Four Blind Mice

good. Maybe I would be a famous chef one day. Then she said I was coming over to your house for a while. She told me why. She had done some of her magic with Child Welfare. That was the first time that Nana saved me. The first of many times.”
    I nodded. Listened. Sampson wasn’t finished with his story.
    “She was the one who helped get me into the army after high school. Then into the police academy when I got out of the service. She’s your grandmother, but she’s more a mother to me than my own flesh. And I never had a father, not really. Neither of us did. I always thought that held us together in the beginning.”
    It wasn’t like Sampson to go on and open up like this. I still didn’t speak. I had no idea where he was headed, but I let him go as much as he wanted to.
    “I always knew I didn’t have it in me to be a father or a good husband. It was just something I felt inside. You?”
    “I had some fears before I met Maria,” I said. “Then they just went away. Most of them anyway. I knew Maria and I would be good together. First time I held Damon, the rest of the fears pretty much disappeared for good.”
    Sampson began to smile, then he was laughing. “I met somebody, Alex. It’s strange, but she makes me happy and I trust her with my secrets. Look at me, I’m grinnin’ like a goddamn Halloween pumpkin.”
    Both of us were laughing now. Why not? It was the first time I had seen Sampson in love, and we’d been friends for a long time.
    “I’ll mess it up somehow,” he said. But he was still laughing. We joked and laughed most of the rest of the way home. Jesus, John Sampson had a girlfriend.
    Billie.

Chapter 86
    NANA MAMA ALWAYS used to say, “Laugh before breakfast, cry before dinner.” If you’ve raised a family, you know there’s some truth to that, crazy as it sounds.
    When I got back to Fifth Street that night, there was a red-and-white EMS truck sitting in front of our house.
    I shut down the Porsche and bounded out of it.
    It was raining, and the bracing wind and water whipped at my face. Partially blinded by the rain, I hurtled up the front steps and entered the house. My heart was hammering and a voice inside whispered,
No, no, no
.
    I heard voices coming from the living room and rushed in there, expecting the worst.
    Nana Mama and the kids were sitting on the old sofa. They were all holding hands.
    Across from them sat a woman in a white lab coat. I recognized Dr. Kayla Coles from the night with Damon’s sick friend, Ramon.
    “You missed all the excitement,” Nana said as she saw me enter the room.
    “Imagine that, Daddy,” said Jannie. “
You
missed the excitement.”
    I looked toward the doctor sitting in the easy chair. “Hello, Doctor.”
    She had a good smile. “Nice to see you again.”
    I turned to Nana. “Exactly what excitement did I miss? For starters, what’s the EMS truck doing outside?”
    She shrugged. “I thought I had a heart attack, Alex. Turns out, it was just a fainting spell.”
    Dr. Coles spoke. “Nana doesn’t remember passing out. I was down the street at the time. I work with a group that brings health care into the neighborhoods of Southeast. Makes it easier for some people to get good care. More personal, and definitely more affordable.”
    I interrupted. “Nana passed out. What happened to her?”
    “Damon saw the EMS truck, and he came and got me. Nana was already up on her feet. She had an irregular heartbeat. Rapid, threading. The pulse in her wrist wasn’t as fast as the actual heart rate, so there could be some diminished circulation. We took her over to St. Anthony’s for a few tests.”
    Nana shrugged the whole thing off. “I fell down, went boom, in the kitchen. Always hoped it would be there. Damon and Jannie were just great, Alex. About time they started taking care of me for a change.”
    She laughed, and so did Dr. Coles. I was glad they both saw the humor in the situation.
    “You’re still here. It’s past nine,” I said to the doctor.
    She smiled. Good bedside manner, or whatever this was. “We were having so much fun, I decided to stay for a while. I still have one more stop, but Mr. Bryant doesn’t get off work until ten.”
    “And,” I said, “you were waiting for me to get home.”
    “Yes, I thought that would be the best idea. Nana says you work late a lot of nights. Could we talk for a minute?”

Chapter 87
    THE TWO OF us stepped out onto the front porch. Heavy rain was pelting down on the overhang,