The Reunion Read Online Free PDF

Carolyn’s class Christmas party. A voice on the school paging system ordered her to report to the main office. The teacher looked puzzled, but Carolyn knew. She didn’t wait for permission. She gathered her things and left, the knot in her stomach tightening with each step down the empty corridor. She could see her two older brothers through the glass, standing, waiting for her at the front desk.
    â€œIt’s Momma, isn’t it?” she asked, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
    Her oldest brother nodded and took her hand.
    That day certainly altered her life’s journey. It may have even been the motivation to get into the healthcare field. But at Deaconess hospital, it was a job in accounting that gave her access to the hospital computer system, the one tool she needed to find the names of her birth parents. The position didn’t pay as well as nursing, but money wasn’t an issue anymore.
    Despite her below-average clerical skills, it took only three months to find her birth records. Cooper was her mother’s maiden name. The birth certificate listed her father as unknown. But finding the paperwork proved much easier than finding real people. That’s when the off-duty cop came along. He was there as security, supplementing the meager wages the Oklahoma City Police Department paid him.
    It started innocently enough—flirting during their cigarette breaks behind the hospital on the loading dock. Soon after, there were movies, dinner dates, and heavy petting in his pickup truck. Eventually, a deal was struck, but that debt had been paid. She made a mental note to have her telephone number changed. She didn’t need any reminders of that humiliation. It was a chapter of her life to be forgotten and never repeated.
    Carolyn made her way through the emergency room entrance and then up one flight of stairs to accounting. Her cubicle was orderly and uncluttered. The only evidence that anyone actually worked there was a three-by-five color photo of Kenny in a porcelain frame that spelled out I LOVE MY MOMMY in childlike script. Just a glimpse at his delicate features was enough to perk up her disposition.
    Carolyn placed her fingers on the keyboard and pounded out her letter of resignation in less than five minutes. Twenty minutes later she was at the daycare center. Kenny’s face brightened when she arrived unexpectedly early.
    They played for an hour and a half in the park near their apartment. Dinner was served from a cardboard box delivered through the drive-thru window at Taco Bell. With droopy eyes, Kenny halfheartedly nibbled on a piece of her soft taco.
    As she fought the crosstown traffic, Carolyn glanced back at him in the rear view and couldn’t keep from laughing. He was asleep, his angelic face smeared with taco sauce. A sprinkling of lettuce and grated cheese had collected in his lap.
    The unexpected quiet time gave her the chance to go exploring. She had committed the address to memory and had no trouble finding it. She drove past the stately brick home a dozen times. It wasn’t the biggest house on the street, but the address said it all. Nichols Hills was a fully incorporated township, an affluent island surrounded by a sea of lower and middle-class homes. It was a small haven from Oklahoma City’s ever-growing urban sprawl.
    Nichols Hills was reserved for the old money. Their names could be found engraved on plaques outside museums, theaters, and dormitories, public places that distinguished families took great pride in endowing.
    She slowed the car to a crawl and parked across the street just to stare. It was just as the cop had described. A black Mercedes was parked in the driveway, not the low-end model the wannabe’s drove, but the big sedan. The backyard was concealed by a tall brick and wrought-iron fence. She was sure there was a swimming pool, maybe even a tennis court, back there.
    She had been parked across from the house for about an hour,