Thorns on Wildflower Island

by Michelle Files

  “So you’re going to die?!” Piper wailed.

  “Yes Sweetheart, it appears that I am.”

  The three teens began crying all over again. None of them had realized until that moment that he would actually die from the tumor, though they surmised that it was very serious.

  “You aren’t going to get any treatment at all?” Frankie asked. “You are just giving up?”

  He looked over at the redhead. She was his third daughter and felt that she needed an explanation as well as the rest.

  Roxanne sat quietly and let Tim handle the talk with the girls. It was his right, and his story to tell.

  “They could give me chemo and radiation, but those things would only extend my life by a short amount. And…it would make me sicker than I already am. I don’t want to live my last few months being sick from the chemo. I know I’m already sick and weak, but it would be worse. I want to be able to get out of bed, and be with my girls as much as I can.” Tim struggled to hold back the tears. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  All five of them spent another hour talking. Tim wanted to give the girls as much time as they needed to ask questions and talk about their feelings on the matter. During that hour, Roxanne chimed in a few times. Though she and Tim were currently separated, she had always loved him, and her heart was breaking too.

  Before the Carmichaels sat down to have their talk with the girls, they had already had a talk of their own. They had decided that Tim would move back to the Inn. Though Roxanne told him that he could move back into their room, Tim would have a room of his own, that was something he insisted on. He didn’t want Roxanne to have to sleep next to him as he withered and died. He couldn’t do that to her. Not to the woman he had loved for so many years.

  Tim had been dating someone, but it wasn’t serious. Roxanne was the love of his life and he wanted to spend his remaining time with her. He would shortly explain it to the woman he had been dating. That way everyone could get on with their lives. Whatever that meant.

  When they were all done talking, everyone got up to leave.

  “I need to call Lola and tell her what’s going on,” Mary announced. She looked at her father and he nodded his approval.

  Chapter 14

  Though Frankie and the twins were devastated by the heartbreaking news that they had received the previous day, they still wanted to find out what was up with the Porters. Eliza and Marshall had something going on and they wanted to know what it was. Besides, they felt like they needed something to focus on other than the illness and impending death of their father.

  The girls made plans to get up early that morning and sneak out of the Inn before Tim and Roxanne woke up. They knew that it was a possibility that they might not be back home before their parents noticed them missing, but decided that was a chance they were willing to take. Promptly at 6 a.m., the three of them sneaked down the stairs, single file, stepping lightly and carefully over the known squeaky steps. It worked. Neither of their parents heard a thing.

  “So, do we actually have a plan for when we get there?” Frankie asked the twins, as she pulled Tim’s car out of the parking lot.

  Piper had asked Roxanne the night before if they could borrow the car to do some shopping the next day. She just didn’t tell her mother it would be at 6 a.m., and that the shopping trip would be at the hospital. A little white lie, she figured. If they didn’t get caught, then no harm done, she figured. If they did get caught, then she would ask for forgiveness later.

  A bit of guilt crept into Piper’s gut as they drove down the street. With her father’s condition, she knew it was the worst time in the world to be deceiving him like they were. But, she justified it in her mind by telling herself they were going to the hospital for a good reason. At least she hoped that was the case. The truth was that they had no idea whatsoever if any of it was going to pan out. They could be risking getting into a lot of trouble for absolutely nothing. And the last thing any of them wanted to do was upset Tim. He didn’t deserve that.

  “Here’s what I think the plan should be,” Mary answered. “Piper knows her way around the hospital, since she’s been working there. So she can get us into the medical records room. Can’t you?” Mary turned to her sister. Piper was staring out the window. “Um, Piper. Are you listening?” Mary waved her hand in front of Piper’s face.

  “Oh, sorry,” Piper answered, swatting Mary’s hand away with a scowl. “I was just thinking about Dad. Anyway, yes I was listening. The door is probably locked, but I have a master key. No one should be there this early. I think they get in around eight.”

  “That’s perfect,” Frankie replied. “What exactly are we looking for?”

  “Haven’t you been paying attention?” Piper asked her.

  “Yes, I have been paying attention,” Frankie answered with a smirk. “I know we are looking for the Porters’ medical records. But what in the records are we expecting to find?” Frankie turned up the road to the hospital.

  “We don’t really know yet,” Mary told her. “We just know that Eliza was very adamant with the nurse that he stay out of their medical records. There clearly has to be a good reason why. Don’t you think? I mean, who would even think to mention that to someone working at the hospital, unless they had something to hide?”

  “Yeah, that does seem suspicious…especially since she said it to someone that works at the hospital. They probably have access to everyone’s records whenever they need them. If something wasn’t fishy, why would she even mention that in the first place?” Frankie agreed.

  “Exactly,” Piper added.

  Once parked at the hospital, the girls made their way in the front door and headed toward the medical records office. There was a receptionist at the front desk that just smiled at them as they walked by. She knew Piper worked there and didn’t even think about why she was there so early, and brought her sisters along.

  Frankie kept watch in the hall while Piper used her master key on the lock. The coast was clear and they slipped inside the dark room. Mary flipped on the lights just as the door latched behind them.

  “Mary! What are you doing?” Piper whispered to her sister.

  “We kinda need the lights to see where we are going.”

  “I brought a flashlight. I don’t want someone walking by and seeing us in here.” Piper pulled the flashlight out of her pocket and held it up in front of Mary for emphasis.

  “Don’t you think it will look more suspicious if someone walks by and sees a flashlight flitting around the room?” Mary turned and pointed at the small vertical window in the front door of the medical records room. Anyone walking by could see if someone was inside.

  “Oh yeah,” Piper answered as she stuck the flashlight back in her pocket. “You are probably right. We better hurry before someone sees us. The records are there on that wall.” She pointed to a set of wall shelves filled from ceiling to floor, and wall to wall, with folders.

  “Um, Piper…these folders don’t have names on them. They are all numbered,” Frankie told them as she perused the folders.

  “Aw crap, that’s right. They don’t alphabetize them for some stupid reason. Everyone is assigned a number.” Piper paused for a moment, while trying to formulate a plan. “Okay, Mary, boot up the computer. We need to find out what their medical record numbers are.”

  “On it,” Mary replied as she sat down at the desk and switched on the computer.

  “I need the password,” Mary told them as she began looking around on the desk and in the drawers for it. “I bet it’s written down here somewhere.” She continued looking as she spoke. “Bingo! Found it,” Mary exclaimed, holding up her prize for all to see.

  Within five minutes, Mary had found the computer password written on a sticky note under the desk calendar, logged in, and found the medical record numbers for all three people in the Porter family.

  “The security here is seriously lacking,” Mary laughed as she stuck the sticky note back under the desk calenda
r where she found it.

  “You are a rock star,” Frankie told Mary as she was handed the record numbers Mary had written down.

  Piper and Frankie found the folders quickly and they laid them open on the desk. Mary ran over to the door to keep an eye out the window and into the hall. Instead of spending precious time reading the files there, with the risk of getting caught, and possibly arrested, Frankie and Piper pulled out their phones and snapped photos of each page as quickly as they could.

  “Hurry up, someone’s walking down the hall!” Mary whispered across the room, without taking her eyes off of the hallway.

  Frankie and Piper closed the folders and put them back up on the shelves. They didn’t take the time to make sure they were in the right place. It was too risky. The staff would probably just figure someone had misfiled them. The girls ran over to the door, switched off the light, and walked out, closing the door gently behind them. The person that Mary had seen in the hall had already turned into one of the other offices that lined the walkway.

  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Mary uttered nervously as the girls made their way down the hall.

  “Just act natural,” Piper told the girls. She waved goodbye to the receptionist as they walked by and out the front door of the hospital.

  “Smooth, Mary. Why don’t you just announce to everyone that we are up to something,” Frankie snapped, once they reached the safety of the parking lot.

  “Sorry. I’m just a bit freaked out right now.”

  “We know,” Piper added. “We all are.” She patted her sister’s back in a comforting manner.

  “Oh crap!” Mary exclaimed, looking around the parking lot to make sure no one heard her. “I forgot to turn off the computer.”

  “Fantastic,” Frankie replied. “We are all going to jail for sure.” She shook her head in disbelief.

  “Frankie don’t be so dramatic,” Piper told her. “They’ll probably just think they left it on by accident. Even so, there’s no proof we were ever there.”

  “Where have you girls been?” It was Roxanne standing by the front lobby door, with her arms crossed and her right foot tapping.

  “What?” Piper asked her. “You told us we could take the car shopping. Did you forget?” Piper gave her the sweetest smile that she could muster.

  “Oh I forgot nothing. Where in the world did you go shopping at six in the morning?” Roxanne wasn’t buying their story.

  “We, um…couldn’t find anything open, so we went to the diner for breakfast. You know, the one over by George’s hotel.” Mary was quick with an explanation.

  Roxanne looked at Mary and couldn’t quite read her face. She had no idea if it was the truth or not. As she stood there thinking about it, she relented. Really, where else were they going to go that early in the morning on the island? Nothing but the restaurants were open.

  “I see. Well, since you all are up, and have already eaten, why don’t you go to the cafe and start prepping for breakfast? Your dad could really use the help,” she told them.

  “You got it,” Frankie replied while they all departed that conversation as quickly as humanly possible.

  Roxanne stood in the lobby of the Inn and watched the girls practically run for the cafe. Something was up with them. She just didn’t know what it was.

  The girls didn’t utter a word about their morning adventure while they set up everything for breakfast. Roxanne showed up at some point and told them that Tim would not be in that day. He wasn’t feeling well. That was not a problem for the girls. They were more than happy to pick up the slack. All three of them would do anything for Tim. Anything to make his life easier.

  “Mom, don’t you worry. Mary and Frankie and I can take care of everything. You just go do what you need to do,” Piper told her mother while ushering her out of the kitchen.

  “Okay, just let me know if you need anything.”

  Roxanne hated working in the cafe. She was more than happy to let the girls run things. The twins had been helping out for years, and Frankie for a while now. Roxanne was confident that they knew what they were doing.

  Once breakfast was over, there was only one table remaining with customers lingering over their meal. The three teens left the cook in charge and told him to call if it got busy and he needed help.

  Piper and Frankie headed for Piper’s bedroom to wait for Mary. It was her task to take the phones to the office and print out the pages that they had photographed. They didn’t have a printer attached to the computer in the bedroom upstairs. She completed her task and made her way to Piper’s room without their mother catching her.

  Mary sorted the pages in stacks, by name. They decided that each girl would take a different member of the family and read through the paperwork. Frankie had Marshall’s records. Piper had Eliza’s, and Mary had little Zachary’s medical records. After a few minutes, they convened to go over their results.

  “Frankie, you go first,” Piper told the girl. “Did you find anything interesting in there about Marshall?”

  “No, not at all. Pretty boring stuff really. Marshall went to the hospital a couple times for stitches, and once for a broken arm. It says here that he has a pretty rare blood type, but nothing else unusual. That’s pretty much it. What about you, Piper? Anything on the wife?” Frankie asked.

  “No, nothing here either. Other than when she was there to have the baby, she has never been to the hospital.” Piper had a look of disappointment on her face. She really wanted to find some juicy details on the Porters, especially after the incredible risk they took.

  Both girls looked up at Mary for her input.

  “Zachary has only been in the hospital twice, according to these papers,” Mary began. “Once when he was born, of course. And then not long ago when he had an ear infection. Nothing significant on either of those. But…” Mary shuffled the paperwork in front of her, looking for something. “That thing you said, Frankie, about Marshall having a rare blood type? That’s interesting. What is his blood type?” She looked up at Frankie.

  “It’s, um, let me see.” Frankie leafed through her paperwork. “Oh, here it is. It’s AB Negative. Does that mean something?”

  “Back when I took those first aid courses, we talked about blood transfusions,” Mary explained. “I know that certain types of blood are not compatible with other types. What is Eliza’s blood type?” she asked Piper directly.

  Piper checked her papers. “It’s O Positive. Why?”

  Mary stood up and walked over to the computer on the desk next to them. “I have a theory. I don’t know much about blood types, but since Marshall’s is so rare, I wonder if Zachary would inherit his same blood type?” She sat down in the chair as she spoke. “I have no idea if it means anything at all, but it can’t hurt to see what the internet says about it.”

  Mary began typing into the search bar and clicked on the first page in the results that showed up. “Okay, here’s a chart on blood types. It says that if the mother’s type is O, and the father’s type is AB, then the child would have to have the blood type of…oh no.” Mary covered her mouth with her right hand and stared at the screen.

  “What?” Piper asked her. “Don’t leave us hanging.”

  “It says here that Zachary’s blood type has to be either A or B.” Mary pointed at the screen as Piper and Frankie walked over and stood behind her to look at the chart.

  “So?” Frankie commented.

  “Well,” Mary answered, “Zachary’s blood type is O, like his mother’s. Not A or B like this chart says.”

  “Since his mother’s blood type is O, wouldn’t it be normal for him to have the same type?” Piper asked.

  “No. That’s not how it works. It has to be A or B. No other blood types are possible,” Mary explained.

  “Does that mean what I think it means?” Frankie asked, her eyes wide.

  “Yes. It means that Marshall is not Zachary’s father,” Mary told the girls.

  “Oh my god,” Piper exclaimed. �
�I guess we now know what Eliza was hiding.” She looked at the girls, who were standing there with their mouths hanging open. “Do you think Marshall knows?”

  Both shrugged their shoulders. “Doubtful,” Mary answered.

  “A more interesting question is, who is Zachary’s father?” Frankie asked.

  Chapter 15

  Lindsey woke with a start to the blood curdling scream of her 5 year old daughter, Shelby. Bolting upright from a dead sleep, Lindsey did not immediately jump up out of bed. She waited a moment to listen and decide if she had just dreamed it. She frequently had nightmares about her children and thought it was probably because she was a single woman, raising two children alone. There was so much danger in the world and she wasn’t entirely sure that she could protect them from all of it. The fear had probably crept into her subconscious.

  Quickly feeling guilty that she didn’t immediately run to the aid of her youngest child, Lindsey grabbed her bathrobe. As she sprinted out the bedroom door and down the stairs, her bare feet pounded on the soft carpet. She found the front door wide open, and Shelby standing on the front porch staring down at the ground in front of her. Without saying a word, Lindsey’s eyes followed her daughter’s line of sight and she gasped in response.

  Shelby didn’t seem to realize that her mother was there. Lindsey was standing behind Shelby and put each of her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, guiding her gently back inside the house.

  “Shelby, honey, why don’t you go inside and make yourself a bowl of cereal. I’ll deal with this. Okay? Where’s Xander?”

  “He’s still asleep,” Shelby replied as she walked toward the kitchen, turning twice more to make sure the thing on the front porch stayed where it was.

  Lindsey was livid. There is no other word to describe how she felt at that moment. In a mother’s rage, and without thinking about the consequences, Lindsey bent over and picked it up. Bare hands and all. Then she stormed over to her next door neighbors’ house.