Текст книги "Equal Access"
Автор книги: A. E. Branson
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
Chapter Three
Learn to do good. Devote yourselves to justice; Aid the wronged. Uphold the rights of the orphan; Defend the cause of the widow.
–Isaiah 1:17
Shad immediately spotted Monica Simms standing outside the Jefferson City train station with her brother Eliot and his wife Tess. They were in a scattered crowd of around twenty people, and as Shad stepped off the train with Charissa he located Monica’s flowery headscarf. Although her hair started to grow back when the chemotherapy treatments ceased, it was still very short, so she preferred to keep it covered.
When Shad reached the ground he turned to assist Charissa, who had the day pack slung over her shoulders, hop down the metal grate steps. When he grasped her hand the girl simply let him hold it, but when Charissa also stepped onto the concrete Shad felt her grip tighten in his palm.
“There’s your mom.” Shad returned a wave with his other hand to Charissa’s family, although it probably looked more like he was brandishing her suitcase at them. “Uncle Eliot and Aunt Tess are here too.”
Charissa didn’t release his hand.
They strolled toward the family who took a few steps as well toward them. Monica was absolutely beaming, and Eliot and Tess were grinning happily.
“There’s my girl!” Eliot nearly shouted. He was a tall man with a barrel chest and thick blonde hair. He was wearing his usual attire of blue jeans and a polo shirt. “How’d you like your train ride?”
“Welcome home, sweetie!” Tess, a full-figured woman with shoulder-length brown hair, bent over to place herself more at Charissa’s level. “We’re all so happy to see you!”
Monica seemed overcome with joy. Her eyes kept blinking and her hands were clasped together against her chest. Shad had already informed Charissa that her mother would look a little different from the last time the girl had seen her. In seven weeks, her condition probably aggravated by the trauma of losing her daughter, Monica had lost more weight and the joints of her bones seemed to protrude a little. The billowy red blouse and long white skirt she wore helped to conceal how thin she really was.
Charissa’s grip on his hand tightened even more as Shad halted before her mother.
“Here we are, Monica.” Shad nodded to her, then cast a quick glance toward Eliot. “Nice to see you found a way to make it to the station sometime today.”
Eliot started going into a story about how the mare got tangled in barbed wire but Shad didn’t really hear him. Monica was lowering herself to her knees and Charissa’s grip in his hand managed to become even tighter. Shad wondered if she’d be able to cut off the circulation to his fingers.
“I’m so happy to see you, baby.” When Monica finally spoke her voice was hardly more than a whisper, making it even more difficult for Shad to understand her through Eliot’s monologue. “Having you back is an answer to my prayers. Did you have a good trip on the train?”
Charissa stared at her mother’s slightly gaunt face for a few seconds before silently nodding.
Monica glanced up at Shad briefly before returning her gaze to her daughter. “I see you’ve made friends with Mr. Delaney.”
After a few seconds of Charissa’s silence, Shad cleared his throat slightly before speaking. “Actually, she fired me.”
A bemused expression crossed Monica’s face as she looked up toward Shad again. Eliot’s voice was becoming quiet because Tess was tapping her husband on his arm.
Monica’s attention returned to Charissa. “We’re gonna need Mr. Delaney for a while, honey.”
“Two weeks.” Charissa’s grip relaxed and her voice was soft yet firm.
Monica tilted her head slightly. “What was that?”
“Two weeks.” Charissa pulled her hand away and used it instead to reposition her day pack. “He said I had to give him two weeks....” She glanced up questionably at Shad.
“Notice.”
Monica’s gaze returned to Shad again, and for the first time ever since he’d met her she began to chuckle. The mirth rippled slowly and softly from her, and in those few seconds Monica seemed like she just might manage to beat this cancer after all. The renewed animation clung to her as Monica’s attention returned to Charissa.
“I do admit he takes some getting used to.” Monica’s face was aglow with both joy and amusement. “But you seem to be getting along with him now.”
Charissa frowned slightly. “He’s still fired.”
Monica’s brow furrowed a bit as she glanced up at Shad.
“Don’t worry.” Shad didn’t want the situation to become more significant than it actually was. “She just needs time to get settled in.”
Monica’s frown vanished. “Of course, you’re right. Just like you’ve been all along.” She beamed at Charissa again. “You’re back with your real family, now. You’re back with the people who are gonna take care of you. I love you so much, sweetie, and I’m so very, very happy to see you again! I hope you brought your appetite with you because you get to pick which restaurant we’re gonna eat at before we go home.”
“Ice cream?” Charissa asked with hesitation.
Monica grinned. “If that’s what you want!”
“Ice cream for dinner?” Tess shook her head. “Don’t you want some real food first?”
Charissa looked at her aunt as though the woman had asked if there had been any shaved monkeys wearing fezzes and dancing the Watusi on her train seat. “I want ice cream.”
“Then that’s exactly what you’ll have!” Eliot stooped to pat Charissa on the shoulder.
“Can I get one thing before we go?” Monica’s voice softened. “I’ve really missed getting hugs from you.”
Charissa gazed at her mother for a few seconds, and then reached out for an embrace. The two hugged each other while Monica indulged in another gentle chuckle. She kissed Charissa on the side of the forehead before they released each other.
“Let’s go get that ice cream.” Monica was radiant.
“Yay!” Charissa nodded, her attitude the most childlike Shad had seen since meeting her.
Eliot helped his sister get to her feet while Tess offered to help Charissa carry the day pack. Shad quickly wrapped up some details about what they should expect over the next few days and managed to thrust Charissa’s suitcase into Eliot’s grasp. As Eliot and Tess bid their farewells and started to leave with Charissa, the girl suddenly stopped and turned back toward Shad.
“Goodbye, Mr. Delaney.” Her expression was oddly somber again.
“So long, Charissa.” Shad smiled. “Have an extra bowl of ice cream for me.”
What Monica did next caught Shad off guard, and he had to choke back his initial revulsion. She suddenly wrapped her arms around his shoulders. As Monica’s head pressed against his neck, Shad managed to stand completely still instead of recoiling from her embrace. There were only a select few persons he could tolerate such displays of emotion from. Yet Shad knew he’d better return some kind of gesture, so he reached out with the hand that wasn’t resting on his laptop case and patted Monica on the back.
“I’m so glad Vic told me about you.” Monica murmured just before she released him. “He said you were the kind of bulldog lawyer I would need that wouldn’t bleed me dry.”
Vic Phillips was Tess’s brother. He worked at a hospital, and when Monica started bemoaning she couldn’t find a lawyer who would work with her at a price she could afford, Vic asked his coworkers if they could recommend somebody. One of them lived in the Linn area and had become one of Shad’s clients shortly after he moved his practice to that town. Shad definitely remembered the case, which involved the man’s wayward ex-wife trying to move the kids with her to the state of California.
Shad stammered a little. “I’m glad to help.”
“We’ll see you next week.” Monica smiled warmly at him as she turned to leave with the rest of her family.
Shad’s attention centered on Charissa as the little group strolled away. What was he missing? On one hand the girl seemed eager to get rid of him. On the other hand Charissa seemed to display a rather quick attachment to him, which could be another expression of her abused background. Once she officially “fired” Shad back in St. Louis, Charissa had seemed more at ease with him. Monica’s allusion that Shad was not relieved of duty caused Charissa renewed concern.
Hello again, gut feeling. Why couldn’t he put his finger on what was causing it?
The crowd was thinning as people dispersed and the train began pulling away from the station. Shad turned away from Charissa’s departing family, released an exhale of relief to be finished with this specific responsibility, and took a couple of steps toward the brick depot. Shad halted when he spied Dulsie.
She was standing at the corner of the station and broke into a broad grin as soon as Shad saw her. Dulsie’s long, sandy brown hair was twisted in the upsweep she preferred to sport during the summer’s heat. The green, short sleeved pantsuit she was wearing had been her day’s attire for Dulsie’s work at a financial counseling service near the downtown district of Jefferson City. Because she stood at only four-foot-ten, a full foot shorter than Shad, and weighed about ninety pounds dripping wet, Dulsie liked to refer to this particular outfit as her leprechaun costume. Most of the time when Shad saw her wear it, he remembered how Dulsie once commented that the Irish trickster look was appropriate for somebody named Delaney – although with a name like Dulsie Delaney, she felt as though she ought to be hanging out with the likes of Clark Kent, Peter Parker and Bruce Banner.
Frankly Shad had no idea if there was even a drop of Irish in his blood, and he claimed the surname Delaney only because he had it legally changed after he turned eighteen. Dulsie had quipped during their engagement that if he had just been patient, Shad could have changed his surname to hers, which was Wekenheiser. And considering the word many people corrupted it into, Shad could have been a “wisenheimer” just like her.
They closed the gap between them as each took a few casual steps toward the other.
“How was the trip?” Dulsie’s voice was soft and its pitch was just high enough to belie her diminutiveness.
“It went well enough, considering. Have you been waiting long?”
Shad had called her on his cell phone during the time he knew Dulsie would be off for lunch and informed her of Eliot’s truancy. She was here now to take him home. Earlier that morning Shad accompanied Dulsie on her trip to work, and he knew she would have got off over an hour ago.
“You know I’m good at entertaining myself.” Dulsie’s grin had a mischievous quality to it. “I hung out at the museum in the capitol to see how long it would take for somebody to ask if I’d lost my parents.”
Besides her short stature, Dulsie’s heart-shaped face, small nose, and dark blue eyes highlighted with minimal makeup guaranteed she would get carded every time Dulsie made a liquor purchase. Because her appearance was very much inherited from her dad Karl, Dulsie knew she had many years ahead of her to deal with misconceptions. And like her dad she’d decided to accept her circumstance with humor.
“That’s better than finding out how long they take to try to throw you out of the mall.” Shad’s smile deepened. “And at least the train didn’t get here terribly late.”
“Only ten minutes. Not bad at all.” Dulsie stepped beside Shad and slipped an arm into the crook of his as it rested on the carrying case. “Remember that time we took the train to visit Russell? We were over an hour late getting to Kansas City.”
Russell was one of Dulsie’s two brothers, both several years older than her. Like both of Shad’s “sisters,” none of their siblings still lived in the area.
Shad grasped Dulsie’s hand in his, and their fingers intertwined. They strolled together past the brick depot and toward the row of cars parked along the street. Just a few blocks ahead of them towered the crystalline limestone marble dome of the capitol building where Dulsie had kept herself occupied.
“Wasn’t that the trip when we all went to the zoo?” Shad asked.
“Yeah,” Dulsie replied. “But I remember it as the trip when you reminded me of Dad.”
Shad liked Karl, but he couldn’t entirely take her remark as a complement because he knew what Dulsie was referring to, and he didn’t doubt that Karl was someone who could be dangerous if sufficiently provoked. “Oh.”
“I’m pretty sure you wanted to rip that guy’s arm off and beat him with it.”
After the train had arrived at Kansas City, the station was so crowded that Shad and Dulsie drifted apart from each other as they searched for Russell. Some greasy looking fellow who probably assumed Dulsie was an insignificant teeny-bopper nearly knocked her over as he pushed by and snapped for her to get out of his way. Shad immediately zipped to Dulsie’s side, and he remembered the impulse that shot through him when he looked into the crowd after the thug wasn’t much different from what Dulsie just described. And of all the emotions he strived to keep subdued lest they became an overreaction, anger was the one Shad kept tightest rein on.
“It was very subtle,” Dulsie continued. “The only thing that gave you away was your eyes. I swear they got darker. Oh, and you did refer to him as a coward who was missing part of his genitalia.”
Dulsie was as adept at sensing people’s feelings as Shad was inept. Except in situations he was already acquainted with and could therefore draw upon empathy, Shad had to rely on the more obvious physical cues that betrayed a person’s emotions: the position of the brows, the turn of the mouth. Dulsie had told him the key to reading somebody was to look at the eyes. Since Shad already had an aversion to gazing into most people’s eyes, he remained at a disadvantage.
“Isn’t it funny how people aim for the groin when they really want to insult somebody?” Shad hoped to steer the conversation toward a more philosophical discussion.
“Except Dad would’ve said what you said a lot louder, to see if it would bait him into a fight. But even though you kept your cool, I was glad to see you do have a fire in your belly.” Dulsie gave his hand a squeeze. “It was part of what convinced me I still wanted to go out with you.”
They’d made that trip together shortly after the rest of the family figured out Shad’s and Dulsie’s “hanging out” together had evolved into something more serious. Not that the two of them had tried to keep their relationship a secret, but nobody had foreseen such a change in their personal dynamics. Actually, by that time Dulsie was just the slower of the two to realize their comradery could lead to commitment. Shad was relieved to discover his efforts at courtship were working. But that was also when Jill began to speak up against him.
Shad frowned slightly as they approached their car, a bronze-toned Buick. “I would’ve thought that’d make you worry about me.”
“I would’ve worried about your genitalia if you hadn’t got pissed off.” Dulsie grinned.
“Well ... it takes balls to be a man.”
Dulsie laughed. Shad had simply quoted what was known as the Delaney family motto. Quaid imparted those words to his sons and grandsons, and they had done the same. Any repetition of it was usually done humorously, but Dulsie was easily provoked to laughter even though Shad didn’t consider himself to be particularly witty. And Dulsie’s love of laughter was one of her many endearing qualities.
“But it’s also to your credit you didn’t do anything to warrant spending the night in the pokey.” Her grin became more mischievous. “Rather pacifist approach for a Delaney.”
Dulsie didn’t let go of his hand as they slowed to a stop at the front of the car. Shad smiled warmly at her.
“We Delaneys have managed to stay outta jail.”
Dulsie chuckled as she placed her other hand over their clasped fingers. “Only because you haven’t been caught.”
Shad wondered if she was referring to a certain computer activity he had started in high school, and for many reasons still practiced to this day.
Dulsie’s gaze locked with his. “I also talked to Mom this afternoon.” Shad could tell by the drop in her joviality although she continued to smile that Dulsie was becoming serious. “It’s time the two of you called a truce.”
Dulsie’s words caught Shad a bit by surprise even though this was a familiar topic. “We are keeping the peace.”
“It’s more like a cease fire – or a cold war.” Dulsie’s smile sharpened. “Both of you have gotten comfortable with the way things are. Ever since we got engaged I’ve been waiting for this to blow over. I see now that’s not gonna happen unless one of you changes something.”
“And by one of us you happen to mean me?”
Dulsie smirked. “I have more influence over you.” She sighed slightly. “I kept thinking that when you never wigged out Mom would finally agree you were the right man for me. But I’m tired of waiting, and I don’t wanna have to explain to our kids why there’s this weird dynamic with their dad and grandma.”
Shad almost blurted out “What kids?” before he realized Dulsie was referring to the future. Back in the fall, while she was still twenty-five, Dulsie informed Shad that she was beginning to hear a ticking noise. They were still young enough she was content to let nature take care of itself, but also fully aware they were old enough that success at conception might take several months.
Shad harbored some reservation about his ability in regard to that goal – no, he wasn’t going to think about Brody – but they had been married for just over six years and had been incredibly successful at contraception, despite a few “risks” taken over that time which often bequeathed other couples with babies. Jill must have said something today that caused Dulsie to reconsider the merits of their family status.
“You know,” Shad replied, “in some Native American cultures, the husband is supposed to avoid his mother-in-law at all costs.”
“We aren’t Apaches.” Dulsie removed her hand from his and reached into one of her slacks pockets. “Remember when the two of you used to like each other?”
“I still like Jill.”
Dulsie locked her gaze on his again as she pulled a set of keys out from the pocket. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“It’s because of respect I stay outta her way.” Shad shook his head. “And she doesn’t play mind games with me. Believe me, it could be much worse.”
“Like I said, both of you have gotten comfortable with this little arrangement.” Dulsie stepped toward the driver’s side door of the car. “I’ve figured out the only power I can sway in this matter is to make it uncomfortable.”
Shad watched Dulsie unlock the car door and open it. “Are you going after her, too?”
Dulsie’s eyes rolled before she looked at him again. “I’ve been working on her all these years. Pointing out all the great things you do. Singing your praises every chance I can get. What I’ve finally figured out is that Mom isn’t going to believe you’ve changed unless you change something.”
Shad almost hated to admit it, but what Dulsie just said was brilliant. If anything, he was surprised it had taken her this long to come to that conclusion. It certainly would never have occurred to him.
Shad stepped over to the passenger side door as Dulsie slipped behind the steering wheel. After getting seated and closing the door, he leaned into the back seat area to place the leather case on the upholstered bench. As Dulsie clicked on her seatbelt, Shad turned toward his wife and gripped the steering wheel with his right hand.
“I love you,” Shad murmured as he leaned closer to Dulsie.
“Don’t change the subject,” she growled just before they kissed. As their lips parted she smiled at him. “I love you, too. But you’re not off the hook.”
Shad settled into the seat and fastened the safety belt as Dulsie started the car’s engine.
“Anyway, it’s time for you to quit dodging her,” Dulsie stated as she steered the car into the street and began their drive home.
“Umm....” Shad figured he had to respond, but he had no idea what to say.
Why couldn’t he just handle one thing at a time? While Shad knew he needed to follow through with Dulsie’s request – Pap had warned him never to disregard the instructions of a Leeds Woman – his larger concern was figuring out what to do about Wally.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Shad finally replied a few seconds after his stammer.
Although Dulsie’s revelation was one of the last things he wanted to hear about right now, Shad knew she was looking out for his best interests. Dulsie, after all, was the unexpected answer to his most desperate prayers.
