Equal Access (5 page)

As he accepted the book from Charissa,
another memory pushed to the forefront of Shad’s mind. Wally had
always been good about reading to him. They used to make trips to
the library together and Wally was instrumental not only in
teaching Shad how to read but also instilled his love for the
written word. Once Wally was gone Shad never got to go to the
library anymore. Then Brody moved in four years later. Spurred by
memories of the library as being a safe place, Shad began to spend
all his free time there in order to keep away from Brody as much as
possible. There Erin Delaney noticed the quiet boy who never
bothered anything.

Of all the boyfriends that woman had, Wally
had been the kindest. But that one component of Wally’s personality
made him dangerous. If Shad had been the only boy Wally molested,
he’d be more than glad to let the man go. But he had to protect the
other boys. He had to stop Wally, but how?

Why did everything always have to be done the
hard way?

Learn to do good. Devote yourselves to justice; Aid
the wronged. Uphold the rights of the orphan; Defend the cause of
the widow.

--Isaiah 1:17

Shad immediately spotted Monica Simms
standing outside the Jefferson City train station with her brother
Eliot and his wife Tess. They were in a scattered crowd of around
twenty people, and as Shad stepped off the train with Charissa he
located Monica’s flowery headscarf. Although her hair started to
grow back when the chemotherapy treatments ceased, it was still
very short, so she preferred to keep it covered.

When Shad reached the ground he turned to
assist Charissa, who had the day pack slung over her shoulders, hop
down the metal grate steps. When he grasped her hand the girl
simply let him hold it, but when Charissa also stepped onto the
concrete Shad felt her grip tighten in his palm.

“There’s your mom.” Shad returned a wave with
his other hand to Charissa’s family, although it probably looked
more like he was brandishing her suitcase at them. “Uncle Eliot and
Aunt Tess are here too.”

Charissa didn’t release his hand.

They strolled toward the family who took a
few steps as well toward them. Monica was absolutely beaming, and
Eliot and Tess were grinning happily.

“There’s my girl!” Eliot nearly shouted. He
was a tall man with a barrel chest and thick blonde hair. He was
wearing his usual attire of blue jeans and a polo shirt. “How’d you
like your train ride?”

“Welcome home, sweetie!” Tess, a full-figured
woman with shoulder-length brown hair, bent over to place herself
more at Charissa’s level. “We’re all so happy to see you!”

Monica seemed overcome with joy. Her eyes
kept blinking and her hands were clasped together against her
chest. Shad had already informed Charissa that her mother would
look a little different from the last time the girl had seen her.
In seven weeks, her condition probably aggravated by the trauma of
losing her daughter, Monica had lost more weight and the joints of
her bones seemed to protrude a little. The billowy red blouse and
long white skirt she wore helped to conceal how thin she really
was.

Charissa’s grip on his hand tightened even
more as Shad halted before her mother.

“Here we are, Monica.” Shad nodded to her,
then cast a quick glance toward Eliot. “Nice to see you found a way
to make it to the station
sometime
today.”

Eliot started going into a story about how
the mare got tangled in barbed wire but Shad didn’t really hear
him. Monica was lowering herself to her knees and Charissa’s grip
in his hand managed to become even tighter. Shad wondered if she’d
be able to cut off the circulation to his fingers.

“I’m so happy to see you, baby.” When Monica
finally spoke her voice was hardly more than a whisper, making it
even more difficult for Shad to understand her through Eliot’s
monologue. “Having you back is an answer to my prayers. Did you
have a good trip on the train?”

Charissa stared at her mother’s slightly
gaunt face for a few seconds before silently nodding.

Monica glanced up at Shad briefly before
returning her gaze to her daughter. “I see you’ve made friends with
Mr. Delaney.”

After a few seconds of Charissa’s silence,
Shad cleared his throat slightly before speaking. “Actually, she
fired me.”

A bemused expression crossed Monica’s face as
she looked up toward Shad again. Eliot’s voice was becoming quiet
because Tess was tapping her husband on his arm.

Monica’s attention returned to Charissa.
“We’re gonna need Mr. Delaney for a while, honey.”

“Two weeks.” Charissa’s grip relaxed and her
voice was soft yet firm.

Monica tilted her head slightly. “What was
that?”

“Two weeks.” Charissa pulled her hand away
and used it instead to reposition her day pack. “He said I had to
give him two weeks....” She glanced up questionably at Shad.

“Notice.”

Monica’s gaze returned to Shad again, and for
the first time ever since he’d met her she began to chuckle. The
mirth rippled slowly and softly from her, and in those few seconds
Monica seemed like she just might manage to beat this cancer after
all. The renewed animation clung to her as Monica’s attention
returned to Charissa.

“I do admit he takes some getting used to.”
Monica’s face was aglow with both joy and amusement. “But you seem
to be getting along with him now.”

Charissa frowned slightly. “He’s still
fired.”

Monica’s brow furrowed a bit as she glanced
up at Shad.

“Don’t worry.” Shad didn’t want the situation
to become more significant than it actually was. “She just needs
time to get settled in.”

Monica’s frown vanished. “Of course, you’re
right. Just like you’ve been all along.” She beamed at Charissa
again. “You’re back with your real family, now. You’re back with
the people who are gonna take care of you. I love you so much,
sweetie, and I’m so very, very happy to see you again! I hope you
brought your appetite with you because you get to pick which
restaurant we’re gonna eat at before we go home.”

“Ice cream?” Charissa asked with
hesitation.

Monica grinned. “If that’s what you
want!”

“Ice cream for dinner?” Tess shook her head.
“Don’t you want some real food first?”

Charissa looked at her aunt as though the
woman had asked if there had been any shaved monkeys wearing fezzes
and dancing the Watusi on her train seat. “I want ice cream.”

“Then that’s exactly what you’ll have!” Eliot
stooped to pat Charissa on the shoulder.

“Can I get one thing before we go?” Monica’s
voice softened. “I’ve really missed getting hugs from you.”

Charissa gazed at her mother for a few
seconds, and then reached out for an embrace. The two hugged each
other while Monica indulged in another gentle chuckle. She kissed
Charissa on the side of the forehead before they released each
other.

“Let’s go get that ice cream.” Monica was
radiant.

“Yay!” Charissa nodded, her attitude the most
childlike Shad had seen since meeting her.

Eliot helped his sister get to her feet while
Tess offered to help Charissa carry the day pack. Shad quickly
wrapped up some details about what they should expect over the next
few days and managed to thrust Charissa’s suitcase into Eliot’s
grasp. As Eliot and Tess bid their farewells and started to leave
with Charissa, the girl suddenly stopped and turned back toward
Shad.

“Goodbye, Mr. Delaney.” Her expression was
oddly somber again.

“So long, Charissa.” Shad smiled. “Have an
extra bowl of ice cream for me.”

What Monica did next caught Shad off guard,
and he had to choke back his initial revulsion. She suddenly
wrapped her arms around his shoulders. As Monica’s head pressed
against his neck, Shad managed to stand completely still instead of
recoiling from her embrace. There were only a select few persons he
could tolerate such displays of emotion from. Yet Shad knew he’d
better return some kind of gesture, so he reached out with the hand
that wasn’t resting on his laptop case and patted Monica on the
back.

“I’m so glad Vic told me about you.” Monica
murmured just before she released him. “He said you were the kind
of bulldog lawyer I would need that wouldn’t bleed me dry.”

Vic Phillips was Tess’s brother. He worked at
a hospital, and when Monica started bemoaning she couldn’t find a
lawyer who would work with her at a price she could afford, Vic
asked his coworkers if they could recommend somebody. One of them
lived in the Linn area and had become one of Shad’s clients shortly
after he moved his practice to that town. Shad definitely
remembered the case, which involved the man’s wayward ex-wife
trying to move the kids with her to the state of California.

Shad stammered a little. “I’m glad to
help.”

“We’ll see you next week.” Monica smiled
warmly at him as she turned to leave with the rest of her
family.

Shad’s attention centered on Charissa as the
little group strolled away. What was he missing? On one hand the
girl seemed eager to get rid of him. On the other hand Charissa
seemed to display a rather quick attachment to him, which could be
another expression of her abused background. Once she officially
“fired” Shad back in St. Louis, Charissa had seemed more at ease
with him. Monica’s allusion that Shad was not relieved of duty
caused Charissa renewed concern.

Hello again, gut feeling. Why couldn’t he put
his finger on what was causing it?

The crowd was thinning as people dispersed
and the train began pulling away from the station. Shad turned away
from Charissa’s departing family, released an exhale of relief to
be finished with this specific responsibility, and took a couple of
steps toward the brick depot. Shad halted when he spied Dulsie.

She was standing at the corner of the station
and broke into a broad grin as soon as Shad saw her. Dulsie’s long,
sandy brown hair was twisted in the upsweep she preferred to sport
during the summer’s heat. The green, short sleeved pantsuit she was
wearing had been her day’s attire for Dulsie’s work at a financial
counseling service near the downtown district of Jefferson City.
Because she stood at only four-foot-ten, a full foot shorter than
Shad, and weighed about ninety pounds dripping wet, Dulsie liked to
refer to this particular outfit as her leprechaun costume. Most of
the time when Shad saw her wear it, he remembered how Dulsie once
commented that the Irish trickster look was appropriate for
somebody named Delaney – although with a name like Dulsie Delaney,
she felt as though she ought to be hanging out with the likes of
Clark Kent, Peter Parker and Bruce Banner.

Frankly Shad had no idea if there was even a
drop of Irish in his blood, and he claimed the surname Delaney only
because he had it legally changed after he turned eighteen. Dulsie
had quipped during their engagement that if he had just been
patient, Shad could have changed his surname to hers, which was
Wekenheiser. And considering the word many people corrupted it
into, Shad could have been a “wisenheimer” just like her.

They closed the gap between them as each took
a few casual steps toward the other.

“How was the trip?” Dulsie’s voice was soft
and its pitch was just high enough to belie her diminutiveness.

“It went well enough, considering. Have you
been waiting long?”

Shad had called her on his cell phone during
the time he knew Dulsie would be off for lunch and informed her of
Eliot’s truancy. She was here now to take him home. Earlier that
morning Shad accompanied Dulsie on her trip to work, and he knew
she would have got off over an hour ago.

“You know I’m good at entertaining myself.”
Dulsie’s grin had a mischievous quality to it. “I hung out at the
museum in the capitol to see how long it would take for somebody to
ask if I’d lost my parents.”

Besides her short stature, Dulsie’s
heart-shaped face, small nose, and dark blue eyes highlighted with
minimal makeup guaranteed she would get carded every time Dulsie
made a liquor purchase. Because her appearance was very much
inherited from her dad Karl, Dulsie knew she had many years ahead
of her to deal with misconceptions. And like her dad she’d decided
to accept her circumstance with humor.

“That’s better than finding out how long they
take to try to throw you out of the mall.” Shad’s smile deepened.
“And at least the train didn’t get here terribly late.”

“Only ten minutes. Not bad at all.” Dulsie
stepped beside Shad and slipped an arm into the crook of his as it
rested on the carrying case. “Remember that time we took the train
to visit Russell? We were over an hour late getting to Kansas
City.”

Russell was one of Dulsie’s two brothers,
both several years older than her. Like both of Shad’s “sisters,”
none of their siblings still lived in the area.

Shad grasped Dulsie’s hand in his, and their
fingers intertwined. They strolled together past the brick depot
and toward the row of cars parked along the street. Just a few
blocks ahead of them towered the crystalline limestone marble dome
of the capitol building where Dulsie had kept herself occupied.

“Wasn’t that the trip when we all went to the
zoo?” Shad asked.

“Yeah,” Dulsie replied. “But I remember it as
the trip when you reminded me of Dad.”

Shad liked Karl, but he couldn’t entirely
take her remark as a complement because he knew what Dulsie was
referring to, and he didn’t doubt that Karl was someone who could
be dangerous if sufficiently provoked. “Oh.”

“I’m pretty sure you wanted to rip that guy’s
arm off and beat him with it.”

After the train had arrived at Kansas City,
the station was so crowded that Shad and Dulsie drifted apart from
each other as they searched for Russell. Some greasy looking fellow
who probably assumed Dulsie was an insignificant teeny-bopper
nearly knocked her over as he pushed by and snapped for her to get
out of his way. Shad immediately zipped to Dulsie’s side, and he
remembered the impulse that shot through him when he looked into
the crowd after the thug wasn’t much different from what Dulsie
just described. And of all the emotions he strived to keep subdued
lest they became an overreaction, anger was the one Shad kept
tightest rein on.