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      Chapter Three

      EARLY IN HIS granddaughter’s life Ethan Martin had learned that his major role—next to doting uncontrollably—was to give Maddie the confidence she needed to become an adult who took the hand life had dealt her and played it with skill and daring. This meant that while he never lied to her, he also never quite leveled, at least not when she scared him to death. Which she did frequently.

      She was scaring him now, swaying at the top of a piece of carefully engineered climbing equipment like a pirate searching the seas for ships to plunder. She was with two other children, and he recognized one, Edna Ferguson, whose mother, Samantha, was a long-time friend of his daughter’s. Sam wasn’t far away, on a bench typing on a laptop, but he caught her eye. She nodded, then gave a barely perceptible thumbs-up sign that told him Maddie was fine, but she had kept his granddaughter in her sights just in case. All was well.

      “Hey, kiddo,” he said, when he got close enough that Maddie could hear him. “We’re having an early supper tonight, remember?”

      “Papa!” Maddie swung lower until she’d reached a height that no longer frightened him. He judged all heights the same way. How far could the girl fall without hurting herself? At what point was she risking a broken bone? A concussion? He was never sure, but he was sure it wasn’t his place to hamper her. Maddie and her mother had worked out rules, and so far Maddie had been good about obeying them, most likely because they were few and sensible.

      She launched herself into his waiting arms, the way a younger child might. But Maddie was small for her age, and delicately boned. He caught her easily and swung her to the ground.

      Ethan ruffled her hair. “See the Blue Ridge Parkway from way up there?”

      “I wasn’t paying attention. Edna was telling us about a movie she saw on television. Where’s Mom?”

      “Making dinner. She’s teaching a class tonight, so you’ll have me all to yourself.”

      “Cool!” Maddie’s blue eyes danced. “You’re eating with us, too?”

      “I even brought dessert.”

      “Cookies?”

      “Chocolate chip.”

      Maddie yelled goodbye to the other children. Then she waved at Samantha, who glanced up as if she’d just realized Maddie was there and smiled in response.

      As they crossed the park they chatted about school. Although she was ten, Maddie was only in fourth grade, which wasn’t uncommon. Parents often held children with summer birthdays back, even if they were officially able to start school a year earlier. But Taylor, Ethan’s daughter, had decided Maddie should start later because, among other things, she had been more than two months premature at birth.

      The street where Taylor and Maddie lived was eclectic, modest one-story homes mixed with more expansive ones. The architectural styles were eclectic, too, and it pleased Ethan, an architect himself, that the homes weren’t cookie-cutter copies. Most were well taken care of, but some, particularly the obvious rentals, needed paint or simple landscaping.

      Taylor’s own landlord was, for the most part, invisible, because Taylor only contacted him when something major needed repair. He, in return, never asked for an increase in her modest rent. Ethan hoped nothing changed in the near future. The house spelled independence, something Taylor badly needed.

      They were still two houses away when he smelled charcoal. They cut across Taylor’s yard, bordered with swaths of daffodils and grape hyacinth in full bloom, and rounded the house. His daughter was just putting burgers on the grill in the center of a postage-stamp patio, paved in salvaged flagstone she and Maddie had laid themselves. A confirmed vegetarian, she’d fashioned the burgers from black beans and quite possibly baked the buns herself. They would be delicious, he knew, but as he smacked his lips in appreciation, he would still think longingly of USDA prime.

      “Hey, sweetie,” Taylor called to her daughter. “Can you get the salad out of the fridge? Just put it on the picnic table. Then get the lemonade. These will only take a few minutes on each side.”

      Maddie grumbled, more as if it was expected than with conviction, and climbed the back steps.

      “She do okay?” Taylor asked softly.

      Before he spoke Ethan took a moment to admire his daughter. Taylor was medium height and deceptively slender, deceptive because the narrow hips and long legs didn’t project the strength within. She wore her dark brown hair as short as a boy’s, but cut in feminine wisps around her face and nape. The cut emphasized heavily lashed brown eyes, which were a mirror of his own, and the delicate lips of her mother. She was already dressed to teach her yoga class in a green tank top covered with a gauzy scoop-necked shirt and leggings. She wore no jewelry except gold hoop earrings. Taylor spent little time on her appearance, but the effect was striking, anyway.

      “She was up at the top of the jungle gym when I got there,” he said. “But Sam had an eye on her. You don’t think Maddie knows Sam’s there to watch out for her?”

      “She knows, but it’s the kind of world where parents have to keep an eye on their kids, isn’t it?”

      “Did you tell me Sam’s looking for a new job?”

      “And she got one. She’s so excited. She wanted something where she could have a bigger impact on patient care, and now she’ll be the nursing supervisor at a maternal health clinic. She’s the kind of person I wanted watching over me when I was pregnant with Maddie,” Taylor said.

      “The way she was watching over her today.”

      Taylor lowered her voice to match his. “There are only so many excuses I can invent to go to the park myself. And she’s been free of heavy-duty seizures for three full months. I have to let go. I’m not going to hold her back from anything if I don’t have to.”

      Three months without a major seizure was a new record, and Ethan, like his daughter, was cautiously hopeful. Several times a day Maddie experienced swirls of light or odd sensations in her stomach. These were manifestations of simple partial seizures, but she didn’t lose consciousness, and usually only those who knew her well could tell anything out of the ordinary had just occurred.

      While children born prematurely suffered from epilepsy more often than full-term children, there were no easy answers as to why Maddie was one of them. Her seizures had begun at age three. From that point on she had experienced frequent complex partial seizures, classified as such because she lost awareness of the world around her, and sometimes experienced spasms, which caused her body to jerk uncontrollably.

      Maddie’s neurologist was a cautious older man, long experienced in managing epilepsy. Right from the beginning he had taken time with Taylor, questioning her carefully and listening to her answers. Although he was a highly trained specialist, in personality he was more the legendary family doctor who was never too busy to take a phone call. Three months ago he had placed Maddie on a different drug regimen to manage her seizures, which had become more frequent and severe, carefully adjusting and weaning her off prior medications. Taylor was confident her daughter was in the best of hands, and confident that the new treatment would finally give her daughter a better life.

      So far, she seemed to be СКАЧАТЬ