A Moment of Weakness Read Online Free PDF Page A

children’s unit. A stab of fear set free a batch of butterflies in Jade’s gut. There had been talk about closing the unit for months. Budget cuts were needed, and someone had designed a plan to eliminate the children’s ward at Kelso General. If thathappened, sick children like Shaunie would have to go an hour south to Portland for care. An hour that meant the difference between a child getting to see her parents several times a day or being left alone in a hospital with infrequent visits at best.
    The city was going to discuss the idea at a meeting that afternoon. The plan made Jade furious.
    “Yes, honey, you can see your mommy and daddy any time you want.”
    Shaunie nodded and wriggled about, an anxious look on her face. “I have to go potty.”
    Jade helped her out of bed, careful not to tangle her IV lines. When the ordeal was through, she eased the child back under the blankets.
    “You’re pretty.” Shaunie yawned.
    Jade smiled and kissed the little girl on the tip of her nose. “Thanks. You, too, princess.”
    “My mommy says you look like Meg Ryan with dark hair.”
    “Does she now?” Jade laughed.
    “Who’s Meg Ryan?”
    “Oh, she’s someone in the movies.”
    “I think you’re prettier than her.” Shaunie laid her head back on the pillow and rubbed her eyes. “I need to take a naptime now.”
    “Okay, baby doll. You do that. I won’t be here when you wake up, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “Where will you go, Jade? Home to see your daddy?”
    She hugged the little girl close.
Only when I absolutely have to, honey
. “No, sweetie. I have to go to a meeting.”
    “Okay.” Shaunie yawned again and her eyelids fluttered. “Night-night, Jade.”
    “G’night, honey.”
    Rarely had anything mattered this much to Jade. She sleptin the house where her father lived, but the hospital was her home. She had volunteered in the children’s unit since she was sixteen. Now that she worked there, she would fight the county with everything she had so Shaunie and Kelso’s other sick kids would never have to be shuttled away to a hospital in Portland.
    Jade returned to the nurse’s station and glanced at the clock. It was nearly three. The meeting was at four and was expected to draw a hundred people.
    Jade pushed aside her science book and began scribbling on the back of a blank admitting form. If she had a chance, she intended to talk about the kids at Kelso Hospital. Shaunie had given her an idea. She began putting her feelings on paper until she’d filled an entire page with notes.
    The thought of Shaunie being separated from her parents made her throat constrict.
Help me, God. Let them see how badly we need this place
.
    Jade was not religious—she didn’t attend a church or read a Bible—but ever since she was a little girl she had talked to God, especially when she was alone. And she was alone often.
    She thought about the townspeople who would attend the meeting and wondered whether they, too, wanted to keep the unit open. Jade would know many of them, she was sure, and she hoped her words would persuade them to join the fight. While the people of Kelso who knew her did not go out of their way to be friendly to Jade, most of them didn’t seem to hold her father’s alcoholism against her. Jade didn’t care if they did. She didn’t need anyone’s approval. She didn’t need anything at all.
    Except the children’s unit at Kelso General.
    A unit whose fate was entirely in the hands of the county’s board of supervisors.

F our
    T HE OFFICES OF THE C OWLITZ COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS for the city of Kelso, Washington, were located above city hall and adjacent to an auditorium where town meetings had been held for the past fifty years. Tanner had spent the morning in meetings and used his lunch hour to unpack his files, reference books, and rearrange his office.
    Tanner surveyed the worn-out cubicle that would serve as his workspace for the summer. His mother would have been appalled.