Second Time's the Charm

“How can you help?” He didn’t slow down. Or look at her. She wasn’t sure if he was just humoring her or not.

“I’d like to spend some time with you and Abraham. To observe you together. I’ve got some things I can show you to help him to calm down, little things. Easy things...”

“Like singing.”

“Music therapy is good, yes,” she said, relaxing for the first time since she’d seen him standing by the tree. “I’m not sure what’s causing Abe’s stress, but I think that if you gave me a little time, I might be able to figure it out.”

“You’re some kind of shrink, then?”

“Psychology classes were part of my degree, but no, I’m nowhere close to being a psychologist.”

Veering off the main path, he approached a classroom building, stopping at the foot of a wide staircase up to a row of doors. “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You want to hang out with us, give me some ideas, and that’s it?”

“That’s it.” She had no idea if that would be a good thing or bad thing as far as he was concerned.

“And Bonnie’s paying you for this?”

“She pays me to help her clients adapt to preschool and Abe’s stress is preventing that adaptation,” she said carefully. Money didn’t matter here. Abe did.

“Fine.”

It was Lillie’s turn to stare. “Fine?”

“Yes, fine.” That was it. Nothing more. Her heart rate sped up, anyway.

“Okay, then, I’ll call you tonight and we can discuss schedules. If that’s okay with you.”

“I can tell you right now. I’m working tomorrow until three and then Abe and I are going to go to the park and out for a hamburger before coming home to have a bath, read books and get ready for bed. And no, I don’t feed him fast food every night. Once a week for a special treat is it.”

The next day was Saturday. Traditionally a light day for her as only the emergency clinic was open in Shelter Valley after noon. “Unless I’m called in on a medical emergency, I can meet you at the park at four.”

“Fine.”

Wow. What had appeared to be a mountain she was going to have to scale had turned out to be a curb. “Fine,” she repeated, smiling, getting lost in his gaze when she should have just been getting lost. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” she said and, turning, hurried away from the strangest encounter she could ever remember having.

First rule of child life—the specialist did not become personally involved with the patient or the patient’s family. She was there to support. Not to experience.

The designation fit her life to a T.

CHAPTER FOUR

JON TOOK THE last half of his peanut butter sandwich in two bites. A machine had gone down that morning and he’d lost half an hour getting it back up again so the plant didn’t miss shipment. Every minute a line was down cost the company five hundred dollars in employee salaries that weren’t producing product.

The emergency put him behind on his regular Saturday maintenance work—checks and balances that had to be done on schedule to meet regulatory standards—and he couldn’t leave until he’d completed every one of them.

He never liked to be late picking up Abe, but today, with Lillie Henderson meeting them in the park only an hour after he clocked out, he couldn’t afford to be running behind schedule. How would that look? A dad who couldn’t even get to the day care to pick up his kid on time?

So, Jon was outside on the patio at the cactus jelly plant, standing with his foot on a boulder, gulping down a five-minute lunch, with plans to work through the rest of his scheduled break time.

“Hey, man, I heard you saved the day in there. Good work.” Jon’s lab partner, Mark Heber, leaned against the boulder next to his, facing the miles of desert and mountain behind them, pulling open a brown paper bag.

He shrugged. “It was a tension issue, mostly—stretched belt that caused a kink in the chain.” Mark, a shift supervisor, and three years his senior, would already have known that.

“Management’s pleased with your work,” Mark said. “I thought you should know.”

Nodding, Jon opened the cup of fruit he’d brought along, dumping half of it into his opened mouth. There was a spoon in the bag, but he wasn’t out to impress anyone at the plant. He was in a hurry.

“Addy and Nonnie are baking cookies today. You and Abe want to stop by later?”