Tommy flinched, tangling his hands in his wheels for a moment as the three of them headed out of the waiting room. A new thought that was part memory jolted him, so he felt as if he had been hit with that bullet that passed through Paul's side. Only instead of passing through tissue without nicking organs or bones, this bullet lodged in his gut.
"Uncle Tommy?" Sammy rested her little hands on his knees and looked up into his face, and he realized he had come to a full stop in the middle of the hospital hallway. "Are you sick? Do you need to stay in the hospital?"
"Nope. Just thinking really hard." He tried to smile, but his face muscles felt frozen. Natalie stepped up behind Sammy and he followed the line of her legs, up her chest, to her eyes. "Natalie Schaeffer," he said, testing the name to see if it felt and sounded different, now that a dozen old associations were attached to it.
"Right." She gave him a quizzical look before she bent down and picked up Sammy, setting the child astride her hip. "Let's get moving, or at least pull over to the curb, so we don't block any more traffic, okay?"
"From Owens Forge."
"Oh."
"Yeah. Oh." He swallowed hard and opted to get moving again. The sooner they got out of this hospital and away from witnesses, the sooner he could say something. He wasn't sure what, yet.
"I tried to tell you, but you said to save it for later." Natalie looked at him through the partial barrier of Sammy, the little girl's head covering her face from the nose down.
Tommy wanted to argue, to deny it, but he knew that was true.
Natalie Schaeffer knew everything. She knew him before he ended up in this wheelchair. She knew him when he was a baseball star, a Little League sensation. She knew Jarod and she knew their father and their mother, and how his father had verbally flayed the man who had been driving the car Tommy was riding in when his back was broken. She knew that Jonas Donnelly had forgotten to come pick his son up from the baseball game, like he had forgotten a thousand times before, all the many small but important events in his children's lives. His work and his church responsibilities were always more important than his family. She knew that the man who drove Tommy home that afternoon was out of work and battling his way back from alcoholism, and he had been drinking to celebrate the championship game win.
"I had the worst crush in the world on you, when we were kids," Natalie said.
"Huh?" Tommy grabbed his wheels, stopping short on the sensor pad of the electric doors.
"You did?" Sammy wriggled around in Natalie's grip so she could look back at Tommy. "Mommy says I got a crush on BJ. Is it the same thing?"
"A thousand times worse." Natalie continued out into the sunshine outside the hospital entrance. Tommy had to follow. "I had plans at one time to get your Uncle Tommy to marry me, and we would live in the tree house in my back yard and I would bake cookies for him every day and he would help me with my homework, and we would live happily ever after."
"I remember those cookies," Tommy offered, when he got his breath back. He followed them down the sidewalk, trying to remember where Natalie had parked the van. "Are you still a good cook?"
"Do we have some time to make cookies for the celebration dinner tonight?" She still refused to look at him.
Maybe Natalie was embarrassed? What did she have to be embarrassed about?
"We needs lots of cookies," Sammy said. "Can I help you bake?"
"You sure can." She stepped off the curb and crossed to the row of cars parked perpendicular to the sidewalk.
Tommy saw the van now. He looked for the wheelchair ramp. It was ten feet away in either direction. The heck with it. He wheeled up to the edge of the sidewalk, grabbed his wheels, and lowered himself with a jolt and a thump.
He and Natalie took turns studying each other, each one looking away when the other turned to look, while they got the van opened up and the wheelchair lift lowered and got him settled in the van. Sammy proudly helped clamp his chair into place for the ride, and just as eagerly slid into the passenger seat. Tommy suspected they were violating some safety law, letting her ride in the front seat without a booster chair and special seat belt, but he just couldn't make himself care.
"So…" He sighed, admitting his cowardice, when Natalie slid into the driver's seat and there was nothing to do but get a few things out in the open or ride in tense silence back to the Mission. "How are your folks?"
"Mom and Dad… have had their rough spots. Dad's been on a spiritual journey for quite a few years, I guess you could say. Along with a physical journey, hopping around the country." She met his gaze in the rearview mirror. "They moved back to Owens Forge."
"Uh huh?"
"And so has your dad."
"Ah. Didn't know that." He wanted to say he didn't care, but somehow Tommy couldn't tell himself that, let alone force the words out to tell her.
"He's sick. My Dad thinks he's… he thinks he's on the level, that he really is sorry for what he did to you."
"Did to me? How about to my whole family? To our whole church? Mr. Super-Christian, just takes off when the going gets rough. My son the baseball star is stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, so I'm just going to turn my back on God and my family and my job and just run off and look for some fun. So long, it's been grand, but I'm not up for the long haul anymore."
His tongue skidded to a stop when Sammy twisted around in her seat and looked around the side at him, her eyes wide.
"I haven't really talked to him. I only know what my Dad said. I'm not quite ready to believe it, but if it's true…" Natalie paused while she pulled out of the hospital driveway, left onto Sackley. "I've gone through some things recently, getting slapped in the face with self-righteous, judgmental creeps of the use-'em-and-lose-'em variety." She sighed. "The really sucky thing about being a Christian and meaning it--"
"Don't say 'sucky' in front of the rug rat," he muttered.
Sammy's giggle didn't really help him feel any better, but at least the little girl turned around and didn't stare at him like that.
"The thing is, if we mean it, we have to give him a chance. I mean, don't you think sometimes God doesn't want to believe us? Especially when we say we're sorry a thousand times in a week, and we go right back and lie and cheat and hurt people and…" Natalie met his gaze in the mirror for a moment and then looking away. "And what if it's true? What if he really is sorry?"
"Doesn't change anything, does it? Do you have any idea how rotten my -- his family was to us even before my accident? Then when he took off, they just swooped in and tried to take over. They threatened to take Mom to court, to declare her an unfit parent and take all three of us away from her, because she wouldn't throw me in an institution and walk away. I was damaged, so it was better if everybody just forgot that I wore the Donnelly name. And that's something I heard them say. I may have been twelve years old, and I was on a lot of pain killers back then, but I know what I heard."
"I bet Claire tore them to shreds."
"Yeah." A tired bark of laughter escaped him. "Them, take custody of her? She was a legal adult. Of course, the Jerk wanted to be taken under their wings and consoled for losing his father and his brother in one blow -- sometimes I swear he's the one who told them I had to be locked up. I was an embarrassment. He told me that to my face. Claire had to hear it from other people, that he was embarrassed to admit she was his sister, she didn't have a solid grasp of reality, she was unreliable and wore masks to get everybody to like her."
"I can't remember a single time where Claire showed she cared more about people's opinions than about the truth."
"Umm, y'know, Nat, you haven't see us since you were, what? Nine?"
"Ten, and I'm surprised you remember me at all."
"Hey, guys are really stupid and ego-centric when they're twelve -- you keep that in mind, Sammy, and don't fall for anything a boy tells you until he's at least twenty-five."
"Not even then," Natalie muttered.
"Hey, whose side are you on?" He crossed his eyes
at Sammy when she peered around the side of the front seat again. "What was I saying? Oh, yeah -- I might have been trying to convince the world to revolve around me, and I was stupid enough to think all girls except my mother were disgusting, but I knew you were… around. It was pretty good for my ego when you'd make cookies just for me--"
"I never did!" She grinned at him in the rearview mirror when they stopped at the intersection of Cane and Sackley. "At least, I never admitted it."
"Uh huh. Thought so."
"Look, I know this is a bad time--"
"Ya think?"
"When things are settled with Paul and tonight's celebration is over and cleaned up and those two goons are caught -- if ever -- then eventually you and Claire need to sit down and talk about this."
"Just me and Claire, huh? What do you know about the Jerk that we don't?"
"I assume you're talking about your -- your former brother?" She turned left onto Cane. "Dad says there was a blow-up between your father and him. A big rift."
"Yeah, well, Jarod does that a lot. Claire has this scar on her hand. She was about fifteen, and Jarod was picking on me something awful, and she told him that he claimed to be a Christian, and maybe he should start acting like it for a change. He was playing with -- with our father's pocketknife at the time, poking me with it, threatening to cut off my hair, give me pierced ears. Anyway, he went after Claire, threatening her with it. She got in a good right hook to his gut, and that got him mad. I can see it clearly. He grabbed her hand and slashed at her wrist with the knife, but he got the side of her hand by her thumb instead. The whole time I was helping her stop the bleeding and put a bandage on it, and then wipe up the blood… he just stood there, screaming that it was our fault. He was the one with the knife, which nobody was allowed to touch, by the way. It was our fault. That's the way it was all the time with the Jerk. Always somebody else's fault, and all the time he stood there with a bloody knife in his hand."
"Did he get spanked and sent to bed without supper?" Sammy asked.
"He will, eventually," Natalie said. She pulled into the parking lot behind the Mission and let out a long, loud sigh. "Okay, what needs doing first? We've got a party to throw."
*****
Chuck stole a car while Simon took care of snatching a change of clothes for both of them from the Salvation Army donation bins behind the big store on Pearl Road in Stoughton. Then they drove back to Tabor Heights and parked in the shelter of some overgrown bushes several houses down the street from the Mission. They weren't there more than ten minutes before they saw Franky come out of the front door and walk across the grass to a patrol car parked on the street. He was escorted by an officer and another man wearing shorts and a brace on one leg, who rested a hand on his shoulder.
Both men were silent until the patrol car pulled away, then Simon swore and slammed his fist into the dashboard. "What's he doing with the police? He doesn't look like he's in trouble."
"More like he's cooperating," Chuck growled.
He pulled out of their hiding place and followed the patrol car down the street, through a left turn, and across Span, where it went around the back of the municipal parking lot behind the police station. They watched as Franky got out of the car and the two men escorted him inside the building.
"He has to come out, eventually. While they're looking for us, we can sit here nice and cozy and wait until he comes out." Chuck gestured, making his forefinger and thumb into a gun and silently cocking, shooting, and recoiling.
"Eventually. First, he has to tell us what he did with our stuff. The thing is, Franky isn't smart enough to double-cross us on his own. He has to have a partner."
"Yeah, but who? And where is he?"
"He's been spending all his time at that place with all the kids and freaks." Simon narrowed his eyes and stared off into the distance as he thought. "We can't just walk in there. Who knows what kind of alarms a place like that has?"
"I'm starving," he said with a sly grin.
"Is that all you can think about? We're dead in the water without--"
"I think better with a full stomach."
"Since when?"
Chuck just grinned wider and dug in his pocket. He pulled out his wallet, a handful of basic pocket junk, some change, and the flyer for Tommy's show at the access center. Simon stared at it as Chuck waved it in front of him.
"Free food. We just have to make sure the cripple doesn't see us sneaking around, getting the layout of the place. We might even talk to someone who knows where Franky has been hanging out the most."
"No, we want the cripple to see us," Simon said, snatching the flyer from his hand. "They've been hanging out together all the time. I'll just bet they're partners. I'll bet you this Tommy kid has our stuff."
"Or maybe he stole it from good old Franky, and he's been running around trying to find it and get it back."
"Either way..." He looked across the parking lot at the police station, then in all directions. "Let's go. I want to watch the place a good long while before we go in. Can't be too careful."
*****
At T-minus ten minutes before everyone was expected -- or allowed -- back in the building to start the awareness walk wrap-up, Natalie thought, hoped, and prayed everything was in order, in place, and ready to go. It was a relief to her to know that Claire had so many other people involved and responsible, that her sudden departure from the Mission to go to the hospital hadn't brought the preparations to a screeching halt. Everyone else involved in the day's event had stepped in and re-shuffled and filled in the gaps.
Natalie had settled in the kitchen where she thought she would do the most good, helping the volunteers there put the dozens of trays of sandwiches together and cut cookie bars and fill the dessert trays. Sammy sat on a high stool at one end of the long stainless steel counter, folding napkins. Tommy sat hunched in his wheelchair in the doorway. Natalie ached when she looked at him and saw his vacant stare, the slump of his shoulders. Was he worried about Paul? Thinking about his runaway father? Dealing with his anger? Or was he just feeling the aftereffects of that battle in front of the cinema? She still shuddered, remembering what others had said, how Tommy had basically made like a battering ram, going after the men trying to drag Franky away. With a gun pointed at him.
He had to be feeling pretty guilty about now. After all, would Paul have rushed into the ruckus, unarmed, if Tommy hadn't flung himself into the fight first?
"Hey, funny man," she said as she put another plastic-wrapped tray of sandwiches on the cart to go down the hall to the gym. "When's your show going to get going?"
"My show?" He blinked rapidly a few times and straightened up, looking around as if he hadn't realized anyone else was in the room. "Oh, probably after everybody gets here and starts eating. I guess."
"You guess? You aren't planning on chickening out, are you?"
"Uncle Tommy has to do his show," Sammy said with a nod for every fourth word, like punctuation. "Mommy said so! Mommy said everybody would get mad if Uncle Tommy didn't make them laugh."
"Out of the mouths of babes..." Natalie muttered.
"What's that mean?"
"That means that you speak the truth, short stuff," Tommy said, looking at Natalie as he spoke, "and if I ignore it I'm pretty stupid."
"Uncle Tommy isn't stupid!"
"I didn't say that," Natalie hurried to say.
"But you were thinking it," he countered.
"If the chair fits, sit in it." She stuck her tongue out at him for good measure.
"Lady, you're getting nasty." However, now he smiled.
"Consider the company I've been keeping… Seriously, Tommy, everybody is looking forward to your show during dinner. It was easier to endure that chair, knowing you'd be up on stage to make me laugh about it."
"But with Paul -- and Claire's not here -- and it just doesn't feel right. I know that sounds lame, but--"
"We're not talking lame -- or crippled or 'challenged' -- we're talking about yo
u being a professional and doing the job you promised to do."
"Are you going to give me some speech about how Claire and Paul would want the show to go on?"
"Nah, that's too corny. Now, get out of the kitchen and let us do our job, and you go get ready to do yours. Hear me?" She sputtered laughter when Tommy saluted her with a fist to his chest and then snapping his arm out straight in a Roman salute. Or was that a Nazi salute?
Either way, she decided she would make him pay for that later.
"We who are about to die, salute you."
Definitely Roman, she decided. Tommy spun a wheelie and zipped out of there as Sammy burst out laughing.
*****
An hour later, the platters of sandwiches and bowls of chips and trays of cookies had evaporated under the onslaught of hungry, laughing, exhausted volunteers. The recycling barrels were full to overflowing with aluminum cans and plastic two-liter bottles. Most of the people who participated in the awareness walk had divested themselves of their temporary disabilities, although a few could be seen scattered among the long rows of tables, wearing eye patches or vision-limiting goggles, and even a hook or two. Tommy rolled out onto the stage slowly, studying the crowd, awed at the numbers of people and the amount of work that had been done -- all as a result of a half-serious remark he had made a few months ago.
He waited until the sense of being invisible seeped into him, then he flipped on the cordless microphone someone had set up for him. Usually Paul handled the electronics at the Mission.
Please, Lord, let him be okay? It's my fault. Why didn't I get shot instead?
He shook his head. Paul and Claire would not let him get away with wallowing in guilt now, of all times.
"Can I have your attention, please?"
A few people quieted down, but most kept talking. Natalie and Sammy came in through the doors at the far end of the room and settled down at the table on the right of the stage.
"That means quiet!" he bellowed, the sound echoing and shrieking through the sound system.
Wheels (Tabor Heights Year Two) Page 21
