The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Kate called out, hurrying down the hall. She swung the door open.
An elderly woman stood on the threshold—petite and platinum-haired, wearing a navy blue skirt and an Ann Taylor blouse. Her smile was apologetic. “Hi, I’m Phyllis Wheaton, your downstairs neighbor from 7D. Sorry to bother you, but my bathroom ceiling is leaking, and I’m pretty sure it’s coming from your unit.”
“Oh no. Please come in. My name’s Kate.” They shook hands. “Nice to meet you. Wait here a second. I’ll go take a look.”
Kate bolted for the bathroom, where a pool of water had accumulated around the toilet pedestal on the tiled floor. The toilet was making a gurgling sound. “James?” she hollered. “Our toilet is leaking.”
James came bustling out of the office to inspect the toilet while Kate hurried back to Phyllis Wheaton. They could both hear James jiggling the toilet handle and removing the tank lid.
“Sorry about that,” Kate said. “We’ll call a plumber immediately.”
“Do you have someone in mind?”
“Not really,” Kate confessed. “This ownership thing is new to us. We’re used to calling the landlord over every little hiccup.”
Phyllis smiled and handed her a slip of paper. “I took the liberty of writing down my plumber’s number, just in case. I hope you don’t mind. He’s very good.”
“Great.”
“In the meantime, do you know how to turn off the main water supply?”
Kate shook her head. “James?” she called out. “Do you know how to turn off the main water supply?”
“No,” he shouted back.
She smiled apologetically. “How helpless can you get?”
“Let me show you. It’s the stopcock under the kitchen sink.”
Kate followed her into the kitchen and watched as she knelt down in her navy blue skirt and explained what she was doing as she turned off the stopcock.
“There,” Phyllis said. “All set. The toilet should stop leaking in a few minutes. Was there much damage?”
“Not too much. I’m sorry about this. We didn’t even notice.”
“No problem.” Phyllis wiped her hands. “Call me if you need anything. I jotted down my number, too.”
Kate glanced at the slip of paper. “Thanks.” She walked Phyllis to the door and waved goodbye, then called the plumber, who said he’d be there in an hour. “What else can go wrong?” she muttered.
She looked in on James, who was hunched over his laptop, typing furiously. “I called the plumber,” she said.
He glanced up. “We have a plumber?”
“Well, technically it’s Phyllis’s plumber. Now he’s ours.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“I totally trust her. She knows how to handle a stopcock.”
Against all expectation, he didn’t crack a joke in response.
“Oh come on. Stopcock? I handed you that one.”
“Sorry, hon. I’m in the middle of Agatha hell.”
“What happened now?”
“She attacked Larry Milroy, one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet, a total milquetoast. She was holding him hostage.”
“So you’re going back to work?”
He nodded distractedly. “In a bit. They want my notes on our last group session together, and I have to attend a team meeting later on. But I’ll wait for our new plumber to make an appearance first, see if I can learn anything. And you’re going to get some rest.”
“Twist my arm.”
“Good.” He continued typing furiously.
She decided to get out her sister’s old backpack, even though James hated it when she did that. He said that it only encouraged the re-emergence of all the negative emotions she’d managed to bottle up inside her adult brain. But Kate figured it was therapeutic, so she went into their bedroom, slid the cardboard storage box out of the closet, and popped the lid. The box was full of Kate’s childhood belongings— birthday cards from her mother, old-fashioned dolls, stuffed animals with careworn ears. Savannah’s backpack was at the bottom. It was made of pink canvas fabric and had sweat-stained leather handles the color of beef jerky.
She listened to make sure James wasn’t coming before she lifted it out of the box and settled it in her lap. She sorted through the junk inside—all the things her sister had once considered essential. A large purple comb, a stale pack of chewing gum, a Hello Kitty mirror, a Nightmare Before Christmas notepad, and a near-empty bottle of citrus perfume. Kate uncorked the bottle and inhaled deeply—it smelled just like Savannah. She could picture her elfin face, her rascally eyes and her self-effacing smirk. What a dork I am, I burped in front of this boy I like.
Now Kate examined each item as if it would tell her something different this time. She slipped Savannah’s Moleskine diary out of its canvas compartment and flipped through the pages. She’d read her sister’s diary many times over the years. She selected a passage at random and studied the tiny, fuzzy handwriting.
What if you were walking thru the woods and you picked up a rock and it turned out to be the most valuable rock in the world? Maybe it looked like a regular rock but what if it wasn’t? What if it was a Magic Rock that could grant you three wishes? OR considder this… what if you ignored it and kept walking? Hey dumbo! You just missed something incredible and possibly amazing. Imagin what your life would’ve been like if you’d picked up that rock??? Three wishes! What would you wish for? I’d wish for—my mother back, a pony, my dad to be happy. My friends keep asking me why I collect stuff like peblles, feathers, leaves, seashells, potatoe chips, and rocks. And I tell them… YOU SHOULD TOO. Because it could change your life forever. You never know.
Kate smiled. She would have to be fearless. She would have to pick up these ordinary rocks, because you never knew.
Her phone rang, and she scooped it up. “Hello?”
It was Tamara. “Sorry to bother you, Doc, but we have a problem.”
8
KATE HEADED DIRECTLY FOR the nurses’ station, where Tamara stood with her hands on her wide hips. “I know you need this like a hole in the head, but she asked for you.” She glanced over at the girl in the corner of the waiting room. “She said she needs to talk to Dr. Wolfe. She saw your nametag, I guess.”
“No problem. What’s the story?”
“Her name is Maddie Ward. Her mother dropped her off this morning, but we can’t find her anywhere. She didn’t talk to the staff or fill out the required forms. Nothing.”
Kate nodded. “Okay, I’ll go check it out.”
The crucifixes were still draped around the girl’s neck, the rosaries wrapped around her wrists. As Kate approached, she noticed something she hadn’t spotted before—Band-Aids on the girl’s neck and hands.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Wolfe. Mind if I sit down?”
“Okay,” the girl said softly.
Kate took a seat. “Can I call you Maddie? Do you mind?”
Maddie nodded shyly, and Kate was struck once again by the resemblance to Savannah—same sea-green eyes, golden hair, and lightly freckled face. There was even a widow’s peak hidden under her blond bangs.
“Where are your parents?” Kate asked.
“Mommy left.”
“Oh. Where did she go?”
“Home.”
“Is she coming back?”
“I don’t know.” Maddie shrugged and played with her rosary beads.
“What’s the jewelry for?”
“Mommy says it’s for protection.”
“Really?” Kate frowned. “Protection from what?”
“I don’t know,” Maddie admitted.
“Wow. She must really want to keep you safe.”
Maddie’s mood seemed to darken. “I don’t like them,” she said, suddenly frantic, removing the rosaries and crosses, as if she’d been dying to get rid of them.
She handed everything over to Kate, who said, “Okay. I’ll ask the nurses to hold onto these for you. Be right back.” She took the jewelry over to the nurses’ station and asked for an envelope. She put everything inside, wrote Maddie’s name on the front, sealed the envelope, and asked Tamara to stick it in the locker along with the other patients’ confiscated belongings. Her immediate thought was: Okay, this girl’s mother is a religious fanatic, and her reaction is perfectly normal.
Maddie smiled as Kate took her seat again.
“Whenever you want them back, let me know.”