Ever After

  “Justin — ” His voice broke. He squinted and pressed his other fist to his eyes. “I’m so proud of you, son.” He waited a minute and then returned to his seat.

  And like that it was Carol’s turn. She’d been waiting for this moment all day, her chance to be alone with her son. Only now it took everything she had left to make the walk, because she didn’t want to say good-bye, couldn’t imagine saying good-bye. She reached the edge, and suddenly she could see him lying there, the way he looked stretched out on his bed at night, his green eyes closed, muscled arms flung up onto the pillow.

  Picturing him that way made her heart seize up into her throat. She couldn’t take a breath or exhale or do anything but stare at the box. They had to get him out of there. He needed air! They both did. The cemetery people couldn’t put him into the ground, couldn’t leave him here. Because just a minute ago, he was running up and hugging her, telling her all the crazy, dangerous, tender things that had happened in Iraq. He had never been more alive in all his life, and so how could he be here at all?

  She jerked her gaze away from the casket and looked up through the towering evergreens that lined the cemetery at a slice of blue. No. He wasn’t sleeping in the box. Slowly she exhaled. That was the only way she could do this, by telling herself the truth. He was climbing mountains outside the city of heaven. Strong and more alive and whole.

  A small bit of air filled her lungs, and she reached out and touched the casket. She still had the flag in her arms, and she looked at it. Anything to delay the moment. She ran her fingers over the silky blue and the sewn-on stars. Because blue stood for courage, and no one had ever tackled war more courageously than her son. “You got your wish, Justin.” She whispered, so no one — not even Gary and Jill — could hear her. “You were the best, honey. The very best.”

  Then she took the object, the one she’d been holding in her hand since the graveside service began, and placed it on the casket, a few inches from the flower. The small plastic figurine had been one of Justin’s favorites as a boy. He would fall asleep with a handful of them lined up along the side of his bed. They had all known back then which direction his future would go. The only thing Justin ever wanted to do was defend his country.

  As she walked away, as she felt the physical force of separation, of leaving her son’s body behind, she pulled her eyes away from the casket. The last thing she saw before she turned back to her family was that one small green toy that Justin had given her for Mother’s Day a lifetime ago. She still had one on her dresser, where it would stay until the day she died, because it would remind her not of his death, but of his childhood, his boyhood, his teenage years. His life.

  A much-loved, well-worn, army green, plastic toy soldier.

  The reception would be back at the Bakers’ house, but first Emily needed to comfort Bo and Dexter and the other teens. They had held up well through both services, but now it seemed Bo might collapse to the ground. And so she held him until finally his sobs subsided.

  “Bo … we need to get going.” She looped her arm through his. Joe was standing with the other guys, though none of them were saying much.

  The boy sniffed and nodded. “Okay.” He looked over his shoulder at the coffin. “He’s not there, right? That’s what he always told us. Believe in Jesus, and at the end a guy goes to heaven, right?”

  Emily smiled. Her eyes were swollen, but she was tired of crying. Justin was gone. Now it was time to celebrate his life — this afternoon and every day she had left to live. “That’s right. He’s not there.”

  Bo straightened. “Alright, then.” The tough guy image was back, but not like he’d worn it before. Something in his eyes was different, softer and gentler.

  Emily prayed it always would be. They met up with Joe and the others, and she and Joe exchanged a look. They still needed to talk, maybe later at the Bakers’ house. For now, she appreciated his presence, the fact that having him nearby was — in some strange way — like having Justin there.

  In the distance, she saw the Veterans making their way to their cars. Several of them walked with canes, their jackets decorated with dozens of colorful badges and pins, proud to be a part of the brotherhood that Justin belonged to, the brotherhood of soldiers. The man in the wheelchair held up his hand in her direction before his buddies wheeled him toward a cluster of cars — most with handicapped placards.

  Emily waved back. This was not the last time she would see the old men. She would go to them, check in on them once in a while and keep them posted about life at Fort Lewis. Because that was one way she could keep Justin’s memory alive.

  They were almost to the van when Dexter shoved his hands deep in his jeans pockets. “What are we supposed to do now?” His tone was angry, defeated. “What’s the point?”

  Emily was about to answer him, about to tell him that Justin never would’ve wanted him to think that way, when Joe cleared his throat. “Hey, man, Justin talked about you guys all the time.” Joe kept walking, his steps slow, eyes downcast. “He believed in you.” He stopped and looked Dexter straight in the eyes. “And he believed in serving his country.”

  Two of the guys — the ones with plans to enlist — nodded, silent.

  “Listen,” Dexter did an exaggerated shrug, “you ain’t got no idea what it’s like livin’ in my shoes, trapped on the streets. No way out.” He stuck his chest out and crossed his arms. “Justin … he knew, man. He knew like nobody.” He threw his hands up. “So now what?”

  Joe wasn’t backing down. He’d never met the guys until today, but clearly he wasn’t going to let this moment pass. “Now?” He put his hand firm and hard on Dexter’s shoulder. “Now you get your education and you make something of yourself.” Joe’s lip quivered. “You make Justin proud, because that’s what he wanted for you. It’s what he believed for you.”

  Bo took a step forward. His eyes moved around the group to each of the guys, and finally, to Dexter. “The man’s right.” He looked more composed than he had all day. “Justin believed in us. Maybe … maybe it’s time we believed in us too.”

  For the first time, the idea seemed to sink in for Dexter. For the others also. Justin had believed in them. Dexter eased his stance. He bit the inside of his lip and gave the slightest nod. “Okay.” Then he motioned for the others, and they all started walking toward the van again.

  Emily wanted to raise her fist in the air. Here it was, the victory she’d been looking for all day. Justin wasn’t gone. He wasn’t in the casket, about to be lowered into a dark hole in the ground. He was here. He was in the warm smile of a teary-eyed World War II Veteran, and in the innocent eyes of a busload of grade school kids. He was in the firm grip of a soldier named Joe Greenwald, and he was standing beside her, gazing out at Puget Sound. Where he’d always be. But in this moment, maybe most of all, he lived on in the words of a troubled young teenager.

  A guy who would forever believe in himself, in his future, in his reason for being alive. And one day — no matter how long or sad the good-bye — they would see him again and know the impact he’d made, the legacy he’d left behind, the lives that had been changed.

  All because Justin Baker had lived.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lauren was standing off by herself, watching Carol Baker grieve, when she saw her mother approaching. She looked older, more tired. Coming to the service was important to Lauren’s mom. She’d told them after hearing the news about Justin that she would’ve come even if she’d had to drive up. Instead she’d flown in yesterday afternoon and shared an early dinner with Emily and Lauren and Shane.

  She’d raised Emily, after all. Of course she had come.

  “This is the hardest thing my granddaughter’s been through,” she told Lauren after dinner. “I had to be here.”

  During the service, she’d given them space, understanding that Emily was struggling in more than one way. She had lost Justin, yes. But unless a miracle happened, she was about to lose any hope of her parents ever reuniting. Lau
ren took her eyes off her mother and looked at Shane, across the green spread of grass, several rows of tombstones away. He was talking to Gary Baker.

  There wasn’t much time; Lauren’s mother seemed to understand that too. Her return flight was set for tomorrow, and now, as she drew near, Lauren had a feeling she may have come to Tacoma for more than a chance to support Emily.

  She stopped a foot away, close enough that Lauren could hear her ragged breathing.“Something in the air here.” She gazed at the trees that surrounded the cemetery. “Never had so much trouble drawing a breath.”

  “You’re not sick?” Lauren wasn’t used to worrying about her. They’d been out of touch for nearly two decades, long enough that most of the time she forgot she even had a mother. But now that Emily had brought them all back together, Lauren expected to have her mom around for a long time. Especially after losing her father to cancer a week after finding him. Lauren lowered her brow, worried. “You’ve been getting checkups?”

  “I’m fine.” Her mother waved her hand, as if she were swatting a fly. “Probably just allergies.”

  “Could be.” She looked at her daughter, climbing into the van full of teens fifty yards away. “Emily says they’re bad up here.”

  Her mother was quiet. When Lauren turned to look at her, she had no doubt. Her mother hadn’t walked over to talk about allergies. Lauren turned her back to the rented SUV and tilted her head. “You’re coming to the Bakers’ house?”

  “I am. Haven’t had a chance to talk to Emily yet, not the way I want to.” Her mother narrowed her eyes, thoughtful. “She’s doing well. God’s carrying her. I can see it.”

  Lauren gave a few slow nods. “He is. No way to get through a day like today without faith.”

  “No.” Her mother drew a slow breath. She looked away, but only for a moment. “Lauren, there’s something I have to say.”

  The words reminded her of the semi-speech she’d given Emily and Shane as they arrived at the cemetery. As if death had a way of making people get around to the point, a way of highlighting everything anyone ever said about life being too short. She studied her mom, the woman she’d spent so many years hating. All she could see in the older woman’s eyes was love. Lauren gave her a sad smile. “I thought maybe you did.”

  “Yes.” She held Lauren’s eyes. “It’s about Shane.”

  Lauren found him again, still talking to his friend. “Shane?”

  Her mother looked over her shoulder at the two men, then back. “Don’t let him go, Lauren.” Her voice sounded suddenly scratchy. “It’s … it’s my fault you ever let him go in the first place.” She spread her fingers across her chest. “I take full blame. But now …” She looked at Shane again. “I see the way he looks at you, how he still watches you when you cross the room. The way he used to do all those years ago.”

  Lauren’s heart fluttered. “Really?”

  “Honey — ” her mother gave her a look that said she knew — “I’m not wrong about this. Shane loves you as much today as he ever did.”

  The surprise of her observation was wearing off, and her heart fell back to a normal rhythm. But the thought stirred something deep in Lauren’s soul. Shane watched her when she crossed a room? The years fell away and she stared at him, Shane, the only one who could make her feel seventeen again.

  “What I want to tell you, Lauren — ” her mother took hold of her hand and searched her face — “is that he loves you. He’s crazy about you. He’ll never love anyone the way he loves you.”

  “I’ve been thinking that.”

  Her mother made a relieved sound. “Good.” The familiar guilt and regret cast shadows on her mother’s face. “I couldn’t bear to see the two of you throw away what you had … what you still can have … all because of differing opinions.”

  “Well …” Lauren looked at the flag flying near the corner of the cemetery, the way it unfurled in the breeze. The red, white, and blue and all it stood for. “Our opinions are closer than they used to be.”

  Her mother’s brows lifted. She hesitated, absorbing that bit of information, then shifted her gaze to the van just pulling away. “I think of Emily, all she’s lost.” She had Lauren’s hand. “You and Shane still have a chance, honey. Don’t … please don’t let him go. Not again.”

  Lauren was struck by the intensity in her mother’s tone. But at the same time, another sort of realization hit hard. Her mother was right. If she didn’t do something to stop it, in a few days, she and Shane would both board flights headed for two entirely different locations.

  They’d already told Emily they’d stay another week, through Thanksgiving. Long enough to spend time with her, talk to her, and give her space to cry and laugh and remember the crazy, happy months since she’d met Justin. Emily wanted the three of them to visit the Space Needle and Issaquah, Blake Island and Pike Place Market, the spots Justin had taken her.

  “If I go back now,” she’d told them, “I’ll still feel him with me. Before I forget how.”

  There was no arguing with that, because there was no arguing with grief. A person simply did what her heart led her to do. If that’s where Emily wanted to go, how she wanted to spend her days after the funeral, Lauren and Shane would go with her. But at the end of the week, next Saturday, maybe they could spend an hour at the small church Emily had found.

  Fallon wasn’t so bad now that Lauren understood the military a little better. An entire town full of men and women with the same mind-set as Justin Baker? That wouldn’t be such a horrible existence, would it? She and the others could disagree on politics, but some things finally made sense. The idea that a country like Iraq deserved freedom, and the notion that terror — the sort that would fly a plane into a building, or fire a bullet into a sign-waving man named Yusef, or detonate a bomb beneath a vehicle containing a kid who wanted everything good and right — that sort of thinking had to be eradicated. No questions.

  Yes, she could live in Fallon now, because it was like an optical illusion. The people who lived and worked around the Top Gun facility used to seem like criminals to her, bullies looking for a fight, wanting to flex their collective muscle. But now she saw them more as police officers, people with the heart and courage to defend and protect.

  A strange thing had happened since she wrote that first story about Justin and his fellow soldiers, since she dared to report the war the way so many people in Fallon had talked about it. Other reporters had started doing the same thing. One network correspondent who was interviewed the week before declared her admiration for the men and women of the military, and how it was an honor to risk her life beside them if that’s what it took to tell their story. Their real story.

  Lauren smiled when she saw the interview.

  The press was starting to get it, starting to understand that complicated matters were never entirely one-sided — no matter what a reporter’s personal views might be. She could leave the war reporting to the many other capable journalists in the Middle East, and Time would find another reporter to pal around with Scanlon.

  She was finished, ready to move on with her life.

  Shane’s face came to mind — his voice and his touch. They’d have their differences, of course. But what couple didn’t? And if Lauren returned to the sort of stories she’d been doing before — conducting interviews around the country — she would still have her independence, her time outside of Fallon. Most of all, she would have Shane and she would have peace — not the sort that she had spent her adult years writing about, searching for. But the type of peace that passed all understanding. A peace that could only come from God and His wisdom, and a knowing that she was finally where she belonged.

  With Shane, where she had always belonged.

  The thought that had hit her a moment ago returned. What about it? An hour in the small church where Emily and Justin had gone, a moment in time to promise forever to the man who had gently taken hold of her heart when he was only a kid. Would he have her? Would he believe that she c
ould share a house with him in Fallon, entertain with him, and understand the people who made up his world?

  Or was it too late?

  Lauren took her mother’s other hand. Patience shone from her mom’s eyes, a patience and a persistence that said she wasn’t going to leave this conversation without an answer. Lauren looked at her for a long time. “I won’t let him go, Mom.” Conviction rose within her, a conviction she hadn’t fully acknowledged until now. “I know what I want.” The words sounded foreign coming from her mouth. She hadn’t voiced them to anyone yet, even herself. “Shane and I, well, we had this date all planned, something big set for Christmas Eve in Fallon.” Her heart beat harder at the thought. “But I’d do it this week. On Saturday after Thanksgiving … if Shane’ll have me.” She felt a tentative smile on her lips. “He might say no, because, well … I’ve been — ” she wrinkled her nose — “a little difficult.”

  “Are you saying — ” her mother’s face lost a shade of color — “are you saying you’d marry him this week if he’d take you?”

  Only then did she realize the significance of her words. The great and lasting significance. “Yes.” No hint of doubt remained. She wanted to marry Shane and grow old with him, love him the way she’d never been able to love him before. “Yes!” She let loose a quiet laugh. “I want to marry him, Mom. That’s what I’m saying.” Her forehead grew damp, even in the late afternoon breeze. She would marry him that Saturday if he would take her, if he would trust that she was ready to commit her life to him, if he would forego all the fancy planning and flowers and simply hold her hand at the front of the small church and promise her forever.