The front door opened behind them. They both turned around. A woman was standing there—tall, sharp features, very pretty, and a little rough around the edges. Jim guessed that she was having a bad day. The woman smiled, but he didn’t recognize her.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his voice resonating throughout the small church.
The woman began walking slowly up the aisle. “You always do when I need you.”
Jim stood. He knew the voice.
“Carla. Where on earth have you been?”
“YOU CAN’T BELIEVE HOW GLAD I AM TO SEE YOU,” JIM whispered, returning Carla’s hug. “In more ways than one.”
“I need to talk to you when you can,” Carla whispered back. She glanced apologetically at Macey. “I’m so sorry for interrupting you guys.”
“It’s okay,” Macey said.
Carla hugged Jim again. She backed up, but her hands still rested on his shoulders. She looked in his eyes and said, “When Brooke told me, I couldn’t believe it. It’s not every day that someone gets their eyesight back.”
“That’s for certain,” Macey said, standing and shaking Carla’s hand. “Pastor Jim is the miracle man. I know I certainly can’t explain it. How are you doing, Carla?”
“I’m not sure if I’ve ever been better,” she said, “even though I’ve probably had the most unusual couple days of my life.”
“Never been better?” Jim asked.
“Yes,” Carla answered. “And I just left the house. Shirley’s making peanut butter fudge, and she wants you both to come get some when you’re done talking.”
“Oh, I really should be going,” Macey said. She sounded like she didn’t want to go anywhere, and Jim had a feeling she had more to talk about. “I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“You have to hang on, Macey,” Jim said. “For two reasons.”
“Oh?” the doctor said, sounding surprised.
“One,” he said, holding up his index finger. “You haven’t truly lived until you’ve tried Shirley’s peanut butter fudge. Even though I shouldn’t, given my diabetes, I always have to have a little.”
Macey shrugged. “Well then. How could I possibly turn down the opportunity to truly live?”
“And two,” he continued, “I think there is something that you still want to discuss?”
“Yes,” Macey said. “More like someone I want to discuss. I want to talk about Kenneth.”
“That’s strange,” Carla said. “That’s exactly who I wanted to talk about.”
“Now isn’t that another coincidence?” Macey said, her tone playfully sarcastic.
“Could be, could be,” Jim said, winking at the doctor. “Since Kenneth is on both of your minds, let’s head over to the house and talk some more.” He rose and rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Nothing greases the conversation wheels like peanut butter and chocolate.”
BROOKE AND MACEY WALKED BACK IN THE KITCHEN after checking on Alex, who was sleeping.
Jim set the pan of Shirley’s fudge on the table and looked at Carla. “So Kenneth just showed up out of nowhere?”
“Yes,” Carla said. “I know it seems weird, but he said he is there all the time.”
“Under the Big Island Toll Bridge?” Jim asked. “At night? At the exact same time you happened to be there?”
“Yeah,” Carla said. “What are the odds?”
“Carla,” Jim said, “what in the world were you doing out near that bridge so late at night?”
“I used to go to the bridge a lot when I was a teenager. You know, to think about things. I went there to think about my dad.”
“There is something up with Kenneth,” Brooke said. “It’s one thing after another with that guy.”
“I agree with you there,” Macey said, picking up another piece of fudge. “I really hadn’t lived yet, Mrs. Lindy. This fudge is ridiculously addicting.”
“Oh, aren’t you kind?” Shirley said.
Charlie took five individual pieces of fudge and stacked them one by one on top of each other on his plate. He grabbed them all between his index finger and thumb and shoved them in his mouth like a tiny burger. His cheeks puffed, and he looked at Macey. He covered his mouth and bashfully smiled at her.
Macey grinned at Charlie and then looked back at Brooke. “Why do you say that something is up with Kenneth?”
“Because,” Brooke said, “from the time we first met him, he has said a lot of interesting things.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like he knew that Alex was sick,” Brooke answered, nodding at Jim. “Tell her, Pastor Jim.”
Jim paused, worried that they were all taking this too far. But there was a lot of truth to what they were saying too. “Kenneth made a biblical reference that was quite timely in relation to Alex’s illness. It was from Luke 8:50.”
“He knows the Bible well, does he?” Macey asked, arching a brow.
“You might say that,” Jim said, pausing to glance at the clock near the stove.
“What else?” Macey asked. “What else has he said?”
“The first day I met him,” Carla said, “he told me to learn to forgive.”
“Kenneth said that?” Macey asked. “Pretty intriguing statement from a man you just met. A carpenter.”
“Yeah,” Carla said. “And we talked about it again near the bridge. Actually, it was near the shore.”
Jim wrapped his hands around a glass of milk. “Want to tell us more about that, Carla?”
The kitchen became silent. Carla rested her hands lightly on the tabletop. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly before looking back at Jim and Brooke. “After that incident at the diner, I slipped a little further off the wagon.”
“I was worried,” Brooke said, biting her lip.
“It all seemed to come crashing in on me. Everything from the last few years. And then . . . further back. Stuff I hadn’t really dealt with.”
They all waited, silent, encouraging.
“I was sitting on the edge of the bridge,” she said. “Ready to end it.”
Shirley gasped and reached out to grab her arm, as if she were ready to jump, right then. Carla gave her a tender smile.
A pair of tears ran down Brooke’s face. She covered her lips with her fingers. “Then what?”
“I think I jumped. I was really, really drunk. I remember dropping my iPod in, watching the water. And then I was on the shore, below, soaking wet. But not alone. I was with Kenneth.”
They all stared at her.
“He told me that I was forgiven.”
“Oh, honey. Did you accept it, then?” Shirley asked.
“I did,” Carla said. “I finally decided to turn everything over.” She smiled. “I turned everything over to God, Kenneth left, then I walked home and practically slept all day.” Carla turned her head toward Jim and suddenly seemed distracted. “Pastor Jim, I’m pretty sure Kenneth knows God. In fact, I know he does.”
“He always seems so calm,” Brooke added. “So confident, like he’s got it all under control.”
“I don’t think you know what I mean,” Carla said. “This may sound a little crazy, but when I say I think he knows God, I mean he knows-knows him. Like he has personal access to him.”
“You’re not the only one that thinks that,” Macey said, reaching out to put her hand over Carla’s before repeating herself. “You’re not the only one.”
THIRTY
Ian Tobias sat patiently in the back corner booth of Kamren’s Grove, casually sipping at the last couple ounces of a draft beer. He was staring at the second page of the fall dessert menu as different thoughts of Brooke continuously invited themselves into his head. Though his mind registered listings such as Obscene Chocolate Cake, the Peanut Butter Fudge Cookie, and Granny’s Apple Crisp Surprise, all his mind’s eye could see was her. He hoped she was all right. She sounded pretty serious on the phone, so he agreed to meet her as soon as he got back in town from Milwaukee.
It’d b
een just about forever since he’d talked to her, but he’d immediately recognized the number on caller ID. It was good to hear her voice again. She always seemed like such a nice person, and they’d become pretty decent friends before that night . . . when they’d made a really bad decision and ruined it all. She’d been a great employee. It practically broke his heart when the cutbacks came and he had to lay her off from the plant, particularly after she had her little boy. Just about everybody at the plant missed her after she left. Especially him.
“Sweetheart, would you like another?” the waitress asked. She had to be almost eighty years old, and her smile showed off what seemed like a brand-new pair of flawless dentures. He glanced at her name tag and pushed the glass in her direction.
“Ruth, darling, I’ll bet you run around here and call all the guys sweetheart, don’t you?”
“Only the handsome ones,” she answered quickly.
“You made my day, Ruth,” he said. “If I were ten years younger, you would be in a heap of trouble. Let’s have another Budweiser.” “You better cut him off after that one.”
He knew the voice. He turned around and there she was.
“Hello, Brooke,” he said, standing.
“Hey, Ian,” she said, sounding not quite as enthused as he was.
“You want something to drink, sweetie?” Ruth asked.
“A Coke, please,” Brooke said.
Ian gave her a hug, and it seemed like she was having a hard time hugging back. She quickly sat down across from him in the booth and immediately started fiddling with the saltshaker, almost like she was afraid to look at him.
“So what’ve you been up to?” he asked. Not the most original line to break a few years of ice with, but it would at least make a dent. “Where you working?”
“I’m doing nails at the mall,” she said.
“I missed you after you left,” he said. “We had a great crew when you were there.”
“Yeah,” she said distantly. Ian thought an I missed you too would have been kind of nice, but she clearly didn’t seem to be herself.
Ruth was already back with the Coke and the Budweiser. Ian never saw her approach the table and imagined her arriving through some secret Kamren’s Grove trapdoor. She called him “sweetheart” again and wanted to know if they wanted an appetizer, which they declined.
“I’ve got you figured out, Ruth,” Ian said, grinning. “You keep calling me ‘sweetheart,’ thinking I’m going to fatten your tip, don’t you?”
“Am I that obvious?” She laughed.
“Shameless,” Ian said.
“You always were such a flirt,” Brooke said.
Was she really taking him to task for teasing an old waitress? He could flirt with anyone he wanted to—he was a free man. Divorced. Single. Somehow he had to let her know. Part of him had wondered if she’d heard and that’s why she’d called.
He cast about for another topic to discuss, waiting for the opportunity to work it in. “Whatever happened to that friend of yours who got drunk and fell off the stage singing karaoke at the Best Western over in Woodhaven?”
“Carla,” she said. “I see her all the time.”
Ian smiled. “She was halfway through ‘Summer in the City’ and did a back dive into the speakers. But she was so far gone, I don’t think she felt a thing.”
“That was her in the old days,” Brooke said, shaking her head and now tapping her finger on the ketchup bottle. “She’s come a long way.”
Ian nodded and took a sip of his beer. “How is your little boy? He’s gotta be about five or six by now, isn’t he?”
“Almost six,” she said. “His name is Alex.”
“Growing like a weed?”
“Yeah.”
Brooke still hadn’t looked at him and hadn’t touched her Coke either. He figured the emergency that prompted their get-together either got her tongue or had been falsely categorized.
He waved his hand to get her attention. It worked, and she finally looked at him with those pretty green eyes. Now maybe he could get her to string more than two sentences together.
“What’s on your mind, Brooke? Why the call, after so long? You said it was an emergency.”
“Alex has leukemia,” she said quickly. “I just found out.”
It was only two sentences, but Ian wasn’t about to complain. He suddenly felt like taking his turn playing with condiments, but he couldn’t look away. He could see the lost look in her eyes and wanted to help her. What’d she need? Money?
“What’s going to happen?”
“A lot of stuff,” Brooke said. “He’s gonna have to go through chemotherapy and have lots of tests. It’s gonna be a tough road, but I know we’re going to make it.”
“Of course you will,” he said. “You have insurance?”
“Yeah. Thankfully.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. Lots of people, once they got laid off, had insurance for a while, but after COBRA ran out, they did without.
Brooke took a sip of her Coke and her cell phone rang. She reached in her purse and, instead of answering it, killed the call. Ian suspected he was about to find out what she really wanted.
“You know, Ian,” she said. “It’s kind of a coincidence that you brought up the night that Carla fell off the stage at the Best Western. The second I saw you, I was already thinking about that night.”
Ian didn’t really need the funny little look she was giving him to remind him of what else happened that night. He’d had a hard time thinking about anything but that since she called.
“Carla wasn’t the only one who was bombed,” Brooke said. “So were we.”
“Everybody was,” he said with a shrug. “It kinda ended up being an interesting night.”
“You can say that again,” she said, pausing. “You know something, Ian?”
“What’s that?”
“We never once talked about what happened between us that night.”
“I know,” Ian said, realizing how uncomfortable she seemed. “I’m sorry I even brought it up. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s all right,” she said.
“You should know,” he said, “that I’m divorced.” He lifted a hand. “I don’t want you to think I’m running around behind my wife’s back.”
“Oh,” she said, her eyes widening a bit.
“I mean . . . because we . . . That was a onetime thing for me.”
“For me too,” she said, looking miserable at the memory.
“I don’t want you to think . . .” He sighed. “Whatever. I was drunk. You were drunk. We made a mistake. But other than that, I was a stand-up guy. Unfortunately, my wife went looking for greener pastures.”
“I’m sorry,” she said dimly.
He was totally screwing this up. It wasn’t going at all the way he’d hoped. He leaned forward. “I’ve wanted to call you, Brooke. I’ve thought about you a lot.”
“W-wait,” she said, lifting both her hands slightly off the table. “You think . . . ? Look. I actually came here to talk about Alex.”
“Oh, right,” Ian said. “Of course.” He felt the slow burn of a blush at his jaw and hoped she wouldn’t notice in the dim light. He searched his mind, wondering why the hundred hours of useless HR training at the plant hadn’t covered how to ease the minds of former employees who’d just found out their kids had a life-threatening disease.
“You know how I told you they were going to be doing a lot of tests on him?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re also gonna be testing me and Alex’s father to see if either of us are a bone marrow match for him. I guess it’s a long shot, but we’re potential candidates for a match.”
“You never know,” Ian said. “Long shots can happen.”
“I need your help with something, Ian.”
“Sure. Anything.”
“And it’s the only thing I’ll ever want from you, Ian. I swear.”
He stared at her. What was she trying to ask him? “Go o
n, Brooke,” he said, frowning. “Ask me. I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I hope you can. I hope you’re a match for Alex. And that you’d be willing to do whatever it takes to save him.”
His mouth went dry. “Ex-excuse me?”
“Ian,” she said carefully, “Alex is your son.”
“SHH,” BROOKE SAID AS SHE AND ALEX WATCHED Charlie. They were hiding near the foot pedals of the piano, both of them peeking out, trying desperately not to be noticed. Alex was totally into the game, but Brooke’s mind kept wandering back to Ian and the expression on his face last night.
Charlie was it, and Alex found it difficult not to laugh at him as Charlie peeked over each of the individual pews in his effort to find someone. They turned on every light possible to get Charlie to play with them—convincing him that it wouldn’t be nearly as dark as during the storm.
He started toward the fellowship hall to hunt down Carla when Alex yelled out to him, “Charlie!”
Charlie spun around. His eyes widened and his mouth rounded as he ducked back under the door. He laughed, covered his mouth, and then tiptoed halfway up the center aisle. His head tilted to the front and then to the back of the church before he resumed his walk back toward the altar. Something bumped near the front door. It was Carla. Charlie stopped and turned his head back toward the main entrance as if he suspected she was kneeling behind the stack of folding chairs in the corner.
“Go save Aunt Carla,” Brooke whispered. “She’s toast. He’s gonna get her.”
“I’m gonna scare him,” Alex whispered back, crawling out and crouching out of Charlie’s view.
“Not too bad,” Brooke warned. “Be sweet.”
Charlie reached the edge of the stack of chairs and was leaning slowly over the top to peek down at Carla. He began to smile.
“Boo!” Alex yelled, hurtling himself toward his friend and wrapping his arms around Charlie’s leg.
Charlie had gasped and jumped, sending Alex into a bout of laughing hysterics. Charlie bent over and quickly picked him up, tickling him.
“Careful with the port, Charlie!” Brooke yelled, walking toward them.