by Neta Jackson
Her fingers closed around the copper coin.
That made four.
Chapter 40
Michelle woke up the next morning feeling breathless. Would God give her another penny today? Or maybe she should be thinking, how would God give her a penny today? After all, the penny in her apron pocket and the one in the dryer could be explained as totally coincidental. But that penny rolling right up to her at the mall . . . had to be God. Had to be.
Not that she really wanted to face the implications of her “penny test.” So what if God “proved” he would take care of her? What she really wanted was to not be pregnant in the first place. Not now.
But it was too late for that.
Her first moments of wakeful elation were already dissipating under a cloud of dread. She’d have to tell Jared today or tomorrow.
Speaking of Jared, he’d be home soon from his night shift. Hungry and wanting to crash. Throwing on her robe, Michelle scooted barefoot to the kitchen and started the coffee. He didn’t usually eat much on Friday morning before hitting the sheets—a toasted bagel with jam and some OJ ought to do it. She’d see that he got settled, then wake the boys before she left for work to be sure they got to Tavis’s last day of basketball camp on time.
But Jared seemed grouchier than usual when he came in that morning. He straddled a barstool at the kitchen counter and loosened his shirt collar. “Is the air on? Feels hot in here. ’Bout time we get a break from all this ninety-degree weather we’ve been having this week.”
She set a bagel and glass of juice in front of him. “You okay?”
He snorted. “Yeah. It’s just . . . some of the guys in the tower can be such jerks! Just because it was a slow night—huh, slow only in comparison to that glut we had a couple nights ago—some of the guys were goofing off and . . . frankly, I don’t know what happened, but suddenly half the screens went down.” He shook his head. “Pretty dicey for about twenty, maybe thirty minutes. Had to keep the incomings up in the air for a while and delay the departures. But we managed to get all the planes in and out safely, thank God.”
Jared shook his head at her offer of a cup of coffee. “Nah, don’t need any more caffeine. Thinking about taking a walk to calm down before I get some shut-eye . . . the kids up yet?”
She shook her head, sipping her own cup of coffee. “Gonna wake the boys before I leave for work. It’s Tavis’s last day of basketball camp.”
Her husband grimaced. “So, how much of that SlowBurn stuff has Destin sold this week? He told me he was going to try to sell to the kids coming to the basketball camps at Lane Tech this week.”
Michelle felt annoyed. How would she know? Wasn’t Jared checking in with him? “I haven’t asked—though he said he sold some to a mom-and-pop store over on Western. Sounded like a good outlet if they decide to stock it.”
Her husband snorted. “Oh yeah, I heard. Four six-packs so far. Big deal.” Pushing back the barstool, Jared strode down the short hall to the boys’ bedroom, opened the door, and flipped on the light. “Destin! Time to get up. I want to see some action today on your so-called job. C’mon, get moving.”
Michelle could hear muffled protests from both boys, a few sharp words from Jared, then he came out muttering, “Going for a walk. Be back in half an hour.”
She glanced at the clock and then at his half-eaten bagel. She’d be gone in half an hour. Well, Jared was the “at-home” parent today—though he’d be sleeping for most of it—so let him deal with the kids. She couldn’t do everything. Or be everywhere.
But his bad mood had rubbed off on her, and she had a headache by the time she walked through the front door at Bridges.
“Buenos dias, Michelle!” Mercedes sang out. “How you doing this fine morning?” Without waiting for a reply, the receptionist handed her some messages. “Had a couple calls for you already this morning. Looks like a fun day.”
Michelle glanced through the little yellow slips. Liz Turner, DCFS, pls return call ASAP. Wanted to dump another wayward kid on them, no doubt. . . . Annamarie Domingo. Oh, brother, what now? Had Rafael run away again? . . . Brianna Lewis. Michelle racked her brain. Brianna Lewis, Brianna . . . oh, right! Jeffrey Coleman’s mother. Last she’d heard things had been going well with Jeffrey’s supervision and oversight from Ray Stevens, their college-age Family Friend volunteer.
Well, she’d make these calls, then head out on her already scheduled appointments.
It was going to be a long day.
* * *
Her last appointment of the day canceled, so Michelle headed back to the office. Maybe she’d have a chance to fill out her reports and not have to take paperwork home over the weekend for a change. And so far, no penny today. She’d been at home, at Bridges Family Services, in the car, at a group home, in the homes of two foster families . . . and no penny from heaven.
Well, so what. The whole penny test was pretty silly anyhow. At least she’d feel silly telling anybody about it. Pastor Q would probably say, “All the promises you need are right there in the Bible, Sister Michelle.”
Yeah, like she didn’t know. After years of leading the Hope and Healing groups at Lifeline, she was a veritable fountain of promises from the Word. But somehow those promises felt pretty hollow when faced with what felt like two impossible choices . . .
Go through with a pregnancy at age forty-one that would turn their whole lives upside down? Ruin any chance she had to get her life under control?
Or have an abortion that would leave her feeling guilty the rest of her life?
Michelle pulled into a parking space in the small lot next to Bridges, but just sat in the car for a few more minutes, not ready to go in. Not ready for the workday to end, either, when she’d have to go home and face Jared. She’d told herself she’d tell him this weekend. But the wall of resistance was still there. As if hoping for some magic “fix” to get her out of this mess.
Her cell phone rang. She fished it out of her purse. Caller ID said Jared Jasper. What was Jared calling her for at three in the afternoon? Probably woke up hungry and the refrigerator was almost bare. Well, it was Friday . . . everything ran low by Friday. She’d shop tomorrow.
Sending the call to voicemail, she tossed the phone back in her purse and got out of the car. Didn’t feel like talking to Jared right this moment. Whatever it was could wait.
But a few moments later as she dumped her briefcase and purse on the desk in her office, her phone rang again. Jared again. Sighing, she tapped the Talk button. “Hey, hon, what’s up?”
“Michelle!” Jared’s voice was a gasp. In the background Michelle could hear traffic. And crying. Sounded like Tabby.
“Jared! What—!”
“I’m on my way to St. Francis Hospital. I’ve got Tabby in the car with me. You need to come right away. The police called—Destin and Tavis . . .” Her husband’s voice broke.
Michelle grabbed her purse and started running for the front door, phone to her ear. “The hospital?! The police? What happened? What’s wrong?”
Mercedes gave her a worried look as she ran past the reception desk but Michelle just shot out the door, trying to hold the phone to her ear and fish for car keys in her purse at the same time.
“Gunshot. Which one . . . maybe both . . . I don’t know. Police said they were taken by ambulance to St. Francis in Evanston.”
Oh, no . . . No, no, no, no . . . O God! Not her boys.
“Just hurry, Michelle! I’ll meet you in the emergency room.”
* * *
Wheeling into the emergency room’s circular driveway, Michelle screeched to a stop and left the car sitting there as she ran for the sliding door. Jared met her just inside the door. “They’ve taken Tavis into surgery. All they’ve told me so far is that he has a gunshot wound in the side. Said it’s serious but not . . .” He swallowed. “Supposedly not life-threatening.”
“Oh, thank God!” Michelle’s heart was till pounding. “But . . . Destin? Where’s Destin? Is he hurt? Jared—”
“Mommy!” Tabby ran into her mother’s arms and buried her head in her shoulder. “Oh, Mommy, I’m so scared.”
“I know, honey. Shh, shh . . . I need to hear about Destin.”
Taking off his wire rims, Jared mopped his face with a handkerchief. “They said he got shot in the leg. He’s still in there . . .” He jerked his chin in the direction of the double doors marked Authorized Personnel Only.
“I want to see my son.” Michelle started for the double doors.
“Honey, wait!” Jared grabbed her arm.
She pulled away. “I want to see Destin!”
Jared grabbed her again. “Michelle, stop. Right now the police are talking to him. They said they’d come get us as soon as they’re done. Just . . . just come over here, sit down a minute.”
The police . . . Was Destin in some kind of trouble? Did they think he knew who’d shot them? Could the police tell them what happened? For a long moment, Michelle stood rooted in place, staring at the doors leading into the restricted area, wanting to barge through and find her son. But finally she followed Jared back to the rows of chairs and sank into the closest one.
“But . . . why? Where did it happen? Didn’t the boys come home after basketball camp?”
Jared sat down beside her. “I—I don’t know. I was asleep. I assumed they’d come home and check in with me . . . But first thing I knew, Tabby came running into the bedroom with the phone, said it was the police!”
Tabby was curled up in a chair, hugging her knees, and crying again.
Questions tumbled around in Michelle’s head like rocks in a rock tumbler, driving her nuts. Why hadn’t the boys come straight home? Where did this happen? At school? On the way home? Were they out somewhere trying to sell more of that energy drink? Did someone try to rob them? Why would anyone shoot two innocent kids?
Finally a trim Asian woman in a doctor’s white coat came out through the double doors with two uniformed cops, one white, one black. Michelle and Jared stood up. “Mr. and Mrs. Jasper?” the woman asked. They nodded. She shook hands with a firm grip. “I’m Doctor Louise Wang. This is Officer Lester and Officer Hill. Let’s find someplace we can talk.”
The doctor led the way through the swinging doors and into a small conference room. Tabby gripped Michelle’s hand tightly as they all found chairs. “Please,” Michelle begged, “how is Destin? Can we see him?”
Dr. Wang nodded. “Of course. He took a bullet in the thigh, which is no fun, but he should consider himself lucky. We’ve stopped the bleeding and he’s stable, so we’ll do surgery as soon as possible to remove the bullet and repair damage.”
“And Tavis? When can we . . .?” The words came out in a croak.
“They’ll let you know as soon as he’s out of surgery,” the doctor said kindly.
Jared turned to the uniforms. “What can you tell us? What happened? Why were our sons shot?”
The white cop let his partner do most of the talking. “Far as we can tell, this was a case of your boys being in the wrong place at the wrong time—but not exactly random.”
Michelle’s mouth went dry. “What do you mean, ‘not random’?”
“Well, according to your older boy in there—Destin, right?—he and his brother approached a bunch of kids on a street corner trying to sell them this, uh, energy drink—”
“We never heard of it,” shrugged the other cop. “But we did retrieve his backpack with the cans inside, and it seems to be what he says it is.”
“That’s right,” Jared butted in. “Kid got himself a summer job selling for some energy drink company. What’s wrong with that?”
Officer Hill held up his hands, palms out. “Nothing, Mr. Jasper. He just didn’t pick a smart place to do it. Our best guess is, some of the gangbangers in that area thought the boys were some new bloods muscling in on their territory. They—”
“They thought our kids were selling drugs?” Jared’s face was a storm cloud.
“That’s what it looks like. Won’t know for sure till we catch the perps. But according to witnesses, a couple guys ran out of a nearby alley and started shooting. Kids split all over the place, all except your two boys, who probably didn’t know what was happening. But the paramedics who brought them in told us they were lucky, said these two are going to make it.”
“Going to make it . . .” The words rang in Michelle’s ears. Oh yes, please God, let them make it.
They talked for a few more minutes with the police, who took down contact information for both Jared and Michelle and said they’d be in touch. Then the doctor led them into the large room with beds for emergency patients on three sides—half of them occupied—separated only by white curtains. Dr. Wang held the curtain back from one of the bays. “Destin? Your parents and sister are here.”
Michelle caught her breath. Destin lay on the gurney, broad brown chest shirtless, hooked up to an IV pole. His bare right leg lay outside the top sheet, thigh wrapped in gauze, tinged red with blood seeping up through the layers from below. “Mom! Dad! Tabby!” Tears welled up in his dark eyes. He reached for their hands, his forehead creased with worry and fear as they crowded around both sides of the gurney. “How’s Tavis? They won’t tell me anything, just that they took him to surgery.”
“That’s all we know too, son.” Jared was having a hard time staying in control.
“No, no,” Michelle added hastily, gripping his hand. “They say it’s not life-threatening, that he’s going to make it.” Was she assuring Destin, or herself?
Jared cleared his throat as if he was going to say something but Destin blurted, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! It’s all my fault! If I hadn’t taken Tavis along . . .”
“Shh, shh,” crooned Michelle.
But Jared prodded, “Tell us what happened, son. Where did this happen?”
Destin’s story pretty much confirmed the police version. “It was my last chance to sell SlowBurn to the kids doing the basketball camps at Lane Tech, but a lot of the guys who told me they liked it and would bring money, said they forgot or whatever. Then this one kid said he knew where a lot of guys hung out over near Hamlin Park, maybe they’d buy some. So we went with him over to that neighborhood—”
Michelle heard Jared suck in his breath. They never would’ve let Destin go into that neighborhood by himself, much less with Tavis.
“—an’ next thing we knew, there were gunshots, and . . . and Tavis went down, and . . . and . . .” Destin’s shoulders were shaking.
Michelle gave Jared a look. Don’t push him anymore!
They heard the curtains being pushed back all the way. “Mr. and Mrs. Jasper?” said a male voice. Two young medical personnel in blue scrubs. “They’re ready for Destin in surgery to remove that bullet. We’ll be assisting Dr. Thomas. You can go up to the family waiting room on the surgical floor, and we’ll come get you when he’s in recovery.”
Michelle stood aside with Jared and Tabby, watching as the side rails were raised and the gurney wheeled out of the bay with her oldest son. And somewhere in the hospital, her baby was undergoing an even more serious surgery.
A flush of helpless anger coursed through her veins. Is this how you take good care of us, God? Like this? Both my boys? How am I supposed to trust you now?
Dazed, she felt Jared’s arm on her elbow guiding her out of the room and toward the elevators that would take them to the surgical floor. As the doors closed on them she heard Jared mutter angrily, “I blame that Singer fellow down the street. None of this would’ve happened if he hadn’t recruited Destin to sell his stupid product!”
Chapter 41
The surgeon who operated on Tavis came to the family waiting room, looking pleased. “Bullet didn’t hit any vital organs. He lost quite a bit of blood, had to have a transfusion, but the bullet exited nicely out the back. We had to repair some muscle and his kidney was bruised, so we’ll keep him here for several days, and he’ll need to take it very easy the rest of the summer. But I think he should be ready to
go back to school by the time school starts. As soon as he wakes up from the anesthesia, you can go to recovery and see him.”
Michelle thanked the surgeon profusely. Good news . . . good news . . . So why did she still feel so awful?
Tavis seemed confused when he saw his parents. “Wha . . . what happened?”
Jared kept it brief. But Michelle had a hard time listening to the story. Every repetition felt like driving a nail into her skull.
Destin’s surgeon, Dr. Thomas, found them in the recovery room with Tavis and motioned them outside. The surgery to remove the bullet in his thigh had gone smoothly, he said, and with the right physical therapy, he should make a full recovery. “The good news is that the bullet missed his femoral artery—would have been serious business if it hadn’t. Nicked a bone, but that’s going to heal. Going to be painful for some time, though. He’s going to need to stay here a few days till we can get him up and walking. He’s going to need crutches for a while, and then it’ll be several months of physical therapy—and whatever else you want to add on to ‘doctor’s orders,’ like making his bed or whatever, ha ha . . .” The surgeon chuckled at his little joke. “But barring any unforeseen complications, he might even be able to play basketball again. In time.”
Michelle wasn’t in any mood for jokes. Still, she thanked the surgeon, excused herself, and went back to Tavis’s bedside.
A patient advocate stopped by, said they were trying to get both boys assigned to the same room to make it easy on the family. But it was after eight o’clock by the time the boys got settled in a room. Michelle and Tabby went looking for something to eat—the cafeteria was closed—and found some sandwiches in a vending machine. Jared was watching the sports channel with Destin on the TV that hung between the two beds. Tavis had fallen asleep.
At one point Jared slipped out to call Pastor Quentin to let the church know what happened and to ask for prayer. Michelle thought she ought to make some calls too—she was supposed to lead the women’s ministry monthly event tomorrow morning, as well as the second session of the new Hope and Healing group at Lifeline! She’d have to cancel. Couldn’t do it. But for some reason she couldn’t work up the energy to talk to anyone. What was wrong with her? The prognosis for both boys was good. She should be thankful. But the reality of what had happened still rattled its chains in her face like Marley’s ghost haunting old Scrooge.