Hot Water (4 page)

Forget being a whole other person. He’d entered a whole new world. A strange and wondrous one filled with mountains and trees and birds and animals and all sorts of adventures he’d only read about before coming to West Virginia.

He paused and leaned on his crutches, looking down the mountain. Not because he was tired. Oh no. He just liked the view. The big old white framed farmhouse with its wraparound porch—Flora called it a veranda—and red tin roof, faded from the sun. And the three people watching him from the back steps. Gram Flora, his great-grandmother, in her seventies and blind but still smarter than most people he knew. Jeremy, around his mom’s age, black, with a constant smile and an endless repertoire of bad puns.

And Ty Stillwater. His mom’s best friend growing up and now David’s. Ty had taken David all over these mountains this summer—it was the first time ever that David had tan lines.

A cloud shielded him from the sun for a moment, suddenly chilling him. He waved to the grownups and turned to resume his toil up the mountainside. When he thought about Ty and all the adventures they had this summer, he almost forgot about his dad dying.

Almost.

With a sigh, he heaved his foot forward, sweat puddling between his sock and plastic ankle-foot orthotic. He turned his face up toward the wishing stone and kept on going. Mom was going to be so surprised come Saturday.

He couldn’t wait.

FOUR

I left Elizabeth and Grandel discussing tactics and stumbled out to my bright blue Ford Escape hybrid, staggering under the weight of the reports and manuals and articles Grandel had provided. Not that I’d be reading them myself—ever since a car accident left me in a coma ten years ago, I’ve had a hard time reading. Wish I could also blame my impulsiveness, temper, and knack for leaping before looking on that as well, but I can’t.

David would be doing the reading for me—we made for a good team that way. He’d be way more interested in all this technical stuff than I’d ever be. All I wanted to know was how it impacted the people.

Grandel said my way of approaching things—from the effect back to the cause—was exactly the kind of “reverse social engineering” he’d been hoping for. I think he meant that as a compliment; he was smiling, but his smile was like the smile of an alligator or politician—you never knew if it meant they were happy or hungry.

I piled the stack of reading material into the back seat and then pulled away from Elizabeth’s house. Driving through downtown Scotia was the same summer or winter—empty houses, empty store fronts, empty parking spaces.

Empty hopes and dreams—that was Scotia.

The only new jobs the town had seen lately came from the demolition team tearing down the old school. Once that was done, it would be back to unemployment and welfare, a never-ending cycle that trapped so many in the valley.

Folks around here made do like they always did, with help of friends and family, helping out others when they could in turn. Government assistance would be taken grudgingly but also with a sense of entitlement, seeing as how so many generations of Scotia’s men had lived and died in the coal mines, providing energy to the rest of the country even as they were abandoned and forgotten by the outside world.

Ten thousand dollars was more cash than many of these families would see in a year—and Grandel tossed it at me like a bone for a clever dog that had just been taught a new trick.

I felt dirty taking the money, but when I thought about it, I wasn’t sure why. It was for David, not me. And Grandel had promised I’d be home in time for David’s birthday. So where was the problem?

The fact that I didn’t have an answer only made me feel worse. I left town and drove the three miles up the twisting mountain roads to Gram Flora’s farm. It wasn’t until I got out of the car and breathed in the vista unfolding below me that I was able to untwist the knots between my shoulders.

Flora’s farm—which included twenty acres of apple trees, her house, and the small summerhouse David and I lived in, as well as all the land to the top of Hightower Mountain—looked out over Scotia and the mountains surrounding it. It was a view that inspired and humbled.

Ahead of me stood fold upon fold of green. It was as if God had unfurled a roll of Astroturf that smelled of pine needles and crisp, clean sunshine.

It had taken me ten years of exile in D.C. before, faced with the prospect of being homeless, I’d returned to Scotia. I hadn’t come home for me. It was for David that I’d swallowed my pride and crawled back to the town that had kicked me to the curb ten years ago when I was alone and pregnant. To put a roof over his head.

With the move came unexpected complications—including my parents and David’s father, Cole, and
his
father, Kyle Masterson, who owned most of the land around here along with the coal beneath it.

Now Cole was gone, leaving me to navigate some pretty rough waters between all three of David’s grandparents without either David or me being caught in the rapids. Thank God for Gram Flora. She was an oasis of calm in the turmoil.

A Sheriff’s Department Tahoe was parked near the summerhouse. Ty Stillwater and Nikki were here. Finally a genuine smile warmed my face. I’m not sure I could have made it through the past few months without Ty’s help. He seemed to speak nine-year-old boy as effortlessly as he brought comfort to me without saying a word.

I handle the world by never stopping or slowing down long enough to let anything hit me. Guess I always figured I was a harder target if I just kept on moving. But even I couldn’t dodge the feelings brought on by Cole’s death or David’s almost being killed a few months ago. Ty taught me the value of sitting still long enough to simply feel . . . simply be.

Still smiling, I climbed the steps to Flora’s veranda. Voices filtered through the screen door and open windows—excited, happy, overlapping, swirling around me and inviting me inside to join my family.

The voices came from the large wide-open kitchen that took up the rear of the house. Jeremy mixed a pitcher of lemonade with mint leaves crushed into it while David, Ty, Flora, and Nikki sat waiting at the table. Nikki was between David and Ty, but relaxed, in her “off-duty” posture, her chin resting on Ty’s thigh, ears perked high as David scratched behind them.

When they saw me they all got sneaky looks on their faces—even Nikki. I plopped the stack of binders onto the stout table that could seat twelve hungry farmhands. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” David said. Quickly.

His face was flushed and his shirt stained with sweat. I had to restrain myself from checking for fever. Old habits. But he’d never been healthier. When I took him to his neurologist’s appointment at Children’s National last month, everyone had
oohed
and
aahed
at how much he’d grown and at his progress. Me? I was already missing my little boy, the one I could carry and cuddle, and wondering at this stranger with his independent streak and stubborn refusal to let me play Mom.

Guess it’s been coming a long time, but still.

“We were just talking about Saturday,” Flora said.

“How’s the planning coming?”

Flora had decided to take charge of David’s birthday celebration since she’d missed so many of his past birthdays, and she refused to let me help.

“Just fine. Nothing for you to worry about.” She waved a hand and sent an enigmatic smile in my direction.

Jeremy brought the lemonade to the table and began filling glasses. David fished an ice cube out of his, looked to Ty for permission, then tossed it to Nikki, who acted like it was the best invention since the can opener, skidding it between her paws and crunching it eagerly.

“What’s all this?” Ty read the cover from the top of my stack. “
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Report on Safety and Health Concerns at the US DOE Hanford Nuclear Facility.
”

David reached past him to grab the binder, almost knocking his lemonade over in his eagerness. “Hanford? I read about that place. They like poisoned five hundred square miles with plutonium. It’s where they made the fuel for the atomic bomb back in 1945.”

I sank into the empty chair beside Ty. “Good. Maybe you can explain all this to me.”

David kept leafing through the stack. “You have a report on Idaho Falls? The reactor that had a complete meltdown? A few people even died. I thought this was all classified, hush-hush. And the incident aftermath report on Japan’s Fukushima disaster—that was just released. Wow. Is this for a new job?” He rocked his chair. He loved getting involved with my work—took a proprietary interest in all my cases. “Cool. What’s it about?”

“A new kind of nuclear plant in South Carolina has had a few accidents. Nothing serious—in fact, the government investigated and commended them on their handling of everything.”

“So why do they need you?” Jeremy asked. “I thought you guys took on the big corporations, forced them to take responsibility when things go wrong. Sounds like these guys are already on top of things.”

“They are.” For the first time I felt good about working with Grandel. “At least according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy. But people in the community aren’t seeing it that way. They’re protesting the plant going into full production, and any further delay could actually cost lives.”

“Cost lives?” Ty looked up at that, his protective instincts on alert. Even off-duty, you could spot him as a lawman. The way his gaze never settled for long, the alert-yet-relaxed, ready for anything posture. I was never sure if he resembled Nikki in that or if she had learned it from him. Either way, they made for quite a team.

David, now devouring Grandel’s promo brochure, answered, “Colleton Landing is going to take over production of medical isotopes for the US? So we won’t have to get them all the way from Poland or Canada? That’s great.”

Gram Flora chimed in, “I read an article in the
New York Times
about people not able to get the care they need because there’s an isotope shortage. Seems like doctors use them for everything from seeing if you had a heart attack to treating cancer.”

We all stopped. Looked at Flora, then exchanged glances. One seventy-three-year-old blind woman and a nine-year-old kid, better informed than the rest of us adults.

“What?” Flora felt our scrutiny on her. “Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I don’t keep up.”

“Glad you guys approve, because there’s just one little hitch.”

“You have to go to South Carolina,” Ty guessed. Two steps ahead of everyone else, as usual. No wonder he and David got along so well.

“After my birthday,” David said, banging the front wheels of his chair on the floor—his personal exclamation point.

“No. They need me there now. Today. But,” I added when David opened his mouth to protest, “they promised to fly me back on Friday. So I’ll be here for your birthday.”

He and Flora assumed identical expressions of disapproval.

“I promise,” I said. That relaxed David. He knew I didn’t promise anything lightly and always came through.

Flora didn’t look so certain. “Can’t Elizabeth go? You could join her later.”

I couldn’t really tell her that Grandel was paying a boatload of money to have my boots on his ground solving his community relations problems. “Elizabeth isn’t experienced in this kind of thing.” Not like I was, either. Again that sinking feeling swamped me, like I was jumping in way over my head. “Are you guys okay helping out with David? Elizabeth is going to move into the summerhouse, but she’ll need backup.”

“Mom,” he protested. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Don’t even go there, David. It’s not up to you.”

His face twisted into a pout. “I can take care of myself. I don’t want a girl moving in, treating me like a baby.”

Girl?
Elizabeth was three years older than me. But I could tell from the flush that turned his ears pink that he was actually most embarrassed about that “girl” being Elizabeth—he’d had a bit of a crush on her ever since they met.

“Elizabeth won’t treat you like a baby. But it would make me feel better having someone here.”

“Maybe I could come with you?” he asked. “Colleton Landing isn’t far from the ocean. You’ve always said we’d get to the beach someday. For a real vacation.” Other than a few day trips to the Maryland beaches, David had never visited the ocean. “Plus, it’s near Savannah, it could be like, educational.” How well he knew my weak spot—always a little embarrassed about my lack of formal education, I’d stop at nothing to make sure David had every opportunity. Including taking a bribe from Grandel in the form of a ten thousand dollar bonus.

“David, I’ll be working all hours. And I have no idea what the living accommodations are like.”

“So I’m stuck here because I’m a cripple.”

I blew my breath out, trying to control my response. I’d raised David to not think of himself as handicapped and to never use it as an excuse. Not sure if it was the whole preadolescent hormonal thing or just because of all the changes he’d been through, but lately he’d been testing me, flinging his disability in my face when he didn’t get what he wanted.