Read Online Evolution by L.L. Bartlett - Free Book Online

buttons on his coat, avoiding Jeff’s gaze. He looked guilty.
    “You said you had off until Friday.”
    “Yeah, well, not any more. I got called in—the ER’s shorthanded and I’m low man on the totem pole. I gotta run. I promise, I’ll make it up to you tomorrow,” he said, and patted Jeff’s shoulder. In an instant he’d turned and grabbed his keys from the brass rack on the wall.
    “Wait, you said we’d go—”
    Richard paused at the door, looked back. “I know, but I have to go—sick people need me. You understand, don’t you?”
    How many times had their mother said that to Jeff every time she’d had to disappoint him? And he never had understood.
    “Jeff?” Richard pressed.
    Jeff looked away. “Yeah. Sure.”
    “I’ll see you tomorrow, kid. Merry Christmas.”
    The door closed with a bang.
    “What if I need you?” Jeff said. He stared at the door for long moments before he crossed to the window to watch Richard enter the garage from the side door. A few moments later, the automatic door rose. Taillights flashed as Richard started the car and the sleek red Porsche backed out.
    “I hope you get a flat,” Jeff groused, scrunched up the newspaper and threw it at the trash bin, missing it by inches.
    He heard Curtis come in through the pantry entrance and looked up to see him peel his gloves off before hanging his cord jacket on a peg. “It’s a cold day.”
    Jeff slumped in the maple kitchen chair.
    Curtis entered the kitchen, stepped over to the coffee pot on the counter, but the maker was switched off; the pot was empty and clean. “Do ya think Helen would get mad if I made another pot?”
    “Probably,” Jeff muttered. “She screams at me if I leave a crumb on the counter.”
    The old black man raised an eyebrow. “Screams?”
    “Well, her voice might not be loud, but she screams.”
    Curtis’s smile was almost infectious. Almost.
    “Where was Mr. Richard going?”
    “Work.” Jeff couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “He promised we’d do cool stuff tonight and tomorrow. He promised me. Grownups always lie to kids.”
    “I never lied to you,” Curtis said.
    “Yeah, well, then you’re the only one.”
    Curtis rested a dark hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “I’ve known Mr. Richard almost his whole life. He’s a good man. He feels a great responsibility toward helping people. That’s why he took you in. Not many young men would have done that. But being a doctor is important to him, too. My nephew is training to be a doctor and he has to put in ungodly hours just like Mr. Richard. It’s part of the territory. Something you just gots to get used to, Jeffrey.”
    Jeff pursed his lips and nodded. “I don’t care. I don’t need him, anyway.”
    #
    Sleet pellets pinged off the windows as Jeff lay in his bed, listening to Christmas carols on the battered little radio his mother had given him as a Christmas present several years before. Had it been the last gift she’d given him? He wasn’t sure. Some nameless choral group started in on a version of Silent Night , making the carol sound more like a dirge than a lullaby.
    Yeah, this Christmas would suck after all.
    He folded his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling where the shadows of bare branches danced, backlit by street lamps and unhampered by the huge lighted evergreen wreath that donned the side of the house outside his window.
    Dinner had been a solitary affair in the kitchen, eating a cold plate of cottage cheese and fruit cocktail Helen had rustled up for him while the elder Alperts and their equally ancient friends had first feasted on hors d’oeuvres and then dined out with more of their wizened old cronies. Good, he liked the house better when he was its only occupant.
    He’d checked the calendar and figured out he was stuck here for another two-point-five years until he was eighteen—and considered an “adult.” He could deal with that. There were worse places. Terry Rydinger from school was