“Let’s pray.” Her father took her hand. He waited for several beats before starting. “Lord, thank you for our food and our blessings.” He hesitated. “You know all things. Reveal the truth, please. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
The truth? Ellie could barely swallow the dry bites of her sandwich. The truth about what? Her mother? The reason she wasn’t home when the doctor’s office where she worked closed an hour ago?
They said nothing while they ate, though the quiet screamed across the dinner table. When they were finished, her dad looked at her. His eyes were sad. “Ellie, if you would do the dishes, please.” He stood and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be in my room.”
She was finishing up in the kitchen when her mom slipped through the front door. Lately Ellie felt more like the mother, or at least the way a mother was supposed to feel when their kids were teenagers. Ellie looked over her shoulder, and her eyes met her mom’s. She was still wearing her black pants and white shirt, the clothes she wore for work.
“Where’s your father?” Her eyes were red and swollen, her voice thick.
“In his room.” She wanted to ask her mom where she’d been and why she was late. But she didn’t know how. She turned back to the sink.
Ellie’s mother started in that direction, then she stopped and turned to Ellie again. “I’m sorry.” Her shoulders dropped a little more. “For missing dinner.” She sounded weary. “I’m sorry.”
Before Ellie could say anything, her mom turned and walked down the hall. Ellie checked the clock on the microwave. Seven-thirty. Her friend Nolan had another hour in the gym, another hour shooting baskets. Then Ellie would ride her bike to his house, the way she did most nights. Especially this summer.
Since her parents had been fighting.
She dried her hands, walked to her room, and shut the door behind her. A little music and some time with her journal, and then Nolan would be home. She turned on the radio. Backstreet Boys filled her room, and instantly she dropped the sound a few notches. Her dad said he’d take away her radio if she listened to worldly music. Ellie figured worldly was a matter of opinion. And her opinion was that the Backstreet Boys was as close to heaven as she was going to get for now.
The first shout rattled her bedroom window.
Ellie killed the sound on the radio and jumped to her feet. As much tension as there had been between her parents lately, neither of them did much shouting. At least not this loud. Her heart pounded. Before she reached her bedroom door, another round of shouts ripped through the air, and this time she could understand what her father was saying, the names he was calling her mom.
Quietly, too afraid to breathe, Ellie crept down the hall and across the living room, closer to her parents’ bedroom door. Another burst of shouts, and now she was near enough that she could hear something else. Her mother’s tears.
“You’ll pack your things and leave.” Her father had never sounded like this before, like he was firing bullets of hatred with every word. “I will not have you pregnant with his child and . . . and living under my roof.” His voice shook the walls. “I will not have it!”
Ellie anchored herself against the wall so she wouldn’t drop to the floor. Her mother was pregnant? With someone else’s baby? The blood began to leave her face, and her world started to spin. Colors and sounds and reality blurred and she wondered if she would pass out. Run, Ellie . . . run fast. She ordered herself to move, but her feet wouldn’t follow the command.
Before she could figure out which way was up again, her father stepped into the doorway and glared at her, his chest heaving with each breath. “What are you doing?”
The question hung between them, and from behind her father Ellie caught a glimpse of her mom. Sitting in their bedroom chair, her head in her hands. Get up, Ellie wanted to scream at her. Defend yourself! Do something! But her mother did nothing. She said nothing.
Ellie’s eyes flew to her father again, and she tried to step away, tried to exit the scene as quickly as possible, but she tripped and fell back on her hands. Her wrists hurt but she scrambled further from him, anyway. Like a crab escaping a net.
It took that long for her father’s expression to soften. “Ellie. I’m sorry.” He took a step toward her. “I didn’t mean for . . . you weren’t supposed to hear that.”
And in that moment Ellie knew two things. First, the horrible thing her dad had shouted was true. And second, her life as she knew it now lay splintered around her on the worn, thin hallway carpet in a million pieces. “I . . . I have to go.” The words were barely a whisper.
Her father was saying something about this being more than a girl her age could understand and that she needed to get back to her room and pray. Something like that. But all Ellie could hear was the deafening way her heart slammed around in her chest. She needed air, needed to breathe. In a move that felt desperate, she found her way to her feet and ran for the front door. She needed Nolan, and she needed him now. A minute later she was on her bicycle pedaling through the summer night.
Pedaling as fast as she could.
He would still be at the gym, but that was okay. Ellie loved watching Nolan play basketball. Loved it whether the place was packed with kids from Savannah High, or just the two of them and the echo of the ball hitting the shiny wood floor. With every push of her foot against the pedal Ellie tried to put the reality out of her mind. But the truth smothered her like a wet blanket. Her mother had come home late again—the way she’d been coming home late since early spring. And today . . . today she must have told her father what he had suspected all along.
She was having an affair. Not only that, but she was pregnant.
The truth churned in her stomach, suffocating her until finally she had no choice but to ditch her bike in the closest bush and give way to the nausea consuming her. One revolting wave after another, her insides convulsing until the only thing left inside her was the hurt. A hurt that would stay with her forever.
Exhausted and drained, Ellie sat on the curb, her head in her hands, and let the tears come. Until then, the horror and shock had kept her sadness at bay. But with her stomach and heart empty, she cried until she could barely breathe. Her mom didn’t love her father, which meant she didn’t love Ellie, either. Their family wasn’t enough for her. There was no other way to look at this. A sense of shame added itself to the mix of sorrow. Nolan’s mom would never have done something like this.
She lifted her face to the darkening sky. Nolan. Ellie wiped her face and breathed in deep. She needed to get to him before it got any later, needed to find him before he left the gym. She forced the pedals to move faster, willed the old bike to make time until finally the gym was in sight. The sound of the ball hitting the floor filled her ears as she leaned her bike against the brick wall at the back of the building, next to his.
Nolan kept the door propped open in case a breeze might come up. Ellie slipped through the entrance and moved quietly to the first row of the bleachers. Nolan caught the ball and stared at her, his eyes dancing, a smile tugging at his lips. “You’re early.”
She nodded. She didn’t trust her voice, not when all she wanted to do was run to him and let him wrap his arms around her. Nolan Cook. Her best friend in the whole world.
“Ellie?” A shadow of concern fell over his handsome face. “You okay?”
As much as she wanted to go to him, she couldn’t tell him. Didn’t want him to know why she was upset, because then . . . well, then for sure it would be true. There would be no turning from the truth once she told Nolan.
He set the ball down and walked to her. Sweat dripped from his forehead, and his tank top and shorts were drenched. “You’ve been crying.” He stopped a foot from her. “What happened?”
“My parents.” She felt her eyes well up, felt her words drown in an ocean of sadness.
“More fighting?”
“Yeah. Bad.”
“Ahh, Ellie.” His breathing was returning to normal. He wiped his forearm across his fa
ce. “I’m sorry.”
“Keep playing.” Her voice sounded strained from her heartache. She nodded to the basket. “You have another ten minutes.”
He watched her for a long couple of seconds. “You sure?”
“We can talk later. I just”—a few tears slid down her cheeks—“needed to be here. With you.”
Again he studied her, but eventually he nodded. Slow and not quite sure. “Okay. We can leave whenever you want.”
“When you’re done. Please, Nolan.”
One last look, but then he turned and jogged back to the ball. Once it was in his hands he dribbled to the left and the right, and then took the ball to the hoop. In a move as fluid and graceful as anything Ellie had seen in her seven years of dance lessons, Nolan rose in the air and slammed the ball through the net. He landed lightly on both feet and caught the ball. Dribbled back out, juked a few more imaginary opponents, and repeated the move. Ten straight dunks, and then he jogged to the drinking fountain and drank for half a minute. Next came his three-point shots.
Nolan played basketball with his heart, mind, and soul. The ball was an extension of his hand, and every move, every step was as natural for him as breathing. Watching him, Ellie felt her eyes dry, felt herself marveling at the gift he’d been given, the way she celebrated it every time she had the privilege of seeing him play. Nolan’s dream was as simple as it was impossible.
He wanted to play in the NBA. It was something he prayed about and worked toward every day. Every hour of every day. From the A’s and B’s he struggled to earn in class to the hours he put in here every day and night. If Nolan didn’t wind up playing professional basketball, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. Not for lack of believing.
He hit five shots from every spot along the arch of the three-point line, then he gulped down more water and finally tucked the ball under his arm and walked back to her. He used his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face. “Could it be more humid?”
“Yeah.” She smiled a little and looked at the open back door. “Not much of a breeze.”
“No.” He led the way. “Come on. We’ll go to my house first. I’ll shower, and then we can go to the park.”
That’s all Ellie wanted, a few hours alone with Nolan at Gordonston Park. The place with their favorite oak tree and enough soft grass for them to lay on their backs and watch shooting stars on more summer nights than she could count. She didn’t say anything, not yet. They walked silently out the back door, which Nolan closed and locked. Nolan’s dad was the coach, and he had given him a key a year ago. Too much trouble to open the gym every time Nolan wanted to shoot baskets.
They rode their bikes down Pennsylvania Avenue and then took the shortcut down Kinzie Avenue to Edgewood. Nolan’s house was only half a mile from Ellie’s, but they might as well have been in separate worlds for how different they were. Nolan’s neighborhood had fireflies and front lawns that stretched on forever. Ellie’s had chain link fences and stray dogs, with low-slung, single-story houses the size of Nolan’s garage.
The sort of house Ellie and her parents lived in.
Ellie sat with Nolan’s mother in the kitchen while he showered. Her eyes were dry still, so she didn’t have to explain herself. Instead, the conversation was light, with Nolan’s mom telling her about the new Bible study she’d joined, and how much she was learning about the Old Testament.
Ellie wanted to care, wanted to feel as connected to God as Nolan and his parents. But if God loved her, why was her life falling apart? Maybe He only loved some people. Good folks like the Cook family. A few minutes later Nolan came down in clean shorts and a T-shirt. He grabbed two chocolate chip cookies from a plate on the kitchen counter and kissed his mother’s cheek.
Suddenly Nolan looked different, more grown up. She was with him every day, so she didn’t always stop and notice, but here, in his kitchen, she could see it. He wasn’t a kid anymore. Neither of them were. They’d been friends since second grade, and they’d walked home together since the first day of middle school. She still felt like a kid, but somewhere along the journey of time they’d both done something they hadn’t seen coming.
They’d gotten older. They’d grown up.
Nolan was just over six feet already, tanned from his morning runs, his short blond hair cut close to his head the way it was every summer. He’d been lifting weights for basketball, so maybe that was why he looked different: the way his shoulders and biceps filled out the pale green T-shirt as he grabbed the cookies.
Ellie felt her cheeks grow hot and she looked away. Mrs. Cook smiled at her, and Ellie was grateful the woman hadn’t caught her looking at Nolan. “Come by any time, Ellie. The door’s always open. You know that.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” And with that they were out the door. There was no need to talk about where they were going. It was the same place every time. Beneath the biggest oak tree in the park—maybe the biggest oak tree in the city. The one dripping with Spanish moss, with the gnarled tree roots jutting out of the soft Southern ground high enough to make a place for them to sit. The grassy patch was just a few feet away, beneath a break in the branches overhead.
The place where Ellie and Nolan had come to talk about life since the summer before sixth grade. Their place. Back then they played hide-and-seek among the trees, with the enormous old oak serving as home base. During the school year, when it was warm enough, they’d do their homework out here. And on nights like this, they would do what came easiest for them.
They would simply sit down, open their hearts, and share whatever came pouring out.
“Okay. Tell me.” Nolan took the spot closest to the massive tree trunk. He leaned back, studying her. “What happened?”
Ellie had been thinking about this moment since she walked through the door of the high school gym. She had to tell him the truth, because she told him everything. But she didn’t have to tell him this very minute, right? He was waiting for an answer. Her throat was dry, so her words took longer to form. “My mom . . . she was late again.”
He waited, and after a few seconds he blinked. Twice. “That’s it?”
“Yeah.” She didn’t like postponing the truth, but she couldn’t tell him yet. “My dad was really mad.”
“Oh. I was worried it was something really bad.” He leaned back against the tree. “It’ll be okay, Ellie. It will.”
“Right.” She moved to the spot beside him and pressed her back lightly against the tree trunk. Their shoulders were touching, a reminder of everything good and right in her life.
“One day when we’re old and married we’ll come back to this very spot and remember tonight.”
“How do you know?”
He looked at her. “That we’ll remember?”
“No.” She grinned. “That I’ll marry you.”
“That’s easy.” He faced her fully, shrugged, and folded his arms. “You’ll never find anyone who loves you like I do.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d said this. And always he kept his tone light, so she couldn’t accuse him of being too serious or trying to change their friendship to something more. Not yet, anyway. Always she would laugh and shake her head, as if he’d suggested something crazy like the two of them running off and joining the circus.
But this time she didn’t laugh or joke or push the subject. She only lifted her eyes to the distant trees and the fireflies still dancing among them. Good thing she hadn’t told him about her mother, about how she’d slept with another man and gotten pregnant. Because that would change everything. Nolan would feel sorry for her, and there would be no more teasing about marriage. Not when her parents had made such a mess of theirs.
Ellie exhaled, content. The news could wait.
Because right now she wanted nothing more than to sit here beside Nolan Cook under the big oak tree at the edge of the park on a summer night that was theirs alone and believe . . . believe for one more moment the one thing Ellie wanted more than her next breath.
That they
might stay this way forever.
USA Today and New York Times bestselling author KAREN KINGSBURY is America’s #1 inspirational novelist. There are more than 20 million copies of her award-winning books in print, including several million copies sold in the past year. Karen has written more than fifty novels, ten of which have hit #1 on national lists. Karen lives in Tennessee with her husband, Don, and their five sons, three of whom are adopted from Haiti. Her daughter and son-in-law, her sisters, and her mother help out in Karen’s office, making her Life-Changing Fiction™ a family affair.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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