Losing Gabriel (17 page)

“I
'm in the den, Gabe.”

Seconds later, the child raced into the room, arms wide open. He saw the woman and froze.

Lani immediately stepped forward, crouched, and smiled. “Hey, Gabe. It's me! Lani.”

The boy looked confused, but then his eyes brightened and he ran forward and threw himself into Lani's arms. She was knocked backward but held him, laughing. “You're so strong.”

Gabe looked up at his dad, all smiles. “It's Lani.”

His son's exuberance surprised Dawson. “I guess you
do
know each other.”

“We color together. He loves to color and he's good at it.”

Gabe's face beamed with her words. “Color now!” He whirled and zipped through the doorway.

“Gabe! Later!” Dawson called, but the boy was gone.

“I…I don't mind.” Lani rose from her crouched position. “I'm happy to stay with him for a little while, if…if that's okay.”

Dawson didn't want Gabe disappointed, but he was still stewing. “All right. Color until I get his snack ready in the kitchen.” He turned for the doorway. “Look, Lani…I don't mean to be difficult, but I worry about him, his health and all. I'm sure you're competent with kids.”

She wanted this job more than to just curry favor with Dr. Berke. Gabe had stolen her heart and she wanted to care for him. “I understand your special concern for Gabe…and his asthma.”

Dawson turned back toward Lani, reminding himself he shouldn't take out his irritation with Franklin on this girl. Since birth, Gabe's lungs had been his weak spot, and his asthma most likely a lasting effect of the premature birth. “Look, I'm not playing the overprotective parent role with you. It's just that I'm still dealing with his diagnosis too. It's been less than a year, and he's been to the ER twice and hospitalized both times. We don't know all his triggers, not until one sneaks up on him and he's wheezing, can't catch his breath, and turning blue.”

Naturally Lani knew it, but held off saying anything.

Dawson gestured around the room. “That's why, except for this rug—pure silk and cleaned often—all the floors are bare hardwood, all curtains replaced with blinds. The house has a HEPA air purifier too, because we already know certain inhalants can bring on an attack. Mold and dust mites for sure.” Dawson tried to express the difficulty of protecting Gabe from a world full of potential hazards. Here at home, his son was relatively safe, but outside these walls, he was always vulnerable.

“But I also want him to have a normal kid's life. He can't live in a bubble. And when spring comes and everything starts blooming…” He shook his head. “Who knows? Sure hope pollen won't be a problem, because my little guy loves to be outside. He's undergoing some allergy testing, and so far his triggers are inhalants. I just want him to be safe.”

She looked into Dawson's dark eyes, and her heart filled with compassion. “I know how to take care of a child with asthma. I help with all the asthmatic children when they're checked onto the peds floor. I give breathing treatments, play with them, and cuddle with them when they miss their families. I do what I can to make their lives better until they're well and can go home. I can handle an emergency if one comes up.” She opened her purse and extracted a bronchial inhaler. “I carry this with me every day because I like being prepared.”

Gabe raced back into the room, rattling a plastic box of crayons and holding a coloring book. Lani knelt so that he could spread out on the floor. “Dinosaurs? We're coloring dinosaurs. I'm so surprised.”

Gabe giggled at her tease. “Green ones with brown spots.” Gabe had a habit of dropping his r's that always made Lani smile. He spread open the book to two clean pages and stretched out on his belly.

Lani stretched out beside him and rifled through the box of mostly broken crayons. From the doorway, Dawson watched, still feeling manipulated by his father but knowing he couldn't be an idiot either. He couldn't arbitrarily reject this Lani simply because his dad was calling the shots.

“So how did the big interview go?”

It was the first question Melody asked when Lani stepped into the apartment's shoe box–sized kitchen the two of them had painted bright apple green. “Not sure.” She settled at the scarred old café table tucked in a corner of the room near a window. “It was going fine until Dawson found out his father had sort of rigged the interview in my favor.”

“Why should that bother him? I'd think he'd be thrilled to have someone preselect candidates for a caregiver job with an asthmatic child. You're the one I'm thinking about. Honestly, if you get the job, the possible liabilities—”

“Stop with the lawyer talk, Mel. I want this job. I
need
this job.” Lani had touted the caregiver job possibility to her sister before the interview but hadn't confessed her high school crush on the interviewer.
Water under the bridge of life.

Melody stirred a pot of chili on the stove, and its rich peppery aroma filled the room. “You doing something with Ben tonight? Mom and Dad are going to Skype us around seven.”

“No. He's got a research paper due, so I'm home.” Lani remembered the day their dad had come home and said the local paper was shutting down and he'd lost his job.
“Digital takeover of print. Farmers all have smartphones. No one reads the farm reports in the paper these days. They just call them up on the Web.”
He'd said the words cheerily, but the family had known he was devastated. After an eight-month hunt for another job, he'd taken over the reins of a small biweekly paper in Kenai, Alaska. Jane had retired at the end of that school year, and they'd moved. They called often, raving about the wilderness landscape, or the midnight sun's glow, and even the long dark winters. “Cozy. Always a fire warming us and elk in the front yard to entertain us.” Lani and Mel had flown out to visit them twice since they'd settled.

Their house had been rented to a newly married Winslow cousin and her husband, who made the mortgage payments, freeing Lani and Mel of responsibilities for the place. Mel's job paid the bulk of the sisters' current living expenses. Lani's jobs barely covered insurance and gas on her mother's old car that she'd inherited from their move to Alaska. Her parents still covered her college tuition, but all extras came from her earnings.

“So the job will pay well?” Mel tasted the chili.

Dr. Berke had hinted that it would. “Way more than I earn now,” Lani ventured, but knowing she'd take it whatever the salary.

“No day care available?”

“Too risky given Gabe's asthma.”

“And no mother.”

“I told you she left when he was still in the hospital.”

Mel shook her head. “Sad.”

“Raising Gabriel is a family effort for Dr. Berke and his son. I want to help. It'll look good on my résumé too.”

“And you're the only one qualified? Seems strange.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“That's not what I mean. Surely there are registered nurses or other health care workers qualified to take the job.”

“But Dr. Berke asked me to interview. I want this job, Mel.” She frayed the paper napkin at her place setting, remembering the unenthusiastic expression on Dawson's face. And even if she was hired, Ben wouldn't be pleased. “Dawson said he had others to interview, so I doubt I'll get it.”

Melody stepped away from the stove, put her arm around her sister. “Hey. No moping. If you don't get the job, and you're over slinging waffles, you can always sell your horse.”

Lani ignored Mel's suggestion. “Not happening. I may have to eat hay with him, but I'm not giving up Oro.”

Melody grinned. “Just checking out your priorities. Now make a salad so we can eat this bodacious chili I've fixed.”

Dawson was waiting in the kitchen when Franklin came in from the garage.