Red Rover, Red Rover

Red Rover,

    Red Rover

A. K. May

Copyright © 2012 A. K. May

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-5327-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5326-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5328-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012909176

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/31/2012

Contents

October 2008

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Sneak Peek!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

For parents on the precipice

Hosea 13:1-3 NKJV

O Israel, return to the Lord your God….

For in You the fatherless finds mercy.

October 2008

Pregnant? Layla, you’re only fifteen! What were you thinking? Josh Maness was incredulous, but the question was rhetorical. Unfortunately, he knew exactly what she was thinking. His heart clenched anxiously.

His daughter looked away with tears welling in her eyes. Danessa put her arm around her best friend and squeezed lightly. Alyssa, sitting on the opposite side of Layla, patted her knee. A show of solidarity.

Josh turned from them, trying to figure out how to respond instead of react. He jammed his hands into his pockets, turned from the girls, and walked to the tiny apartment’s window. He looked out at the dirty, congested south Kansas City neighborhood. It was dusk now, six o’clock in late October. Depressing. Like the news.

But he did know what she was thinking. Some randy kid telling her he loved her and backing it up with some action beat the heck out of her derelict parents’ words only. Besides that, she hadn’t even heard the words from her mom in two years. Maybe longer. Still, the news about her pregnancy set his head spinning.

He heard Layla sniffling behind him. The girls whispered together for a few seconds. Finally Layla worked up the nerve to ask what she had come to ask. D … D … Dad, the abortion clinic will cost four hundred dollars since I’m not past twelve weeks. I have an appointment on Friday. Can you give me the money?

Of course that is what she had in mind as a solution. Her generation had been systematically and completely desensitized to the point of thinking a baby was not really a baby until birth. Abortion was just a matter of simple birth control to them.

He thought about his words carefully before turning back to the girls. Layla, I have to have a little time to get that much money. I need at least two weeks for another paycheck. Please cancel the appointment, and I will help you at a later date. He knew she would think help would come in the form of abortion money, but he wasn’t going to debate the issue with her right now.

I can’t wait much longer, Dad. It has to be done in the first trimester. Please don’t wait any longer than two more weeks, Layla stressed.

I understand, Layla, he said as he turned from her again.

He heard the girls get up and leave the apartment while whispering.

Josh planned a trip the next week to the small north Arkansas town of Braden, which was where he knew Julie, his ex-wife and his daughters’ mother, had moved. He had learned that Julie had a job as a hospice-certified nurse’s aide, and a boyfriend. She had put Josh, Layla, and Lacey in her past. He didn’t blame her for leaving him, of course. A man incarcerated wasn’t of much use to a family. Leaving the girls, though, was a crazy thing for her to do, in his opinion. Surely she would want to help them out here.

If there was one thing Josh knew about Julie, it was that she and he were soul mates. She may have found the strength to divorce him because of his stupidity in the past, but she would not have stopped loving him. He was counting on it.

Julie would, however, need proof that he’d changed. Well, a mortgaged home, money in the bank, a dependable vehicle, and the past six months’ pay stubs showing steady work history should be proof. An order from the probate judge giving him shared custody of his children with their guardian grandparents was proof. He also had a strong presence of the Holy Spirit in his changed life. She wouldn’t be able to recognize that proof right away, because she didn’t know Jesus. But Josh’s intent was to change that too. He would share his Jesus with Julie.

Sporting a freshly blackened eye, Julie sat through the Grief Expectations class trying, just a little, to stay focused on the speaker. The pain between her shoulder blades was hard to ignore. The thought that she had—stupidly—let herself be pushed around and hit again, along with the embarrassment of what people surmised when they saw the evidence, stayed foremost in her mind. Her presence here was just filling a square on the orientation checklist anyway. She already knew about dying slowly, its effect on the one dying, and the effect on the people being left behind: death. How it came about was irrelevant. Living was hard.

The hospice bereavement counselor droned on. Whatever issues you might need to resolve with the patient should be done while his or her brain is still processing information correctly. On any given day, after a certain point, the patient may seem to be lucid, while on other days he or she will not remember what you talked about. Patients may or may not remember arguments or bad experiences from years past, but it is never a wasted effort on the survivor’s part to make amends.

The large, dark-skinned woman conducting the class lecture did not invite discussion, but to be fair, she had said there would be time for questions after the break.

Brian Hansen had not wanted to come, but after riding an emotional roller coaster following the call informing him of his mother’s rapidly declining condition, he gave in to the prompting he felt to attend the class. He had been intermittently tuning in and out, but the speaker’s last sentence got his immediate attention.

Ms. …—Brian paused momentarily as he leaned closer to read the name printed on her badge—Taylor, you can’t judge whether a patient or the survivor is responsible for making the amends. It is easier said than done when the terminally ill patient was at fault.

Of course, we wouldn’t presume to judge, Mr. Hansen, she replied. With a confidence that bespoke her familiarity with arguing this particular point with survivors, she continued. Your feelings are real and are absolutely a result of your life experiences. You can’t change how you feel by sheer will, and I know that. I’m not here to judge any one of you.

She turned to the board and pointed to her outline. I am here to explain to anyone who is not familiar with the grief process exactly what our experience and research indicate the typical phases of grief are. If any one of you has unresolved emotional issues with a terminally ill person, we urge you to stay with this class tonight for the overview and come back again as you need to. We are a support group. We want to support you in this journey, which takes many months to go through. The unresolved issues typically do not go away once the patient dies, especially if they were not addressed while he or she was alive. We know this to be true because statistics indicate a high suicide rate among those left behind in situations where the grief is compounded by guilt.

Well, that’s just peachy, Brian thought, but he did not respond vocally to the woman’s statement. He avoided her eyes by looking through the pamphlet he had received on entering the hospice conference room where the class was taking place.

As Ms. Taylor continued the lecture, he let his mind wander again. Sometimes he thought he’d like to run far away so he could avoid the responsibility weighing on his shoulders. But he knew his heart and mind went wherever he did. No avoiding it. This woman had just confirmed what he already feared to be true: that it wouldn’t go away when his mother died, if he didn’t address it now. It was the haunting question about why she had left him and his sister for an abusive man.

About an hour into the class, Ms. Taylor called a fifteen-minute break. After visiting the bathroom, Brian returned to the conference room where he overheard a young woman, who wore a name tag identifying her as Julie, talking on the phone. She was pretty, even with a black eye. Slim, thirty-something, green eyes, and strawberry-blonde hair pulled back into a clip. Not wanting to eavesdrop on what sounded like an emotionally charged call, Brian turned away and decided to get a breath of fresh air before class started again. He did not want to get involved.

The weather this time of year was a mixed bag. Tonight seemed mild; the sky was cloudy and the temperature was around forty degrees. Snow showers were predicted for later in the week.

He didn’t stay outside more than a minute or two before heading back to the classroom for the next hour.

When the class adjourned, Julie grabbed her coat and headed for the door, dreading what she expected: that Dave, of course, would not show up to take her home. It would be a cold walk.

Sure enough, it was no surprise that he was not in the parking lot. She huddled into her coat for a moment, wondering what to do next. People filed out behind her into the cold night while murmuring their good-byes. She had tried to get Dave to let her drive herself, knowing that he was in his self-centered cycle again, but of course he’d had plans that required his use of the car. He assured her he’d be there to pick her up.

Brian watched the woman wrestle with what seemed to be disappointment and resignation. He knew instinctively that she had been stood up. He saw his sister in her, and he saw himself in her. He looked heavenward and asked an invisible God—for the millionth time in his life—Why is life so hard?

He was going to offer her a ride when he heard tires screaming around the corner, as if a car was being chased. A beat-up, gray, fifteen-year-old Chevy impala, loaded with guys who were loaded, or so it seemed, screeched to a halt no more than two feet from where she stood. Julie jumped back and Brian’s heart leapt. A tall lanky man got out of the passenger-side door and moved to the back seat, apparently vacating that seat for Julie. Brian could smell the beer and marijuana from where he stood.

C’mon Babe, we’re in a hurry, the driver yelled.

The first young man climbed into the back seat with a third delinquent, who was head bopping and spewing vulgarities, apparently lyrics to the rap music blaring from the radio.

The woman was hesitant. Maybe I should do the driving, okay, Dave?

No, Julie. Get your butt in here, I’m in a hurry! he growled. He was clearly angry about her disobedience. He gestured to the vacant seat. Now!

Brian walked to them. Almost yelling above the noise the three men were making, he said, Ma’am, I could give you a ride if you like. Getting in that car doesn’t seem like a safe thing to do just now.

When Julie looked up at him she did not seem afraid of the men in the car, just resigned. Maybe she was numb or just plain too weary to fight it. The look said, Maybe I won’t make it, and I don’t think that would be a bad thing. What she said was, No. But thanks for the offer. She got into the passenger seat.

Brian didn’t know her situation, but being a psychologist and crisis counselor, he was familiar with the signs and symptoms of people who suffered the feelings of being an afterthought to others-others who were supposed to care about them. This was all there.

Chapter 2

Brian pulled into his mother’s drive beside a beat-up Chevy impala that looked familiar. His heart was racing and his hands were sweaty. Anxiety had been his constant companion for a week, but he knew he couldn’t put off the visit any longer. Dr. Lewis had advised him that Eva was getting too weak to fight any flu or pneumonia that might pop up, and there had been a lot of cases in the area in the past few weeks. Also, the Grief Expectations class had showed him the necessity of resolving the issues between them.

His mother’s home did not evoke any nostalgic feelings in Brian, as he had never lived there. It was an older model, doublewide mobile home with a built-on covered porch. Brian stepped up to the porch just as the front door swung open and the girl named Julie appeared, her arms loaded with a box full of medical and hygiene products. Her eyes widened in surprise. She was dressed in a patterned scrub top, blue scrub pants and the ugly, plastic shoes with holes in them that medics wear. Strawberry blonde curls escaped her ponytail and framed her pretty face.

Hi, Mr. Hansen, I was just finishing up. Your mother may still be awake, if you go right in, but she’ll be out within fifteen minutes or so. She met his eyes just briefly as she squeezed past him, heading toward her car.

Can I get that for you? he asked, gesturing to the medical equipment in her arms. When she shook her head and kept walking, he continued, "I didn’t realize you worked for the hospice. I thought you might be another survivor in the support group the other night.

Can you give me a couple of minutes of your time? Let me just check on Eva, and I’ll be back out. Please, don’t leave yet. He didn’t wait for an answer; he just assumed she would do as he requested and continued into his mother’s room.

He was not quite prepared for the sight of his mother’s emaciated form lying in the hospital bed, and he was equally as unprepared for the smells of illness. He sucked in his breath and held it momentarily while he considered how to take another breath without experiencing that particular aroma again. He spied a box of unused