by Stacy Adams
“That is so meaningful,” Rachelle said. “Not that providing pediatric services alone isn’t. But to offer everything else that you’re doing for your patients—wow. Most doctors aren’t giving patients books or making sure they get screened onsite for asthma and diabetes.”
Cynthia shrugged. “I grew up in a single parent home where my mother stressed education and excellence. If not for that, I wouldn’t have dreamt of becoming a doctor. I might have been one of those teenage mothers I now help, if not for her. That’s why I do it.”
She shifted in her seat. “Now, you know more about my work than you ever wanted to,” she said and laughed. “Tell me your story, Rachelle. Melba told me you’re an optometrist?”
Rachelle was surprised her aunt had thought to mention the career she hadn’t pursued in so long. “Aunt Melba remembers that? Yes, I’m a trained optometrist, but I haven’t practiced in years. I stopped soon after my ten-year-old son was born.” She hesitated, then lowered her voice. “Few people know this, but I renew my license every year, even though I’m not working in the field. Is that silly or what?”
Cynthia shook her head and smiled. “I’m a firm believer that few things are coincidental. You’ve been renewing that license for a reason. Time will tell you what it’s for.”
A bell chimed when the salon door swung open. Troy ushered in Chaundra, who grinned when she saw Indigo sitting at the shampoo bowl.
Troy waved at Melba. “Hello, ladies,” he said to Rachelle and Cynthia. His eyes swept past the empty chairs on either side of them, near the dryers, and the vacant sofas in the waiting area.
Rachelle knew he was weighing his options. She picked up a magazine from the seat next to her and zoned in on actress Gabrielle Union’s face.
Cynthia motioned to the seat next to her. Troy shrugged and slid into it.
“I’m not getting my hair washed and dried, but I guess I can sit here,” he joked and ran his hand over his smooth, fair-skinned head.
The three sat in silence, watching Melba work. Indigo had asked Aunt Melba to turn on the radio, and India. Arie’s smooth alto was now piping through the speakers.
“It’s about forgiveness . . . even if, even if you don’t love me anymore . . .”
Perfect, Rachelle thought. She and Aunt Melba locked eyes.
“You guys can turn to another station or put in a CD, if you’d like,” Aunt Melba said.
No one moved.
She combed through Indigo’s wet hair and positioned her under the dryer next to Rachelle. She motioned for Cynthia to have a seat in her chair, so she could begin styling her hair.
That left Troy and Rachelle sitting two seats apart, staring anywhere but at each other.
“Want to move to the waiting area?” Troy finally said. “I won’t bite, you know.”
Rachelle looked at him and tried to control her emotions. She couldn’t believe after all this time that some of the pain, and a lot of the desire, lingered.
When she didn’t respond, he picked up a magazine and strolled over to one of the red sofas.
Rachelle stayed put and kept her magazine on page sixty-five for the next hour, staring at the featured words and images, but really not seeing them. She wasn’t sure why she was so uncomfortable, but wished it weren’t so obvious.
No wonder Aunt Melba felt the need to lecture her. She had to get herself together. Troy had moved on and so had she—at least on the surface. No one needed to know differently.
When Indigo was ready, with her freshly washed hair hanging just below her ears in a stylish, asymmetrical cut, Rachelle stood up and grabbed her purse.
“That is beautiful, Aunt Melba. I’m going to have to get Taryn down here,” she said.
Indigo and Chaundra exchanged phone numbers and made plans to talk later that day. Indigo trotted over to Troy, in the waiting area.
“Can Chaundra come over and hang out sometime, Mr. Hardy?”
He looked at Rachelle, then returned his attention to Indigo. “You girls let me know when.”
Rachelle surmised what he was thinking. He knew the Burns family well enough to know that if Chaundra and Indigo became friends, she would be keeping good company.
He opened his magazine again and seemed engrossed in whatever he was reading. Rachelle took a deep breath and paused as she passed him on her way out of the salon.
“Take care, Troy,” she said. “I’ll be leaving for Houston in the next day or so. It was good to see you, and to meet your daughter.”
He responded without raising his head. “It was nice to see you too, Rachelle,” he said. “Have a safe trip home. And by the way, I don’t have children. Chaundra is my niece.”
16
Why was Troy raising someone else’s teenager? How had he wound up caring for a niece?
The questions ricocheted through Rachelle’s mind while she drove to a local hamburger joint to grab lunch with Indigo. The girl was chattering about something, but Rachelle was lost in her thoughts.
She had met Troy’s mother and two siblings soon after they began dating during her sophomore year at Everson. Troy invited her to join the family whenever they visited him on campus.
After they eloped, he had taken her to his mother’s modest home in Dallas for the first time, so they could share their news. Ms. Hardy was disappointed that they hadn’t waited, but she had given her blessing when they promised to graduate as scheduled in six months and go on to grad school.
Troy’s brother, Terrance, was teaching middle school in a Dallas suburb and had recently married his college sweetheart. His sister, Tania, had just begun high school and was an academic scholar and cheerleader, headed for the same success as her brothers. How had he wound up with custody of one of their kids?
That question led to another burning one: if he could take care of someone else’s child, why didn’t he have a wife and family of his own, as fine and accomplished as he was? Something didn’t add up.
Maybe I did the right thing by leaving . . .
The rush of relief Rachelle felt behind that knee-jerk sentiment was short-lived. She knew the next time she saw Troy, she’d still be squirming and struggling to ignore the heart palpitations she experienced whenever she was in his presence. And at least he seemed to have an agenda for his life.
A shrill siren pulled her back to reality. She steered the Lexus to the right, even though an ambulance was speeding in the opposite direction.
Seconds later, she pulled back into traffic and turned onto the busy street that led to Fat Joe’s Burgers. They wouldn’t be eating there today, she realized. Thompson Avenue was blocked.
Several wrecked cars were splayed across the road, and at least four police vehicles, with blue lights flashing, surrounded them. Another ambulance was leaving the scene at a slower pace, without the blasting siren, and a tow truck driver was trying to properly position his vehicle in front of one of the cars.
Indigo had taken her iPod from her purse when she realized Rachelle wasn’t listening to her and had become engrossed in a music video unfolding on the media player’s screen. She raised her head when the stalled traffic forced Rachelle to reduce her speed. They sat in a line of cars making U-turns under a police officer’s direction.
“This is a big accident for the middle of the day,” Rachelle said.
Rachelle inched forward and was preparing to turn around when Indigo did a double-take. The girl lowered the window on the passenger door and leaned out to get a better view of the accident.
“Cousin Rachelle! Stop!”
Rachelle smashed on the brakes. The car jerked to a halt. “What?”
Indigo pointed and began to cry. “That’s Mama’s car! In the middle of the street! All bent up! I don’t see her anywhere!”
Rachelle looked through the window, past the officer who was striding toward her with a frown. Indigo was right. The vehicle being lifted onto the tow truck resembled Aunt Irene’s navy Cadillac DeVille.
Rachelle was about to pull ahead, i
nto a doughnut shop parking lot, when the officer reached the car and leaned inside the passenger window.
“Is there a problem? We need to keep it moving, ma’am,” he said.
“Sir, I believe that’s my aunt’s car,” Rachelle said and pointed toward the Cadillac, which was now resting on the bed of the tow truck. “Is she okay? Was she taken to the hospital in one of those ambulances?”
The officer gave her a once-over. He glanced at Indigo, who was sobbing. “Pull over to that lot,” he said, indicating the area Rachelle had been headed toward anyway. He yelled to another officer to take over directing the traffic and approached Rachelle’s car.
Before the policeman could reach them, she and Indigo unbuckled themselves and jumped out of their seats. He picked up his pace when he realized they were about to walk toward the accident scene.
“You two ladies, hold it,” he said.
Rachelle paused, but Indigo kept going. Mr. Keystone Cop needed to chill.
She saw fear in Indigo’s eyes and her heart went out to the girl. She must be about to flip out.
“My cousin needs to make sure her mother is alright, okay?” Rachelle said. “Can you tell me if Irene Burns was driving that car?”
The officer didn’t bend. “We’re only authorized to release information to next of kin, to the person an accident victim instructs us to call.”
Rachelle wanted to yell at him and tell him to look at the terror in Indigo’s eyes and forget the rules. She wanted to shake him into humanity.
She took a deep breath instead and tried to calm herself before she made things worse. Plus, it sounded as if Aunt Irene, or whoever the accident victims were, had felt up to talking. That was good.
Indigo trotted back to Rachelle’s side.
“What happened?” she asked the policeman, still whimpering.
He hesitated, then looked into her eyes. “Someone was drinking and driving, little lady. That person caused an accident and two people were injured and sent to the hospital.”
Indigo’s face fell. “One of the drivers was drinking? Was it my mother?”
Rachelle frowned at the officer. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to answer. “Have you notified the people the victims asked you to call? Was one of them Charles Burns? If so, he’s my uncle.”
The officer looked at the two of them and sighed. “Give me a minute.”
He walked toward the accident scene and approached an officer who was holding a clipboard and taking notes. Rachelle watched them as they chatted. The traffic officer headed back toward them, but gave no hint of what he had discovered.
“Charles Burns is one of the people we contacted,” the officer told Rachelle. “Apparently he is on his way to meet the victim at the hospital.”
“I knew it was my mama!” Indigo started to weep again.
The officer approached her and touched her shoulder. “I think she’s gonna be fine, little lady. Her hip was bothering her more than anything. The emergency crew transported her to Jubilant Memorial in the ambulance because she wasn’t able to stand up without a lot of pain. The car is being towed to a lot on Main Street and will be there until she’s ready to reclaim it.”
Rachelle thanked him and grabbed Indigo’s hand. She led the girl back to the car and once settled, headed in the direction of Jubilant’s only hospital.
“What’s your dad’s cell phone number?”
Indigo rattled off the digits in two seconds. When Rachelle reached a red light, she dialed it quickly. Please let him answer, she prayed. Indigo couldn’t keep it together much longer.
Uncle Charles picked up on the third ring.
“We just left the scene of the accident,” Rachelle said before he could greet her. “Are you at the hospital? Any word yet?”
“I’m a few minutes away, Rachelle,” Uncle Charles said. “Sounds like she may have broken her hip, but we won’t know until they take X-rays. She’s in a lot of pain.”
Rachelle looked over at Indigo, who was waiting for answers. “It’s okay, Indie. Your mom is hurt, but she doesn’t have life-threatening injuries. Your dad’s almost at the hospital.”
Rachelle knew that limited information was little consolation for her cousin.
“Did they tell you what happened?” she asked Uncle Charles.
His silence was worrisome. “I was told that drinking might have been involved, but I don’t have any details yet,” he finally said.
“We’ll see you in a few minutes,” Rachelle said softly. She ended the call and kept her eyes on the road.
Whatever the cause of the accident, and regardless of who was at fault, the Burns family had revisited painful territory. All of their lives had been altered by a previous car accident years ago. The only positive today was that instead of a tragedy, this time it was just a close call.
17
Gabe wandered through his mansion one more time and made his way upstairs, where he kicked the bedroom door shut.
With the kids gone and Rachelle nowhere to be found, the house felt more like a museum than a home. He strolled over to the sitting area and stretched out on the chaise, knowing it wasn’t a wise move. When he was idle, his mind traveled in too many directions.
Right now, he wanted to know what Rachelle was doing. Was she spending all of her time with her aunt and uncle? Had they taken her to church? Was she visiting her former professors on campus and fielding questions about her first and second marriages?
Gabe was confident that anything she said about him would wow people. Who wasn’t impressed with a heart surgeon?
But where was Troy these days, and did Rachelle still have feelings for him? Gabe was more than curious, especially with the way she had been acting lately.
True to her word, however, she had packed his bags for Uganda before she left. He wanted to call and thank her, but then again, he wanted her to reach out to him. She was punishing him, and it wasn’t right.
The phone rang and Gabe leapt to check caller ID. Instead of it being Rachelle, it was his surgical partner, Lyle Stevens. He tried to mask his disappointment.
“Hey man, what’s up?” Stevens asked.
He was the coolest white guy Gabe knew. Gray had overtaken his blonde hair, but Lyle Stevens exercised faithfully and was in top shape, and he still carried himself with the confidence of a man who knew his rugged good looks and piercing blue eyes caused women to swoon.
Most of them didn’t care so much about his intelligence, but Gabe appreciated that Stevens was also the smartest guy he knew. They had practiced together for six years and, at one point, had joked about understanding each other better than either of them understood their spouses.
That fact had once been a bragging point at parties, and until recently, Gabe hadn’t realized that it might have bothered Rachelle. She never let on.
Stevens did an about-face four years ago. He and his wife, Chrissa, left their stoic, traditional congregation for a nondenominational church that emphasized daily Bible study as central to forming a deeper relationship with Christ. To Gabe, it had sounded strange, and even cultish, but the longer Stevens attended, the healthier and happier he seemed.
He and Chrissa eventually had determined, through prayer and discussions with church leaders, that their life’s purpose included using their practical skills and sharing their faith with people in Africa and other Third World countries. For the past three years, they had traveled to Uganda to provide medical care and lead Bible studies in the small towns surrounding Kampala, the nation’s capital. They lavished most of their attention on an orphanage run by a Ugandan minister and his wife, where children who called the place home thrived.
This year, Stevens had recruited both Gabe and Veronica Hayes, one of the nurses who assisted them during surgeries, to make the trip. They would join Stevens and his wife and five others from the church, and each of them had assigned tasks. While Gabe, Stevens, and another doctor on the team would treat patients in local hospitals and villages, Chrissa and the others wou
ld distribute special mosquito nets that helped prevent malaria. They also would lead Bible studies for children and adults.
Gabe had never been too keen about the ministry aspect of the mission trip, but he was determined to get Stevens off his back. If he didn’t go this year, he’d never hear the end of it.
Plus, he had realized in recent weeks what a great marketing tool the trip had become. Along with a feature article in Houston’s daily newspaper, a local TV station had asked the mission team to take along a camcorder and record spots that could be shared with their viewers when they returned.
Gabe could take or leave the prayers and Scripture readings, but he knew that was exactly what Stevens was calling about tonight.
“Nothing much is going on here,” he told Stevens. “Rachelle is still visiting relatives in Jubilant so I’m just hanging out. Whatcha need?”
“I know you said Rachelle had you all packed; did she remember to tuck a Bible in there somewhere?”
Gabe hadn’t seen one, so he was pretty sure she hadn’t. “Was that on the list you gave me? Sorry, man. I doubt it.”
“You know I’ve got you covered,” Stevens said.
Gabe rolled his eyes. “Look man, I’m not trying to go over there and become a lay priest. I do what I do, and I do it well. Heart stuff. Internal medicine. That’s where I’m going to help. Bible talk—I’m leaving that to you and Chrissa and the other folks.”
Stevens chuckled. “You just be ready in the morning, four a.m. sharp. We’ll swoop by to pick you up. When you talk to Rachelle, tell her I said hello and reassure her that I’ll bring you back safely.”
Gabe had hung up and dialed Rachelle’s cell again.
She didn’t answer, and after the fifth ring, the voice mail picked up. Hearing her recorded voice was reassuring, but he didn’t leave a message.
Was he losing her? The thought rattled him. He was Gabe Covington. Couldn’t happen . . . could it?
The home phone rang once again, and he dashed to it, only to be disappointed a second time by Lyle Stevens.
