Chance of a Lifetime Read Online Free PDF Page A

nursing home a few nights ago. It’s not far.”
    “I…” She’d never been to the nursing home. In a town where five generations filled several rows in churches, Emily was an exception. She had no living relatives. But her mother and Tannon’s mom had been good friends. At least they had been before what her mother used to call “the accident” happened during Emily’s junior year of high school. After that, the mothers still spoke, but they slipped into being more acquaintances than friends.
    She needed to remember that “the accident” was fifteen years ago when they were more kids than adults. Tannon was asking for a favor now.
    “I wouldn’t ask”—he rushed on as if he could read her thoughts—“but she’s been asking for your mother all day. The doc said your mom must have meant a great deal to her when she was young. I figured you look so much like your mother maybe it would calm her down just to see you. Once she gets in a rage, it takes days, sometimes weeks, to calm her down.”
    When she hesitated, he added, “I’ll be right there with you. If it doesn’t work, we’ll be in and out of her room in five minutes.”
    “If she doesn’t know you, she won’t know me.” Emily didn’t want to see Mrs. Parker. Her parents died while in a car with Paulette and Ted Parker. Tannon’s parents were in the backseat and, though hurt, had survived. Emily’s parents, both in the front seat, hadn’t been so lucky.
    “They’re trying out some new drugs on her. You might help. A memory coming back spotty like this is worse than no memory at all. She quits cooperating with the staff and all hell breaks loose.”
    “All right, I’ll go visit her, but only for a bit.” She picked up her coat, wondering what she would say to a woman she hadn’t seen in years.
    “I’ll drive you over. They’re building a new wing, so parking is tricky.” He held the door for her.
    “Okay, if you’ll follow me home first. I don’t want to leave my car here.”
    He nodded, probably guessing she didn’t want to have to return to the parking lot after dark.
    As she drove to her apartment building, she couldn’t help but think about how Tannon’s and her lives crossed back and forth over the years. They’d taken their first swimming lessons together with their mothers watching. They’d pestered each other at cookouts and Christmas parties before they started school and traded books from the time they both began to read. She even remembered being the first person to ride in his car when he’d gotten his license three months before her. He’d taken her for an ice cream, after which they’d circled around the town square a dozen times before he drove her home.
    Emily smiled remembering that the ice-cream date had been one of her first memories she’d written in her book of moments.
    She parked in her spot in the underground garage and walked out to his pickup, wishing she could remember the hundred fun times and forget the one bad memory when he hadn’t been there for her.
    They didn’t talk as he drove to the nursing home. He parked on a dirt lot that had been roped off for temporary parking and cut the engine. Neither made any effort to open the door. “Emily, I know this is a big favor. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll understand. You don’t owe me this.”
    “I know,” she answered, “but if I can help, I will. My mother would have wanted me to. Though my mom and yours were an unlikely pair, they were best friends.”
So were we,
she thought. “The night my folks were killed, I think your mom and mine were getting close again. Mom had written me that week telling me how excited she was that all four of them were going to a Cowboys game in Dallas. I’d talked to her that morning and she told me she’d bought her and dad Cowboys jerseys to wear. I rememberlaughing thinking how funny they would look sitting next to your parents. I never saw your father without a suit on, and your mother would wear