The Riches of Mercy Read Online Free PDF Page A

long, aching moments in the grass."
    "All right. By the way, your insurance wants to transfer you up to Duke Medical Center." Wheeler said.
    "I'd rather stay here," Natalie said.
    Meredith's hand involuntarily tightened on Natalie's. She glanced down, her relief unprofessional, shame burning her cheeks. Her heart pounded in her ears. She prayed Natalie wouldn't notice her reaction. She prayed Natalie, too, saw some cosmic reason she'd been sent to Tarpley.
    "It's just as well that you do. Transport would be painful. We're going to have one of their specialists come down and examine at your leg and your neck for you," Wheeler said.
    "Thanks--Doctor Henry."
    He nodded. "Sign these?"
    Natalie reached for the papers, and grunted when her shoulder wouldn't let her cover the distance. Wheeler moved them closer, and then took her elbow to cushion her weight.
    Meredith let go of her hand.
    Natalie signed her life away to Blue Cross Blue Shield. She rubbed at her eyes.
    "Are you all right?" Meredith asked.
    "Just thinking about my cat. One of the maintenance workers found her in a city sewer and brought her to the government building. She was just a kitten then. Muddy and beautiful."
    "She's fine," Meredith said. "I talked to--Susana?"
    "My next door neighbor," Natalie said.
    Wheeler took the papers. "See? Just fine. I'll come by tonight, when you've processed this all. Write down your questions as they come to you. We'll go over them."
    Natalie nodded.
    Wheeler patted Meredith's back and left.
    Meredith sat on the edge of the bed and wiped Natalie's face with a cool cloth. "You all right? That's a lot to take in."
    "I don't know."
    Meredith tapped her cheek with the cloth to get her attention. Natalie met her eyes.
    "We'll get through this," Meredith said.
    "We will?"
    "Stick with me."
    She said the words the same way to Natalie as she would to a geriatric man facing a liver transplant or a little boy with a pencil up his nose, and the words had the same effect. Natalie relaxed.
    Merry sat back. "You've eaten your breakfast and heard the talk. It's naptime. When you wake up, everything will be different."
    "Promise?"
    "I promise."
    # #
    Chapter Five
    An attorney called ahead to the hospital to see what was to be done about the cat. He got a hold of Wheeler, who passed him to Meredith. Meredith listened abstractly to his tale of woe about his children's allergies and Natalie's strange and distant neighbors. Susana had stopped answering her door. The rest might be cat-murderers for all he knew. It was this or the kennel. He pleaded, but his voice also held authority. He brought the cat carrier with him as he drove down to see Natalie.
    Meredith met him in the lobby and received the cat, unable to make it anyone else's problem. The cat's name was Hollingsworth. The attorney, twice her age, took her hand and introduced himself as Patrick. Natalie's boss. Meredith tried to picture Natalie with him at some bland office in the city. She took the cat home and let Patrick go on his way.
    She only had a cat once before. An outside cat that strayed too close to her family home. She'd fed it. She'd bought cat food with her own money for weeks until her father caught her. He told her they were a sign of the devil. The cat was trying to seduce her—already she kept secrets for it
    She'd been so ashamed she never thought about cats. A dog, maybe. But Vincent was afraid of dogs. Now, God sent her a second cat, by way of a Charlotte attorney.
    And a horrific accident.
    She didn't know if it was good or bad, temporary or permanent, or if it would change her. She told herself she was just babysitting for a stranger. But when she knelt next to the cat and gazed into its wide, blinking blue eyes, and felt its purr under her fingers when she stroked the long, grey hairs, she figured He had a hand in it somewhere.
    If the cat needed her, well, she had love to give. Her neighbors didn't much talk to her. Instead she got hard stares if anyone happened to be