Equal Access (22 page)

Jill’s comment caused a chill in Paxton’s
blood, and he glanced at Maddie to see if she also determined there
was an accusatory insinuation in Jill’s words. The grimace that
flashed across her face confirmed Paxton’s concern.

“We don’t know if the gunman was an actual
prowler or some drunk out hunting for snipe or just another doper
who got lost on his way to the meth lab.” Paxton tried to divert
Jill’s ruminating. “Maybe he just got spooked by the dog and
Dulsie, and started shooting.”

“That still doesn’t explain why Shad isn’t
around.” Once again Jill proved her tenacity for speaking her
mind.

Karl shot a warning glance at her.

“You know how he travels sometimes.” Maddie’s
voice was unusually stiff. “He could be out late or even for the
night.”

“Then why would his cell phone be turned
off?” Jill mused.

“Maybe he forgot to charge the battery,” Karl
almost growled as he looked at Jill.

Paxton wanted to defuse the situation as
quickly as possible. “There’s no use for speculation right now. We
all need to stick together for Dulsie when she comes out of surgery
and wakes up.”

“All of us but Shad, of course. He isn’t even
here.”

“Jill.” Karl’s voice had a serious tone that
Paxton hardly ever heard. “Put a cork in it.”

Jill finally diverted her attention from the
hallway, and her eyes flashed as she turned toward Karl. “Don’t
tell me you’d stand up for that man before you’d stand up for your
own daughter!”

“I won’t stand here and let you start
throwing accusations around. And that’s exactly what Dulsie would
want me to do!”

“Maybe before tonight,” Jill replied
authoritatively. “She may have a completely different story when
she wakes up.”

“This is ludicrous.” Maddie’s eyes were
smoldering but her demeanor remained calm. “You know Shad had
nothing to do with this.”

“I know Shad always keeps his history hidden,
and now he himself seems to be in hiding.” Jill glared at
Maddie.

“Dulsie is the world to him.” Maddie returned
the expression. “Even you have to admit to that. He’d sooner cut
off his own hand than ever do a thing to hurt her.”

“He’s also emotionally repressed and socially
challenged, and under the right – or wrong – conditions, Shad could
react to an event in a way that reveals how unbalanced he really
is.”

“Hold on there.” Paxton shook his head. “This
is Shad you’re talking about. This is the most submissive kid I’ve
ever seen. I spent years trying to get him to finally be
assertive.”

“Congratulations.” Jill murmured. “You
succeeded.”

As soon as those words were out of Jill’s
mouth Paxton shot his attention to Maddie because he knew he might
have to intervene.

“Don’t you talk to him like that.” Maddie
growled. “If you need share your petty spite somewhere, you bring
it to me.”

“Petty?” Jill turned toward Maddie with a
renewed flash in her eyes. “My daughter is lying in there on an
operating table, and you think that’s petty?”

“She’s my daughter too.” Karl stepped between
the two women as he faced off with Jill. “At least we
know
where Dulsie is. Did it ever occur to you that Shad might be gone
–” He glanced quickly between Paxton and Maddie, and his voice
dropped. “– because something happened to him?”

Jill seemed to scrutinize Karl, and then the
agitation faded from her expression. She glanced from Paxton to
Maddie with just a hint of chagrin before Jill turned back toward
the doorway.

“We’ll see,” she murmured.

The next half hour or so passed in relative
quiet, and then a young man in surgical uniform stepped into the
waiting room. Paxton wondered how many hours had passed since the
doctor had graduated from med school.

Karl and Jill immediately met him at the
doorway, and Paxton and Maddie stood closely behind them.

“Are you all here for Dulsie Delaney?” The
doctor regarded them through the top part of the lenses in his wire
rim glasses.

“Yes.” Jill nodded. “What’s the news?”

“They’re preparing to take her to recovery.”
He glanced at the clipboard of papers in his hand. “All the bullet
fragments have been removed, and we didn’t find any sign of chest
penetration. That’s the good news.” He glanced over the group.
“Upon impact, though, it shattered her upper humerus, and the
fragments shredded her rotator. We patched it up the best we could,
but she may need subsequent surgery. Physical therapy will help her
regain some use of her shoulder, but she’ll never have the same
range of motion again.”

Paxton released a slow breath of relief. At
least Dulsie’s condition wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

“Sounds like he used a damn elephant gun,”
Karl growled.

The doctor shrugged. “We’ll turn over our
findings to the police. I did want to find out, though, if any of
you can tell me how long she’s been pregnant?”

There was a split second of silence, and then
all of them responded almost simultaneously “She’s pregnant?” The
four members glanced around at each other as though trying to
determine who among them had been keeping the secret.

“I see.” The doctor made a note on the top
paper on his clipboard. “I’ll presume from your reaction that she’s
still very early in her term.”

Maddie and Jill asked their questions in
unison.

“Will the baby be alright?”

“Could this hurt the baby?”

The doctor seemed to regard the two women a
little warily before he responded. “That depends on a lot of
factors. She did lose a lot of blood, but the female body is
already hardwired to divert blood to the uterus during physical
trauma. The fact it’s early in her term does give the pregnancy
some advantage since it doesn’t need as many resources to sustain
itself. But it’s too early for me to say for sure one way or the
other.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Even after they wheel
Dulsie into recovery, she might not awaken immediately when the
anesthesia wears off. You folks should have time to go get a bite
to eat or catch a little sleep or anything like that.”

“I want to go there as soon as she gets to
recovery,” Jill informed him.

“Then we’ll make that arrangement.” The
doctor nodded. “You folks take care.”

Somewhat numbly, they thanked him as the
doctor left, and then the four began to look at each other
again.

“Boy,” Karl muttered. “Dulsie could’ve come
up with a less dramatic way of letting us know.”

“My poor baby.” Jill seemed lost in her
thoughts.

Paxton looked at Maddie and she returned his
gaze. He was glad this was one of those moments when neither of
them needed to speak because their thoughts were as one. Maddie
stepped toward Paxton to lean against his side and they wrapped
their arms around each other. As they stood in silent embrace
Paxton rested one cheek against Maddie’s head, and he contemplated
what was supposed to be a joyous occurrence: Shad had given them
another grandchild.

But where was Shad?

If you are going through hell, keep going.

--Sir Winston Churchill

When Dulsie first became aware that she was
hearing muffled voices, she wasn’t sure if they were just the
beginning of yet another bizarre dream. Everything felt strange and
unreal. Even when she began to make out whom each voice belonged
to, Dulsie doubted this was reality. All the talking seemed
garbled. So she opened her eyes to check.

She saw a ceiling, tubes, and the upper part
of a wall.

“Oh!” Aunt Maddie’s voice actually made
sense. “She’s awake!”

Aunt Maddie, Uncle Pax, Mom, and Dad all
crowded around her.

“Honey?” Mom cupped her hand along Dulsie’s
jaw, but Dulsie hardly noticed the touch. “Can you hear me? Can you
say anything?”

Dulsie tried to focus on Mom’s face.
Somewhere in the fog of her mind a single reality rippled to the
surface. Dulsie tried to speak it, but her mouth seemed too dry to
allow the words to pass. She swallowed, and managed to get them out
in a squeaky croak.

“My baby?”

The relatives glanced around at each other.
Dulsie took a breath and managed to speak more clearly.

“My baby ... okay?”

Mom pressed her lips together and she blinked
a few times. “The baby’s fine for now, honey.”

“She already knew.” Dad almost sounded
amazed. He placed his hand on Dulsie’s forehead and brushed back
some of her hair as he did so. “Sweetie, you picked a heckuva way
to tell us you were pregnant.”

Dulsie shifted her gaze to him. Images
started flashing through her memory. The positive result on the
pregnancy test, Shad’s reaction to her news, then her reaction to
Shad’s news....

Something else struggled out from the fog
that seemed to enshroud her mind. She couldn’t tell them about
Shad. Dulsie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened
them again to stare directly at the ceiling.

“I feel weird.” At least her voice seemed to
be recovering. “Like I’m not really here.”

Uncle Pax’s voice conveyed certainty brought
on by experience. “It’s the pain killers.”

Pain killers? No, she shouldn’t be taking
pain killers! There was new life growing inside her. Dulsie was
supposed to be a teetotaler consumed with label reading and eating
nothing but organic and natural food right now. Her gaze shot back
to her dad.

“Don’t let them give me pain killers. No
more.”

Dad’s expression softened. “You may be
needing those for a while, honey.”

“They aren’t good for the baby.”

Her father looked across the bed at her mom,
who started stroking her thumb across Dulsie’s cheek.

“The doctors know you’re pregnant.” Mom’s
voice had a consoling tone. “They wouldn’t give you anything that
would hurt the baby.”

Dulsie closed her eyes again. “No more pain
killers.”

She barely noticed her dad’s hand stroke
through her hair again. “Dulsie ... do you remember why you’re
here?”

Misty images staggered through her mind.
Sadie was barking toward the road. The dog snarled and began
charging. A shot cracked, and Dulsie saw the flashpoint. The dog
wailed....

Her eyes opened. “Sadie?” Dulsie began
glancing back and forth between her parents. “How’s Sadie?”

Uncle Pax, who was standing beside Dad,
leaned forward and patted her gently on the knee. “I’m sorry,
honey. Sadie ... was killed.” Then he looked across the bed at
Maddie.

Her aunt also leaned forward and lightly
placed her hand on Dulsie’s hip. “Dulsie, honey ... do you know
where Shad is?”

Dulsie stared at her. More images began
playing through the obscured screen of her mind. Shad walking into
the bedroom and then coming out with a suitcase, Shad pausing in
the doorway to answer her question just before he left....

“The motel.”

Aunt Maddie’s gaze shot from Uncle Pax back
to Dulsie. “What motel?”

“In Linn.”

Aunt Maddie’s eyes widened and she looked at
Uncle Pax again.

“What’s he doing in a motel?” Mom asked.

She couldn’t tell them about Shad. Dulsie
closed her eyes again and struggled with this hateful haze that
kept clouding her mind.

“Dulsie?” Her mom’s hand remained cupped
against her jaw, but she was no longer caressing Dulsie’s cheek
with her thumb. “Why did Shad go to a motel tonight?”

She couldn’t tell them.

A female voice Dulsie didn’t recognize at all
broke into her muddled thoughts. “Excuse me, folks. We need to take
a look at her.”

The Wednesday morning for Shad dawned bright
and clear and as desolate as the previous morning. He brushed his
teeth, got dressed as far as his gray slacks, light blue
button-down shirt, and shoes, and then decided it was time to turn
on his cell phone which had been sitting on the stand beside the
bed.

No sooner did the phone beep upon returning
to service than it chirped with the signal there was voice mail.
Immediately Shad vacillated between hope and dread. Did Dulsie try
to call him last night? If so, why would she have waited until
after ten o’clock, when he turned off the phone? Then Shad saw it
was Mam’s and Pap’s telephone number displayed on the readout of
the screen he pulled up, and his dread thickened with
perplexity.

What was even more disconcerting was the time
the message had been received, which was after two o’clock this
morning. Shad could feel his hands tremble as he selected the
command to listen to the message and raised the phone to his
ear.

“Shad? Shad, it’s Mam.” Her voice was tense.
“If you get this message, you’ve got to come to the hospital. There
was a prowler at your house tonight. He shot Dulsie. She’s going
into surgery and we’re all going to the hospital now. Please, Shad,
you’ve got to come as soon as you get this!”

Shad stood, stunned, for a couple of seconds
as the phone started going into its automated query about how he
wanted to respond. This couldn’t really be happening. This had to
be an awful dream Shad would wake up from any second. Surely, but
surely, the events of his life weren’t taking yet another turn for
the worse.

Yet somehow, inexplicably, beyond his
endurance and against all odds, they were. The weight of this new
burden was crushing, so much so that Shad found himself back on
speaking terms with the Other as he turned the phone back off and
grabbed the keys to his pickup before striding out the door.

Paxton and Karl paced through the hall while
Maddie and Jill stood beside each other and occasionally made
comments about Dulsie’s welfare. Paxton glanced at a clock hanging
high on the wall at the end of the hallway. It was a little past
seven-thirty.

This was the second time this morning they
had been thrown out of Dulsie’s room. The first time the medical
staff evaluated her condition now that she was awake. Only twenty
minutes after the family was allowed back in, not just one but two
deputies arrived to interview Dulsie, so they were tossed out
again. Unless the deputies were able to come up with even more
questions than Karl, Paxton didn’t figure the interview would last
much longer. It took Dulsie only about ten minutes to tell her
father everything she could remember. Whenever anybody inquired
about Shad, however, Dulsie would become silent.