Table of Contents
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ALSO FROM BLUE TULIP PUBLISHING
Leave A Mark
By Stephanie Fournet
Blue Tulip Publishing
www.bluetulippublishing.com
Copyright © 2016 STEPHANIE FOURNET
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
LEAVE A MARK
Copyright © 2016 STEPHANIE FOURNET
ISBN-13: 978-1-942246-91-6
ISBN-10: 1-942246-91-9
Cover Art by Jena Brignola
For Amy, Sarah, Emily, and Richard with love
CHAPTER ONE
DR. LELAND HAWTHORNE couldn’t keep his eyes open.
He’d failed to get used to the twenty-four-hour shift, even in the fourth year of his residency. The fact that he worked two a week didn’t make life any easier.
Lee still had hours ahead of him before he could go home for the night, but if Mrs. Clark didn’t transition too quickly, he could crash in the bunkroom until his shift ended.
It was 4:03 p.m., and he’d come back to University Medical Center at six o’clock the night before. After eight deliveries — two of them preemies — Lee figured he’d need another twenty-four hours just to catch up on his charts.
But first, he had to sleep before he fell over. He waved to Elaine, the charge nurse, and pointed to the bunkroom. She smiled and gave him the fingers crossed sign. Lee opened the door slowly, just in case Mercer had found a few minutes to slip away, but the resident anesthesiologist was nowhere to be found.
He claimed the bottom bunk farthest from the door and collapsed.
Six o’clock. When six o’clock comes, I’ll head home and sleep for twelve blessed hours…
With his face in the pillow, Lee frowned.
Are we going somewhere tonight…? What day is…
“DR. HAWTHORNE? DR. Hawthorne? Lee!” Elaine’s voice pulled him up from the dead.
He had to be dead. If he wasn’t dead, why was it so hard to move?
“Yeah?” He forced the word past his zombie tongue. His awful breath was further proof that he’d expired.
“Mrs. Clark says she’s ready to push. Should I tell Bev to have her wait?”
Lee bolted up. He hadn’t become an OB so he could have mothers and babies wait on him. It was supposed to be the other way around.
“No… no. I’m on my way.”
Lee blinked to unglue the contacts from his corneas. He stumbled out of the bunkroom and dragged a hand through his hair, sure that his cowlick stuck straight up like a rooster comb. At least Marcelle wasn’t around to see it. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was only 4:19.
How’s that possible?
“Well, hello, Sleeping Beauty,” said Bev Champagne, the labor and delivery nurse with as much sass as she had height. At 5’11”, she could look Lee straight in the eye when she laughed in his face — which happened more times than he cared to admit — but she was the best LD nurses at UMC.
“Is someone ready to be born?” Lee asked, ignoring her jab.
“Mrs. Clark is one-hundred percent effaced, ten centimeters, and ready to push, doc.”
Lee crossed to his patient. She stared at him with alarmed brown eyes, so he smiled.
“How you doing, Mrs. Clark?”
“I still hate needles, but think I’d like to change my mind about that epidural,” she said, still wide-eyed.
Lee tried not to let his smile grow. “Mrs. Clark, it’s a little late for that now, but this isn’t your first rodeo,” he said, shaking his head. “You did great the last time.”
The laboring mother didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, but this one’s coming a bit faster than Desiree. I mean—” She stopped mid-sentence and grabbed Lee’s hand. The fetal monitor echoed proof of her contraction, and Lee checked the baby’s heartrate. “Lord, I gotta push!”
“You go right ahead, Mrs. Clar—” His words choked off when she squeezed his hand in a death grip.
“Dr. Hawthorne, you aren’t even gloved and gowned yet,” Bev scolded. “Out of the way, and get ready!”
Bev pushed him aside and took his place. “He’s nice to look at, honey, but he’s just like every other man,” Bev told Mrs. Clark. “You have to tell him what to do every damn day.”
MRS. CLARK’S SECOND child, a healthy son she was naming Antoine, was born at 5:04 p.m., which gave Lee just enough time to finish his charts before his shift ended. As always, natural births invigorated him, and he found himself looking forward to eating dinner and talking to Marcelle for a few minutes before he showered and crawled into bed.
As he turned onto St. Mary on his drive home, Lee gave thanks for about the millionth time that he’d won out on the Great House Battle of 2014. Marcelle and his stepmother had rallied hard for the cottage in River Ranch, but Lee liked the area around the Saint Streets.
It wasn’t only that it was closer to UMC. The neighborhood just felt real. Live oaks shaded the houses. Vegetable gardens grew in front yards. People of every age and color walked and rode bikes on its streets in the evenings.
And it was a hell of a lot more affordable than River Ranch.
The house he’d bought on Dunreath had been built in 1938. The walls were center-match, the roof was slate, and the Spanish arches on both sides of his living room — cracks in the plaster on each — reminded him of New Orleans. The best part was the screened front porch with the cypress swing.
One day, I’ll even get to enjoy it, Lee thought as he pulled his white Cherokee into the drive behind the house, parking next to Marcelle’s black Miata. She had her own townhouse in Greenbriar, but on nights when he was home, she slept over. If she didn’t, they’d never see each other.
He crossed the back yard along the path of paving stones and ducked under the covered deck, throwing a longing glance to the two kayaks that hung from the ceiling.
Soon.
Lee trudged up the back steps, hoping to find some brisket still in the fridge from his dad’s Sunday barbecue two days before. He’d missed the event, but his stepmother, Barbara, had sent home leftovers with Marcelle.
From the kitchen he heard the hair dryer across the house. Mar
celle wouldn’t hear him, so he didn’t bother shouting. Instead, he pulled open the refrigerator door, found the plastic container of shredded brisket, and grabbed a fork.
Even cold, the barbecued brisket set him moaning. He knew it would be better on bread — bread, with a little mayonnaise and sliced tomato. Maybe he’d even make two sandwiches, but he needed to work his way up to that.
Then again, if he emptied the container straight into his mouth, that was okay, too.
Footsteps clicked down the hall, but Lee couldn’t bring himself to pull his face away from the dish.
“Leland, what are you doing? We have the health clinic auction tonight.” Marcelle stood over him wearing a frantic look and a black cocktail dress. “We need to leave in thirty minutes!”
CHAPTER TWO
LAURIE LOOKED PRETTY. Her shoes and her shorts sparkled, and the pink on her lips matched her fingernails and toenails.
Wren wanted pink lips and sparkles, too.
Laurie giggled at her friend, Darryl. He was a new friend. He’d never spent the night, but Wren figured he would tonight. She thought his hair was ugly the way it parted right down the middle, but Laurie was giggling a lot, so he must have been nicer than her last friend.
They sat at the kitchen counter, and Darryl poured two Cokes. Then he took a white bottle with a coconut tree on it and poured some of that into each glass and passed one to Laurie.
“I want a coconut Coke,” Wren said, making both the grownups laugh.
“Wren, honey, you can’t have that. You’re too little.” Laurie flipped her hair over her shoulder and smiled at Darryl. “Babe, can you pour her just a little Coke? I’m gonna find us something fun to go with this. Be right back.”
Wren watched her mother walk to their bedroom in her high heels. She wanted shoes just like those.
“You wanna be like the grownups, sugar?” Darryl asked, pulling her attention away from Laurie’s shoes.
Wren nodded. She wanted to be grown up so if she said something, Laurie would have to listen to her, just like she had to listen when Laurie and Mamaw Gigi and Papaw Dale told her what to do. If she were a grownup, she’d tell Laurie to go to bed early and wake up in time for school.
“Well, grownups keep secrets. Can you keep a secret?” Darryl asked, pouring her Coke into a plastic cup.
Again, Wren nodded. She kept lots of secrets. She never told anyone at school that Papaw Dale had to call the police when one of Laurie’s friends broke the front window.
Darryl reached for the white bottle with the coconut tree. “If you can keep a secret, I’ll give you some, and you’ll be that much more grown up, though you seem half grown up already.”
“I can keep a secret,” she said, smiling, and she watched him pour.
“EARTH TO WREN? Hello? Where’d you go?” Cherise asked, forking the last of her Dwyer’s hash browns into her mouth.
Wren Blanchard shook off the memory and wrinkled her nose at her best friend’s soft drink. “I was just wondering how you can drink a Coke at 9:30 in the morning.”
“It’s Diet Coke, bitch,” Cherise teased. “You know I hate coffee, but I need caffeine.” She pushed away her near-empty plate and swiped one of Wren’s bacon strips.
“Bitch, I was going to eat that.”
Cherise made a face. “No, you weren’t. You were going to put it in your little Curtis-the-Junkie to-go box.” She pointed to the Styrofoam container their server had just delivered. It held a slice of ham, a biscuit, and an order of hash browns, and Cherise was right; Wren would have added the leftover bacon.
“Well, Curtis needs it more than you, fatty.”
This attempt at guilting her friend earned her an eye roll. Cherise had the figure of a celery stalk. Why she bothered with Diet Coke, Wren would never understand. “Curtis needs to take care of himself as much as you take care of him. Then, maybe, he wouldn’t be living in the park.”
“Let me worry about Curtis,” Wren said, ending the discussion.
Cherise just shook her head. “C’mon. I’ve got to get to work.”
Leaving their tips on the table, Wren and Cherise walked out to their beach cruisers. They’d bought the matching set at Walmart two years ago, and every Thursday since then, they met at Dwyer’s Cafe for breakfast and rode their bikes to work. It didn’t matter that they no longer worked at the same place.
Wren tucked the to-go box into her bike’s wicker basket. Everything would slide backward in the container, but Curtis wouldn’t care. She could find him, she knew, on one of the benches at Parc Sans Souci — across from Agave, where she used to work and where Cherise still did.
They pedaled down Garfield before taking a right onto Polk Street. School buses were already parked behind the Lafayette Science Museum to their right, and mothers with strollers pushed their way into the Children’s Museum on their left.
“That’ll be you one day,” Cherise teased, jerking her head at a mother with a double-wide stroller.
Wren laughed.
“Yeah, right.”
They circled the park and stopped across from Agave. Abed, Wren’s old boss, sprayed off the sidewalk in front of the cantina restaurant, getting ready for the lunch crowd. He waved to them before eyeing Cherise and pointing to his watch.
“Bastard,” Cherise muttered as she locked up her bike. “It’s not even ten yet.”
Wren bent over to secure her cruiser to one of the circular bike racks. “He just likes to harass—” She gasped as a sharp twinge lit up her right side, but it disappeared as soon as she straightened up.
“What’s wrong?” Cherise asked, giving her a look of concern. Wren just shook her head.
“Maybe I shouldn’t jump on my bike right after eating my weight in pancakes.”
“You’ve only been doing it for two years,” her best friend said, grinning. “Don’t start slowing down on me now, loser. Come by tomorrow? I close.”
“I’ll be there. Hope the tips are big today.”
“Hope the skin is zit-free today,” Cherise said, making her laugh.
After a quick hug, Wren grabbed the takeout box and walked past the dormant fountains. She squinted against the morning sun and tried to distinguish Curtis among the bundles on the park benches. His duct-taped sneakers gave him away, and she headed his way.
“Good mornin’, Song Bird,” he said, his usual greeting. He sat up before she actually reached his bench, and Wren was glad that he was awake and alert. Still, his eyes were bloodshot, but that was typical.
“Morning, Curtis. I brought you some breakfast.”
“Then it must be Thursday. How’s your friend? What’s her name?”
“Cherise is doing fine, Curtis. In fact, she said to tell you hello.” This wasn’t exactly true, but Wren didn’t mention that her best friend scolded her again for buying the “Curtis-the-Junkie to-go box.”
And she wasn’t going to stop, even though Curtis asked her for money almost every time. He’d started three years ago, the first night she’d come off-shift at Agave. He’d asked her for a few bucks and walked to her car on Polk. She’d refused him then. She always refused. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t give him something to eat and remind him that Acadiana Recovery Center was only four-blocks away — a straight shot right down Vermilion Street.
And Curtis had never been aggressive with his panhandling — unlike some of the other homeless people who lived downtown. In fact, for three years, Curtis had made sure that Wren safely reached her car every night.
That was worth a breakfast once a week. Especially now that she could afford it.
“How’s the job? Rocky still treatin’ you right?” Curtis asked, a glint in his eye.
“Rocky’s the best. And I stay pretty busy,” she said, knowing what was coming.
“Maybe you might see your way clear to givin’ ole Curtis a buck or two? So I can maybe have a lil’ somethin’ later on?”
Wren sighed. If she said it every time, maybe he’d listen once. “Bullshit,
Curtis. You know I’m not doing that. In fact, you know exactly what I’ll say.”
He gave her a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “Maybe I like hearing you say it every Thursday.”
Her heart tugged, but Wren knew that she couldn’t put much stock into his words. She’d grown up hearing the same thing from Laurie.
“Then I’ll say it again. There’s a free treatment center right down the street.” She pointed west, trying not to get angry. It didn’t help to get angry, but she never took her eyes off his. “In the time it would take you to eat this breakfast, you could walk down there and get some help. You could start living a different life today, Curtis.”
Curtis reached out his hands and took the box from her. “Thank you for the breakfast, Song Bird. Maybe I’ll see you next week.”
“HOLD STILL, YOU big baby, or I’ll mess up the ink.” Wren Blanchard yanked her liner machine away from Bear’s shoulder. She’d barely started on her touch-up of the chain outline when her two-hundred-fifty-pound client flinched.
“I am holding still,” Bear argued. “You’re the jumpy one.”
Wren swiveled around on her stool to glare at him. “John Allen Darcy, did you just call me jumpy?” Wren asked, her voice pitching low — as low as it could go on someone just over five feet tall. “I don’t care how big you are. I’ll take you down.”
Laughter rumbled through Studio Ink.
The biker at Wren’s station narrowed his eyes at her. His straw-colored eyebrows and beard seemed to bristle.
“I’m gonna pretend like you didn’t just call me by that name. It’s Bear, and you well know it.”
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