Learning

  “I’m sorry.” She ran her fingers along his shoulder, his back. “I’m trying to learn how to live with all this and … I guess it’s just hard.”

  “It’s hard for me, you mean.” He waved his hand toward the family room. “Your life is just as it always was. Working with the kids, teaching them how to read and color and taking them on play dates with your sisters.” He took another drink of his coffee. “You’re still painting and running our home and doing everything you ever did.” He wasn’t angry with her — she knew him that well. But his voice was louder than before. “Have you thought about me? I’m supposed to be out there fighting fires, protecting the city, and rescuing people.” He set his coffee cup down a little too hard and rocked his chair back onto its back legs. Then he stood and paced to the sink and back to the table. “Look at me, Ashley … I’m going stir-crazy and I’ve only been home two weeks. I feel like I’m … like I’m useless.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say, but she had to try. “What about the vacation idea?”

  “That’s ridiculous.” This time his response was more of a yell. “Ashley, they’re telling me I might never go back to work. How can I think of that as a vacation?”

  “Landon, please.” Her tone pleaded with him to lower his voice, to get control of himself. “This isn’t my fault.”

  He seemed to hold his breath for a minute, and for half a second she wondered if his anger was causing him to go into an attack. But then he exhaled slowly, like he was searching for control again. He sat back down and took her hands gently in his. “I know it’s not your fault. This isn’t about fault. And yes, I love the kids and you. Being home for a few days has been great.”

  Understanding filled her with a warmth she hadn’t felt until now. “You miss it … being at the station. Is that it?”

  “Of course I miss it.” An exasperated laugh sounded quietly on his lips. “It’s what I do, Ash, … I’m a firefighter. I can’t sit home and wait for the next round of tests.”

  A different sort of panic pushed its way into Ashley’s heart. She hadn’t thought about this aspect of his lung disease. She’d been too worried about his survival to think about what might happen if he did live. “You could work investigations … or teach. You could get involved in coaching or you could —”

  “Ash … don’t you see?” The pain in his voice, the hurt in his eyes was more than she had seen since their early days, back when he wasn’t sure if she loved him. “I fight fires. That’s what I love. It’s like,” he pointed his thumb toward the stairs, “if you couldn’t paint.”

  Ashley sat back. There had been times in her life when she relied on the canvas, times when she wasn’t sure she could live if she didn’t paint. She had always believed that creating a piece of art was proof of God in her life. His gift to her … and her gift to use for Him. She covered Landon’s hand with her own. “I … I didn’t see it that way.”

  They heard the sound of quick feet and suddenly Devin stood in the doorway. “Are you guys fighting?”

  Ashley and Landon shared a hurried look, one that expressed their mutual regret that their conversation had caused Devin to worry yet again. Landon walked to him and put a hand on their son’s shoulder. “We’re just talking, buddy.”

  “Talking loud.” His brow lowered, and he looked wounded. “You didn’t have a nice tone.” His anger lifted a little, and he looked at Ashley. “I have to have a nice tone with Nessa, remember?” He put his hands on his hips. “So you have to have a nice tone too, right?”

  “Yes.” Landon ran his hand along Devin’s blond hair. “I’m sorry, Dev … I’ll watch my tone, okay?”

  “Okay.” His lips curved into a relieved smile. “You too, Mommy?”

  Ashley’s heart ached. “Better tones all around.”

  “We haffa be friends … all the time.” His smile filled his face this time. “Right?”

  “Right.” Ashley joined Landon as they answered him at the same time. She stood and joined the guys, putting her arm around Devin and looking long and hard into his eyes. “I’m sorry … Daddy and I love each other very much. And you’re right. We’re best friends.”

  Devin gave a satisfied nod and returned to the other room with his sister. Ashley peaked in on them and saw that Nessa had her pink blanket. She looked lost in the movie — right at the scene where God parts the Red Sea. “This is the part where God works a miracle, right Mommy?” Devin called back to her as he settled in next to Janessa.

  “Yes.” She slipped her arm around Landon’s waist. “This is the best part.”

  “And God is working a miracle for Daddy too, right?”

  “Exactly.” She hesitated, but not long enough to alarm him. “That’s exactly what God is going to do.”

  She and Landon wandered back into the kitchen, and Landon sat down at the table again. He put his head in his hands. For a long time she only looked at him, wondering what God might have next for them. He had saved Landon from the house fire, breathed life into him, and helped him recover enough to be here — home where he belonged. But what about the future? Devin was right — they all needed to be best friends, especially Ashley and Landon. But if he couldn’t fight fires, then they would need a different sort of miracle — something Ashley hadn’t prayed for once since Landon had come home. Not so much that he’d live.

  But that he’d have a purpose in doing so.

  Four

  BY MID-MAY BAILEY’S LIFE WAS A BLUR OF REHEARSALS AND workouts and conversations with Francesca Tilly. She was learning her part, but Francesca still wanted more from her, sharper movements, better expressions. There were days she wasn’t sure she was ready for opening night. At the end of each day, when she finally had a single spare moment, she would skype alone in her room with her family, and once in a while with Brandon Paul. Some nights she even had time for Facebook. It was a fun outlet, a way to keep in touch with the high school girls who had befriended her because of her role in the movie Unlocked.

  They wanted to know how she had lived out her faith on the set and whether she’d played a part in Brandon Paul’s decision to become a Christian. They asked for advice about guys and their friends, parents, and siblings. Bailey felt herself drawn to respond to them every night before she turned in. She’d give them Bible verses and ideas about standing strong for God and for purity. “And always tell your mom everything.” She’d written that to more girls than she could remember.

  Most of them knew Bailey had been cast in Hairspray. So on the Monday before her opening night, she signed onto Facebook and updated her status to read: Tomorrow night my dream of performing on Broadway will become a reality. I miss my family like crazy, but I love everything about my time in New York so far. I’m not sure I’m ready … but I can’t believe God would let me get to this point! Thanks for praying for me! Here’s a verse I read earlier today: “Commit your plans to the Lord, and they will succeed.” Proverbs 16:3. XOXO.

  She hit the share button, and the update went live. Already she had a couple thousand friends … and that had to be mostly word of mouth, because she’d stayed out of the newspapers and magazines. Before she signed off, she did the one thing she knew she shouldn’t do. In the search line she typed the name Cody Coleman. He’d started a Facebook page a few weeks ago — something Connor had told her about. Bailey hadn’t asked him to be her friend, and he hadn’t asked her. But neither of them really needed to be official Facebook friends. Their pages were open to public viewing.

  A quick scan of Cody’s page told her nothing had changed. No new updates since two days ago when he wrote only, “Don’t underestimate the Lyle Buckaroos. This team has more heart than any group of football players in the state of Indiana.”

  From what Bailey could tell, Cody had started the page to update his players about Lyle football. The only girls he was friends with — yes, Bailey had looked — was Tara, who’d been with him in the hospital after Cheyenne’s accident, and Andi Ellison, who was also Bailey’s friend.

/>   And, of course, Cheyenne.

  Every week Cody updated his Facebook with information about her progress. She had survived the accident with no brain damage, and now she was healing from her broken bones, and learning to walk again. So far Cody had posted no photos of her, and his info page still showed his relationship status as single. Bailey thought that was strange. Clearly they were dating. No, they were more than dating. They were becoming the sort of close that could only happen through tragedy. Cody was everything to Cheyenne … though Bailey couldn’t see her page. Her information was private. But if she could, it wasn’t hard to imagine the pictures. Cody and Cheyenne in the rehab clinic, him helping her stretch her leg muscles, Cody walking beside her down the hallway, the two of them sharing dinner together.

  Bailey signed off and, as she did, she heard the sound of someone getting onto Skype. In a hurry she opened the Skype program and saw that it was Brandon Paul. Brandon was her friend on Facebook and on Skype … but he went by the name His Only … a tribute to the way he felt about Jesus, and the only possibility he might have of flying under the radar when it came to social media.

  She hit the small green telephone icon at the top of the Skype box, and then just as quickly, she clicked the video button. Instantly she could see herself in a small box on her screen. He answered on the first ring, and just like that, they were looking at each other. Brandon, his face life-size in the full screen, and in the far left corner a tiny box that showed how she looked to him on the other end.

  “Hi …”

  “Hi.” His voice was soft, his eyes dancing. “How many nights in a row is this?”

  She giggled. “I haven’t counted.”

  “I have.” He was sitting in his office chair and he leaned back, a grin spread across his face. “This is our sixteenth night.”

  “I love it.” Bailey let herself get lost in his eyes. Skype was crazy that way … it was a computer screen, yes. But because the image was life-size and because they could talk in real time to each other, skyping was more like talking to someone through a window. Only maybe better. Because their faces were so close, their eyes so connected. “How was your day?”

  “Better now.” He angled his head. “I miss you. Really bad.”

  “I miss you too.” It was true. These past few weeks skyping together had brought them closer. “I look forward to this.” She felt her smile drop off. “Especially lately.”

  “You better.” He chuckled and then seemed to realize the change in her mood. “Why especially lately?”

  Bailey hesitated, not sure how much she should say. She didn’t want his pity … but she could definitely use his prayers. “I don’t know … I might not be ready. A couple of the ensemble girls sort of hinted that maybe the part was given to me.” She hesitated. “You know, because of my part in Unlocked.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Brandon’s eyes flashed. “You trained hard for that part.” He raked his fingers through his hair and jerked back in his seat. “Remember the director? She said you were the strongest dancer that day.”

  “Yeah … but since then she’s been hard on me. And I deserve it.” She hadn’t admitted this to anyone except her mom. “The dancers here are so good.”

  “They’ve been on the show for months. Of course they’re good. After the first show, you’ll be fine.” Brandon’s expression eased and he smiled. “Now … about the way I miss you …”

  Her worries left and a lighthearted laugh came easily across her lips. “You have a one-track mind.”

  “True.” He leaned close. For a second he brought his face so close that only his eyeball filled the screen. Then he leaned back and laughed once more. “I sit here all day … waiting and watching … wondering when you’ll finally find the time to go home and get on your computer.”

  “Oh, right.” Her laughter filled her room, and her heart felt light at the sound. “That’s you, Brandon. So bored … nothing to do but sit around waiting for me to get on Skype.”

  “Well … that and my movie.”

  “How’s it going?” He was doing an emotional film about a father and a son, set in the world of NASCAR. The movie was called Chasing Sunsets, and it was based on a bestselling novel that was still one of the hottest books on the New York Times list.

  “Let’s put it this way … at some point earlier this afternoon, I was flying around a race track at nearly two-hundred miles an hour.”

  “What?” She leaned forward, as surprised as she was concerned. “Are you serious? That’s too fast … I mean, you were a passenger, right?”

  “Yes … But next week I’ll drive.”

  “At two-hundred miles an hour?”

  “Maybe.” He laughed again. “Okay, maybe half that.”

  “Hmmm.” She wasn’t sure how she felt about him racing as part of his moviemaking. “Shouldn’t you have a stunt double?”

  “And miss all the fun?” His eyes sparkled with the challenge. “Come on, Bailey … You should know me better than that.”

  “So …” she relaxed a little. He would be fine … no one would let him get hurt. “What was it like … in a car that fast?”

  “It’s the weirdest thing …” A sense of adventure shone in his eyes. “At first it’s like you can’t believe you’re going that fast. But at a certain speed — I don’t know, maybe a hundred and eighty or so — everything starts to feel like it’s in slow motion. The edges are blurred, and the only thing you can really make out is the track ahead of you.”

  Bailey imagined herself in a car moving that fast. “Sounds crazy.”

  “It is.” The familiar flirting returned to his expression. “But you know what?”

  “What?”

  “Even though the director told me to think about how the car might handle, which groove to be in, and whether I’d sling-shot the car ahead of me …” He nodded a few times, his eyes sparkling. “And even though I did that for the first two laps … by the third time around the track, you know what I was thinking?”

  “How soon you could get out of there?”

  “No.” He moved closer to the screen, his expression locked on hers. His eyes had never looked more sincere. “I was thinking about you.”

  “Brandon, …” She laughed a little, but she didn’t look away. He had this effect on her more often lately, making her dizzy, filling her senses with his presence even when he was three-thousand miles away. The teasing in her tone kept the conversation fun. “Come on … be serious.”

  “I am.” He tossed his hands in the air and gave her his best helpless expression. “I can only imagine if I were behind the wheel. They’d radio me to pit and I’d just keep driving … around and around and around. Thinking about Bailey Flanigan.”

  For the slightest instant she felt a whisper of fear. From the time she met Brandon, she hadn’t expected anything to come of their friendship. He was so different from her, his visibility and the life he lived. If she let herself fall for him, at some point she’d have to deal with the big questions: Where would they live? How would she tolerate the public eye? What parts of his past would she need to know about? Questions she wasn’t ready to consider. But she would have to deal with them at some point. Because at the rate they were going, she wasn’t sure she could stop herself from falling for him.

  “What are you thinking?” This was another difference with having a video conversation on Skype. In a phone call, a person could hide in the little silences between conversation points. But here … face to face … emotional depth was harder to miss.

  She smiled. “You know me too well.”

  “I try.” He settled back in his chair again, studying her. “Have I told you how much I miss you?”

  “Once or twice.” She picked up a pen and paper and doodled a picture of the Hairspray marquee. “Well, … I better get some sleep.”

  “Me too.” He gave her a look of mock seriousness. “I’ve never been so tired.”

  She laughed out loud. “You always do that … you make m
e laugh whenever you want.”

  “Not whenever I want.” His voice softened. “Otherwise I’d make you laugh in the morning and at lunchtime and at night … and we’d never have to rely on Skype again.”

  The thought sounded wonderful. The last time she and Brandon were together — at her house when she was packing her things for New York — she’d enjoyed every minute. “With your life, we’d probably spend more time on Skype than together.”

  He opened his mouth, mock indignation flashing in his expression. “Hardly.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she giggled at him, at the way he was always such an actor. “Your movie shoots take you all over the world.”

  “Yes, but …” His look was still overly dramatic. “You’re forgetting something.”

  “What’s that?” She was closer to the screen now, her eyes melting into his.

  “Every movie I make … from this point on … is going to star you and me together.” He shrugged, as if the matter had already been decided. “We’re too good a team. I’ve already decided. Of course … when you open tomorrow you’ll take Broadway by storm, and then I may have to figure a way to sweeten the deal. You know, to convince you.”

  “You’re crazy, Brandon.” Again she laughed. “Okay … seriously. I really have to go.”

  “Okay. I’ll be thinking about you tomorrow night.” He gave her a sweetly stern look. “Don’t be down on yourself. You’ll do great. And I’ll be praying for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  He held his arms out in a circle. “This is me hugging you.”

  She laughed and tried to keep a straight face as she did the same thing. “This is awkward … but here’s me doing the same thing.”

  His fingers came close to the screen until they took up most of it. “And this is me touching your heart.” This time he wasn’t kidding.

  His eyes made her feel breathless, not sure what she was supposed to say or where they were taking this. But she did the only thing she could do. She brought her fingers to the top of the screen where the camera was located and she saw in the small box at the bottom of her screen that the effect was the same for him as when he’d done it for her. “There. That’s me touching yours.”