“Is he really coming back?”
“He says he is.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Until he tells me something different, I have to, but you and I are going to be okay.”
“I’m going to be sad the whole time he’s gone.”
“Me, too.”
“I wanted him to stay.”
“So do I, but if he says he needs time away, we have to love him enough to allow him to do that.”
“Are you going to go back into the studio?”
“Yes, but not until you get the okay to go back to school. One of us has to pay the bills around here, and the state of Kansas says you’re too young to work.”
She smiled, and that made Roni feel better. “And honey, it’s okay to be mad and sad and feel a little lost. This has rocked our world, and we’re in unchartered territory.”
“Sorta like Star Trek.”
Roni laughed. “I guess you can look at it that way. What would Captain Kirk say?”
“Shields!”
“Then we’ll put up our shields and keep it moving.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“And Zoey. You are never going back into foster care—ever, okay?”
She nodded. “Can we have blueberry waffles?”
“Sure can.”
C H A P T E R
16
Henry Adams was both rocked and saddened by the news of the Garland separation. Everyone knew Reg had been brooding for quite some time, but no one believed he’d actually leave. The day after his departure, Bernadine spent the morning on the phone trying to find a doctor to replace him, if only temporarily. She was admittedly irritated that he’d left town without making arrangements. Then again, he probably had other things on his mind, like the fractured state of his marriage, she told herself, so she cut him some slack.
When she spoke with Roni the day he left, she seemed to have reconciled herself to the situation and was determined to make life as normal for Zoey as possible. Zoey would also be visiting Paula for counseling on a regular basis for the next little while, in the hope that their talks would aid her in coping with the abrupt change in her life, and managing her anger.
Another problem for Bernadine was that Reg’s leaving also snatched the rug from beneath Diane’s chance of securing a job. Since learning of Harmon’s plans to remarry, Diane had spent the majority of her time sequestered in her room. The few times she had let herself be seen, she wore the look of a woman devastated by the hand she’d been dealt by life. Bernadine could sympathize. When she’d walked in on Leo and his secretary that day in his office, she’d been knocked to her knees, but she’d gotten up and laced on her boxing gloves. Granted, Harmon hadn’t committed adultery, but it had to be hard for her sister, knowing he’d remarried before the ink on the divorce decree had a chance to dry. However, she couldn’t wallow forever, at least not on Bernadine’s dime. She needed a job.
“So what’s up, baby girl? Why so glum?” Mal asked as he slipped into the booth she was sitting in.
Bernadine had come down to the Dog to get some time away from the office and to think. As always, no matter the situation, circumstances, or time of day, Mal lifted her spirits.
“Trying to imagine how much of a fit Diane’s going to throw when I tell her the only jobs in town are on the janitorial staff at the store.”
“It’s an honest living. Folks have put their kids through school with mops and brooms.”
“Agreed, but she thinks of herself as way too special for that.”
“Hard to call yourself special when you’re flat broke.”
She raised her cup to her lips. “I know. She was supposed to be talking to Reg Garland about an assistant’s position at the clinic, but now?”
“Any luck with finding a replacement for him?”
“Not so far. For the time being, the kids will have to use the clinic in Hays. I really wish he’d made some arrangements, but it probably wasn’t a priority at the time.”
“Probably not. Hope they work it out. I like them both.”
She agreed.
“So what are you going to do about your sister?”
“Lay it out for her and see what she decides to do. Letting her just sit around watching the judge shows all day is not going to happen. She can either go see Gary or move elsewhere. My name is not Bernadine Enabler Brown.”
His mustache lifted with his smile.
She drained the last of her coffee and set the cup down. “Well, no sense in delaying this any longer. I’m going to swing by home and let her know her appointment is at two today.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
When she arrived, she found Diane lounging on the living room couch in sweats and slippers, watching Judge Judy. Upon seeing Bernadine, she jumped. Guilt filled her face. “What’re you doing home so early?”
“Came to drive you to your job interview.”
“The one with the doctor?”
“No. He’s had to close down his practice temporarily. The interview is with Gary Clark over at the grocery store.”
She cocked her head. “Grocery store?”
“Yes. It’s the only job available at the moment, so you need to apply.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think I’d like doing something like that,” she said, and went back to watching Judge Judy.
Holding on to her temper, Bernadine very calmly walked over to the remote, picked it up, and pressed POWER.
“Hey!”
“Either you speak with Gary, or you move out. Those are your choices.”
“Some choice,” she grumbled. “What job am I applying for?”
“Janitorial. Night shift.”
She laughed. “Oh, you got me that time, Bernie. Janitorial. Good one.”
“Do you see me laughing?”
In the silence Diane searched her stony features. “You. Are. Kidding.”
“No. I’m. Not.”
She sprang to her feet. “You can’t possibly expect me to work as a janitor!”
“Do you have another option?”
“Of course not. There are no jobs in this depressing little place.”
“Then you interview this afternoon, or move on.”
“You hate me that much,” Diane replied knowingly, shaking her head with disgust. “Mama’s probably spinning in her grave knowing—”
“Don’t you dare say a word to me about Mama!” Bernadine stormed. “Ms. I’m Too Busy to See Her on Her Death Bed!”
Diane folded her arms and stared off into the distance.
Bernadine took in a few calming breaths to counteract the seething canyon fire burning inside. “So, what are you going to do?”
“You love my being in this position, don’t you?”
“Cut the crap. Decide.”
“I’ll do the interview. Happy?”
Bernadine wanted to shake her.
“Of course there’s no guarantee he’ll actually hire me,” Diane pointed out smugly.
“Then you’d better give him the best damn interview he’s ever seen, because if you don’t get the job, I will personally pack your stuff and put it out on the street.”
Diane’s eyes widened, but Bernadine had nothing else to relay. She left her staring and speechless sister standing in the living room.
Shortly before two, Diane made her appearance. Decked out in leather and full makeup she was way overdressed. Apparently seeing that in Bernadine’s face, she explained, “I’m wearing this because I want him to know that if he has a job available in his office I can dress the part.”
“There aren’t any other jobs.”
“We’ll see.”
Bernadine sighed tiredly. “Let’s go.”
Like most kids, Zoey always dreamed of not having to go to school, but the reality left a lot to be desired. First of all, due to the injuries from the bike wreck, she was supposed to be taking things easy, so between that and the pain meds, which kept putting her to sleep, she?
??d spent most of the time in bed, which meant she had all day to think about her dad, and where he might be, what he might be doing, and whether he missed her and her mom. Were she in school, she’d be too busy doing work to be so worried and sad.
Crystal had come to see her after dinner yesterday, and the boys had, too. They knew about her parents getting separated and told her everything would be okay, but having her business in the street and wanting to scream that nothing would be okay again left her embarrassed and angry. At least Devon had the sense to stay away. When she went back to school, if he had one smart thing to say about what was happening in her family, she’d knock him into next week. Guaranteed. She didn’t care if Mr. James suspended her for the rest of her life. In fact, she owed him another pounding anyway. Amari told her what he’d said at the town meeting about her painting the fence. She supposed he’d conveniently forgotten who stood up to the adults last year to help him paint it when he was busted for stealing money.
The pain meds she’d been given with some juice a short while ago were making her woozy, so she snuggled beneath the covers and let them carry her into sleep.
In her dream she was walking down Main Street. She knew she was in Henry Adams, but some of the places looked like Miami. She saw Reverend Paula’s old church and the place beneath the highway where she and her mother Bonnie used to live. Up ahead by the Power Plant, she spotted her dad. He waved at her to join him, but then for reasons unknown he started running away. She ran after him, calling for him to stop and wait for her, but he kept getting farther and farther away. Soon she was in the open field near Ms. Genevieve’s place. She could see her dad running toward the horizon, and then the dream shifted. She was back under the highway.
The place looked just as it had on her last day there. The old bare mattress where she slept was in its spot, and beside it the big brown shopping bags that held her and her mom’s stuff. Cars sped by overhead, and there in the shadows lay something that made her scared. Newspapers, just like the ones she’d placed over Bonnie’s corpse, were covering something. She didn’t want to look at whatever they were shrouding, but she couldn’t make herself stop walking toward it. Kneeling down, her hand shook as she moved the paper aside, and there lay Mr. Patterson. He was dead. His shotgun was across his chest. Then the rats came. Thousands of them. They were big and made of gold and had sharp gold teeth. They jumped on him and began feeding. She grabbed the gun and tried to beat them back, but there were too many. When they turned on her and knocked her down, she woke up screaming.
Then her mom was there. “Zoey! What’s wrong? Are you okay? I could hear you screaming from downstairs.”
Still shaking with fear, Zoey said, “The rats! They came back!” Another part of the dream floated to the surface, and she went still. “Mr. Patterson’s dead!”
Her mom’s soft hand brushed the sweaty hair away from her face. “Sweetie, you just had a bad dream. Remember the doctor said the meds could have that effect?”
“No, Mom, he’s dead! The rats were eating him, then they jumped on me. Please call Tamar. Please!”
“Okay. Calm down, honey.”
“No, no. She needs to go to his house.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll call her. Take a deep breath.”
“Hurry, Mom!”
“Let me get you some water—”
“No! Call Tamar!” Zoey felt hot tears running down her cheeks.
Her mom pulled out her phone and went out into the hallway to make the call. Shaking, Zoey fell back against the pillows.
Her mom came back into the bedroom. “Tamar’s at the rec, but she’s on her way there.”
“Thank you.”
“So, do you want to tell me about the dream?”
“Dad was in it. He was running, and I was trying to catch up, but he kept running faster. Then he disappeared, and I was back in Miami in the place where my mom and I used to sleep at night. And Mr. Patterson was laying beneath a bunch of newspaper, then these rats showed up, and they were made out of gold.”
“Gold rats?”
“Yeah.”
“No idea what that means.”
“Me neither, but I was so scared.”
She was pulled close by her mom, who also placed a kiss on her forehead. “You’re safe now.”
But she wasn’t safe from the awful memories. “They had big, sharp teeth, and they were huge. I don’t want to take that medicine anymore if it makes me have dreams like that.” Zoey hated that she was so scared, but she couldn’t help it.
“I’ll talk to the doctor and see what she says. Maybe she can prescribe something different.”
Zoey hoped so. “Did Tamar say she’d call you back?”
“She did. While we wait, are you hungry? You want something to eat?”
“No. I just want to wait for Tamar to call back. You can go back to doing what you were doing. I’m okay now.”
“You sure?”
She nodded.
“Okay. I’ll let you know what Tamar says when she calls.”
Her mom left the room, and Zoey took in a deep breath in an effort to rid herself of the terrifying dream before settling back to wait.
Bernadine dropped her overdressed sister off at the store for her interview and was on her way back to the Power Plant when Tamar’s voice came over her sync. “Bernadine, are you in the office?”
“Nope, but on the way there. What’s up?”
“I need you to swing by Roni’s first.”
“Something happen? She okay?”
“She and Zoey are fine. Cephus Patterson passed away at some point in the past twelve hours.”
She wondered what this had to do with dropping by Roni’s place. “Sorry to hear about his passing, but what’s this got to do with Roni?”
“Just stop by Roni’s. Something here you need to see.”
“What is it?”
But Tamar was gone.
Sighing because this was Henry Adams, and lord knew what this was about, Bernadine turned Baby toward the subdivision.
Roni answered the door. “Hey. Thanks for coming. You’re not going to believe this. Come with me.”
Roni led her upstairs to Zoey’s bedroom. She expected to see Zoey in bed, but not with her lap covered by a pile of gold coins.
Zoey’s eyes flashed excitedly. “How sick is this, Ms. Bernadine? There’s two hundred and fifty of them. I counted them. Aren’t they beautiful? I think this is why all the rats were made out of gold.”
Having no idea what that meant, she asked, “Where’d they come from?”
“Mr. Patterson.”
Bernadine walked over to the bed and picked one up. On one side of the coin there was a woman wearing a coronet. On the verso side was a fancy eagle. “They aren’t real, are they?”
Tamar said, “I think they are.”
Bernadine was so confused, her head was beginning to spin.
“They’re double eagles,” Tamar added. “I was going through Cephas’s things to see if he had a suit to be buried in, and this saddlebag was on his kitchen table.” She handed Bernadine a bag similar to the ones used by the cowboys in the Hollywood westerns her daddy always enjoyed. It was old, though—from the crisp feel of the dried-out black leather, very old.
“This was inside.” Tamar held up a cellophane bag yellowed with age. “And in the cellophane was this—”
Bernadine took the folded newspaper from Tamar’s hand. The banner read “Nicodemus Cyclone.” That she was holding an original Exoduster newspaper was enough to add to her swoon, and the date beneath the banner almost made her faint. “Eighteen eighty-five!”
Roni chuckled. “And as they say on the television game shows, There’s more! Take a look at the story at the top of the page, and at the drawing with it.”
Bernadine read aloud: “Colorful outlaw Griffin Blake”—she glanced down at the ink drawing of a man wearing a weathered cowboy hat, then resumed reading—“also known as Kansas Red, Oklahoma Red, and a slew of other alias
es too numerous for this journalist to recount—has struck again. His latest victim, the Kansas Pacific Railroad.”
The article went on to say that Blake made off with a mine company’s payroll worth $5,000 in gold. Speechless, she looked at the gold again.
Zoey smiled. “Awesome, right? Tamar said the Henry Adams gold was just an old myth. Guess not.” Using her good hand, she threw a handful of coins in the air. “Ms. Bernadine, do you know anyone selling a go-kart track? Because I want to buy one, if this is enough money.”
The request drew Bernadine up straight. Staring at Zoey and then the gold, she put one and one together and almost had a heart attack for real. “He left all this gold to you?”
“Yep,” she replied proudly.
Bernadine’s eyes widened.
Zoey continued, “Tamar said there was a note taped to that saddlebag. It had ‘For Raymond’ written on it.”
“Raymond?”
“He thought that was my name.”
“Okay, I need to sit down.”
Roni dragged over a chair. Bernadine sat, set her purse down, and peered quizzically at Zoey’s beaming face. She had so many questions she wasn’t sure where to begin, so she started with the obvious. “Why’d he leave the gold to you?”
She shrugged her thin shoulders beneath her NASCAR pajamas. “Maybe because I took him some cake.”
“Cake?”
She nodded. “The first time I left him an apple.”
Roni suddenly interrupted, “Wait. Hold up. Are you saying that last Friday, when you had the accident, wasn’t the first time you’d been out there?”
Zoey’s eyes dropped to her lap.
“How many times?” her mother asked.
“Twice,” she confessed softly.
“And this first time was?”
“Early last week.”
Tamar asked, “What did I tell you about visiting him?”
That garnered a whispery, “Not to.”
“Was I speaking German or French or Ibo?”
“No, ma’am,” she said, smiling, but the censure in Tamar’s eyes erased that immediately.
“Just checking,” Tamar replied.
Bernadine now had a clearer explanation of Zoey’s role, but not Patterson’s. “Where’d he get the gold?”