by L. N. Cronk
“I think they’re just going to come up with reasons why Chase can never make it home at the same time Jordan’s home. Jordan’s only coming home for Christmas break and maybe Easter break . . .”
“You know how mad Charlotte’s gonna be when she finds out that we all knew and didn’t tell her?” Mike asked.
“I know,” I sighed. “I’m dreading it.”
“Did you know that Tanner’s decided to get tested?” Laci asked Mike.
“Yeah,” he answered. “I talked to him about it. I actually recommended the genetic testing company he’s gonna use.”
“Why can’t he just go to his doctor?”
“He can, but then that information becomes part of his medical record. There are so many direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies available nowadays, I think it’s safer for him to go that route.”
“Safer?” I asked.
“Let’s say he’s got it,” Mike said and Laci winced, “and his insurance company finds out about it. What do you think they’re gonna do?”
“They can’t drop him, can they?”
“No, not legally,” Mike said, “but I think they’d be looking for any loophole they could find so that they could legally drop him. Plus, you’re talking about the fact that he may not become symptomatic for years . . . I mean like twenty, thirty, forty years. There’s a very good chance that he might want to change jobs or something before he ever even gets sick. What insurance company do you think is gonna accept him?”
Mike shook his head. “I just think he’d be better off sitting on that information. I don’t think he should take the chance of having something like that in his records.”
“Well, is that ethical?” I asked. “I mean . . . if he knows he’s got it and he doesn’t tell them?”
“I don’t know,” Mike muttered. “I personally don’t think I’d get tested.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess it’s gonna be hard, either way.”
“Unless the test comes back negative,” Laci said.
“Right,” Mike agreed.
“How long before he finds out?” Laci asked.
“He’s probably not gonna find out until close to Thanksgiving.”
“Thanksgiving?” I exclaimed. “Why so long?”
“Well, after he gets his blood drawn, it’ll take about four to six weeks for the results to come back, but the company that he’s using won’t even test him until he’s undergone some counseling.”
“Counseling?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, “They counsel him first before they even decide if they’re gonna test him or not. You know, make sure he’s not gonna commit suicide or something if he finds out it’s positive, make sure he agrees to continue with counseling if it is . . .”
“I hate this,” Laci said, putting her hands over her eyes. “I hate it, I hate it, I HATE it!”
“Hate what?” I heard Charlotte’s voice ask.
We all turned and saw that she was back.
“This sunscreen,” Laci said without missing a beat. “I got some in my eyes.”
“You’re done talking to Jordan already?” I asked.
“I’m gonna call him back in a little bit,” she said, throwing her phone down onto the blanket and stripping down to her bathing suit. “I’m gonna go check on your wife,” she told Mike. “Find out what they’re really talking about.”
“Good to know you’ve got my back,” Mike smiled at her as she headed toward the water. Then he turned to Laci.
“Man, you’re a good liar,” he whispered.
“She always has been,” I said wryly.
“And this doesn’t worry you?” he asked with a smile.
“As far as I know,” I said, “she only uses her powers for good.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think I’d be a bit concerned if my wife could think up lies that fast.”
“What you need to be concerned about is the fact that your wife is out there in the water having a big ol’ conversation with some good-looking guy.”
“Charlotte will take care of things for me,” he said, nodding toward them. Then he looked at me and asked worriedly, “You really think he’s good-looking?”
“He’s better looking than you!”
“Oh, he is not!” Laci protested, swatting me.
“You don’t think he’s good looking?” I asked her, doubtfully.
“I think he’s good-looking,” she admitted. “But he’s not better looking than Mike.”
“Is he better looking than me?” I wanted to know.
“Of course not,” she smiled, patting my hand.
“Man,” Mike said, looking at her again and shaking his head. “I really can’t believe how good you lie!”
~ ~ ~
NEITHER ONE OF us had to lie to Charlotte too much during the fall. She came home almost every weekend and we almost always had her and her mom over for dinner or went over there when she was home, but fortunately, the conversation never worked its way around to Chase. She flew to Texas during the third week in October, a few weeks after Tanner finished his counseling and had his blood drawn. As Halloween drew near, we found ourselves firmly entrenched in regular routines.
Dorito – in the second grade now – loved school. His teacher’s name was Mrs. Spell (I’m not making that up – that really was her name.) and he loved her too. He was also old enough to finally enroll in Cub Scouts and couldn’t wait to enter his first official Pinewood Derby race. Last year, they’d allowed the Tiger Cubs to have their own race, but he’d known it wasn’t “the real thing” and he was already planning out what his car was going to look like this year.
Lily was almost three. Born completely deaf, Lily had received cochlear implants a year and a half earlier that had allowed her to finally hear. She went regularly to a speech therapist and Laci worked with her daily. Verbally, she had almost caught up with her peers, although she was still a pretty quiet kid (especially compared to Dorito).
Laci enrolled Lily in a Mother’s Morning Out program at church and every Friday had a few hours to herself. The first day she had spent her free time in the parking lot with her cell phone gripped in her hand, ready to bolt to Lily’s rescue, but after seeing how well Lily did, Laci began using her time to visit with her mom or her friends. Usually I picked Lily up on Fridays so that Laci could go out for lunch. She also went to choir practice every Wednesday night.
I still worked out of my home as a structural engineer, so I pretty much set my own schedule. I was a den leader in Dorito’s pack, and I also led a youth group. Two years earlier I had gotten roped into leading the one at Jordan’s church and I was still doing that, even though I really wanted to get out of it. I also wanted to quit attending church there and go back to the one we’d grown up in, but Laci felt that they needed us and she didn’t think we should leave.
All in all, things were pretty good. Of course I worried about Huntington’s disease, and I worried that Laci might suddenly “get the call” from God for us to go back to Mexico. But overall, I was pretty happy.
The first day of November fell on a Monday – the day of the week that Tanner and I usually tried to play racquetball. I had a bunch of pictures on my phone of the kids in their Halloween costumes and I showed them to him before we left the locker room. After he’d seen them all I asked him about his test results.
“You still haven’t heard anything?” I said as I slipped my phone into my jacket pocket and put it into my locker.
“No,” he answered, closing his locker. “I told you, I’ll tell you as soon as I hear something.”
“I just don’t see what could possibly take so long,” I said as we headed toward the court.
“They said four to six weeks,” he reminded me.
“How long’s it been?”
“Three and a half.”
I sighed.
“Cheer up,” he said. “Maybe if I get sick you’ll finally be able to beat me!”
“Maybe once.”
“Twice!” I said.
“I was probably sick then, too,” he said, opening the door to the court.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “But, anyway, I’d much rather have your test come back negative and keep getting beat.”
“Me, too,” he replied, turning serious, “but you know what I’m gonna do if it’s positive?”
“What?” I asked, pulling my goggles down over my eyes.
“I’m gonna get into some kind of clinical trial.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve already been looking into it and there’s all sorts of research going on.”
“Does any of it look promising?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I think they tend to put more of a positive spin on things than there really is, but, you know, I could maybe help them learn more about it. Do somebody else some good down the road.”
I nodded.
“Who knows,” he said, pulling his goggles on. “Maybe that’s why I’m here.”
“Huh?”
“You know. Maybe that’s what I was put on this earth for. Maybe that’s my purpose in life. I might have to go through this, but one day somebody else’s life will be better because of me. Know what I mean?”
You were put on this earth to worship God. Your purpose is to love Him.
Naturally, all I could do was nod at him.
“Ready to get whooped?” he asked.
I nodded again.
We played our usual three games and (of course) he beat me soundly each time. I was mad at myself for (once again) being gutless when it came to talking to Tanner about my faith, but by the time we got back to the locker room, I’d figured out what I wanted to say to him. Unfortunately, I never got the chance.
I could hear my phone beeping as I got near my locker, letting me know that I had a text. I pulled it out and saw that it was a message from my boss, Scott. He hardly ever called me in the evening, and it was even more rare for him to send a text.
Call me.
“I gotta see what this is about,” I told Tanner, hitting send.
“What’s up?” I asked when Scott answered.
“Have you been watching the news?” he asked.
“No. Why? What’s going on?”
“It’s the Terrarium, Dave. It’s not good.”
The Terrarium in downtown Phoenix was one of the first projects that I’d been the lead engineer on. It was really called the Patterson Span and was an S-shaped, glass-covered walkway that connected the third floor of one building with the fourth floor of another building diagonally across the street. The fact that we’d had to overcome its tendency to heat up like a parked car with the windows rolled up in the summertime had earned it the nickname “The Terrarium.”
There was a TV in the locker room, but it was off. I stepped over to it and turned it on, flipping the channel as Scott filled me in on what had happened.
Between Scott and CNN, it wasn’t long before I had all of the facts. The whole thing had collapsed onto the street below. Three people confirmed dead, dozens of others injured . . . some critically. Rescue workers were still searching the rubble, looking for survivors. No word yet on the cause.
~ ~ ~
SCOTT ASSURED ME that everyone was behind me and they were confident I’d done nothing wrong. All the same, company policy was that I be suspended – with pay – pending an investigation.
And apparently it was a criminal investigation because the next day I was served with a search warrant and my computer was confiscated along with all the blueprints and files from the project.
I went over to Tanner’s that afternoon and used his computer to pull up my old emails.
“Aren’t they blocking access to your account?” Tanner asked me.
“I set up a new account in Laci’s name and forwarded everything to it yesterday.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” he wanted to know.
“I didn’t change anything,” I told him. “I just wanted to make sure I had copies of everything.”
“Well,” he said, looking at me doubtfully, “I hope you don’t take me down with you.”
I saved everything onto an external hard drive and spent hours poring over every attachment and correspondence I could find, searching for any hint of error . . . any mistake I might have made that could have caused the collapse. I found nothing.
But, according to the news that emerged in the days after the collapse, there was no evidence of a bomb or any other type of terrorist activity. No signs that there’d been an earthquake or that anything had hit it or disturbed it in any way. And there’d only been about seventy-five people on it . . . well under the three hundred person limit it had been designed for.
Everything was pointing to some sort of structural problem and independent teams were being sent to inspect all other bridges and walkways that our company had worked on.
Scott called again two days after the collapse.
“The girders . . . the cables . . . corroded beyond belief,” he said.
“Corroded?”
“I’ve seen seventy-year-old bridges with less rust.”
Corroded.
“What caused it?” I asked.
“It’s probably gonna be a while before we know for sure. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Thanks.”
I went back over to Tanner’s and let myself in. This time I focused on the materials: the steel support girders, the cable composition, the concrete. Tanner got home from work and found me almost smiling.
“Good news?” he asked.
“Not bad news,” I answered. Everything had been done by the book. All the materials and specifications we’d mandated were industry standard.
“Somebody might have substituted inferior products or something,” I explained to Tanner, “but if they did, then they did it against our direction.”
“But what if you designed it wrong?” he hesitated. “Like, what if water dripped down in there where it wasn’t supposed to go and rusted it out or something?”
“Stick to football, buddy,” I said confidently. “This was not my fault.”
“Well, good,” he nodded, walking to his pantry. “Wanna hear some more good news?”
“What?” I asked.
He leaned in for some peanuts and glanced at me with a smile before he popped the can open. “I got my results back.”
~ ~ ~
“YOU KNOW WHAT you should do until this is all over?” Laci asked me that night after we’d turned out the lights. Even though I was pretty confident I was going to be cleared of any wrongdoing and fully reinstated, there was the possibility that it would be weeks before that happened.
“What?”
“You should go volunteer in Dorito’s classroom. Take advantage of this time you’ve got. Dorito would love to have you in there.”
“And do what?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” I felt her shrug. “They sent home something at the beginning of the year asking for volunteers. I didn’t sign up for anything because of Lily, but I know they could use some help.”
“I don’t know . . .” I hesitated.
“I bet you could teach ’em math.”
“Really?”
“Oh, sure,” she said sarcastically. “I bet you could, like, institute some big geometry project or something . . . maybe you could teach them all to use graphing calculators! Ooh! That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”
“Geometry is just shapes, Laci, and graphing calculators really aren’t that hard . . .”
“Just remember that they’re only in the second grade, okay?” she sighed.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll try to keep it in mind.”
Thursday I took Dorito to school, walked him in, and talked to his teacher, Mrs. Spell, about volunteering. She told me that what they needed most was for someone to work daily with one small grou
p of students who were “struggling a bit” with their reading and writing.
“I’m more of a math person,” I told her.
“Can you read and write?” she asked.
I nodded.
“You’ll be fine,” she assured me. “Would you like to start tomorrow morning, or do you want to wait until Monday?”
“I can start today if you want,” I said.
“I’m going to have to rearrange their reading groups a little bit first,” she said. “Let’s start tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”
Dorito was bouncing off the walls when he found out that I was going to be taking him to school every day and working in his classroom.
“You can meet Amber,” he gushed. “She’s one of my best friends!”
Amber, it turned out, was in the small group I was assigned to. There were four kids in the group: Amber, Mariah, Drake, and Christian. My first morning there, Mrs. Spell sat all of them down around a circular table and introduced them to me and told them what we were going to be doing.
My first task was to have the kids dictate a story for me to type out on the computer. Then I’d print it out and staple it together and let them illustrate it.
“Reading stories they’ve written really helps to increase their reading skills,” Mrs. Spell had explained.
The others were supposed to read silently while they were waiting for me, so I told them to take out their books.
“I thought you said these kids were struggling?” I asked Mrs. Spell when I saw Amber pull a Harry Potter book out of her desk. I wasn’t a huge fan or anything, but I knew enough about Harry Potter to know that it wasn’t typical second grade reading fare.
“She’s not really reading it,” Mrs. Spell said quietly.
“Really?”
“No. She can’t read or write at all. She’s just pretending,” Mrs. Spell said, heading over to another table. “You’ll see.”