Equal Access by A. E. Branson Read Free Book Online

station
and broke into a broad grin as soon as Shad saw her. Dulsie’s long,
sandy brown hair was twisted in the upsweep she preferred to sport
during the summer’s heat. The green, short sleeved pantsuit she was
wearing had been her day’s attire for Dulsie’s work at a financial
counseling service near the downtown district of Jefferson City.
Because she stood at only four-foot-ten, a full foot shorter than
Shad, and weighed about ninety pounds dripping wet, Dulsie liked to
refer to this particular outfit as her leprechaun costume. Most of
the time when Shad saw her wear it, he remembered how Dulsie once
commented that the Irish trickster look was appropriate for
somebody named Delaney – although with a name like Dulsie Delaney,
she felt as though she ought to be hanging out with the likes of
Clark Kent, Peter Parker and Bruce Banner.
    Frankly Shad had no idea if there was even a
drop of Irish in his blood, and he claimed the surname Delaney only
because he had it legally changed after he turned eighteen. Dulsie
had quipped during their engagement that if he had just been
patient, Shad could have changed his surname to hers, which was
Wekenheiser. And considering the word many people corrupted it
into, Shad could have been a “wisenheimer” just like her.
    They closed the gap between them as each took
a few casual steps toward the other.
    “How was the trip?” Dulsie’s voice was soft
and its pitch was just high enough to belie her diminutiveness.
    “It went well enough, considering. Have you
been waiting long?”
    Shad had called her on his cell phone during
the time he knew Dulsie would be off for lunch and informed her of
Eliot’s truancy. She was here now to take him home. Earlier that
morning Shad accompanied Dulsie on her trip to work, and he knew
she would have got off over an hour ago.
    “You know I’m good at entertaining myself.”
Dulsie’s grin had a mischievous quality to it. “I hung out at the
museum in the capitol to see how long it would take for somebody to
ask if I’d lost my parents.”
    Besides her short stature, Dulsie’s
heart-shaped face, small nose, and dark blue eyes highlighted with
minimal makeup guaranteed she would get carded every time Dulsie
made a liquor purchase. Because her appearance was very much
inherited from her dad Karl, Dulsie knew she had many years ahead
of her to deal with misconceptions. And like her dad she’d decided
to accept her circumstance with humor.
    “That’s better than finding out how long they
take to try to throw you out of the mall.” Shad’s smile deepened.
“And at least the train didn’t get here terribly late.”
    “Only ten minutes. Not bad at all.” Dulsie
stepped beside Shad and slipped an arm into the crook of his as it
rested on the carrying case. “Remember that time we took the train
to visit Russell? We were over an hour late getting to Kansas
City.”
    Russell was one of Dulsie’s two brothers,
both several years older than her. Like both of Shad’s “sisters,”
none of their siblings still lived in the area.
    Shad grasped Dulsie’s hand in his, and their
fingers intertwined. They strolled together past the brick depot
and toward the row of cars parked along the street. Just a few
blocks ahead of them towered the crystalline limestone marble dome
of the capitol building where Dulsie had kept herself occupied.
    “Wasn’t that the trip when we all went to the
zoo?” Shad asked.
    “Yeah,” Dulsie replied. “But I remember it as
the trip when you reminded me of Dad.”
    Shad liked Karl, but he couldn’t entirely
take her remark as a complement because he knew what Dulsie was
referring to, and he didn’t doubt that Karl was someone who could
be dangerous if sufficiently provoked. “Oh.”
    “I’m pretty sure you wanted to rip that guy’s
arm off and beat him with it.”
    After the train had arrived at Kansas City,
the station was so crowded that Shad and Dulsie drifted apart from
each other as they searched for