Love Is More Than Skin Deep (A Hidden Hearts Novel Book 4) (5 page)

I blush as I admit, “Would you believe that the little impromptu celebration at Ink’d Deep was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a party?”

Mark’s eyebrows raise in surprise as he asks, “Really? You didn’t even have parties as a kid? Everybody has parties as a kid — not even Chuck E. Cheese?”

I shake my head as I answer, “No, my parents had some rather unconventional beliefs. At first, I think it was just a matter of poverty, but then, as their belief-paradigm began to shift, more and more things that you’d normally associate with childhood began to fall away.”

“What do you mean?” Mark asks, moving the car forward a few feet before he has to stop again.

“I have vague memories of starting out in a pretty normal house, but it didn’t stay that way for long,” I start to explain. “I know we used to walk my big sister to school when my mom was pregnant with my little brother. I remember running home from school and my mom trying to cover her head with newspaper.”

“It’s funny what we remember from our childhood, isn’t it?” Mark remarks.

I nod as I continue my story, “Then something happened and my dad stopped working. He bought an old school bus and we started moving from town to town in the bus. My dad was a pretty good handyman and he used to get jobs here and there helping to remodel people’s homes. Something occurred during Owen’s birth and he seemed to struggle from the start.”

“Wow, that must’ve been tough,” Mark comments with sympathy in his voice.

“I was pretty little, I didn’t know what was happening, really. I just knew that Owen was more like one of my play dolls than a real baby. In the beginning, he didn’t even cry much. Suddenly, my parents went on this epic quest to fix Owen. My dad stopped working altogether and we just traveled from church to church looking for prayer services and revival meetings. Sometimes my sister Savannah and I would have to walk around the town asking people for things to eat. Of course, back then I was so little I thought it was like a game of hide and seek. I wasn’t old enough to understand the social implications of what I was doing, but Savannah—she’s five years older than I am—understood that we were basically panhandling and she was never okay with that.”

“Where is your family now?” Mark inquires as we pull up into the parking garage.

“I honestly don’t know. I haven’t heard from my parents in years, and it seems like my sister dropped off the face of the planet.” My voice drops to a whisper as I add, “Owen is buried somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia. They just left him far behind because we didn’t have a permanent home.”

“What you mean? You just graduated from college —weren’t they there? Shelby, what happened to your brother?”

I look around at our surroundings and calculate the amount of time we have until we reach the door. There really is no way to put my life story into a nutshell, but the look of intense curiosity on Mark’s face tells me that he’s not going to let this go anytime soon.
 

“You’ve probably seen people like this on the news—you may have even seen my parents—I don’t know. A lot of people don’t even remember how crazy it was back during Y2K, but my parents went absolutely nuts. I told you that they were going from place to place trying to find someone to fix Owen. Eventually they settled for this charismatic preacher— a cult leader, really— named Josiah Frachett. He was exotic with a foreign accent. He could speak several languages — or at least pretend to with enough bravado that everyone believed him. He was suave and debonair and he could recite the Bible with astounding ease; he made it sound like lines of poetry.”
 

“Your parents didn’t know about Jim Jones or Heaven’s Gate?” Mark asks incredulously.

“I honestly don't know what they knew back then. Reverend Josiah kept members of the congregation from talking to outsiders and sometimes each other. The longer my family followed The Righteous Universe Calling, the more bizarre the ministry became. He taught them to be afraid of all books, magazines and television — especially the news. All medical intervention from the outside was forbidden because Reverend Josiah began teaching that the world was going to end in the year 2000 and that in the kingdom of God, He would want our bodies unsullied by the hands of mankind.”

Mark visibly winces as he softly inquires, “Your brother?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Savannah had the most responsibility for him, but he was always pretty weak. It could’ve been a seizure, an allergic reaction or maybe even an infection. I think that if we had gotten him some proper medical help, he would have lived. Anyway, it was the beginning of the end of our family. After Owen died, my family could no longer hide from the authorities and they came in and took me away. Apparently, Savannah was old enough to make her own decision. To this day, I don’t know what that decision was. My parents elected to stay with the Righteous Universe Calling. I wasn't even allowed to go to Owen’s funeral. Suddenly, I was alone in the world.”

Mark shakes his head in disbelief as he comments, “That’s terrible. No child should be left alone in the world because of a parent’s poor decisions. I’m sorry you lost your brother; that must’ve been awful.”

“It was really hard on Savannah and me. My parents had pretty much left the raising of Owen up to us after they got involved with Reverend Josiah. We felt really guilty that he died, but we didn’t have the tools to save him because we weren’t going to school and didn’t have any access to the information we needed to keep him safe.”

“I’m surprised that your parents weren’t criminally charged for negligent manslaughter in the death of your brother,” Mark declares angrily.

“Perhaps with today’s social media, more would’ve been done, but you have to remember this happened sixteen years ago. There just wasn’t the public pressure to pursue it. The authorities chalked it up to a religious decision and once they decided I was safe and my sister was old enough to fend for herself there was no motivation to take things further. After my parents disappeared back into the streets with Reverend Josiah — they just let the matter drop,” I explain with a shrug.

“Aren’t you angry that there was no justice for your brother? That just doesn’t seem fair,” Mark argues. As I watched the passion flare in his eyes, I can see why he’s probably such an effective attorney. I can almost see legal arguments forming in his mind as he asks me questions. It’s fascinating to see how quickly he’s jumped to my defense.

I sigh as I admit, “I’m finding very little seems fair in my life.”

When we finally made it to the hospital and Mark stops to wait for the gate to go up at the parking lot. He pulls his sporty little car into a spot and throws it into Park. He walks around the car and opens the door for me. When someone’s car alarm goes off in the parking garage and scares me, he puts his arm around my shoulder and soothes, “
Immokalee
, easy I’ve got you. It was just a really loud car horn.”

Given my notorious love of freedom, his arm should feel more like a trap and less like a warm embrace. Yet, as I snuggle closer to his side, I’m in no hurry to leave the cocoon of his rock-solid presence.

I PLAYED A LITTLE FOOTBALL in high school. As an attorney and a single dad, I consider myself to be pretty tough, but after that visit with the plastic surgeon, I realize I’ve got no idea what it means to be tough. I can’t even fathom the idea that Shelby was planning to do this by herself. Had the medical office not put the brakes on her plan, she was planning to drive herself to her appointment — or more precisely, she was planning to ride a bicycle. As I watch her restlessly sleeping in the passenger seat, I am glad I was my usual insistent self. Sometimes, pushy works.

I’d like her to see a different specialist. I am not thrilled with the bedside manner of this particular doctor. She seemed to gloss over Shelby’s questions and went forward with her plan of action despite the fact that Shelby still had doubts. Before Shelby could even process what was being said, this doctor already had the laser out and was removing layers of skin and announcing plans for other areas that needed to be treated. She did this with a stunning level of casualness as if she was telling Shelby that she needed to buy potato chips and milk. Without pattern or explanation she scraped some areas, other areas she froze, while she zapped others with a laser tool. All the while talking with great glee about the one spot on Shelby’s back that she would have to basically excavate as if it was some road construction project.
 

Rather than take the time to reassure Shelby and explain the surgery’s benefits, she was talking about how fun it would be for her to have to restructure her skin flap from another part of Shelby’s leg. She took no time to explain why some of Shelby’s cancer was more serious than others or how she made the call between one form of treatment and another. Before it was all said and done, I had lost track of the number of places that this so-called specialist cut, froze or burned on Shelby’s skin. She was talking so quickly that even I lost track of all that was happening. By the end, Shelby was woozy and nauseous. She was shaking from head to toe and her teeth were chattering so hard that she was unable to speak. I had to borrow a wheelchair to escort her out to my car. If I had known this visit was going to be so intrusive, I would have helped her make arrangements to be treated at a proper surgical center instead of a doctor’s office.
 

Shelby whimpers in pain and shifts in her seat. The blanket I threw over her slides down. I pull it back up over her shoulder. For once, I am grateful for the amount of preparation that my life requires me to have. I have at least two blankets with me at all times and often times that number is much higher. At the doctor’s insistence, Shelby is staying the night in my guest room. It’s one of the few things the doctor suggested that I could actually support.

As I'm driving home, I’m trying to remember the state of the spare room. The last time I checked it, Ketki was using it to house her extensive feather and pebble collection. She had the whole bed covered with feathers — arranged by size and color matched with a corresponding pebble whose criteria only makes sense to her. She is meticulous and obsessive about her collection. She tends to move it around though, so hopefully it has changed location since the last time I saw it. Fortunately, my sister, Leotie, is watching Ketki at the moment, so at least that’s one less worry.

Worried. That seems to be my perpetual state of being since this beautiful sprite wandered into my life. I can’t seem to help myself. When I’m with her, I worry about what kind of impression I’m making with her and if I’m being helpful enough or if I’m being overbearing. If I’m not with Shelby, I wonder if she’s happy, lonely or stressed. At what point in my life did I become such a sentimental sap?

I pull the car into the carport, taking care to avoid Ketki’s bike. Sometimes, I think she purposefully leaves it out for me to run over. I just shake my head and laugh at the thought. My girl is not big on fresh air and exercise. She would much rather play computer games and read obscure library books about archaic topics. The car slows to a stop and Shelby moans as the seatbelt rubs against one of the bandages on her collarbone. She’s curled into a tight ball like a pill bug. That’s no easy feat in my small bucket seats.

I reach out to gently stroke her cheek in an effort to wake her up, but she doesn’t stir. When I call her name I can see her eyelashes flicker briefly, but her eyes do not open. It’s getting humid in my car, so I make the decision to just carry her inside. As I walk around the car and scoop her up in my arms, she strains to position her cheek more comfortably on my chest. The first thing I noticed is how comfortably Shelby fits in my arms. She settles closer and lets out a small sigh. I weave my way through the house, leaving as many lights off as possible so that I don’t disturb Shelby. When I check the guest room, I am dismayed to discover that Ketki has completely taken it over with her display of found objects. Quickly reversing course, I move Shelby to the master bedroom and place her in the middle of my bed. I guess it was a lucky break that Ketki spilled her chocolate milk on my bed this morning and I changed all of my sheets and blankets. I’ll just make up the guest room for myself.
 

After I get Shelby suitably tucked in and propped up with pillows, I set out to clear out the guest room by placing all of Ketki’s treasures on a piece of presentation board that I had left over from my last trial. If I had been thinking ahead, I would’ve provided this to her before so that her display could have been portable to start with. I use the Post-it note glue that I use to make temporary traditional, old-school courtroom displays. Most of the stuff I do in court is done on computer. Every now and then, I have physical demonstrations that I need to be able to manipulate. This temporary glue is handy for that and it’s handy for Ketki’s many collections.
 

I’m trying to have precision that matches up to my daughter’s exacting standards as I transfer her precious objects to the new surface. She knows each and every feather and stone by heart — if I disturb the order of things, she will be devastated. Just as I’m about to position the last row of feathers on the board, I lean too hard on the bed and the pebbles roll toward the middle of the bed. The bottom drops out of my stomach. Ketki has an intricate sorting system for her pebbles. They all appear pretty similar to me; but to her, they match specific feathers. I don’t know that I’m going to be able to put it back together correctly.