hadn’t been rushed to the O.R. with a bullet in her chest like Dad had been. She’d be fine. After all, who died from a broken leg?

Lindsey scanned the room, searching for Granddad’s steel-gray crew cut or Grandma’s cotton-colored curls.

Instead, she locked eyes with an elderly woman wearing a pink-and-white crocheted hat that resembled a toilet-paper cover. She wore a stretched-out white T-shirt, green polyester pants with a snag in the knee, white ankle socks and blue knockoff Crocs. She clutched a wicker purse with a beaded handle. Her jaw worked a piece of gum like one of Granddad’s Holsteins.

Realizing she was staring, Lindsey pulled her attention away from the woman and hurried to the registration desk. A woman with a white cardigan draped over her shoulders looked up from a computer screen and smiled. “May I help you?”

“My mother, Grace Porter, was brought in by ambulance with a broken leg.”

The woman set her glasses on the bridge of her nose and clicked a few keys. “Please have a seat, and I’ll get someone to speak with you.” She left the desk and disappeared behind a closed door.

Lindsey turned away from the desk and perched on the edge of one of the rose-colored vinyl chairs. The same chairs formed a horseshoe around the same glass table as they had five years ago. Dog-eared Sports Illustrated, Good Housekeeping and Parents magazines lay tossed on the chairs like missing socks. A morning show played on the wall-mounted TV, but the woman’s perky voice grated on her nerves.

“You gotta go potty?” A little girl about four with lopsided ponytails, a dirty face and a heart-melting smile stood in front of Lindsey holding a worn Dr. Seuss book.

“Excuse me?”

“When I hafta go potty, I do that.” She pointed to Lindsey’s knee.

Lindsey looked down and realized she had been bouncing her knee. She stilled her leg and shook her head. “Oh. No, I’m fine. Nervous habit.”

“What you got to be nerbous about?”

“My mom broke her leg. I want to make sure she’s okay.”

“That musta hurt. My mommy drinked too much and had a accibent. My daddy yelled at her and she cried. I don’t like my daddy. I’m sposta stay with Nana, but she’s talking to Jesus. Do you talk to Jesus?”

At one time, she did. Thinking she had a direct line to Heaven, Lindsey prayed for a miracle. But apparently, God screened His calls.

Instead of answering, Lindsey tapped the book cover. “I like your book. My mom has Daisy-Head Mayzie and reads it to her class.”

The little girl looked at the front of the book a minute, then hugged it against her chest. “My teacher read it to us, too. Mommy buyed it for me. She likes daisies. She said I was special like Daisy. I like my mommy. She’s nice when she don’t smell funny.”

Smell funny? Booze? Drugs? Worse?

If life hadn’t taken a sharp U-turn … well, maybe Lindsey would have had a child by now. Possibly about the same age as the little girl. She couldn’t dwell on the way reality derailed her dreams.

She tucked her hands beneath her thighs to keep from pulling the girl into her lap and cradling her against the unfairness of life. Of course, after she burned that stained polka-dot dress and dunked the child in a tub full of bubbles.

The girl should be watching Dora the Explorer, playing dress-up and serving tea to bears and pink unicorns. Not wandering the emergency-department waiting room, trying to decide which parent she loved more.

“Molly! Get on over here. Don’t bother that nice lady.” The elderly woman with the crocheted hat slapped the empty seat beside her. “Sorry ‘bout that. Molly’s a little chatterbox.”

Lindsey held up a hand and smiled. “She’s no bother. Really.”

Molly shuffled her grungy yellow flip-flops to her grandmother and hopped onto the chair beside her. “Nana, my tummy’s hungry.”

“Well, you will just have to wait. I ain’t got no money. Who knows how long your worthless mother is going to keep us here? Why, I have half a mind to—” The woman mashed her withered knuckles against her lips and stared out the window.

Lindsey dug through her purse and pulled out a blueberry cereal bar. “Excuse me, I don’t mean to intrude, but I have a granola bar. Molly’s welcome to it.”

Molly’s eyes sparkled. She slid off the chair, but Nana grabbed the child’s arm and pulled her back. She shook her head, causing the crocheted rose on her hat to flop around like a hooked trout. “We don’t take charity. We ain’t got much, but we got our pride.”

Lindsey wanted to argue. To let her know it was no imposition. But Nana’s thrust chin and crossed arms left little room for debate. Molly’s bottom lip protruded. Lindsey’s heart pined for the child. How many times had Dad given food to needy families? Even strangers.

Whatever you did for the one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.

Maybe she could slip the nurse a twenty and ask for food to be brought to Molly and Nana.