The Last Bridge Home. Linda Goodnight
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did that dipping thing, like the time he’d fallen down a flight of stairs into the belly of the beast, a roaring fire. This could not be who he thought it was.
“Yeah, I’m Zak. Who’s asking?” And why don’t you have those kids in child restraints?
As he started around the car ready to give his fireman lecture, the woman met him at the headlights. “Remember me? Crystal?”
So it was her. She looked different—older, harder and more desperate, if there was such a thing—but here she was. His most humiliating moment.
Suddenly, the subject of car seats was not paramount.
Before he could open his mouth to ask why she’d come for this unexpected visit, she took two steps in his direction and crumpled like a wet paper sack.
With driveway concrete looming up fast, Zak’s paramedic training kicked in. He lurched forward to stop her fall but missed. She collapsed against his bare knees and slid down to the top of his Converse All Star slip-ons. Gently, he eased to a squat and turned her over, going through the ABC protocol. Airway, breathing, circulation.
“Crystal. Crystal, can you hear me?” he asked, his hands and eyes assessing. Pale and gray, she looked like warmed-over death. A cloud passed between him and the sun. He shuddered, vaguely aware of car doors opening and people moving around him.
A small voice said, “Mama’s dead.”
The statement yanked Zak’s attention from Crystal to a thin-faced boy. Maybe eight or ten, he stood solemnly, almost passively in front of Zak, staring down at his mother.
“No,” Zak reassured. “She fainted. She’ll be fine.”
“Nu-uh,” the boy insisted in that same tired, matter-of-fact voice. “She has cancer.”
The word slammed into Zak’s head as all the tumblers rolled into place. Crystal’s ghastly gray color, her skeletal body, the ultrashort, curly hair all pointed to someone who’d spent recent time on chemo. Lots of chemo.
Another boy, this one a few years younger, started to howl. Weirdly, not one of the three kids standing in a semicircle touched the woman lying on the concrete. The third, a tiny blonde girl with wispy ponytails, stared with undisguised interest at Zak.
By now, Jilly had arrived, panting and breathless. “What happened?”
“She passed out.”
“I saw that much.” She leaned forward, hands on her knees to stare at his patient. “Should I call 9-1-1? Anything?”
“I am 9-1-1. Give me another second.” He hitched a chin toward the kids. The yowler had escalated to something just short of siren velocity while the little girl had wandered off toward the street. “The kids.”
“Oh, sure.” Good old Jilly herded the toddler back to the fold. With one hand on the little one’s arm, she hunkered beside the yowler and stroked his back. “It’s okay. She’ll be okay. Zak’s a fireman. He’ll take care of her.”
The yowler wasn’t impressed. The older boy was. His flat expression livened up a tad. “A real fireman?”
“Real deal,” Jilly said. “He rides in a fire truck and everything.”
Too concerned about his patient to bask in firefighter adoration from a grade-schooler, Zak checked Crystal’s pulse again. Her eyelids fluttered. “She’s coming around.”
With a moan, Crystal opened her eyes and blinked blankly at her surroundings. She licked dry lips and managed a whisper. “What happened?”
“You passed out.”
As she struggled to sit up, Zak offered his strength. At six feet three and one-eighty-five, he could have shot-put Crystal across the street. Careful lest he break her matchstick arms, he assisted her to her feet. She was light. Scary light.
“We should get you to the hospital.”
She made a face. “Absolutely not. I’ve had my fill of those.”
He turned her loose. She wobbled. He reached for her again. “Hey.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, and I’m a unicorn.”
She rubbed a shaky hand over her forehead. The three children, all corralled by Jilly, stared up at their mother. The yowler had stopped crying and was now sucking his thumb. The little girl had a very baggy diaper.
“Bella’s wet,” the oldest boy said, a hint of annoyed resignation in his voice as he headed toward the beat-up car. The passenger door opened with a groan and Mr. Serious dragged out a diaper bag, scraping it across the concrete as though it weighed a ton.
Zak’s head buzzed on overload. What was Crystal doing here in his driveway after all these years? How had she found him? And why? She was sick, obviously, but what did that have to do with him? Now that she’d fainted in his front yard, what was he supposed to do with her? He couldn’t stick her back under the steering wheel and send her out into traffic in this condition with a carload of kids. And no safety seats.
The older boy tugged on Crystal’s hand while studying Zak with suspicious brown eyes. “Is this him, Mama?”
“Yes, Brandon. That’s him.”
Him what? Zak wondered, but his conscience kicked in. The woman, regardless of who she was, was sick and weak and shaking like one of Jilly’s rat terriers at bath time.
“Come in the house for a minute,” he offered. “I’ll get you something to drink while you get your bearings.”
He wasn’t sure what else to do. Obviously, Crystal hadn’t tracked him down to faint in his driveway and then go merrily on her way. But what she wanted remained a complete mystery—and from his experience, Crystal always wanted something. That’s what had gotten him into trouble before.
With one hand on the wobbly woman’s arm, Zak led the way into his house. His home was one of the modern few in Redemption, Oklahoma, a small historic town populated with big, beautiful turn-of-the-century Victorians and pretty little cottages. Today, he especially appreciated the lack of tall steps.
Once inside his spacious, slightly cluttered, ultra-male living room, the three children flocked around the mother like chicks around a hen.
“Mama, you want me to change Bella?” Mr. Serious asked, still toting the diaper bag.
“Yes, Brandon.” Crystal took the little girl by the arm and pushed her toward Brandon. “Go over there in the corner, Bella. Brandon will change you.”
Zak felt sorry for the boy, but it wasn’t his place to interfere. “Can I get you some water or a Pepsi or something?”
She shook her head. “Nothing for me. The kids are probably starving.”
Crystal was still Crystal. Needy and unembarrassed to ask. “I’ve got baloney and wieners.” What could she expect? He was a guy. Sandwiches and ’dogs were his mainstay. “Will they eat that?”
“Anything.”
Jilly, who’d helped herd the children inside, spoke up. “I can make sandwiches, Zak.”
Thank goodness for Jilly. He was a little rattled at the moment. “Thanks.”
Jilly disappeared into his kitchen, knowing her way around from the many times they’d hung out. She was a pal like no other. And she made sandwiches and herded unfamiliar rug rats. Great neighbor.
“What’s this little dude’s name?” he asked, chin hitched toward the yowler with a thumb in his face. The boy looked a little old for thumb-sucking.
“This is Jake. He’s almost seven. That’s Brandon. He’s nine. And Bella. She’s three.”
“Cute kids,” he said politely although