He couldn’t argue with her. “So do I, sweetheart.” He rubbed her back gently, then took her hands in his. “It would help me out if I knew you were home. Would you do that for me?”
Without raising her eyes, Shannon nodded, then pushed a tear away with her palm.
He rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand, like she was still a preschooler, then he looked to Rita and Gavin. “Would you guys take Shannon and Jack home and stay with them?”
“Of course.” Rita hugged him tightly. “I am so sorry,” she whispered before fresh tears began to fall.
“Dad . . . Brad’s car.” Jack choked on the words. “The cop brought me here, and . . . I didn’t lock the mission . . .”
Before Chuck could try to sort that out, Gavin stepped up. “I’ll go with you, Jack. Rita can take Shannon home, and Glen and Laurie can drop us off at the mission.”
Jack hugged Chuck and whispered, “I’m sorry. Tell Mom I love her.”
“Sure thing.”
Glen and Laurie took their turns, giving him hugs, offering to come back and stay with him, but he put them off.
“Have you talked to Joel?” Shannon asked.
“He’s not answering. He must be busy with the baby.”
“Kind of ironic, huh? Those people have the joy of a new life, and we . . .”
“We’ll be okay,” Chuck said gently. “We made it when we lost Grandma. It’s just going to take a long time to get over this.” Shannon wiped her eyes and nodded. “I’ll have Joel call you after I talk to him.”
She sniffled and wiped her eyes again. “Tell Mom I’m okay. I don’t want her to worry.”
“Chuck, I’ll make the rest of the calls,” Rita said, draping an arm around Shannon’s shoulder, squeezing her close.
“Thanks.” He turned and patted Jack’s shoulder. “I love you both, and I’ll see you as quick as I can.”
“Thanks for not telling us to get some sleep.”
“If you could, that would be a good thing.”
“Maybe some other day.”
Chuck watched them scuff away. Now he had to tell Joel. He didn’t have to be strong for Joel’s sake like he did for Jack and Shannon, and that freedom made him hesitate. Then his phone buzzed.
“Dad? What’s going on? How’s Brad?”
Chuck tried to answer. He made the right shape with his mouth. He had enough air.
“Oh no,” Joel whispered. “Dad . . . no . . .”
“They did all they could.” He forced the words out. “The bullet, it hit him. . . . It ripped through his aorta.”
“Through . . .”
He heard a rustle in the background. Joel wasn’t the cool, detached doctor anymore. He was the tenderhearted little brother left behind one last time, and Chuck hated himself for relaying the news on the stupid telephone.
Joel blew out a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You, uh, don’t need me to fall apart on you. He, uh, he didn’t have a chance, then, did he?”
“He lost consciousness in the ambulance, and he’d lost so much blood . . .”
“Do you know how it happened?”
“It was a drive-by shooting. A stray bullet.”
“And Jack was with him?”
“Brad threw Jack to the ground just before he was hit. Jack’s not hurt, but . . .”
“Yeah, he’s gotta be devastated. . . . What about . . . How are Mom and Shannon?”
“Shannon’s . . . I think it would help her if you called her.” Chuck eased into a nearby chair, suddenly feeling very tired, and very weak. “Your mother . . . she’s spending the night here at the hospital.”
“Her heart?”
“No, she blacked out. They gave her something so she could rest, and she’s being monitored.”
“You need me to come by?”
“No, I think I need a little time, you know?”
“Sure. I’ll run by and see the kids, then we’ll be over tomorrow.”
“Mom and I probably won’t be home before noon.”
“What about the police? Do they have the guy?”
“No. Jack told them everything he saw, but I don’t know how much help it was. Everything happened so fast, and he was so torn up.”
“Poor kid . . . I can’t imagine . . .” There was another rustle and Joel took a deep breath. “Listen, I’ll, uh, let you get back to Mom, there. I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, Joel, and give my love to Abby and Ryan.” Chuck would never again miss an opportunity to tell his children he loved them. As he wandered toward Bobbi’s hospital room, he tried to remember the last time he told Brad he loved him. Brad knew how much he loved him, didn’t he?
* * *
Jack slumped into the passenger seat of Brad’s car, only Brad wasn’t driving it. Brad was never gonna drive this car again. He leaned his head against the window and didn’t try to stop the tears silently streaming down his cheeks.
“You want to talk?” Uncle Gavin asked.
“Nothing to say.”
“This wasn’t your fault, Jack.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“The guy with the gun, he’s the one responsible.”
“Yeah, but here’s the thing.” He pulled himself around to face his uncle. “If Brad hadn’t . . . If he . . . I would’ve been the one hit, only it would’ve been in my shoulder or something.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Or if we’d been two seconds earlier, or two seconds later . . .” Jack wiped a tear away. “We only left the mission because of me.”
His uncle eased the car to the curb, and he looked Jack in the eyes. “Regardless of why you were there, or how things developed, the only one responsible is the guy who pulled the trigger. There are enough things in life that will be your fault,” he said with a half smile. “Don’t freelance.”
After a moment of uneasy silence, Uncle Gavin drove away and Jack leaned his head back against the headrest. He wasn’t freelancing. He was trying to be a man and face his responsibilities, the way his dad did years ago.
“All right, if you won’t believe me,” his uncle the mind reader said, “there was a wise Irish philosopher who always said, ‘Don’t borrow trouble.’”
“Who was that?”
“Phil Shannon. He was our pastor years ago.”
“Yeah, but I keep thinking about the ‘what-ifs.’”
“I’m sure it’s hard not to, but nothing good will come from that.” He didn’t say any more until he parked next to Aunt Rita’s car at home. “You think you can get some sleep?”
“No.” Jack doubted he’d be able to sleep for a very long time. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Brad’s face, and the calm resignation in his eyes as his life’s blood drained away.
Jack dragged himself to the porch, but he froze with his hand on the doorknob.
“You okay?” Gavin asked.
“I just . . . The last time I came through this door, Brad was here. It just . . . It happened so fast. Just a few hours ago.”
Gavin put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. He hated that when he was a kid. “You can do it.”
“I can remember the first time I walked through that door after losing my mom. It felt so weird.”
“So this begins life without Brad?”
“I guess that’s what it is.”
Jack gripped the door handle, his palms suddenly damp. He could feel his pulse pounding in his neck. He still had a pulse. This is stupid. Just get it over with. He pushed the door open and immediately smelled coffee. Home.
Aunt Rita didn’t hear them come in the kitchen. She cradled the cordless phone against her shoulder while she peered in the refrigerator. Surely she wasn’t hungry. No, she would probably try to feed him.
“I’m gonna get the leftovers out of here,” she said into the phone. “I don’t want Bobbi to have to deal with them.” She glanced over, and as soon as she saw him, she gave him a smile. “Kara, Dad’s here with Jack. I’ll talk to you tomorro
w.” She clicked the phone off and hugged him tightly. “You’ve had a terrible, terrible shock. Why don’t you try to get some rest.”
He shook his head. “Is Shannon in bed?”
“She’s out on the deck. Do you drink coffee?”
“I’ll take some, thanks.” Jack got a mug from the cabinet and Rita filled it for him. As he took the first sip, he could feel Aunt Rita’s and Uncle Gavin’s pathetic stares. He couldn’t hang around for that. “I think I’m going to go sit with Shannon for a while.”
He slid the back door open and waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Shannon sat in one of the deck chairs, her knees drawn up close to her body. She never acknowledged him. He hoped that meant she’d drifted off to sleep. He eased down to the top step, set his coffee beside him, and leaned back against the post. The air was still and a handful of stars were out.
“Today started out so ordinary,” Shannon said, startling him when she spoke.
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t God protect Brad?” She dropped her knees and looked at him. “Brad was such a good person. He was in ministry. . . . Shouldn’t that count for something?”
“I don’t know.” He couldn’t answer his own questions.
“And Mom and Dad, haven’t they gone through enough? I mean, there was the affair, and then you, and now this. . . . It’s not fair.”
“Wait a minute. Me? I’m something Mom and Dad had to suffer through?”
She nodded. “Finding out Dad had you was a tough time for them. Why doesn’t God leave them alone?”
“I’m not God, I don’t know. I guess we just have to trust that God knows what He’s doing, and that this will all work out somehow.”
“So help me, if you quote that stupid verse about everything working out for good, I will punch you in the mouth.”
Jack took a long drink of coffee to hide a slight smile. If she saw him grin, she’d punch him, verse or no verse.
“I hope somebody rots in jail for this,” she muttered.
“Unless one of those other guys talks, I don’t know if they’ll ever catch the guy that did the shooting.”
“You didn’t see him? Jack! You were right there!”
“I was a little busy.”
She slumped back in her seat. “Great. Justice depends on a bunch of hoods. I’m sure they’ll be real reliable witnesses.”
“If they recovered the bullet, they can match it to the gun. They won’t need witnesses.” Recovered the bullet . . . from Brad’s body. Jack suddenly felt nauseous.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Shannon said, standing. “I’m going to bed.” She stopped before stepping through the sliding door. “Your shirt’s inside out, you dork.”
He pulled the neck of the shirt out. He sighed and pulled it over his head, then slipped it back on. That was the least of his worries when he grabbed a clean shirt at the mission.
He leaned his head back against the post and closed his eyes. He told that cop everything, every last thing . . . but he never saw the shooter. God, if I saw him, help me remember. . . . Don’t let this depend on me.
* * *
In his wife’s darkened hospital room, Chuck eased the door shut, holding the door handle, trying his best to dampen the click as it shut. He could hear Bobbi breathing with the rhythm of deep sleep, and he didn’t want anything to disturb that. This might be the only decent night’s sleep she got for a very long time. At her bedside, he laid his hand on hers, then kissed her gently. “I love you,” he whispered. He was sure he saw her smile.
She was such a remarkably strong woman, and they had struggled through so much together. He couldn’t imagine facing the loss of his son without her. He pulled his glasses from his shirt pocket so he could read the displays on her monitors, as if he knew what the numbers meant. Blood pressure he recognized, and it was good, much better than his, but he wasn’t sure what her pulse and respiration should be as she slept.
He pulled a pillow from the closet and turned the wastebasket upside down, positioning it just in front of the vinyl couch. He folded the pillow in half and slipped it behind his head, using the wastebasket for a footstool. I need to call Christine in the morning. And the assistant director at the mission, Ron, uh, Ron . . . good grief, I just talked to him last week. Moore. Ron Moore.
Chuck tried to replay the events of the evening in his mind, but he couldn’t recall the dinner they had enjoyed. The scene always changed quickly to that wrenching phone call from Jack. And then the surgeon . . .
He reached back further in his memory until he could see Brad tightly bundled in the hospital blankets, sleeping in his mother’s arms. That was one of the greatest days in his life. A son. His son. Now that son was gone. That quickly. Without warning.
Chuck pulled the pillow down and sobbed into it until merciful exhaustion won out.
* * *
Friday, June 13
Before Bobbi opened her eyes, the antiseptic, chlorine, hospital smell hit her, and she remembered where she was. Oh, Brad. Her chest and stomach remained knotted with that nauseating pain. For an instant she hoped it had all been some sort of psychotic episode, detached from reality. She’d take that in a heartbeat—losing her sanity over losing her son.
If she was still at the hospital, then where was Chuck? Where were her children?
Her head throbbed when she opened her eyes slowly, making it a challenge to focus. They must have given me enough to sedate a moose. She started to call for Chuck, but she heard him take a deep breath. She should have known he was right there.
He was always good in a crisis, able to think and take action. Perhaps that was why they fit together so well. He was action and she was instinct. She stretched a hand out, wanting to touch him.
Laboring to turn her head, she saw him sleeping on the small sofa beside her bed. Chuck’s hair seemed grayer this morning, the lines in his forehead deeper, the ones around his eyes more prominent. She’d heard stories about people subjected to extreme shocks waking up to find their hair had turned snow white. Those stories didn’t seem so farfetched now.
She rolled her head back to the center of the pillow and sighed. Brad was gone. It wasn’t any more real than it had been last night. He wouldn’t be there this weekend when Danny was home, or for their anniversary, or for Thanksgiving or for Christmas, or for anything ever again. And for what? Nothing in downtown St. Louis was worth Brad’s life. Nothing.
If she squinted, she could make out the hands of the clock. Almost seven. She needed to get home to Shannon and Jack. Last night she couldn’t bear her own grief, and she left them to fend for themselves. She would never forget Shannon’s desperate hand reaching for hers, or the look on Jack’s face when they walked through the emergency room doors. How could she fail them this way?
After Jack’s mother died, he counseled with Glen, and they discovered what an insecure little boy he was. Anytime he began to relax and feel safe in a routine, his mother uprooted him. He was so needy for attachment, for a connection to a family, when they got him. He idolized Brad. And now . . . It would take more wisdom than she had to help him recover from this.
Bobbi heard Chuck stir. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey, yourself.” He reached his hand out to hers. “How do you feel?”
“I haven’t tried to sit up yet, and I have the mother of all headaches.”
Chuck stood up slowly. “Well, I have an everything-else-but-my-head-ache, so we’ve got it all covered.” He leaned over and kissed her. “You scared me last night.”
“Did you send the kids home?”
He nodded. “Rita and Gavin were going to stay with them.”
“Were they okay?”
“They both told me to tell you not to worry about them.”
“It’s just unreal.” She stared across the room. “It’s like . . . it’s like smacking yourself with a hammer, you know?” She looked back at Chuck. “For those first few seconds, it doesn’t hurt, because you�
�re too stunned, but you know it’s going to hurt . . . a lot . . . and soon.”
Chuck nodded and said, “I wish I could shield you from that.”
“I don’t know if you should. If Brad wasn’t such a wonderful, special young man, if I didn’t love him so much . . .” Her voice trailed off, and Chuck sat on the edge of the hospital bed, taking her in his arms. She fought the tears long enough to whisper, “If I didn’t love him, it wouldn’t hurt so much.”
As her words faded, everything melted into black sorrow. Chuck rocked her gently and cried with her.
After several minutes, she pushed away from him. “They won’t let me out of here if I’m hysterical,” she choked out.
Chuck handed her a box of tissues from the small cabinet that served as her nightstand. “You’re not hysterical. You’ve never been hysterical.”
She heard her door click open so she passed her tissues off to Chuck and sat up straight. A young doctor rounded the curtain, carrying her file. “Mrs. Molinsky? How are you this morning?”
“How do I have to answer that to go home?”
“That was good enough,” he answered with a hint of a smile. He opened the folder and laid it on the end of the bed.
“Do you need me to leave?” Chuck asked.
“You’re fine, Mr. Molinsky.” He began to examine Bobbi, listening to her heart and checking her pupils. “Did you sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Any hangover from the meds?”
“My head is pounding.”
“You can take what you want for that when you get home. You wear glasses?”
“Occasionally.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Thirty-eight years.”
“Were you twelve when you got married?”
“Twenty-one, thanks. Is this a quiz?”
“Just making sure you’re all the way back with us.” The doctor wrote in Bobbi’s folder, then closed it and tucked it under his arm. “First of all, I am so sorry about your son. I was here last night when they brought him in.”
Precedent: Book Three: Covenant of Trust Series Page 2
