The Reason

  “Touché,” he said wearily. He ran his hand along the side of his face and shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Count me in too.”

  FIVE

  Later that afternoon, Macey sat alone in the quiet of a small laboratory. As she leaned in toward the room’s only functional microscope, she was thinking about Zach’s statements about death and God. He was wrong, and even though he was a jerk a lot of the time, a big part of her still felt sorry for him. Such a hopeless, helpless stance, to try and go it alone . . .

  She raised her head and then gently rubbed her eyes before peering back through the lenses at the tiny specimen on the slide below.

  The free clinic had ordered the tests, and a computerized whole blood cell counter had already generated the results that were sitting on her desk. Regardless, she still had to be sure.

  Though she had yet to prove the machine inaccurate, it was of the utmost importance to her that she saw things for herself.

  She held her breath and turned the slide slightly.

  Maybe, just maybe, this is the time it will be wrong . . .

  It didn’t take her long to recognize what she didn’t want to see.

  Modern science wins again. Wishful thinking loses.

  Macey quickly flicked off the microscope lamp and made her way out of the lab toward her small office just a few doors down the hall. She squinted against the harsh hallway lights and struggled to keep the pulse in her head from pounding in direct concert with each step she took.

  Another migraine. She looked at her watch. It was only two fifteen, and what was already a long day ahead was about to get longer.

  As she opened her office door, she immediately reached for the knob on the wall and turned the lights down. With a simple turn of her wrist, unbearable brightness became a soft, soothing, and therapeutic component of a routine she had developed over twenty years of trial and error at managing the pain. It normally began with dimming the lights, then massaging her temples, taking some medication, and finally putting a cold washcloth on her forehead.

  With a little luck, she wouldn’t vomit, and a potentially paralyzing headache would hopefully be manageable within three to four hours.

  She looked up at the ceiling and tried to keep her head still as she slowly lowered herself into her chair at the desk in the corner of her office.

  Macey closed her eyes and placed her hands over her face to slowly massage her temples with the pads of her thumbs. It wasn’t helping much. Worse, her stomach was beginning to roll.

  When she opened her eyes, she found herself looking directly at a blank calendar on the wall in front of her. The pulse in the back of her head was thickening into a series of hollow thuds.

  Next to the calendar, on top of a black metal filing cabinet, were a few framed pictures of her and her friends having fun in what she considered to be the good old days: Parasailing a little too close to the coastline with Kimmy Miggs and Samantha in Key West. Skiing with Lauren and Lindsey in Park City; Lindsey was leading them into “the death chute,” a two-story drop onto a fifty-degree slope. Bungee jumping alongside a waterfall with Keith, James, Matt, and Doddie in the Smoky Mountains.

  Her eyes rested on the last one, a picture of her sitting in an “herbal” club in Amsterdam with the whole gang. She was surprised at how well she still remembered that vacation. They must have burned through a pound of weed that week.

  Yep, those were the days when there was time for fun.

  Those were the days when she had a life.

  That was ten years and $140,000 in student loans ago.

  One hundred and forty . . . grand.

  Yikes.

  Her headache was getting worse. She looked up at the ceiling, wondering if it was really all worth it. She gripped the side of her chair and then reached inside her purse to grab her container of migraine medicine. It felt too light, so she shook it.

  It was empty.

  “You have to be kidding me,” she whispered, glancing at the small clock on the desk. The pharmacy was down on the first floor, and the headache would make the walk practically impossible. Slowly, she laid her arms out on the desk and put her head down on them.

  There were four quick knocks at the door. She heard each one as a hammer to the head, but she hoped it was Kaitlyn’s signature knock.

  “Come in!” she called, immediately regretting raising her voice. It felt like the back of her head was going to explode.

  The door opened and then quickly shut.

  “You are a savior,” the doctor said. “I’m hoping you can run to the pharmacy for me—”

  “Dr. Lewis?”

  It was a man’s voice.

  She hastily lifted her head to see a strange man standing in her office. A construction worker, by appearances.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, trying not to appear overly startled. And hoping she wouldn’t vomit in front of him.

  “Actually,” he said, “I was hoping to be able to help you.” He gave her a small smile.

  “Listen,” she said sternly. She stood and crossed her arms. “I’m having kind of a rough day. Why are you here, and what do you want?”

  The man stepped closer. “I was hoping to help,” he said, pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket.

  “Help me with what?” she asked, frowning in irritation.

  “With this,” he said, holding up a sign.

  NEED HELP WITH DAMAGED CROSS AT CHURCH PLEASE SEE DR. MACEY LEWIS, 3RD FLOOR PEDIATRICS, BETWEEN 7:00 A.M. AND 3:00 P.M.

  A wave of relief ran through her, and she smiled thankfully. “Wow, that was fast! I just gave that sign to one of your superintendents after lunch. But shouldn’t we leave the sign up? I was thinking we’d need a few guys—”

  “I think I can handle it,” he said, using a tone that suggested he was probably going to be the only volunteer. “I’m pretty good at this sort of thing.”

  “Sorry if I seemed rude,” she said, finding herself oddly drawn to his green eyes. “I’m not feeling too well this afternoon.”

  “You weren’t rude,” he said.

  She held out her hand to greet him. “I’m Macey Lewis.”

  “I’m Kenneth.”

  “I haven’t even contacted the minister yet to let him know we’d like to help. I guess I wanted to see if I could gather a group first. You know, before I got his hopes up. So far I have two doctors and a nurse, which sounds like the beginning of a joke . . .”

  He gave her a tender smile and lifted his hands. “And now someone with a little construction experience.”

  “I’m relieved,” she said, nodding. “I’m going to contact the minister today and see when we can go over and take a look.”

  “Sounds good,” he said.

  Macey shrugged. “I’m not really sure how much I can pay you or what help me and my friends will be. We aren’t exactly the hammer-and-saw types, but I guess it’s all for a good cause.”

  “It’s for the best cause,” he said. “And you don’t have to pay me. I want to help.”

  Macey wondered nervously for a second if maybe this guy was just a little too good to be true. She forced a grin and waited before slowly guiding him back toward the door. “I have to get back to work here, Kenneth. Is there a cell phone I can call once I have more specifics?”

  “Actually, I don’t use a cell phone,” he said. “Would it be okay if I just stop by around three tomorrow?”

  “That would be fine,” she said. “I really appreciate this, Kenneth. Thanks so much for coming by right away.”

  “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he said, realizing he was being asked to leave.

  “Three o’clock,” she said.

  “I’ll be here,” he replied. “I hope you feel better.”

  She smiled politely and then went back and sat at her desk. She flipped open her appointment book to get the name and number of the woman who had told her about the cross. Macey’s breath caught when she saw the name.
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  She blinked quickly and then squinted at the test results she’d just brought with her that were sitting next to the appointment book. A slight chill ran through her chest as the same name seemed to jump off both pages.

  Brooke Thomas.

  It appeared that she would be speaking with Brooke not once but at least twice over the next few days—once by phone and once again in person.

  First, she’d call Brooke to make a plan to see about the damaged cross.

  She picked up the test results from the whole blood cell count and looked at the name under “Parent/Guardian.” She carefully laid it back on the desk.

  She’d also be speaking with Brooke in person, along with Dr. Alisoni from the free clinic, to inform Brooke that her son, Alexander, had leukemia.

  What a coincidence, she thought. She looked at the filing cabinet and once again at the pictures of her former life.

  And then she glanced slowly back over at the test results and thought about a certain little redhead.

  It was all worth it. The long hours. The debt. The headaches. Kids like Alexander make it all worth it.

  She stood again, confidently snatched the empty pill container off the desk, and walked quickly out of the office to head down toward the pharmacy.

  It wasn’t until she got off the elevator at the first floor that she realized it.

  She lifted her fingers to her temples, and then her palms slowly flattened against her cheeks. She turned around and stared curiously at the elevator door.

  Her headache was gone.

  SIX

  Even though it was a week into October, it was a surprisingly warm sixty-eight degrees. Brooke and Carla were sitting on top of a metal picnic table at Lakeside Metropark, looking across Lake Erie into Canada.

  Charlie was down the bank in front of them, standing next to the water, his head teetering curiously to the left and right as he watched a handful of seagulls pace nervously back and forth along the shoreline. A light breeze came in off the lake and filtered quickly through the park, momentarily cooling the Indian summer day.

  Alex was his usual arm’s length from Charlie, preparing to unload two fistfuls of tiny pebbles into the water. His Detroit Tigers baseball cap was naturally on backward, and his red bangs hung straight across his forehead. Brooke watched him as he teased the dying waves inching toward him on the shore with the toe of his sneaker, getting as close as he could. He tapped Charlie on the side of the leg and pointed at a passing freighter before turning back to her.

  “Look, Mom!” he yelled.

  “I see it, Alex!”

  “Where is it going?” he asked, saluting the ship as he shaded his eyes with his small hand.

  “I don’t know, baby,” she answered. “Maybe Cleveland.”

  “Cleveland?” He looked at her like it was the first time he had ever heard that word.

  “Yeah. It’s a city in Ohio.”

  Alex sent the tiny stones in his fist flying into the lake, then quickly ran up the shallow bank. “Can we go on the swings?” he asked.

  “You better hurry up,” she answered, smiling and pointing over his head to Charlie, whose broad steps already had him halfway to the playground.

  “Wait, Charlie!” Alex yelled, pushing off Brooke’s leg before running enthusiastically toward the swings.

  “Be careful, buddy!”

  “I will!”

  Alex eased into a slow-motion tiptoe about three steps before reaching Charlie. He turned around and smiled at Brooke and Carla, holding up a small index finger to his face in the shh position, as if requesting their silence.

  “Last one there is an egg!” Alex shouted at the top of his lungs. He quickly bolted past the big man and raced toward the swings without realizing that he left the word rotten out of his announcement.

  “Go, Alexander, go!” Brooke yelled, pumping her fist in the air.

  Alex was no more than thirty feet past Charlie, running as hard as he could, when he fell flat on his face while attempting to run through a colorful pile of wet leaves. He appeared to bounce. He didn’t make a sound.

  Brooke’s heart skipped a beat, and she and Carla both stood. Charlie never broke his stride as he reached down and scooped up Alex, along with what appeared to be half of the leaf pile, and hoisted him to the familiar perch of his broad shoulders. They had almost arrived at the swings when Charlie suddenly stopped and turned around. Alex was smiling from ear to ear as they walked all the way back to where he had fallen. Brooke laughed. Her son looked like a human leaf picker as Charlie hung him upside down by one leg to grab the baseball cap that had come off during his fall. Charlie brushed damp leaves off the boy, then set him on his shoulders again.

  “Be careful, buddy,” Brooke called, taking her seat again beside her friend.

  “No need to worry about him with Charlie around,” Carla said. “That man is like Alex’s own guardian angel.”

  “Yeah,” Brooke said, knowing exactly what Carla meant. “You’re right.”

  Two older kids were already on the swings, and Brooke knew that Alex had probably given Charlie strict orders to make sure he swung the highest of all. As Charlie pushed, at the far end of each arc, the chains of his swing grew slack and the seat lurched. But her son was gloating and scoffing at the other boys’ futile attempts to swing as high as he was.

  “Not so high, Alexander!” Brooke yelled.

  “It’s okay, Brooke!” he shouted back, as if he believed that calling his mother by her first name would further impress his competition.

  “Brooke?” Carla asked. “Did your little man just call you by your first name?”

  “He thinks he’s a comedian,” Brooke answered. Alex had never called his mother by her first name before, and she was trying hard to prevent herself from laughing out loud when she yelled back to him. “What did you call me, Mr. Thomas?”

  Alex’s head quickly popped up, and he probably had no idea that he wasn’t really in trouble, yet he still seemed to debate about his response. Brooke assumed it was his effort to save face with the other boys.

  “Not so high, Charlie!” Brooke hollered.

  As Alex swung back to where he would normally be pushed, a gigantic hand appeared across his waist and froze the swing mid-flight. When Charlie finally let go, Alex shook his head in obvious disappointment as he was left to his own swinging abilities, the older boys now easily passing him up.

  “Thanks, big guy!” Brooke yelled to Charlie, who waved a massive arm that said You’re welcome.

  “Let’s go for a little walk,” Carla said. “I need to reflect.”

  “Reflect?” Brooke said. “You are such a dork.”

  Carla smiled. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  “We’ll be right down there!” Brooke shouted at Alex and Charlie, pointing to the shoreline. “You’ll be able to see us! Yell if you need something!”

  “Okay, Mom!” Alex yelled back. Despite looking exhausted as he swung frantically to keep up with the other boys, his voice sounded energized, happy.

  Even with the warm weather, the lake smelled cold, and the Michigan autumn had hardened the sand, making their footsteps crunch beneath them as they made their way just a short distance down the shore. They walked for over a minute along the shoreline as Brooke waited patiently for Carla, who suddenly seemed like she had something on her mind. Maybe she was reflecting.

  Carla uncrossed her arms and let them drop to her sides. “You ever wonder how that happens?”

  “How what happens?”

  “That,” Carla said, pointing down in the sand in front of them.

  Brooke laughed, and they stopped walking. Directly in front of them was one tennis shoe. It was waterlogged, coated in sand, and its size and faded light-blue Nike logo made it obvious that it had once belonged to a woman. Something about it looked familiar.

  “How does just one shoe end up somewhere?”

  “Maybe she thought that one went out of style,” Brooke joked. She noticed that Carla didn’t
even come close to smiling. “Are you all right, Carla?”

  “That guy at the bar,” Carla sighed. “The more I think about him, the weirder it seems. It’s like he could see right through me. He touched my arm, and . . . he just knew everything about me.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “He just touched my arm. I couldn’t move and then . . . I can’t . . . I can’t really explain it. I can’t even begin to.”

  Brooke put her arm around Carla’s shoulders, and they walked farther down the shoreline. They stopped for a moment and watched a flock of Canadian geese fly directly over their heads from the park out into the lake.

  Carla lifted her left foot and jammed the heel of her shoe in the sand. She covered her ears with her hands and then dropped her arms to her sides in apparent frustration. “My life is a disaster.”

  “Well, not all of it,” Brooke said, studying the mini-whitecaps that came and went in the lake like hundreds of blinking eyes. “You have me and Alex. The Lindys. A job.” But her words sounded hollow in her own ears. Carla referred to the drinking. The men . . .

  “I don’t want to drink anymore,” Carla blurted. “I’m not garbage, I don’t want to be a bar whore, I’m not stupid, I’m not—”

  “You are none of those things,” Brooke said, painfully aware of how Carla’s efforts to sleep her way into a better life seemed to take turns hammering her self-esteem to new lows. Still, whore was just too ugly of a word.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Who called you these things?” Brooke asked. She winced, quickly regretting the question. Many in Carla’s life had called her those things—enough that her friend now believed them.

  “I have a lot of rough edges,” Carla said, stepping back from the water. She removed a white hooded sweatshirt she had wrapped around her waist and slowly pulled it over her head. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I know I can do better. I just know it.”