Read Leaving Normal for Free Online Page A

age—whenever he dealt with patients, he never made assumptions. Perhaps Natalie was a little older than him. If she was, it couldn't be by much. The fact that she owned her own business and seemed to be financially stable was an attribute he commended. Not every woman could be single and self-sufficient to live this comfortably.
    She lived alone, her daughter was in college. He wondered if she ever got lonely. God knew he did, even sometimes when Kim was home. They'd sit on the sofa together, each at their own end, and watch a TV program without really talking to one another. During those times, he wished he was at work.
    But there were nights at the station when he'd come in from a call at one, two or three in the morning, and he just couldn't fall back asleep. It was the adrenaline, the fact that he'd been woken up in a foggy sleep that kept him from crashing hard again. Once awake, he had to struggle to capture that completely relaxed state once again. The room where he stayed was small with just a bed and a locker and sometimes he'd lay in his twin bed and read. Other times he'd go into the television room, pick one of the many recliners to lie in and watch the tube. If he was lucky, he'd doze off with the clicker in his hand.
    "I want to thank you in some way. Please come by the shop," she insisted. "Pick out whatever flowers you like and I'll make them into something nice for your wife."
    "I might just do that."
    "I wish you would. I'm sure you had a rough night and this is the last thing you need to be doing."
    "It's actually a good stress reliever." He'd never minded shoveling snow; in fact, he liked the tediousness of it after a night of unpredictable events.
    In a thoughtful tone, she asked, "Did you have some difficult calls?"
    He shrugged. "No more than usual."
    "I guess I'm curious. Anything in particular you've found hard to deal with?"
    Thinking to himself, he was reminded about that DOA—a code blue called in by two people who worked with the victim. A sixty-two-year-old woman who'd been dead in her home for a couple of days, as far as the coroner could tell after a cursory exam. Idaho Power had killed her electricity—a notice was tacked to the door. No heat in the house. While it was obvious to assume that she died of exposure, that wasn't the case. She had failing health; a half-dozen medication bottles were on the kitchen table.
    Tony recalled the fecund odor of cats in the dingy house, only able to see as far as the beam of his flashlight stretched. Mixed-breed cats. Two of them meowed at the blue-black corpse sitting upright on the sofa. One more day and the cats probably would have got to her.
    "No," he said at length. "Nothing hard to deal with."
    "You hear about terrible accidents at this time of year." Natalie stuffed her hands into her coat pockets. As she breathed, tiny clouds of misty air left her pale lips.
    He completed the task, then rested the shovel against the wall of her garage. He ran cold fingers through his short, damp hair. He'd worked up a light sweat. As he'd been standing in only a long-sleeved T-shirt, his skin was hot.
    "Thank you so much for the help." She seemed calmer, a little less keyed up. "And please, come by Hat and Garden anytime."
    "Tony!" A little girl's voice called from across the street.
    Parker stood hi the front of their house wearing a coat and snow boots, her backpack on her shoulders.
    "Hey, Parker."
    She had her hair in pigtails, the blond strands appearing silky and curled. "Look at my snowman."
    He hadn't noticed it when he'd pulled into the driveway. His gaze was redirected to the lopsided snowman in the yard. It wasn't very tall. Patches of dormant grass were visible where she'd rolled the large ball of snow to make the body. She'd decorated it with a scarf, a carrot and what looked to be some charcoal briquettes for the eyes.
    "Come see it, Tony."
    "Okay. I'll be right there."
    "You better go," Natalie hastened to say. "I shouldn't have taken up your