Wheels (Tabor Heights Year Two)

by Michelle Levigne

  She hoped the Hunter-Donnelly family never got to that point. She liked their easy give-and-take, their comfort with each other, their obvious love for each other. There had to be a lot of love, for Paul and Sammy to move into the house that Tommy and Claire had bought, and for Tommy to not only be welcome but a necessary part of the family. Sammy adored her Uncle Tommy, and Natalie suspected that he took up a lot of the little girl's time, letting the newlyweds have as much privacy as possible.

  Natalie wondered if Tommy ever felt like a fifth wheel, despite how welcome and wanted and loved he was. It had to be hard for him, watching his sister settle down into married life -- albeit with an instant family. Did he ever wonder and wish for someone for himself?

  "Stop that right there," she told herself. Her voice fell flat in the closed-in, shadowy apartment.

  Natalie bustled around, opening windows to let the cooler evening air in, and settled down at her computer to check her email. There had to be a pile waiting for her, since she had been busy all day and hadn't even checked on her tablet. None from her bosses at America's Voice, of course, since Russ and Hal knew how she worked, but probably lots of mail from all her groups, her friends, the newsfeeds from the blogs she followed. She snorted, glad once again she had elected not to join so many social networking sites, because honestly, who had the time to scroll through hundreds of messages, just in case someone said something she wanted to comment on or add to or share?

  Her father had emailed. Natalie sat back in the straight-backed kitchen chair. Her parents preferred to catch up with her through phone calls every other week, but when something unusual or momentous -- or irritating -- happened, her father sent her long emails that probably took him three hours to write and trim down, revise and rewrite before he said what he wanted to say, the way he wanted. At least he paid attention to the mechanics of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Her brothers, when they bothered to email at all, seemed to deliberately break every possible rule of the English language, just to irritate her.

  Natalie got up and stepped over to the refrigerator, grateful she had stocked it yesterday. Her mouth was suddenly dry. That jolt and dropping sensation could have been fear or guilt, maybe both. Maybe some anger. Why couldn't her father have waited until she finished her assignment? What did he think he was doing, asking for an update when she had just started her assignment?

  Unless… maybe there was some bad news? Maybe Tommy's father was worse off than anyone thought? Maybe he had died already, and her father was telling her not to disrupt Claire and Tommy's new life with bad news?

  "Wrong, wrong, wrong," she muttered. Natalie couldn't believe the cool sensation of relief that shot through her, just for a moment. What was wrong with her? Yanking a sports drink out of the refrigerator, she twisted the cap off and guzzled nearly half of it. Then stopped, gasping for breath, at the delayed reaction of heavy cold in her throat and stomach. That was worse than an ice cream headache.

  What would her parents say if she told them she didn't want to say anything to Tommy and Claire, that Jonas had no right to intrude in their lives? If they wanted to find their father, they would have years ago.

  Natalie stared at the email screen and could almost hear her father's voice, chiding, and soft with understanding at the same time. Since getting slapped in the face with the damage his own attitude had done, he had grown, spiritually and emotionally. Maybe the change she sensed in him was a sign of his healing. Her father had not only gotten his head on straight after all these years, but he had gotten his heart and soul back in alignment with God. In some ways, she thought he sounded like the super-spiritual men he had always regarded with a cynical eye. If she called home and argued with her father, he would most likely respond that her meeting up with Claire and Tommy Donnelly after all these years was a definite sign of God's hand working, guiding her. He would say that the timing was too perfect to be an accident.

  "Had too much of accidents, thanks very much," she muttered as she settled down at the table again and plunked the bottle onto the surface next to her notebook.

  Your old man is a big yellow-bellied coward. If this was WWI, they'd be dousing me in white feathers.

  Natalie snorted and grinned at the screen. She could almost hear the mocking tone of her father's voice, see the mischief sparkling in his eyes.

  I messed up big-time. Your mother says I'm like an overgrown kid with that tablet you bought us for our anniversary. I was showing off your last article, how the magazine has an online edition and the comments people can make. I was showing all the high ratings you got from readers and the guys in Bible study wanted to know what you were working on right now. That's where I messed up, honey.

  "How, Dad? I can't imagine you'd come right out and tell Mr. Donnelly that Claire and Tommy are here," she whispered, and reached for the bottle again.

  Then she paused. Would it be that bad, really, if Jonas found out where his children were living and he came to make contact? Wouldn't it make things easier… well, for her, at least? She wouldn't risk this budding friendship with Tommy.

  Unless Jonas told his children how he found out where they were living now.

  "I just can't win, can I?" Sighing, she turned back to the email.

  Most of the guys in our Bible study are old fudders like me -- we can barely figure out the dozen controls we have to use to watch the baseball game on cable. They got a kick out of the tablet and how easy it is to use. Relatively easy, anyway. A few of them pushed buttons they shouldn't have, and I had to take it back and get back to the right screen, so they could read your story. Anyway, Jonas was interested, and laughing at himself, how much he's been avoiding anything that even remotely smells like a computer. Turns out that his oldest boy's rabid passion for computers turned him cold to the whole thing.

  We stayed after the study and were just talking, and he wanted to know more about the tablet. He wanted me to explain the whole email thing to him, so I opened your last email. I wasn't even thinking, it was just at the top of the list. You were talking about how excited you were to find out Tommy had a comedy gig. The next thing I know, Jonas is white and shaking and in tears. The man has been broken and humbled so many times, and I couldn't say no when he started asking questions.

  The bottom line is, he knows Claire and Tommy are together, and he has a good idea where Tabor is. He wants to come find them. I tried to talk him into waiting, into letting you do some preparation work. I don't know if he's going to listen. I don't know if he's willing to wait. The man isn't well. I think he's convinced himself he's dying to pay for his sins, and he doesn't have much time. It doesn't matter what the doctors think.

  So whatever you do, honey, do it fast, okay? And forgive your old man for being a softy without much common sense, okay?

  Long after the screensaver kicked in, Natalie stared at the screen without seeing it, her mind spinning. The longer she waited to tell Tommy and Claire about their childhood connection, the worse the fallout from the revelation. She could imagine a handful of different reactions she would get from them if, after dropping the bombshell on them, she added, "And oh yeah, my folks moved back to Owens Forge and my dad thinks your dad is reformed, so how about running on down and giving the old man a visit and a hug before he either comes to hunt you down, or he has to face the Grim Reaper?"

  That would not work out well, no matter how she tried to revise the scenario.

  "Okay, so what do I do? What do we do?"

  Natalie got up and tossed her empty bottle in the trash. She knew she had to prove herself trustworthy. And that meant talking to Tommy about that conversation she had overheard his driver, Franky, having with those two slick characters behind the comedy club. Natalie kicked herself for not bringing it up, but either her brain was full of questions or she wasn't alone with him, and the timing didn't feel right when she did remember to mention it.

  "Tomorrow," she promised herself. "First thing. Then when we see where that bit of information leads, how it af
fects Tommy, then maybe I can ease into the next confession."

  She gnawed on the whole problem during her evening devotions. When she finally managed to fall asleep, she was surprised when she didn't dream about Tommy being used to courier drugs over the border into Canada inside the piping of his wheelchair.

  Thursday, September 17

  "Well?" Tommy wished, for the first time in years, that he had the use of his legs. When he pounced on his sister the moment she came into the Mission after her doctor's appointment, he wanted to be able to literally pounce. Jump up and grab her arms and shake her a little until she spilled all the information.

  On second thought, getting a good look at her pale complexion and somewhat glazed eyes, maybe shaking her wouldn't be such a good idea.

  "Well, what?" A smirk twitched the corners of her mouth as she strolled past him and around the counter in the office, to settle at her desk. Claire let out a groan and closed her eyes.

  "What did the doctor say?" He rolled around the end of the counter and behind it, to see her better. "You're going to be all right, aren't you?"

  "There's nothing to worry about."

  "Uh huh. Did the guy actually look at you?"

  "Tommy." Claire's eyes suddenly glistened with tears. She sniffled, letting out a little gasping laugh, and snatched at the tissue box on the end of her desk. "Honestly, I'm feeling much better. A hundred times better. It's just going to take some time, that's all."

  "So what's the diagnosis? Bed rest? Make Paul take you on a cruise? Some crazy diet, where you have to eat a dozen raw eggs every morning."

  "Don't!" She pressed both hands over her mouth, and her back arched a little, visibly fighting a surge of nausea.

  "Sorry." Tommy waited a few moments, until her color returned to what seemed to be "normal" for Claire lately. "So, what's going on?"

  "You'll just have to wait until I tell Paul. Where is he?"

  "He had to run some errand, pick up some equipment -- can't remember where." He groaned. "But I think he had to drive to Elyria. It was a donation." He thumped on the top of the desk next to hers, hard enough it echoed through the room and brought Pastor Wally to the door of his office to look in on them.

  Pastor Wally took Claire's assurances that she was feeling better, that the doctor had given her good news, but she didn't want to talk about it, much better than Tommy had. He tried his tactic of just sitting and looking at her, trying to look as pathetic as a man who was built like a weight-lifter from the waist up could look, to wear her down. After ten minutes of Claire fussing with turning her computer on and getting started with her day's work, she only glanced at him once. From her flattened mouth and upraised eyebrow, and the twitch that meant she was trying not to laugh, Claire knew what he was doing -- and she wasn't going to give in.

  Tommy waited another twenty minutes. His sister actually ignored him, going about her work, not even giving him the dignity of telling him he was in the way. She took the long way around the desks whenever she had to get to something that he deliberately blocked access to. Tommy knew when he had been defeated, even though it didn't happen very often. Sighing loudly, he wheeled out of the office. After all, he did have playground patrol duty, starting in fifteen minutes.

  On his way to the kitchen to snatch a sneak preview of whatever was on the lunch menu for the senior meals program, Natalie stopped him. He was surprised to see her, because she was supposed to be walking through downtown Tabor today, talking with the people on the street, getting a feel for the town, and hopefully gathering open and honest views of the Mission and the accessibility awareness campaign.

  "Got a minute?" She had a cute little frown that put three wrinkles between her eyebrows and a hint of a dimple in the right corner of her mouth.

  There was someone he could vaguely recall with the same dimple when they frowned. A she, he thought. He couldn't be sure. Now that he decided there was a resemblance, it was going to drive him nuts until he remembered who.

  "Twelve -- and eighteen seconds," he added, after glancing at his watch.

  "Can we talk somewhere we won't be overheard?" She glanced up and down the hallway. They were at the intersection where the gym hallway met the main hallway and the office lobby.

  "Step into my office." He gestured down the gym hallway to the open door leading out to the playground, a bright rectangle at the far end. Something in Natalie's eyes, a somberness he didn't like seeing, made him push a little harder and roll a little faster. After all, they were running against the clock.

  "You're sure nobody will come up on us and overhear us?" Natalie asked, once they were outside and she settled down at the picnic table set up in the shade of the building, overlooking the parking lot.

  "Why? What's so serious? Unless you're going to propose and sweep me off my feet?" He pressed both hands under his chin and fluttered his eyelashes. "Oh please, pretty please?"

  "You're such a goofball," she muttered, with a flicker of a smile softening the gathering grimness of her expression. She bowed her head, took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and finally looked up again to meet his gaze. "Franky is either in trouble, or he's going to make trouble for you. The other night, before I caught up with you at the comedy club, I went wandering around backstage." Another deep breath, a glance away. "Is he even working today?"

  "Nope. Counseling session with the central office of Open Doors, down in Columbus."

  "Oh. Good." She nodded and visibly relaxed. "I can tell you like him, and he seems to be trying to make a new start, so I'm hoping it was all on the other guys' part… listen to me. I'm a writer. I should have this outlined so I make some sense. Okay, the other night, I went to the parking lot door and Franky was standing by your van, talking with two guys who did not look like they were there to have a good time. They want Franky to do something for them, and it sounded like they wanted him to use you and your wheelchair to cover it up. He was arguing, didn't want to betray your trust, kept saying he was finished with that life, but these guys… they were making threats."

  "Okay." Tommy stared into her eyes, holding himself as still as he possibly could, while inside he felt like he had just had a month's worth of caffeine pumped into his veins. The strongest emotion he could identify amid the swirling of his thoughts and the churning of his gut was disbelief -- Franky wouldn't betray them. He believed the mixed-up guy when he said he wanted to start over, he wanted to make up for the stupid, selfish things he had done.

  But hadn't Natalie said Franky was arguing, not wanting to cooperate with those guys?

  So that was a strong point in his favor. Knowing that helped Tommy relax a little, which let him think a littler clearer.

  "Okay, the first step is to go to Brock. He's Franky's sponsor here. If we're lucky, he's still working in the coffee shop. Come on." He beckoned with a twist of his head, and aimed for the door back into the building.

  Fortunately, Brock was still in the room that would eventually be the coffee shop. Because of other needs and priorities, they had put off renovating the former classroom for more than a year. If the problem with the tiles and a building inspector who was vocally anti-Mission could be settled within the next two weeks, the coffee shop's doors would open for business before the wet weather of fall settled in.

  Brock and two volunteers who were helping him were cleaning up, meaning he had to leave to head over to the Tabor Picayune for his afternoon duties as bookkeeper.

  Tommy gauged the time, gestured for Natalie to go in ahead of him, and grabbed hold of the door to pull it closed behind him as he rolled into the room. Then he parked his wheelchair in front of the door, just to buy a couple more minutes of privacy. At least, until someone decided to cut through the back of the room, where it shared facilities with the kitchen.

  "Hey!" Paul laughed and thumped on the door before pulling it open. "Oh, good, caught you before you guys cleared out. Can I have a hand hauling this stuff in before you guys leave for the day?"

  Tommy asked Natalie
to keep watch and make sure Paul and Brock didn't leave. Then he wheeled down the hall to ask someone to fill in for him on the playground. By the time he returned to the room, the donated equipment -- four booths and an assortment of café tables -- had been hauled in and the two volunteers had left. Paul and Brock both turned to Tommy as he rolled into the room and gave him curious looks. He pulled the door closed behind himself and gestured for Natalie to take the floor.

  Their expressions shifted from curious to attentive and worried as soon as Natalie mentioned that Franky was in trouble. Tommy appreciated that. He appreciated even more her memory, when she recited back large chunks of what she had overheard the three men saying in the parking lot. It worried him that both men were so confident in their security -- or maybe it was their ability to punish anyone who crossed them -- that they had been careless with their names. Maybe they figured no one would overhear them or see to identify them. But Natalie had done both.

  "Thanks," Brock said quietly, after several moments of frowning, thoughtful silence when Natalie finished. "It sounds like Franky is caught between a rock and a hard place. I wish he had come to us about it, though."

  "Doesn't mean he doesn't trust you, or that he's going to go along with the plan," she offered, surprising Tommy. "From the little he said, the guy isn't used to being able to trust anyone."