Her Thanksgiving celebration consisted of splurging on dinner at Denny’s, if slinking into the restaurant alone to grab a carry-out dinner that she had to keep her coat on to eat could be called splurging. Hardly. Not when everybody else was at Aunt Rita’s. She was tempted . . . so tempted to just show up yesterday, but . . . she didn’t have answers to the questions they’d ask. Why’d you leave? Why’d you stay away so long? What were you trying to prove? Those answers, so clear-cut back in July, were a tangled November mess.
Plus she had her own questions. Could she go home? Could she face her dad? Would her mother forgive her for what she’d done? And Jack . . . would Jack ever speak to her again? Was there any real reason to stay away, or had she simply backed herself into a corner that she couldn’t get out of?
She finished off the cappuccino, her last splurge, her last spare cash for the month, and took a notepad and ink pen from her purse. She wrote down headings for two columns, Stay away and Go home.
“Stay away, that’s easy.” She quickly wrote, Don’t have to face Mom, Dad, Jack, or anyone else. Then her pen hung in midstroke. There was no second reason. Surely there was more to it than that.
As she stared out across the rush of people, the crowd seemed to part. That old brown leather jacket . . . It couldn’t be . . . It was! Her dad and Jack were headed her way. Panicked, she grabbed her purse and knifed through the food court into the nearest store. They stopped at the counter at Subway. While their backs were turned, she slipped out of the store and hurried to the nearest exit.
She ran to her car, then collapsed against it. Her breath came in great gasps until her heart rate slowed down and her hands stopped shaking. She glanced back at the mall entrance and burst into tears. Why did I run? Dad . . . He would’ve said, “Shannon, thank God you’re okay! Let’s go home.” I am so stupid.
She pulled her coat tight around her and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. Then she remembered the list. She left her list on the table. What if her dad found it? She hadn’t listed any reasons to go home yet. What would he think?
Get a grip. There’s a very slim chance they would find the list. Even if they did, who’s to say they’d read it, and then figure out it was mine? She unlocked the driver’s side door, and with another lingering look at the mall entrance, she toyed with the idea of going back inside. Not . . . yet.
* * *
“Let’s grab a seat for a minute and rethink this,” Chuck said, handing Jack a Coke and a package of cookies. “All the ideas I had for your mother are a bust. I need some inspiration.”
“And I need cookies.” Jack dropped into a chair at a nearby empty table. “Oh, hey, somebody left their shopping list or something.” He set his Coke and cookies down and picked up the slip of paper. He glanced at it, then handed it over. “Dad,” he said weakly, “read this.”
“What—” He recognized the handwriting immediately. Shannon.
“You think that’s really—”
“It’s hers,” Chuck said. “The question is, how long ago.”
“It couldn’t be more than a few hours. With the mall this busy, they’d have to clean the tables constantly.”
“Come on.” Chuck grabbed his drink and hurried off.
“Lost and found?” Jack asked when he closed the distance between them.
“I’m going to have her paged. Maybe she’s still here somewhere.” He cut through the crowd until he arrived at the information desk. He didn’t have time to wait for the lady at the desk to look up. “Hi, I need your help. My son and I found some personal papers at the food court that belong to my daughter. Could you page her for me?”
“What’s her name?” the lady asked, pen poised to write.
“Shannon Molinsky.”
Chuck strained his eyes, looking down each concourse leading to the information desk. His heart fluttered every time he saw a young girl with long dark hair, but for thirty minutes, he and Jack watched and waited in vain.
“Do you want to leave the papers here?” the lady at the desk asked gently.
“No, I’ll see her soon enough,” Chuck said. “I just thought if she was still here, that would simplify things. Thanks for trying.”
The lady nodded, and Chuck walked away, headed toward the entrance where his car was parked. “Dad, I’m sorry,” Jack said just before they stepped outside.
“It’s not all bad, Jack. We know she’s here in town, and we know that she’s thinking about coming home.”
* * *
“Bobbi!” Chuck called even before he got the front door open. “Bobbi, where are you?”
“Back here,” Bobbi called from the family room. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He strode back through the house, leaving Jack to lock the car and shut the front door. He met Bobbi in the kitchen, her face pale with worry. He grinned and put Shannon’s slip of paper in her hand. “Here, read this.”
“What is it?” Bobbi turned the paper around and immediately her eyes brimmed with tears. “Where did you get this?” she whispered.
“It was on a table in the food court at the Galleria. I had Shannon paged, but she either wasn’t there any longer or she wouldn’t answer the page. Do you know what this means?”
“That she can’t think of a reason to come home?”
“It means she is still in St. Louis somewhere, and she’s thinking about coming home. She’s just about had enough.”
Bobbi blinked but said nothing. She wasn’t buying it.
“Honey, think about it. If Shannon was living some great exciting life, she wouldn’t be trying to reason out whether she should come home. Plus, if she was surrounded by friends, she wouldn’t be making lists like this at the mall.”
“How do you know she wrote it at the mall?”
“The pen was still there.”
“Why would she leave her pen?” Bobbi studied the note again, then her eyes widened. “Chuck, you don’t think she saw you, do you? Maybe that’s why she left everything. She saw you and she didn’t want you to find her.”
“Oh, Bobbi, if I was that close . . .”
“Mom! Can you believe it? She was there!” Jack bounded into the kitchen. “It won’t be long now!”
She held the paper like it was a rare treasure. “This is an answer to prayer. I asked God just this evening to let me know she was okay, and He did.” She wiped a tear away.
Chuck took her in his arms and kissed her forehead. “He’s going to answer all those other prayers, too. Soon.”
* * *
Wednesday, December 3
Chuck reached for Bobbi’s hand at the first red light on the way to Dr. Kremer’s office. “Your hands are freezing cold.”
“Nerves.”
“About what he’s going to tell you? Surgery, maybe?”
“No, it’s what I have to tell him.”
“Honey, you don’t owe him any explanations. It’s none of his business why you cancelled your appointment.”
“Appointments,” she said. “But it’s not about him. It’s about me. I have to face it all.” She turned and looked out her window, and spoke more softly. “Besides, Shannon . . . I don’t want Shannon to make it home and find out I didn’t have the courage to tell my doctor the truth. Not when she . . . I know what she has to face in order to come home, and I don’t want to be a poor example.”
“Impossible.” He kissed the back of her hand. “You’re my hero.”
She glanced at him with a half smile, her face flushed. “I think you could do better, but thank you all the same.”
When they arrived at Oncology Associates, Dr. Stephen Kremer welcomed them with a handshake and showed them into his private office. St. Louis Cardinals memorabilia filled the small space. Chuck leaned close to Bobbi and whispered, “I like him already.”
Bobbi shook her head as she settled in one of the chairs.
Dr. Kremer took his seat behind the desk and folded his hands. “You disappeared on me, Mrs. Molinsky.”
&nb
sp; She dropped her eyes, and Chuck laid his hand on hers, hoping to bolster her. “I did, and I’m sorry.” She raised her head and spoke with such dignity. “I lost my son this summer. He was murdered not far from the mission he ran downtown. Then a few weeks later my daughter left home under less than ideal circumstances and we haven’t heard from her since.”
Chuck squeezed her hand, and his own throat tightened as she continued.
“This diagnosis was more than I could deal with, quite frankly, and for a while, dying didn’t sound like such a bad idea.”
“Mrs. Molinsky—”
Bobbi raised her free hand to cut the doctor off and caught Chuck’s eye with the slightest smile. “I’m okay now. I’m ready for this fight.” She took a deep breath. “So what am I in for?”
“You always have options, of course, but I’m going to give you my recommendation. I want you to go for another mammogram just to make sure nothing has changed significantly, then we’ll do surgery, take what we have to, but nothing more, and follow that up with radiation. In most cases, that takes care of breast cancer for ten or twenty years.”
“Which at my age is a pretty good prognosis.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s your timetable on this?” Chuck asked.
Dr. Kremer pulled his desk calendar closer. “Let’s say two weeks, the seventeenth.”
“That soon?”
“There’s no reason to wait, really.” He turned and addressed Bobbi again. “That will give us time to get the mammogram done. You’ll be in good shape for Christmas, then we can start the radiation on the second of January.”
“How long does that last?” Bobbi asked.
“Six weeks,” Dr. Kremer said, almost apologizing. “It’s very effective, though.”
She counted on her fingers. “So that takes us through mid-February.”
“All better by your birthday,” Chuck said. “We can throw a big party.”
Bobbi frowned at him, then she sighed. “All right, put me on your schedule.”
* * *
Shannon settled into a booth at a burger place not far from her apartment, courtesy of holiday overtime pay and a coupon. Eating out at a restaurant, especially a fast food one, used to be so ordinary, no planning and no triple-checking the finances.
With her back to the door, she kept a close eye on the reflections in the restaurant’s plate glass windows. It would be insane if her dad walked in here, but after the near-miss at the Galleria, she vowed to stay on her toes.
Before she could get the second bite of her cheeseburger down, Dylan Snider ambled through the door. A wave of nausea rolled over her, followed by the heat of shame and anger. As desperately as she wanted to go throw up, she didn’t dare move. Nothing was worth the risk of being spotted.
Too late.
“Shannon? I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“Dylan, I don’t have anything to say to you.” She started wrapping her cheeseburger up and preparing her escape.
He slid into the booth across from her. A new tattoo peeked over the neckband of his shirt and he wore a heavy gold chain. “After I helped you out, came to your rescue? I’m hurt.”
“You used me, took advantage of me—”
“Sweetheart, you used me.”
“I used you?” She rolled her eyes in disbelieving disgust.
“Absolutely. After you got what you wanted, got set up in your own place, I never heard from you again. You know, I thought you genuinely liked me. That’s what you said after we went out.”
“That was before you—”
“You could have said no. You could have stopped it. I didn’t do anything you didn’t want, so let’s just drop this and start the conversation over.” Shannon clenched her jaw and glared at him. “There, now how are you? Still got your own place?”
“Yeah, living the high life,” Shannon muttered.
“You know, your dad is totally furious at you.”
“How do you know?”
“He came to my house. After what you did to your mother, he couldn’t wait to get a hold of you.”
“Are you serious?” No one could deny how protective her dad was, especially when it came to her mother.
“Oh yeah, he was yelling, all red-faced. He even grabbed me by the shirt and slammed me up against the house ’cause I wouldn’t tell him where you were.”
During those days before she left, he was close to that kind of anger. It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine him losing it. “I’m sure he’s calmed down by now.”
“I don’t know. I think they got rid of your car and everything. It’s like you’re erased.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Maybe, but ole Jack’s moving into the law firm, you know, like he’s primed to take over.”
“Jack’s going to seminary.”
“He’s already working at the firm, Shannon.”
Dylan had to be wrong. Her only hope, her only way out of this mess was if her family would take her back unconditionally. If they really had disowned her, her list of options just became frighteningly short. She reached in her purse for her cell phone. It had a few emergency minutes left on it. A text message would only cost a few pennies to send and would only use a few seconds. “Excuse me a second,” she mumbled as she quickly punched in a message to Katelyn, asking if Jack was working at Benton, Davis & Molinsky.
“That’s not one of those pay-by-the-minute phones, is it?” Dylan asked.
“So?”
“Why didn’t you say you needed cash?” He reached for his wallet.
“Because I don’t. I don’t need your money.”
Ignoring her, he took out a stack of bills, folded them and slid them across the table to her. “Please, I’d feel better if you’d let me help you out.”
“You were just griping that I’d taken advantage of you, and now you’re wanting to give me money? You don’t make any sense.”
“Neither do you, telling me how great your life is when I know better. I bet this is the first meal out you’ve had in weeks.”
“I’m busy,” Shannon said softly. “I work a lot of overtime.”
“Just what I thought. You can use this, can’t you?”
She’d rather die than admit that to him, but the prospect of a month with full heat was extremely appealing. She picked up the cash and stuffed it in her purse.
“I’m just sorry you had to wait this long. I mean, your dad sure isn’t breaking a sweat to help you out.”
“Only because he doesn’t know where I am.”
“Like you’re that hard to find. I found you and I wasn’t even looking. Look, if he cared as much as he said, he’d already have you home. I think you’re better off away from him.” He tapped the table, then stood up. “Listen, I gotta get going. You know my number.”
She closed her eyes, squeezing off the tears. He had to be lying. He had to be. Her phone buzzed, and she fumbled to flip it open. Katelyn sent back a one-word reply—yes.
Dylan . . . he was right. She had gone too far, burnt her bridges. She turned off her phone, wrapped up the cheeseburger and trudged back to her apartment, even more lonely, even more hopeless.
* * *
Across town, Katelyn Isaac groaned in frustration. “Shannon turned her phone off.”
“Shannon!” Kara picked up her own cell phone and began dialing Bobbi and Chuck’s number. “You’re texting Shannon? Does anybody else know you’ve been in contact with her?”
“This is the first time. She just sent me a message, I replied, and now it’s shut off.”
“What’d she want?” Kara listened to the Molinskys’ phone ring.
“She asked if Jack was working for Uncle Chuck.”
“That’s it?”
“I know. It’s weird. After I said yes, I tried to tell her about her mom, but the message bounced.”
“Aunt Bobbi? It’s Kara. Katelyn just had a text from Shannon. We’re on our way over, and we’ll explain everything. It�
��s not much, but it’s a little ray of hope.”
* * *
Bobbi clutched the drapes and peered up the street, almost afraid to blink. When she saw the car turn onto their street, she rushed to the front door, barely aware that Chuck followed her.
“Aunt Bobbi.” Katelyn trotted around from the passenger side of Kara’s car. “Shannon sent me a message asking if Jack was working for Uncle Chuck. He is, isn’t he?”
Chuck nodded. “Over Christmas break.” He shut the front door behind Kara, then took his place at Bobbi’s side.
“Okay,” Katelyn said. “So I sent back a yes. Then that was it. The next message bounced back.”
“What did you send?” Bobbi asked.
“I told her about your cancer.”
“Katelyn, sweetheart, I have a request. If she contacts you again, don’t tell her—”
“Bobbi, will you stop it!” Chuck said, exasperated. “Stop being a martyr! She needs to know you have cancer and she needs to come home because of it.”
“Shannon needs to figure this out, resolve this for herself, on her own. She can’t feel pressured or forced into the decision. I don’t want her manipulated.”
“It’s not manipulation to inform her.”
“Katelyn, tell her she can come home. Offer to go get her, offer to have any one of us go get her, but don’t tell her about the cancer.” Bobbi glanced at Chuck. “Please. Trust me on this one.”
Chuck crossed his arms across his chest and shook his head.
“She’s sending out feelers. She’s trying to figure out what the mood is at home, whether or not she can come back, how she’ll be received, especially by you.”
“Then why’d she ask about Jack?” Chuck asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“To see if you guys feel the same. If you’re working together, you have to be in agreement.”
Precedent: Book Three: Covenant of Trust Series Page 25
