Lauren halted without crossing the threshold into the living room. Ethan was on one knee, leaning in toward Nicole, who had one hand on his shoulder. It didn’t seem like the kind of moment she should interrupt, but neither did it seem like the kind she should spectate.
Lauren cleared her throat.
The pair looked up.
“Grilled cheese and fruit all right for lunch?” Lauren said.
Ethan stood up. “I’ll cook.”
Nicole laughed. She sounded nervous to Lauren.
“Nicole, how about some ice?” Lauren said.
“And a pain pill,” Ethan added.
“Yes to ice, no to pain pill.” Nicole started to push the chair toward the recliner.
Ethan put a hand on her leg. “I’ll drive.”
Nicole picked up her good foot, and Ethan rolled her back to where she belonged and helped her move between the chairs. Lauren went into the kitchen and started a gas burner under a frying pan.
An hour later, Nicole dozed off in the recliner with her foot elevated. It had taken all the time Lauren spent eating her sandwich, but Ethan convinced Nicole to take a pill and rest. When Lauren left in the morning, she had planned to meet with Pastor Matt, cancel the health fair, and come home to look after Nicole. Instead, she had walked miles around town already and now had a clipboard full of details to check on before the day was over.
“She needs you.” Lauren said.
“I’ll stay with her this afternoon,” Ethan said. “I know you have things to do.”
“I appreciate it, but that’s not what I meant.” Lauren saw the way the two of them looked at each other over cheese sandwiches and apple slices.
Ethan leaned against the refrigerator and looked across the apartment at Nicole in the chair. “How much time do you need this afternoon?”
“I just need to see a couple of people. Then I’ll do what I can by phone from here.”
“Take your time. I’ll keep the rebel forces under control.”
Nicole shifted in her chair. “I heard that.”
Lauren went down the stairs and out the back way, where she kept her bicycle tied to a pipe at the rear of the building. She pedaled down the alley, onto Main Street, and on out to the highway. If she hadn’t felt pressed for time, Lauren gladly would have walked, but today the bike would save her time reaching the community center. Hopefully someone there would know what they had arranged with Quinn, but in Lauren’s experience the phone went unanswered much of the time, instead giving callers automated options. This wasn’t a day when Lauren wanted to leave messages. She needed solid information. Lauren leaned her bike against the side of the building, straightened the cross-body bag that held her clipboard along with the usual items, and entered the building.
No one was at the reception desk. The phone rang as Lauren walked past. The exercise room had an aerobics class going, but Lauren recognized the instructor and knew she only came in a couple of hours a week. In search of the full-time director, Lauren strode down the hall. Outside the director’s office, five plastic chairs strewed the corridor. On one of them, a small boy sat swinging his feet and banging the legs intermittently.
Lauren slowed. The child didn’t look older than five, and Lauren had never seen such a somber face on a little one. When he saw her, he stilled his feet. The director’s door was closed. Lauren raised her hand to knock.
“My mom is in there.”
His voice barely rose to an audible pitch. He needed a haircut, and his T-shirt was the thinnest Lauren had ever seen.
“Has your mom been in there a long time?” Lauren asked.
His eyes lifted to a large clock on the wall. “I don’t know how to tell time.”
Lauren sat next to the boy. “Does it seem like you’ve been waiting a long time?”
He shrugged.
Lauren watched the second hand sweep around several times. She removed the clipboard from her bag and pulled out a pen. There must be something she could do now that would be more productive than waiting. Lauren took out her phone. She could at least call the rental company about the tables and chairs. Beside her, the little boy folded his hands in his lap and hung his head.
The owner of the rental store answered the phone himself. Within a few minutes, Lauren had notes on the tables and chairs, as well as the helium tank for the balloons. She hadn’t thought about that. On a fresh page on her clipboard, she started a list of items to purchase before Saturday: helium balloons, face-paint kits, sidewalk chalk, paper goods. No doubt she would think of fifty other things before Saturday. Lauren glanced up at the director’s door, still closed.
The child next to her was statue still.
“I’m Lauren,” she said. “What’s your name?”
He didn’t answer—didn’t even turn his head.
She tapped his knee. Finally he looked up at her with eyes of dark wavy pools.
“If we’re going to wait together, we might as well get to know each other.” If he was five years old, he was a small five. Lauren was surprised his mother would have left him in the hall alone. “Maybe I can guess your name. Shall I try?”
He twisted his lips and looked away.
“Let me see. Maybe your name is Aladdin?”
He shook his head.
“How about Methuselah?”
Confusion ran through his eyes. “That’s not a real name.”
“Well, it is, but I can see why a little boy wouldn’t want that name,” Lauren said. “Something simpler, then. John. Is your name John?”
He rubbed one eye.
The director’s office door opened.
“Christopher, have you been good?” A young woman knelt in front of the boy and looked at Lauren. “I hope he wasn’t bothering you.”
“I would say it was the other way around,” Lauren said. Christopher was a quiet child. He didn’t smile much, either. Lauren met the weary eyes of his mother.
“I’m sorry if I took a long time in there. I just. . .had a lot of questions.” The young woman, who Lauren was sure was a good four years younger than she was, took Christopher’s hand. “Come on, sweetie. Mommy needs to see someone else.”
He stood up and tolerated his mother’s motions to straighten his shirt. Lauren winked at him and then looked at the clock and at the clipboard in her lap, making sure she had the correct page of notes before knocking on the director’s door. She approached the door and raised her hand.
The sound of the young mother’s shuffle tugged on Lauren’s gaze, but the clipboard weighed heavy in her grip and the health fair heavy in her mind. She blinked and turned back to the director’s office, but her knuckles refused to make contact with the door. Lauren looked again at the mother whose shoulders drooped as she stroked the back of her son’s head.
“I’m Lauren.” She stepped down the hall.
“Excuse me?” The woman stopped walking and turned.
“I’m Lauren, and I have a feeling you could use a friend right now.” The sensation had started the moment Lauren saw Christopher, and Lauren was glad to speak it aloud.
The woman’s face blanched and her eyes reddened. “I’m Molly. And you’re right.”
Lauren jammed the clipboard into her cross-body bag. “Do you mind if I ask what you need to go see someone else about?”
“Gas. For starters.”
Lauren paced toward Molly, who picked up her son. “And what else?”
Molly moistened her lips. “Groceries. Someone told me there was a food pantry here, but I guess they were confused.”
“I can help you.” Lauren couldn’t believe she’d almost ignored her instincts about this mother and child because details of the health fair overwhelmed her. She reached into her bag for an item she always carried on behalf of the church. “Could you use a gift card for the gas station down the road?”
Molly’s eyes widened.
“Please,” Lauren said. “Take it. I don’t have a car, but if you don’t mind an extra passenger, I can open the food pantry at the church where I work.”
“You work at a church?”
“I do.” Lauren tilted her head back toward the director’s office. “If you’d like, we can go back and talk to Mrs. Hubbard. She’ll vouch for me.”
Molly kissed Christopher’s face. “You know what? I trust you.”
Christopher raised his head off his mother’s shoulder. “My daddy went away. He doesn’t love us anymore.”
Lauren’s stomach churned. No child should ever have to say those words.
“It’s complicated,” Molly said quickly. “We married young and had Christopher. Then we had a baby girl, but she was sick.”
“My sister died.”
Lauren was stunned at the flat tone in Christopher’s voice. Did he understand death? The permanence of it?
Molly put a finger over Christopher’s lips. “We couldn’t keep up with the medical bills. . .or the funeral. My husband said he needed a break. But it’s been over a year. He’s not coming back, and I don’t believe in lying to my son.”
Lauren doubted she would be as brave under similar circumstances.
“You don’t have to explain,” she said. “Let’s just get you the help you need.”
“Thank you.”
“Could Christopher use a new winter coat? I have one I think would fit him perfectly.” Lauren saw no reason why the boy should wait until Saturday for the jacket he was meant to have.