The Reason Page 4

  “I’m thirsty, Mom.” Alex was up.

  Brooke turned around and smiled. He was rubbing his eyes and finishing a yawn. “Hey, buddy, that was a short nap.”

  He fumbled for his SpongeBob and then looked right at her. “What does it mean that Aunt Carla is hot?”

  “Nothing, buddy,” Brooke answered quickly. She turned to Carla, who was muffling a laugh.

  “Mom, you said, ‘Carla Miller is hot.’ That’s Aunt Carla. Does she have a fever?”

  Brooke looked back at Carla, snorted, and they both started laughing uncontrollably. “No, buddy. She’s fine.”

  Carla put the car in drive, and as they made their way over the tracks and headed up Old Gibraltar, Brooke turned the stereo up. She played the air guitar, and they both sang at the top of their lungs with Ann Wilson and Heart.

  The song was “Magic Man.”

  FOUR

  Macey Lewis strolled into the waiting room of the free clinic on the first floor of East Shore Community Hospital. It was always busy down here, but today it was packed, even at this early hour. She guessed that the thirty to forty seats in the room were easily a couple dozen shy of what was needed.

  Since she wasn’t in a rush, for once, she took a place in line in front of the receptionists’ window and waited to drop off her file. She didn’t mind hanging out here; standing in a room full of colds and sprained wrists practically felt like a vacation, compared to her normal life.

  She looked down and smiled at a little redheaded boy standing in front of her. He hid behind what was probably his mother’s leg and then peeked back out at her.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He just kept smiling at her. She guessed he was about five or six, and she’d seen his brand of shyness a thousand times before.

  She turned around and perused the room. Grandparents, parents, teenagers, and children talked and thumbed through year-old issues of Time, National Geographic, and Highlights. Over in the corner, a school of minnow-sized fish were gliding back and forth in an aquarium, casting a hypnotic spell upon a handful of onlookers.

  There was a tap at her hip. A little girl, maybe a year older than the redhead, was looking up at her. She had thick, curly brown hair and matching brown eyes that did more than hint she wasn’t quite feeling like herself. Her cheeks were red and raw, and Cheetos residue accented her chapped lips and runny nose.

  “How did you get so pretty?” Macey asked.

  “I dunno,” the little girl said with a tiny voice and shrug. “I like your shoes,” she went on, kneeling down and tapping on the light blue logo of Macey’s brand-new Nikes.

  “Why thank you, sweetheart. I just got them yesterday. I like yours too.”

  A large woman, wearing a Detroit Pistons sweatshirt, abandoned what appeared to be her two other children and hurried over to apologize for the little girl. “I am so sorry.”

  “No worries,” Macey said. “She sure is a cutie.”

  “Thank you,” the woman said. “She can be a handful, though.”

  The redhead came out from behind the other woman’s leg. He was another cutie. Actually, all the kids in the clinic were cuties, but she hoped to never see any of them again. The boy stepped up next to her and pointed his little index finger at the girl and her mother as they walked away. “She has boogers in her nose.”

  “Alexander!” the woman said, turning around and picking him up. Yep, that’s his mother.

  “She really has boogers in her nose, Mom.”

  Macey quickly exchanged smiles with the mother, who shook her head in what seemed like a mild form of parental embarrassment. “They tell it like it is, don’t they?” Macey said.

  “Particularly this one,” the woman answered, tugging on the bill of her son’s ball cap. She looked like she was going to say something and then stopped.

  “Our cross got hitted by thunder,” the little boy said.

  “What, sweetie?” Macey asked.

  “He’s talking about the storm last night,” the mother said. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

  “Go for it,” Macey said.

  “How long does it take to become a nurse?”

  “Oh, I’m not a nurse,” Macey answered, holding up a manila folder. “I’m only down here dropping this off. But I think it’s a little over four years.”

  “Thanks,” the woman said. “I thought you looked a little bit young to be a nurse. My bad.”

  Macey was used to hearing that. She smiled back, knowing full well that with her ponytail and no makeup, she didn’t look a day over eighteen. In fact, if she had a dollar for every time someone said they thought she looked too young, her student loan balance would probably be half what it was. Wearing the same comfortable, bright-orange scrubs the third-floor nurses would be wearing that day, she figured she probably did look a little bit young to be a nurse.

  “It was on fire,” the boy said. “I didn’t see it, but it was.”

  “What was on fire? The cross?”

  “Yeah,” the mother said. “It’s in front of our church. It kind of got hit by lightning.”

  “It got whacked in half,” the boy said.

  “A cross got hit by lightning?” Macey asked.

  “And it smells funny,” the boy added. “Mrs. Lindy says we can’t ’ford to fix it.”

  “That’s not her problem,” the mother said. “Shh.”

  “It’s okay,” Macey said. “You know it’s really none of my business, but the church’s insurance will probably cover that. You should check.”

  “Yeah,” the mother said. “We don’t have many people at our church. We kind of don’t have that much insurance anymore.”

  A cross they can’t afford to fix? What were you thinking, God? I don’t understand you. But one thing she did understand was not being able to afford things. Been there, done that.

  “I want to help you fix it,” Macey said. The words hadn’t made it off her lips before she regretted them.

  “Really?” the mother asked, a surprised look on her face.

  No, not really. I don’t have to be the one who fixes everything. I don’t have the time, and wouldn’t even begin to know how to help you.

  “You can fix it?” the little redhead asked, his eyes lighting as if she were going to orchestrate a miracle for him.

  “I’m not sure,” she said, smiling, and not sure why it was impossible to say no. “Why don’t we find out?”

  DR. ZACH NORMAN LEANED OVER THE EDGE OF THE third-floor nurses’ station and dropped a stack of folders on the desk. “Will someone please tell me when that noise is finally going to end?”

  Kaitlyn knew his question was directed at her, sitting behind the nurses’ desk, updating patient records by inputting notes from the rounds into the computer. “If I had to guess, Zach, I’d say the noise will stop when the job is finished.” She paused for a few seconds, confident that it wasn’t her sarcasm that bothered him. It was the fact that her eyes had never left the pile of charts. She could feel his irritation across the counter.

  The noise that Zach referred to was created by the construction workers—working on the hospital’s new $28-million administration wing. It was in its twenty-second of twenty-four scheduled months, and Kaitlyn knew that it had been the never-ending bane of the doctor’s agitation—the relentless tapping and pounding of hammers, the humming and buzzing of dull saws and wornout drills, and the painful screech of metal ladders unwillingly dragged from the steel beds of trucks.

  “Seriously,” he said, snapping his fingers and still waiting for her to look at him. She didn’t. “How can you work with all that racket?”

  “I ignore it. Try concentrating on your patients, Doc, and quit being so fussy. We’ve got a ward full of kids today. Let’s think about them instead of you for a change, huh?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him cross his arms. “You know, Kait,” the doctor said under his breath as another nurse left the station, “I’m really not in the mood today. And by the w
ay, in the halls, I think it’s best if you refer to me as Dr. Norman.”

  “I apologize for questioning your authority, Doctor,” Kaitlyn said. Her eyes left the chart, and she stared straight at him, exercising a greater authority only the two of them could understand. “If you want to play that way, in the halls, you can refer to me as Nurse Practitioner Harby.”

  He sighed, lifted his hands in surrender, and dropped his elbows on the counter. “Sorry. I’ve got a rippin’ headache. Let’s start over. Would you care to join me for lunch, Nurse Harby? My treat.”

  “I think I’ll pass, Doctor,” she said calmly, picking up the top chart again.

  “C’mon, Kait,” he sighed. “For Pete’s sake, now we can’t even go to lunch?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Isn’t today pizza day?”

  “Yep.”

  “You are turning down pizza day?”

  She studied him. She knew she should steer clear of him, but she was starving and she did love the cafeteria’s pizza. And she had been a little hard on him, if he had a headache. “Okay. Give me fifteen minutes to check on two patients and I’ll join you.”

  KAITLYN WASN’T SURE WHICH DECISION WAS WORSE— hers to join Zach for lunch or the cafeteria’s to serve green beans with pizza.

  She rolled her eyes as he fidgeted with his napkin. Of course, pizza in itself was beneath “the great doctor.” She watched as he took another bite of his salad before washing it down with a tidy sip of the four-dollar bottle of imported water that he had brought with him.

  Everything was beneath Zach. Beneath him and his Mercedes convertible, his Rolex, his eight-thousand-square-foot house, and his seven-figure brokerage account.

  It was going to be impossible for her to get through this lunch without explaining for the umpteenth time what had happened to them and why she didn’t want to be with him anymore.

  Though her answer would never change, the way he asked the question always did.

  “Do you know how many women out there would be interested in what I have to offer?” he asked.

  “Sounds like you already know the answer,” she said, peeling little chunks of green pepper off her second slice of pizza. “I’m sure there are way too many to count.”

  “For crying out loud,” the doctor said. “I should just give up.”

  “That would likely be a good idea.”

  “Kaitlyn,” he whispered loudly. “Just tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  His fingers drummed anxiously along the side of his water bottle. “Tell me what I have to do to make you happy. Tell me and I’ll do it.”

  “That was actually pretty good,” she said matter-of-factly. “Have you been reading Cosmo or something?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. C’mon, I’m trying here.”

  “I just find it interesting that you never even came close to asking me these things while we dated. You always—”

  “Hi, kids!”

  Kaitlyn was spared by Macey Lewis, who invited herself to join them for lunch.

  “Am I interrupting anything?” Macey asked.

  “Of course not,” Kaitlyn said, offering a halfhearted smile and a subtle look of thanks for a job well done.

  “Not at all,” Zach added. Kaitlyn knew he was disappointed. There was no doubt in her mind that he would harass her about the intervention later.

  “That’s some fancy water there, Zach,” Macey said, pointing at the plastic bottle. “I’m sure you can tell a huge difference between that and the cheap stuff us common folks drink.”

  “Actually, I can,” he said. “You keep up the good work, and you’ll be able to afford this stuff someday.”

  “I’m doing my best,” Macey said. “I’m begging you to be patient with me, boss man.”

  Kaitlyn grinned. Macey was the only person at the hospital who would ever get away with talking to Zach like that. Even though he was the one in charge, he gave Macey all the space she needed on the pediatric floor for one simple reason—she was the most brilliant doctor any of them had ever seen.

  “How about that weather last night?” Macey asked, squinting and tilting her head toward Zach.

  The weather? Kaitlyn thought. Macey either asked a legitimate question or was trying to hint to Zach that it was better to talk about anything other than his relationship with Kait.

  “I haven’t seen anything like it in years,” Zach said, taking the hint with a lift of his chin.

  Macey leaned back in her chair. “I sat on my deck and watched the storm for around twenty minutes before I realized I had left the top off my Jeep.” She laughed. “My car seat is soaked. I’ll have wet-butt for two weeks.”

  “Wet-butt?” Zach repeated. “Real classy, Dr. Lewis.”

  “The news said that over half of Carlson lost power last night,” Kaitlyn said.

  “Lost power and produced one dead cross,” Macey added.

  “One dead cross?” Kaitlyn asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Ran into some people this morning down at the free clinic. Lightning hit the cross at their church and literally cut it in two.”

  “God firebombs his own house?” Zach asked. He snickered and turned to Kaitlyn.

  She didn’t like that look. He was also doing his closemouthed smile that she hated. Even though she only ever went to church for weddings, funerals, or Christmas Eve, her pleas for Zach to join her had gone unanswered. For Zach, science had somehow put God out of a job, so talking about faith was about as important to him as holding hands or sharing his true feelings.

  She was glad their relationship was over.

  “God didn’t just firebomb it,” Macey said. “He did it to people who can’t afford to fix it either. Go figure.”

  “Their insurance should help them out on that,” Zach said. “Unless Santa Claus is their agent.”

  “I told the woman the same thing,” Macey said. “But it sounds like they don’t have any insurance.”

  “What are they going to do?” Kaitlyn asked. “People are going to pull up to the church and see half a cross?”

  “Not for long,” Macey said. “We are going to help them.”

  Zach rolled his eyes. “How are you going to do that?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet. I just know I need to help.”

  “Listen to me, guys,” Zach said. “Work with me here on the God stuff.”

  Kaitlyn clenched her pant leg and held her breath. Zach’s “work with me here” was his way of saying, I’m right and about to prove it. If you disagree, you’ll end up feeling pretty stupid.

  “Stop me when I say something you disagree with,” Zach said. He pointed at Macey. “Let’s say there was an omniscient and loving God.”

  “There is,” Kaitlyn interjected.

  “That loving God let that cross get hit by lightning, and he knew they couldn’t afford it. So why are you fixing it if God wanted it to happen?” He turned and looked right at Kaitlyn. “Unless, of course, he’s just a terrible shot.” He laughed over his own joke.

  “Maybe God wants us to step in. Fix it,” Macey said. “It’s a chance to show a kindness.”

  Zach let out a scoffing laugh. “Don’t you have far bigger things to do, Macey? Like save a kid’s life?”

  Kaitlyn shook her head at him and placed her napkin neatly over the untouched green beans on her plate. “You have such incredible compassion, Zach. I’ve really missed it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, glancing between her and Macey. “You guys are missing my point that God lets bad things happen. Just look at things we wade through here at East Shore every single day. All I’m saying is if there is a God, he’s a bully, I don’t like him, and I don’t want anything to do with him.”

  “If God’s only a bully,” Macey said, “why are you a doctor, cleaning up his messes? Why even do what you do?”

  He sighed heavily, clearly growing uncomfortable with the conversation. “There is no God,” he said with a s
hake of his head. “And I help sick kids get better for only one reason.”

  “Why is that?” Macey asked.

  “Because I can.”

  Macey picked up his bottle of water and gave him a look that seemed to suggest she wasn’t all that impressed with it. “Let me hit you with another worn-out question, and then I want to be done with religion for the day.” She crossed her arms. “If there is no God, what happens to us when we die?”

  “Yeah, Zach,” Kaitlyn said, curious to hear his response.

  “C’mon, guys,” he said. “You’re clearly not in the right mood for thoughtful dialogue.”

  “I want to hear your answer,” Kaitlyn said, ignoring his attempt to exit the conversation just when it was getting good. “What will happen to you when you die, Zach?”

  “It’s simple,” he said, giving her that irritating smile once again. “Remember what it was like before you were born?”

  She squinted and looked at Macey, who shrugged. “Of course not.”

  He lowered his hands and tapped on the table. “Death is just like that.”

  Kaitlyn noticed that Macey did a little recoil from his answer. She also noticed how oddly quiet it had just become.

  Macey tapped back at the table. “We are still going to help them fix that cross.”

  “Exactly who makes up we?” Zach asked.

  “Me and whoever I round up,” Macey answered, pointing her finger past him and Kaitlyn. “Maybe I can get some of them to help.”

  Outside the cafeteria window, a handful of construction workers were in the temporary parking lot, sitting in the bed and on the tailgate of a rusty old Ford F-150, laughing and eating their lunches.

  “Oh please,” Zach said. “Good luck with that.”

  “I’ll help,” Kaitlyn said.

  “You guys are crazy,” Zach said, rolling his eyes and then crossing his arms. His smile went away. “You are serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Macey said.

  “Why?” he asked. “Just tell me why. Don’t we have enough to do around here?”

  Kaitlyn took his arm and did her best to duplicate his irritating little smile. “Because we can. And if we have the power to help, and a need is presented, doesn’t that require any doctor to step up?”