ONE SMALL VICTORY Read Free Page A

knocking
on the door.

    “Mom?” Scott’s voice called from the hallway.
“Can I come in?”

    Jenny took a deep breath, then rose and
opened the door.

    “I was wondering...uh,” Scott’s eyes had
difficulty resting on hers. “Has Dad called back yet?”

    She shook her head.

    “Well, uh...do you want me to call him?”

    Again, she shook her head. “It’s something I
should do. I’ll try again as soon as I’m finished here.”

    Scott hesitated a moment more, then backed
out of the doorway. Jenny quickly closed the door. Better that he
not see the flush of anger that warmed her cheeks. She’d tried to
call Ralph last night, sometime during those hours of agony between
leaving the hospital and finally collapsing for a brief period of
fitful sleep, but there’d been no answer.

    Last night she’d been too numb to care. It
was just so typical. He had never been there for her or the kids.
Not while they were married, and not in the years since he’d left.
Most of the time she just accepted it and tried to ease the
disappointment for the kids as much as possible, but even though
little was said, the message was clear. Ralph wasn’t involved with
the kids. Not like a father should be.

    His excuse for missing Michael’s first
football game had been a project for work. The excuses were always
something to do with work. He justified his decisions with the
standard, “This is what the man does. He provides for the family.”
But she’d always sensed that he welcomed the excuse for not being
there because even when he was home, he really wasn’t.

    And Jenny often wondered why it had taken her
so long to see that. It wasn’t until after Alicia was born that she
faced it square. After she’d been home for a week with their baby
she had to ask him if he wanted to hold his daughter.

    So it wasn’t such a big shock to either of
them when their marriage ended in divorce court. It was
particularly painful for the kids for the first year, but life
became easier after he moved to California. Then she didn’t have to
deal with the shattered hopes that this year he would show up for a
birthday, or Christmas, or just because he missed seeing the kids.
Distance became an acceptable excuse for his absence because the
truth was too harsh to face.

    But the truth was like a kick in the gut this
morning.

    “You stupid, sorry, son of a bitch,” Jenny
said, running a brush through her dark hair with quick, angry
strokes. “Why should I care how you find out? I should just clip
the obituary and send it to you.”

    It gave her a perverse rush of pleasure to
consider doing that, but she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Out of respect
for the fact that he was Michael’s father, she would call
again.

    Jenny crossed the room and picked up the
phone on her bedside table. Still no answer after ten rings, and
she started to worry. Maybe it wasn’t even his number anymore. He
had a penchant for moving and not getting around to giving them the
new number for weeks. She could try him at work later, but she
wasn’t even sure that number was current.

    Longevity, either professional or personal,
was never one of his strong suits.

    She slammed the phone down. “Couldn’t you be
there for me? Just once?”

    CHAPTER TWO

    Lieutenant Steve Morrity pulled the report
from his printer, the force of his anger almost causing it to rip.
The emotion was a holdover from last night when he’d been called to
an accident scene after drugs had been found. Two young men. Kids
really. One dead and the other barely hanging on. When was the
nightmare ever going to end?

    “You talked to the parents yet?”

    The question belonged to Linda Winfield who
stood in the open doorway of Steve’s office. He was always
surprised at how unlike a cop she looked. Tall and lithe, with a
face that could have been carved out of fine porcelain, she should
have been a model or an actress.

    Today, that perfection was ravaged.

    The residual effects last night’s