Chance Taken

“Chance, that was rude,” I tell him as I stride over to them. “This lady is probably here to see me.”

Neither of them seem to have heard me.

“What is it, Mom?” he asks again.

Mom?

The earth beneath my feet suddenly doesn’t seem to be spinning right again.

“Everything is fine for now,” she tells him. “But you might want to go to the hospital.”

The look on Chance’s face is one of frozen dread. He also looks about ten years younger all of a sudden, as young as he did in that photo he showed me this morning.

The lady turns to me, and smiles. “I’m Kim, Chance’s mom. I hope you don’t mind if he leaves a little early today. He’s still not fully recovered from his accident.”

I almost stupidly ask what accident, but catch myself just in time to say, “Yes, of course I don’t mind. It’s very nice to meet you.”

She smiles vaguely and says it back, but it’s mostly drowned out by Chance’s bike roaring to life right before he peels out of the parking lot.

I wasn’t just saying that to be nice. I meant it completely, because I recognize her now. She’s a famous journalist whose articles and documentaries cracked not one, but three sex-trafficking rings on the West Coast and even more nationwide. To say she’s a hero of mine would be an understatement of the century.

There are so many things I want to ask her, but it’s clearly not going to happen today, because she’s already said goodbye to me and is walking to a white SUV parked a few feet away.

She is Chance’s mom? And he’s serving a sentence for taking part in a child abduction plot? How does that even work?