A Family Name (2 page)

"I'll see what I can do," Charlotte said
softly. She placed the file folder back into her bag. Looking
directly at Lexi, she asked, "Do you have any questions?"

Lexi shook her head, sending a spray of
carefully styled brown hair spilling over her face. Charlotte
studied her. The blunt cut made the girl look older at first
glance, but once she opened her wide blue eyes, there was no doubt
that she was still a child. When Lexi met her eyes, Charlotte could
see the vibrato tremble.

"I'll leave my cell phone number in case you
think of any questions," Charlotte said, standing up and getting
ready to go.

Carol started to say something, but glanced
at Lexi and seemed to change her mind. "I'll just give you two a
moment alone. Can you see yourself out?" Carol didn't bother
waiting for a reply. She simply gave Charlotte a curt nod, and
disappeared back into the kitchen.

Lexi blinked up at Charlotte from the couch,
and for a moment the blueness of them seemed so familiar that
Charlotte felt thrown off kilter. Where had she seen those eyes
before? And just as the answer seemed about to form in her mind,
the thought vanished into a haze. Charlotte shook her head to
regain clarity.

"This is my card," she said as she handed the
smooth cream colored card to Lexi. "Call me if you need
anything."

The girl's hand trembled as she took the
card, but her jaw was set and her resolve seemed firm. Charlotte
couldn't imagine being in that position. Her own parents were still
married, and she and her brother still attended weekly family
dinners.

"I won't have any questions." Lexi crumpled
the card in her fist.

Charlotte wanted to say more, comfort her…
anything, but she just stood there at the edge of the living room,
shifting her bag from hand to hand.

The silence began stretching between them,
thickening the space to an uncomfortable level. Finally Charlotte
sighed and said, "Well if you do. I'll be back in one week unless
we can find a placement before."

****

The front door shut with a soft click. Lexi
waited for Carol to come back in, to tell her some more about how
sorry she was that they were getting rid of her. When Carol didn't
come, Lexi dared to creep toward the front window. She parted the
curtains just a fraction of an inch. The social worker, Charlotte,
almost slipped on an icy patch as she neared the car. Lexi
flinched. Carol hadn't been very good about shoveling or putting
down salt.

Charlotte seemed nice. Lexi absolutely hated
to admit that. Life was so much easier when she could hate her
social worker, and normally she could. But Charlotte had been
different. She'd even given Lexi her card. Thinking about it now
made Lexi smile slightly. She squeezed the wad of paper, feeling
the sharp edges poke into the sensitive skin of her palm.

****

Back at the office, Charlotte set the file on
her desk with a sigh. With a trembling hand she reached over to the
plain silver frame that sat in a corner of her desk. She examined
the smiling faces of her silver-haired foster parents, Ruth and
Tom. She had gone to live with them just after she turned eleven,
and had stayed with them until she left for college. They'd retired
to Florida a few years ago.

"I miss you," Charlotte said to the picture,
wondering if she should give them a call.

Instead, she set the frame down, and returned
her attention to Lexi's file. Charlotte opened the battered manila
envelope to study the face of the little girl who needed her. The
thought rushed down on Charlotte with such force that she actually
let out a gasp of air. The girl needed her. Charlotte sat back in
her chair, swiveling it back and forth as she let the idea settle
over her like a fine mist. To be needed by anyone was truly
something amazing, but to be needed by a child… the very hint of
possibility made Charlotte shiver with delight. The work needed to
set this idea in motion would be small, just some paperwork. Could
she do it?

As she considered the question, Charlotte
picked up the file again. As she swayed with the chairs
side-to-side motion, she scanned the contents that she had already
read through earlier. The girl's mother had parental rights
terminated when Lexi was barely three years old, and no father had
been listed on the birth certificate. Charlotte's heart squeezed as
she imagined the fear the little girl must have felt. The reasons
for Lexi's removal had been far more muddled than her own.
Charlotte shuddered at the memory of her mother, high as a kite,
heaving the glass vase at her from across the room. In her mind she
could still see the blue-green glass shimmering in the sunlight as
it smashed into her, shattering when it dropped to the floor. The
smell of blood from the broken shards hitting her leg lingered in
her nose even now. There was no way to out run such an event.
Charlotte took several deep breaths, the kind she had practiced in
therapy for years, and forced her mind to the present. She listened
to the soft ticking of the clock that hung above her office door.
The repetition soothed her.

Lexi needed stability. After so many foster
placements, the girl had to be weary of each new home. The fact
that she was searching for her mother gave Charlotte pause. She
knew how badly these things could go. Clearly the court had seen
reason to terminate Lexi's mother's parental rights. And whoever
the father was, well, he hadn't been in the picture anyway so
perhaps they were all better off for it. Charlotte wished her
father had stayed out of the picture. Most of the time he was the
reason her mother had backslid.

Charlotte wished that she could give the girl
a two parent home. That would be the ideal, but she knew that she
wasn't dealing in a perfect world. Sometimes things had to be good
enough. Her thoughts briefly strayed to the handsome man from that
morning. What had his name been again? Will. He had looked strong
and solid, like someone who would make a good family man. The
thought seemed so absurd that Charlotte laughed softly under her
breath. He had rear ended her and their ensuing conversation had
lasted all of two minutes, not exactly long enough to get a good
sense of a person.

She fingered the slip of paper that had the
current placement information detailed on it. The couple had seemed
like a good match, and by all reports they had been for awhile,
until Lexi started acting up for them. Stability. That's what this
girl needed, Charlotte felt sure of it, and she knew she could
provide it. The thought that had been hazy came into clear view.
She would foster Lexi. Charlotte had all the necessary
certifications, and she had been thinking about accepting a foster
placement for the past few years. Now was as good a time as
any.

With a deep breath, Charlotte stood up. She
closed the file, and smoothed non-existent wrinkles from her skirt.
Resolved, she headed for the door to talk to her supervisor. Things
were about to change. Charlotte felt the rush of excitement as she
thought that now she'd be able to start a family of her very
own.

****

Will stepped out of the research lab building
at the Black Hills Paleontological Institute, and greeted one of
his graduate student's as they passed. The blinding ice from
earlier had abated, but the air still held a frosty chill. Giant
swaths of shimmery ice clung to every available surface forming
icicles on the edges of buildings and the power lines that swayed
overhead. Boughs of pine trees sagged under the added weight,
nearly scraping the top of Will's head as he treaded his way
carefully to the parking lot.

When he reached his shiny red extended cab
truck, Will checked the front bumper once again just to be sure
that nothing had been damaged. He worried more about the compact
car he had skidded into. Not that the woman behind the wheel had
seemed all that flustered, although he acknowledged that he might
be wrong about that. He felt a grin stretch across his face as he
remembered the way she pursed her pink tinted lips as she read his
business card. The look on her face had told him that she was not
impressed with his credentials. Will supposed that meant that she
wouldn't be using the card to give him a call any time soon.

As if on cue his cell phone buzzed in his
pocket. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe she was calling right now. The
thought made him smile wider. Ducking into the cap of his truck,
Will jammed the key into the ignition and turned the heat on full
blast before pulling out the phone. The caller display flashed his
father's phone number. With a grunt of frustration, Will tossed the
phone into the passenger seat. Anything his father had to tell him
could wait until he got home. He supposed that he'd have to head
over to his parents' place to keep the peace.

Will threw the truck into reverse, stepping
hard on the accelerator. When the tires slipped slightly, Will
forced himself to take a deep breath and slow down. The parking lot
hadn't been salted yet. If he didn't want a repeat of that morning
he needed to be careful. He pulled slowly into the
lighter-than-normal flow of traffic. The sun broke through the
clouds, making everything glitter. Will reached for his sunglasses
to shield his eyes from the blinding glare. With a sigh, he headed
toward the heart of Rapid City, a throbbing pain shooting through
his temples. He hoped the migraine that threatened to consume him
would hold off until he got back to Mountain View.

The phone buzzed again on the seat beside
him. No doubt his father calling again. The man never gave up,
especially when he thought he was in the right. It never mattered
if the old man was interrupting something important to Will.

The pain of the migraine licked around Will's
eyes. He wondered if he should pull the truck over; maybe grab the
emergency prescription he kept in the glove box. The way the sun
glinted off the ice sent one thousand stabbing knives burning
through his eyes, his sunglasses useless against the glare. He had
felt fine that morning, but then he never did know when the
migraine pain would come. He remembered the last doctor he had
visited telling him that he needed to control his stress levels.
Will barked a short, harsh laugh that sent a wave of pain riding
through his skull. He winced and did the deep breathing exercises
his mom had taught him.

His mom had been the first to diagnose him
with migraines, even though she didn't have a medical degree. She
suffered from them herself, and even after Bill had scoffed at the
notion that his son would be anything but a tough little cowboy,
his mom had persisted. The crack pot pediatrician in Mountain View
had insisted that a child as young as seven couldn't get migraines,
so Karen researched specialists in nearby Rapid City. Until she
could get him an appointment, she had used cold compresses and deep
breathing whenever one of the headaches waylaid him for a few
days.

He drew in a shaky breath, filling his lungs
to capacity, and then blew it out through his nose. The pain wasn't
actually so bad if he sat completely still. He could drive home,
crawl into bed and forget about the world for a few hours. As Will
eased his truck onto the freeway, heading north toward Mountain
View, he wondered what awaited him at home.

As if on cue, the phone buzzed again. "Can
it, Dad," Will muttered to the empty cab. "I'll be home soon."

The snow plows had salted the freeway so the
traffic moved quickly as he distanced himself from the city. Soon
he was weaving his way north past small towns and high foothills
dotted with scrubby pines dipping heavily under the ice. How long
would it be before everything melted? Will wondered, tapping a
gloved hand against the steering wheel. The movement proved too
jarring, and he stilled himself again.

"Just a few more exits," he told himself.

As he neared the Mountain View exit, his cell
phone went off again. Annoyance shot through him. He snatched the
phone off the seat, and punched the talk button.

"What?"

"Dude, calm down." His older brother,
Walker.

Will slowed as he turned onto the exit ramp.
He shifted the phone to his other ear and sighed. "Sorry. I thought
you were Dad."

Walker chuckled, but stopped abruptly. "Look,
Will. You need to get home as soon as you can."

Despite his earlier irritation with his
father, concern squeezed at him. "What's wrong? Did Dad have
another heart attack?"

"No, nothing's wrong with the family. Just…
just get home, okay?" Walker's voice cracked at the end of his
statement, and the unfamiliar sensation of fear pulsed through
Will's veins.

"I'll be at Mom and Dad's in ten," he said
before hanging up and tossing the phone back on to the seat.

Adrenaline took over as he navigated the
streets of his shabby home town. He barely saw the familiar nooks
and crannies that had all but defined his childhood. The truck
might as well have been on autopilot as he turned west of town
toward his family's ranch. The fear he felt was so acute, so
uncommon to him that he nearly forgot the pain of his migraine,
until he took a turn to hard and a wave of nausea hit him.

Something in Walker's voice told him that
whatever awaited him at his parents' house couldn't be good.
Walker, the tough guy of the family. The brother Will should have
been more like, should have lived up to. Mr. Perfect. Nothing
rattled Walker. So for him to sound like that, something monumental
must have happened. If it wasn't the family, though, what could it
have been? Will racked his brain as he drove the ten minutes from
town. Could it be someone from town? Something with the animals?
The ranch?

Bypassing his own small house, Will took the
driveway up to his parents' home. He pulled his truck up next to
Walker's, and noted that his younger brother, Wyatt, was also
there. The knot in his gut tightened as he climbed out of the cab.
Ice crunched under his feet as he made his way up to the massive
stone steps that led to the wraparound porch.