Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] Read Online Free

with as much indifference as her father, although she nodded and shook her head when spoken to. Christina had brought a cup of water from the well, wondering if the girl might be thirsty.
    “Would you like something to drink, Sally?” she asked.
    Sally again made no answer, but when she looked back over her shoulder Christina could see tiny tears running down the girl’s cheeks.
    “What’s the matter?” Christina asked, alarmed. “Are you hurt?”
    In answer, Sally turned to face her, shaking her head. In her hands, extended toward Christina, was a tattered doll. It looked to be much loved; it was hand-sewn, red yarn for hair, missing one button for an eye, with clothes that were ragged and worn. Christina knew that this was the one possession Sally had saved from the fire.
    “No…nobody asked if Charlotte wa-wa-was hurt,” Sally sniffled.
    “Your doll’s name is Charlotte?” Christina asked, kneeling in front of the girl and brushing a strand of loose hair from her teary eyes.
    “Uh-huh.” Sally nodded.
    “You sure picked a pretty name for her. Charlotte is my sister’s name.”
    “Is…is my Charlotte burned?”
    “Why don’t you let me take a look at her,” Christina said. Carefully, she took the doll out of the girl’s hands; for a second, Sally seemed reluctant to let her companion go, but she finally relented. Although stained with food, hardened with saliva, and probably never having gone through the wash, the doll showed no burn damage.
    “She looks just fine, sweetheart.” Christina smiled.
    “Are…are you sure?”
    “Why don’t we put a bandage on her just to be safe?”
    When Sally Simmons’s small face lit up brighter than the fire that was consuming her family’s home, Christina knew that this, caring for others in their time of need, was what she was truly meant to do.

Chapter Two
    F ROM THE COUPE’S passenger seat, Christina watched the smoldering remains of the Simmons home as they burned away to nothing. Firemen continued to pour buckets of water onto the black, skeletal scraps, though there was clearly little left to save. The smoke still rising from the collapsed structure had changed from an angry black to a dishwater gray, lazily drifting up into the sky.
    Dr. Barlow continued to speak with Hugh and his wife. While the parents remained traumatized by what had happened, the Simmons children had reverted to the lives they had known before the fire, playing on the tree swing, chasing one another around the yard, their laughter filling the air. From time to time, Hugh reached for his breast pocket and the cigarettes the doctor had already confiscated; every time he did, his wife smacked his hand.
    Thank heaven no one had been killed.
    Sweat ran down Christina’s neck and soaked her clothes. The early summer sun, deepening an orange brighter than the fire’s embers, had begun swinging down to the west. Night was still several hours away. The day’s temperature only now was starting to cool, but Christina was exhausted, bone weary as much from travel as the stress of nursing. Nevertheless, she knew her job had been done well.
    “Will they be all right?” she asked when Dr. Barlow slid behind the wheel, tossing his medical bag onto the backseat.
    “About as well as can be expected, I imagine, given all that’s happened. What’ll eventually get them back on their feet is the realization that no one was killed. You can replace clothes and books, take new pictures and gather new mementos, but when life is gone, it stays that way forever.”
    “All I can think about is how much they’ve lost,” Christina said, taking a long last look at the Simmons family. “What they once took for granted is all gone and will take years to replace. How will they care for their children? Where will they spend the night?”
    “The church will provide for them as best they can. After that, it’ll be on Hugh and Violet.”
    “I just wish we could do more.”
    “One of the hardest truths