Halfway to Forever

  Tanner’s throat was so thick he couldn’t speak. Instead, he lifted Jade’s hand to his mouth and kissed it, soft and tender, as though it might break.

  “But just in case … I have a favor to ask.”

  He looked up and coughed, still struggling to speak. “Favor?”

  “Yes. Remember? I told you I needed the video camera for something today?”

  Tanner nodded. “Vaguely.” He cast her a silly smile. “I was a little distracted yesterday.”

  “Well, it’s time. Now. Before dinner.”

  He had no idea what she was leading to, but he reached for the camera and took off the lens cover. “Okay, what am I shooting?”

  “Me.” She pointed to the closet. “I had the nurse set a bag in there. Inside is a pink journal. Could you get it for me?” She cast him a sweet but tired smile. “Please.”

  Tanner knit his eyebrows together. He had no idea where this was going but he did as she asked. The journal was where she said it would be, and he gave it to her without pausing to see what it contained. Then he returned to his seat, positioned the video camera, and saluted her. “Tanner, the cameraman, at your service.”

  Jade sat up a bit straighter, wincing. “They don’t tell you how sore your stomach’ll be.” She smiled and straightened first her bathrobe, then her hair. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  A strange, uneasy feeling made Tanner lower the camera. His teasing tone was gone. “Wait a minute. What’s going on?”

  Jade leveled her gaze at him, her face every bit as peaceful as before. “I have something to tell Maddie, something I want her to have when she’s older.”

  Tanner’s heart raced and he shook his head. “You just got done telling me you feel fine, that you know you’re going to make it and everything’s going to work out.”

  “Yes …”

  “So, I don’t get it—” He stopped, aware his voice was louder than before and bordered on angry. He started again. “Are you saying you want me to tape some … some sort of good-bye message to Madison?” He paused and glanced about the room, searching for the words. Finally his eyes found Jade’s again. “I can’t do it, Jade. Ask the nurse, ask Hannah. But I can’t sit here and watch you say good-bye through the lens of a video camera.”

  She waited until he was finished. “It doesn’t have to be a goodbye video, Tanner. It’s simply a message from me to her. And I want you to tape it.” Her eyes grew more intense than before. “Please.”

  A light huff slipped from his lips. His gaze fell to his lap and the camera lying there. He wanted to do this for her, but how? Tanner thought back over the months, how he hadn’t been there for Jade after her diagnosis.

  If she was brave enough to speak a message to Maddie from the bed of her hospital room, looking into their family video camera, then in God’s strength alone he would be strong enough to film her.

  He looked up and his eyes met hers. “I’m sorry.” He held the camera up and flipped the screen on the side. “Of course I’ll film it.”

  Jade cleared her throat and nodded to Tanner. At her signal, he began filming and she smiled into the camera. “Hi, Maddie. I’m here in the hospital room the day after you were born, and—” she held up the pink journal—“I wanted to share a few things with you.”

  Tanner did his best to keep the camera still.

  “This is a gift for you, Maddie. Something I’ve worked on for a long time. It’s a book of letters from me to you.” She smiled and opened the journal, pointing to the pages inside. “Each letter is sort of a talk, really. Something I might tell you when you take your first steps or say your first words. The encouragement I’d give you on the first day of kindergarten or the first day of middle school.”

  The book was full, front to back, with handwritten letters. Tanner could see the tears in Jade’s eyes, but only if he looked hard. His own silent tears blurred the image of Jade, and he blinked, fighting for the strength to continue as Jade kept talking. “One letter tells you how I like to apply mascara and the best way to blend foundation. Another tells you what to look for in a friend and what kind of boy to stay away from.”

  Jade flipped through the pages. “I wrote you a letter for the day you get your first kiss and the day you leave for college. And I wrote you a letter for the day you get married, sweetheart.” She closed the journal and held it close to her heart. “Those and lots more, honey. They’re all here.”

  She hesitated and her smile faded just a bit. Tanner blinked back another wave of tears and tried not to sniff. He didn’t want anything to ruin the miracle he was capturing on tape. Jade swallowed hard. Her eyes narrowed as though she could see the face of their daughter in the camera lens. “My prayer, honey, is that you and I are watching this together. That we get the chance to watch it together lots of times and even share it with your children one day.” Jade plucked at her terry cloth bathrobe. “We can laugh at how silly I look and talk about how much time has passed and how quickly. But whether I’m there or not, you’ll know that at this time in my life, I got sick. Very sick.”

  Tears slid from Jade’s eyes and she wiped them with her fingertips. Tanner wanted to rescue her, help her through the moment, but there was nothing he could do except keep the camera rolling. Her voice trembled as she continued. “Tomorrow I’ll start treatment, medicine and radiation that the doctors hope will make me better. Then in two weeks I’ll have an operation. One that we all believe will save my life.”

  Jade steadied herself. “Your father and I have prayed about it very much, and we believe God’s word is true. He has a plan for me, for you. For all of us. A plan to give us hope and a future and not to harm us.”

  Her composure broke then. She brought her hand to her face and for several seconds she hung her head, staving off the sobs Tanner knew were just beneath the surface. When she looked up, she bit her lip and smiled through her tears. “But sometimes, honey, God’s plans are not our own. Even if that means I don’t make it through this, I want you to know how great God has been to our family. Your dad will tell you the stories, but … but I wanted you to hear it from me. If I’m not there beside you, Maddie, I’m in heaven with Jesus.”

  Tanner’s tears were coming in streams, and it took everything in him to keep the camera in place. Jade shook her head. “Don’t ever blame Jesus for the things that don’t go as we plan, sweetheart. He’s the only One who always knows what’s best. Even if it isn’t what we want.”

  Jade paused, drawing in a deep breath. “Whew.” She stuck out her lower lip and blew her bangs off her forehead. “This is harder than I thought.” She smiled and ran her fingers beneath her eyes again. “There are a few things I don’t ever want you to forget.” She tightened her grip on the journal. “They’re in here, written in the front of the book, but I wanted you to hear them from me. Just in case I don’t get another chance to tell you.”

  Tanner held his breath, his heart breaking.

  “I want you to know I love you more than you could ever imagine. I dreamed about you for two years before you were born, and now I feel like God’s granted me the sweetest miracle by giving you to me and your dad and Ty.”

  Her smile faded. “I also want you to know how much I love your father. He is the greatest man I’ve ever known, and no matter what happens, I pray you and Ty will follow his example as long as you live. He is my strength, my song, my protector. Ever since I’ve known him, he’s led me to Christ again and again. And Christ is the only One who could give me the peace that’s in my heart right now. Your father will lead you there, too, if you let him.” Jade’s voice broke again. “So let him, baby. Please let him lead you to Jesus.”

  Jade kept her gaze straight at the camera lens. “Finally, I want you to love your brother. He’s older than you, yes, but he loves you so much. And he’s very, very special to me. A time may come when he wonders about life and God and why I had to get sick. If that happens, be there for him, Maddie. Be his friend. Be the one he talks to … especially if I can’t be there.?
??

  Tears streamed down Jade’s cheeks again and she shrugged. A smile filled her face and a sound, more laugh than sob, came from her throat. “I guess that’s all. I hope you like the book, honey. I’ll love you forever and no matter what happens, I’ll see you at home.”

  Jade lifted her eyes to Tanner’s and he turned the camera off. Moving like a man who had aged twenty years in fifteen minutes, Tanner set the camera on the floor, stood, and embraced Jade across the bars of the hospital bed.

  They stayed that way a long time, weeping without a sound as they lay on each other’s shoulders. No words were needed. Regardless of what Jade had said about the video, its message had only one purpose.

  When she could speak, Jade whispered against his face. “The hardest thing … is to think of leaving her … the way my mother left me.”

  Tanner’s eyes were swollen, his nose completely stuffed from crying. Still he found his voice and spoke it into her hair, the hair that would be gone in a matter of weeks. “It would never be like that, Jade. Your mother left you on purpose.”

  “I know.” She muffled a sob in his shoulder. “But I still missed her. I wondered what she’d tell me on the first day of middle school, or when I came home in love with you after our first night out in Kelso.” She took three quick breaths. “I don’t ever want Maddie to wonder. I want her to feel me there with her even if it’s only my words.”

  Despite the depth of his pain and fear, Tanner couldn’t have been more proud of her. “When did you have time to write that?” He drew back, his voice still a whisper. “And how come you didn’t tell me?”

  “I wrote it when you were still working. I kept looking for the right time to tell you, but finally I decided this would be the best way. Besides, I wanted to make sure she was here and … and healthy before I did the video.”

  “What about Ty?”

  Jade smiled. “I wrote him one, too. I’ll give it to him before my surgery. But I already videotaped my message for him. It’s in my top drawer in the bedroom.”

  Tanner’s mouth hung open. “I had no idea …”

  “I used the automatic setting.” She angled her face. “It worked fine.”

  There was a knock at the door and a nurse entered with two trays of food. Tanner returned to his seat, and they ate their meal side by side with few words.

  Jade was tired after making the video and needed sleep. The next morning treatment would begin, and she had to be strong if her system was going to handle the strain of both chemotherapy and radiation, especially while she was still recovering from the C-section.

  The only bright spot was that Dr. Layton had promised her a visit to the nursery in the morning so she could spend an hour with Madison before starting treatment. Tanner knew the entire next day—the next two weeks, in fact—would be the hardest in his life. But that night he was determined to be upbeat. For Jade.

  They laughed about some of the silly things Ty had said in the past, and then Tanner read Psalms 23 and 91 to her. When he was finished, she yawned and held out her arms. He leaned over the hospital bed bars and kissed her. “I love you, Jade.”

  She smiled, and though her eyes glistened, she didn’t cry. “No matter what happens tomorrow, no matter how bad it gets, I’d do it all again to be with you, Tanner. No one will ever love you like I do.”

  Fifteen minutes later she was asleep, and though he’d ordered himself to be strong, Tanner was helpless to stop the tears. Dr. Layton had said her hair would most likely be the first thing to go once the chemotherapy began. He gulped back a sob and wove his fingers through her hair. It looked thick and shiny dark against her pink robe. She’d never worn it long, but in light of the impending cancer treatment, she’d grown it out.

  Jade had made light of it. “I’ll be bald soon enough anyway.”

  But Tanner couldn’t imagine Jade without hair, couldn’t picture her silky dark head bald and cut open.

  The room was so quiet he could hear his heartbeat, and he wrapped a thick strand of her hair around his finger and held it that way. He stared at her, studying her, watching her breathe through most of the night. Terrified that if he fell asleep, Jade—the Jade he knew and loved and cherished—would disappear from his life.

  Not just for a day or a week or a season.

  But forever.

  Twenty-Seven

  Grace’s absence and Jade’s illness were the only marks on an otherwise perfect time for the Bronzans.

  During the next two weeks, Hannah prayed daily about both situations.

  Grace’s curly hair and contagious smile still flashed in Hannah’s mind every morning, and occasionally—although less often than before—it took several minutes to remember that she was no longer their daughter, no longer living in the frilly bedroom down the hall.

  They had talked about converting the room into Kody’s nursery, but there was a small room across the hall that Hannah had used for odds and ends that worked just as well. Besides, she and Matt still believed that somehow, sometime, God would bless them with another daughter.

  Becoming parents to a son, however, was nothing less than an act of God. A complete surprise that none of them would have sought out and that had made their home a place of hope and miracles. Overnight Jenny had taken to spending long hours rocking Kody and cooing at him. They marveled at his glowing skin and clear bright eyes, at the fact that a runaway teenage girl had managed to care for her baby so well, and herself so poorly.

  Long before Kody awoke each morning, Hannah would find herself restless, missing the weight of him in her arms and wanting to hold him, feed him, sing over him as she’d done that first time in the hospital room. More often than not, she would tiptoe into his nursery, sit in the rocking chair next to his crib, and stare at him, awed by God’s hand in her life.

  Hannah Bronzan? The mother of a son? It was something she had never imagined, something she had even avoided when they first entered the world of adoption. All she’d ever known were girls. But now, holding Kody, she could sense a difference in the strength of his fist around her finger, the lust of his cry. He was a good-natured baby, yes, but he was all boy. A fighter with strong will and determination that overshadowed anything she’d seen in her girls at this age.

  Hannah often sat in the dawning shadows of morning and studied his face through the crib bars, imagining what great thing God had planned for him. Maybe he’d be a preacher, like poor Milly had prayed. Or the faithful president of a company, leading his employees by example. Or maybe a teacher, a coach. A freedom fighter like Matt, or a doctor like Tom.

  It didn’t matter really. Whatever Kody was, he’d always be a miracle first. A boy whom God had handpicked for their home, their arms. Their family.

  That was something else. After Grace was taken from them, Hannah doubted the entire idea of adoption. It was too painful. Besides, other families could take in hurting children. She wondered if perhaps she had only agreed to adopt in an attempt to recreate what she’d lost that awful day four years ago. Not that she could ever replace Alicia, but maybe she could re-create the busy family atmosphere that had marked her life before the accident. Hannah had desperately missed that.

  Grace’s presence had restored a sense of that, but not really. She was so mistrusting at first, so delicate. They had only just begun to feel like a real family, to sense the balance and laughter and safety a family represents, when she was taken away.

  But now, since the moment Mrs. Parsons brought Kody Matthew home, everything about their home seemed different, warmer. More focused on love and life and faith.

  Hannah spent hours pondering the change Kody had brought to their family, and she figured it was because Jenny was practically grown up and gone. Before adopting, their family hadn’t spent great amounts of time together. Rather Hannah and Matt lived like newlyweds, learning what it was to share a bathroom and a bedroom and a kitchen.

  Jenny was a part of it all, of course. But she was gone much of the time, busy with friends and foot
ball games and study groups at school. Now Jenny made a point of being home. She and Hannah and Matt spent most evenings circled around the living room, cuddling with each other and taking turns holding Kody.

  They talked more and laughed more and somehow, in the process, they loved more.

  The sum of it made Hannah’s heart swell, and on Sunday, at the end of the first whole week with Kody, she stood at the front door and told Matt as much. The next day would be the first in the trial against the Benson City Council, and he had plans to be there most of the week.

  It was six-thirty, and upstairs Kody and Jenny were still asleep. Hannah rose up on her tiptoes and circled her arms around Matt’s neck. “Be careful.” It wasn’t something she used to think about, but after losing Tom and Alicia, and after that fateful day last September, it was impossible not to. Yes, there were more security measures in place, but there were also more angry terrorists. Not that fear had kept them from flying, but Hannah made a point of telling Matt how she loved him before he left for an airport.

  Just in case she never got another chance.

  He smiled at her and brushed back her bangs with his fingertips. “I will.” He kissed her. “Take care of Kody. He’ll probably cry more with me gone.”

  Hannah giggled. “He might need therapy when he’s older.”

  “Actually,” Matt pretended to look hurt. “I think you’re right. He’s very bonded with me.”

  They both laughed, and Hannah straightened the collar on his suit coat. “Knock ‘em dead, will ya? Tanner could use something positive right now.”

  Matt’s eyes narrowed. “I care about every case. Pray about it, search the Bible for help.” He shook his head. “But this one’s more important than anything I’ve done in a long time.”

  “Because of Tanner?”

  “Yes.” Matt’s expression was pensive. “Tanner has such passion, Hannah. Such heart for what we do at the firm. This case mattered a lot to him; it’s precedent-setting stuff.”