City of Champions
CITY OF CHAMPIONS
A GATEWAY TO LOVE NOVEL
CHLOE T. BARLOW
Table of Contents
Sneak Peek of Book 3: A Steel Town
Dedication and Acknowledgements
PROLOGUE
"Baby girl."
"Yes, Daddy?" Jenna asked, looking up at her father's face. She forced herself to smile at him as big as she could — a grin so wide it made her ears hurt.
She knew he was sad — had been for a long time now. Her biggest smile always made him happier. Yet it didn't work this time. He didn't pick her up and swing her around. He didn't tell her he loved her.
No — instead, he put his hand out to her and said, "I need you to come with me."
There were tears in his light blue eyes. That was the only feature they clearly shared, because every other part of her was all her momma's.
"Why, Daddy?"
He paused and swallowed roughly and Jenna swung her legs underneath her chair as the rush of fear hit her.
"Because, it's time to say good-bye."
His hand hovered near hers, waiting for her to take it. She loved holding her daddy's hand, it was always so big and rough, just like the footballs that were scattered everywhere around their yard at home. Yet, as much as she wanted to reach for him, Jenna didn't budge.
She felt her smile curl into itself, twisting into a nasty frown. Her stomach turned over so many times she thought she may get sick, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't find her words.
"Jenna?"
"I don't want to, Daddy," she finally whispered, looking down at her lap.
He crouched down in front of her and stroked her hair with one hand, while the other rested on his knee, clutched into a tight ball.
"I know," he said to her softly, his voice cracking around the words.
Jenna kept looking down, focusing on the gray linoleum floor beneath them. Maybe if she never looked up again she wouldn't have to stand up and say good-bye. Maybe everything would go back to the way it had been before.
She swallowed around the fist squeezing at her throat and picked at the golden hair of the dolly her mother had given her on her birthday the last spring. That had been right before she'd gotten so tired all the time — back when everyone was still happy and Jenna got to be at home with both her momma and daddy every day.
But then her momma started to feel really poorly until she couldn't get out of bed at all. The days became a blur of doctor visits and grown-ups talking in hushed, worried tones.
One person after another would stop by the house with a casserole or fried chicken. Sometimes they had a new toy for Jenna, but she never wanted to play with them. She would rather sit in the corner quietly holding her dolly until everyone went away again.
Momma and Daddy had just looked so scared all the time, and people kept coming by with sad words and tears. Then one day Daddy had said they all needed to go to Atlanta to be with Grandma, so Momma could go to the big hospital for a long time.
It was almost Christmas and her mother was worse than she'd ever been. Daddy said Momma had gotten a bug. It had made her really sick because she was so weak already. Jenna was starting to get worried they'd never get to go back home.
"Daddy, I want to stay here," Jenna said. She thought maybe if she could hold onto the perfect little doll from her mother and never look up, then maybe the bad dream would end and everything would be better.
It seemed like their whole world had been bad since Momma had gotten sick. Even though Jenna was still little, she understood life might never be okay for them — not ever again.
"Jenna," her father whispered again, sliding his hand to her chin and tilting Jenna's face up to look into his eyes, "we need to go."
"No, Daddy, I won't do it," she said, shaking her face out of his hand.
"Baby girl, please," he pleaded gently, smoothing out the skirt of her brand-new fancy, crinkly dress that Grandma had made her wear.
She just kept whispering, "No, Daddy, no, Daddy," over and over again, as the perfectly curled ringlets her grandma had painstakingly forced her hair into were hitting her wet cheeks with each increasingly violent turn of her head. The stiff lace of the dress — along with the multiple
Band-Aids
Grandma had used to cover Jenna's always-skinned knees — made sitting in her plastic chair uncomfortable. Even so, Jenna wouldn't move from her seat.
She knew her grandma could hear her — almost feeling the heat of her disapproving glare through the back of her head — and it made Jenna nervous for a moment.
Grandma probably thought she was being rude enough to warrant a switch across her rear end. Even though she'd never actually followed through on this repeated threat, the words always made Jenna behave, just the same. Even so, no matter how scared that woman made her, she couldn't get up — her body was glued to its spot.
All she could do was look down again and whisper, "I don't want to say good-bye, Daddy. I'm not ready."
She wanted to stay seated in an ugly chair in that enormous Atlanta hospital with her favorite dolly. If she were just patient enough, Momma would get better. Then they would all go home and they could spend Christmas together. As long as they didn't give up, then they wouldn't
ever
have to say good-bye to her.
Jenna felt her father's large, warm hands wipe away the hot tears that wouldn't stop streaming from her eyes, until he finally turned up her face to make her look at him again.
"I don't want to say good-bye, either, baby girl, but your momma asked us to, and you know I can't ever say no to her. Will you please come with me so I can be strong enough to do it? I need you to be there with me, Jenna."
"You do?" she asked through sniffles, confusion filling her brain. "But you don't need anyone, Daddy."
"Everybody needs someone, baby girl, and your mother and I need you."
She looked up into her daddy's watery blue eyes and felt her spine stiffen. Wiping the backs of her hands roughly across her tearstained cheeks, she breathed deeply and slid from her chair. She stood to her fullest height — already impressive for a girl that was only six-years-old — and held her head up proudly.
Jenna knew she could be a big girl — if even for just a couple of hours.
Her father put out his hand to her again, and this time, she slid her much smaller one into his.
"I'll help you, Daddy."
"Of course you will, baby girl. I knew you would."
They began walking together, but Jenna stopped short and turned to Auntie Cheryl, her mother's best friend. Even though she wasn't a blood relative, to Jenna she'd always been family. She looked so sad, too, with tears streaming down her pretty, dark cocoa skin as she leaned against the wall, watching them.
Jenna wanted so badly to make her feel better, but her hands were full. She looked down at her pretty, blonde dolly, with its soft smile and happy face. As much as she wanted to hold her little doll, she knew there was no time for playing anymore, not with so much else for her to do. So Jenna placed her doll down on her now empty seat and held her hand up to Cheryl, so they could see her mother together.
"Auntie Cheryl, will you please come with us, too?"
"Are you sure, honey?"
"Mm-hmm. Momma needs you. We need you, too. Don't we, Daddy?"
"We sure do."
Jenna didn't move her hand until Cheryl took it into hers and held it tightly.
"So now we go and say good-bye?" Jenna asked Cheryl softly. Cheryl nodded, choking back a harsh cry.
"That's right, honey, you know your momma hates to wait, right?" Cheryl asked, with a squeeze of Jenna's hand. "Kevin, are you ready?"
"I'll never be ready, Cheryl, so might as well just go," he answered, his eyes rimmed in red and swollen.
And with that, the three of them walked slowly down the cold hall. None of them spoke, there were only the sounds of their breaths and Jenna's brand-new dress crunching against her skin while her fancy shoes slid and squeaked on the linoleum floor.
Momma's hospital room wasn't far, but it felt like years that they’d walked. Jenna knew with each of those little steps, she was growing ever that much older.
Despite all her bravado of only moments before, Jenna hung back slightly as Cheryl quietly opened the door to Jenna's mother's now all too familiar sterile hospital room.
Jenna hated everything about this room — the whole hospital really. Every part of it was so gray and depressing, and always stunk like a drawer full of
Band-Aids
and
Lysol
. It was nothing like home, where everything smelled like sunshine, grass, and Momma's
White Shoulders
perfume.
Just the sight of her mother in this ugly place made Jenna's palms sweaty and her legs feel weak. Today was no different — it was actually even worse, if that were possible.
The curtains were drawn open so that a sliver of wan December sun could peek through. It didn't brighten the room, instead, it made it feel that much more empty — hopeless. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light and finally see her mother, whose frail body was almost lost in the stiff sheets and coarse blanket of her narrow bed.