Even Now

by Karen Kingsbury

  The spots connected, and Lauren felt herself falling, as if she were being dropped from a thirty-story building and there was no way to stop. Something warm and salty was coming from her mouth, but she couldn’t move her head, couldn’t open her eyes. Help me . . . But the words died long before they reached her lips.

  She felt the heat from the patio radiating through her arms and legs, and then a dizzying sensation. She was dying. She must’ve been shot in the chest, not the shoulder. Her heart was spilling out everything within it, the ocean of sorrow, the desire to bring peace to these people, and her will to live. All of it was leaving her.

  “Lauren, stay with me!” Scanlon sounded a hundred miles away. His voice was tinny and distant, and she couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. He was saying something else, but his voice faded more and more.

  And then there was nothing.

  Nothing but hot, burning pain, utter sorrow, and darkness.

  NINETEEN

  Shane was finishing up a final briefing with a student fighter pilot. The guy was twenty-four, educated, and had a promising future at the Top Gun academy. He’d been through enough training that he knew what he was doing. But this would be his first solo flight, and Shane couldn’t leave anything to chance.

  Shane held a checklist in his hands. “Bail-out procedure.”

  “Bail out.” The young man’s words were clear and clipped. He stood at attention throughout the short examination, his flight suit perfect, his helmet tucked beneath his arm. Then, as Shane took notes, the guy rattled off a perfect description of the circumstances and situations when a bail out was necessary, and followed it up with a detailed account of the procedure.

  “Good.” Shane placed a check next to the words bail out on the form. They went through three more terms, and then Shane looked at the pilot. “You ready?”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”

  “Okay, call sign Doogie.” Shane grinned. “Let’s see you fly.” He shook the pilot’s hand, spun around, and headed for the tower. For the next half hour he was inconstant communication with the pilot as he practiced routine flight maneuvers. Finally — right on time — he requested permission to land.

  “Roger that, Doogie. Bring’er in.” Another instructor was watching from over Shane’s shoulder. Shane held up his hand and the two gave each other a high five. He pressed the radio button one more time. “I can see why they recommended you for Top Gun, Doogie. You’re gonna be a good one.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Shane had some more paperwork and another fifteen minutes with the pilot. Then it was time for lunch. He strutted across the flight deck and wiped the sweat off his brow. The cloudiness of a few weeks ago was gone, and the sun was hotter than usual for January.

  He went to the cafeteria, bought himself a chicken Caesar salad, and took a table by himself on the outdoor patio, the one that overlooked the runway. It was loud outside, but Shane didn’t mind. Every landing and takeoff still shot adrenaline through him, and made him long to be in the cockpit. He bowed his head and thanked the Lord for his food.

  Then he adjusted his sunglasses and stared into the vast blue. There was nothing like taking an F – 15 out over Nevada and looping up across New Mexico and down along the coast of California all in less than thirty minutes. That kind of power never left a guy. He leaned forward and anchored his elbows on the glass-top table.

  What was it about flying lately? His job as flight instructor had always been rewarding, but these days he couldn’t wait to come in and work with the young pilots. Part of his job was to stay adept at the cockpit himself, but since his engagement party he’d been putting in twice the required hours in the sky. As if he couldn’t get enough sky time.

  He was about to take another bite of his salad when he felt his phone vibrating in his pants pocket. With the noise on the flight deck he’d miss every call if he didn’t have it set to vibrate. He pulled the phone out and squinted at the small Caller ID window. Ellen. He waited for the surge of excitement to hit him, but it never came.

  He tapped the receive button. “Hey, how’s my girl?” He set his fork down and pushed his chair back, giving himself room to cross one of his ankles over his knee.

  “Hi.” She was talking loud, and he heard a chorus of voices in the background. “I’m in D.C., and you won’t believe it!”

  D.C.? Had he known she was going there? He massaged his brow with his fingertips. “You’re in D.C.?”

  She did a frustrated breath. “Yes, Shane. I told you Wednesday I was coming to D.C. for the weekend.” Her tone lightened some. “Daddy had some friends he wanted me to meet.”

  “Oh.” Shane let his hands drop back to his lap. He had no memory of her telling him about the trip. Not that it mattered. She flew to Washington, D.C., at least once a month. He removed his sunglasses and checked them for scratches. There were none. “Okay, what’s up?”

  “I took the red-eye, so I got here in time for some meetings.” Excitement made her voice shrill. “A lot of the big guys from the party were here, and Daddy put in a plug for you.”

  “He did?” Shane slipped the glasses on again and watched a pair of F – 16s coming in for a landing. He released a single laugh, but it didn’t sound amused, even to him. “I thought we talked about this, Ellen. I’m not running for office.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t matter.” She was undaunted, her voice louder still. “Sorry about the noise. The meeting just broke up. Daddy explained it to the group. He told them that by the time you were on a ballot, he wanted everyone to know who you were.”

  A small thrill ran through Shane. “Everyone?”

  “Yes.” She paused for effect. “Even the president, Shane. The whole party’s excited.”

  “That’s amazing.” He tried to imagine Ellen’s father getting the big hitters in the Republican Party excited about his future son-in-law. It was a heady picture. “Tell him thanks for me.”

  “He wants you to come with me next month. Everyone wants to get to know you.”

  “Sounds good.” Another plane was taking off from a different runway. Shane imagined himself behind the controls. He blinked and gripped the arms of his chair. “I’ll have to see about getting off.”

  Ellen giggled. “If the president of the United States wants to meet you, I think the navy might be willing to give you a few days.”

  “True.” He squirmed in his seat and uncrossed his legs. “Hey, listen. Lunch is almost over, I better go.”

  “Okay, me too.” She made a squealing sound. “I’m so excited for you, Shane. For both of us.”

  “Right. Thanks. Tell your dad I said hi.”

  The conversation was over before Shane realized that he hadn’t told her he loved her. Of course, they didn’t say it all the time — mostly only when they were alone or kissing good-bye after an evening together. Even then it felt almost businesslike. He slipped his phone back into his uniform pocket.

  If he really wanted to be a politician, if he wanted the chance to represent the people on the Republican ticket, he should’ve felt like flying across the flight deck without any plane at all. This was the chance most aspiring political leaders only dreamed about. Perfect connections, a groundswell of favorable opinion, the support of leaders — all the way to the president.

  Shane picked up his fork and took another bite of his salad. He should be excited. He and Ellen had talked more about the idea in the days since the engagement party, and he had to admit the possibility was enticing. The country was ready for someone with his moral fiber, she’d told him. Everyone was saying so.

  He poked at his salad. The lettuce had wilted during his phone call, but he was too hungry to care. He chewed another bite and thought about the plan he and Ellen had devised. He would work another year as flight instructor, through the days of their May wedding and their honeymoon to Jamaica. Then as the year drew to a close, he would line himself up for position on a ballot. His parents and Ellen’s father would bankroll them for the nex
t year while he built a following in Nevada.

  “After that,” her father told him the last time they were together, “there’ll be no stopping you, my boy.”

  It sounded wonderful. Who wouldn’t be excited about that sort of plan? Still . . . Shane stared into the blue. None of it felt like his plan. Before meeting Ellen, he’d been content to be an instructor at Top Gun. No, not content. That wasn’t how he felt. He was living his dream. Yes, the idea of running on the Republican ticket sounded good, but not nearly as good as teaching young guys to be hotshot fighter pilots.

  A warm breeze blew over him. God, everything is happening so fast. I feel like I’ve lost me.

  He waited for some kind of response, a sign of God’s guidance. But today there was nothing like that, no sense of understanding, no quiet inner whispers of reassurance. Shane watched yet another jet leave the runway and lift into the sky above Reno.

  Okay, God, I know You’re there. Even when I don’t feel You. Give me wisdom, please. Just a little wisdom to help me know what to do next.

  Still no answer resonated within him. He returned to his salad and suddenly, as it had done every day since his engagement party, Lauren Anderson’s face came to mind. He had prayed about that too. He was getting married. It was time to let Lauren go forever. He looked at his salad, and her image faded. The chicken was lukewarm, but it tasted all right. As he ate he thought about his prayer. Wisdom was exactly what he needed. Direction about what to do next, something that would help him understand why he was uncertain about a future that only a few months ago had felt bright and exciting. Yes, wisdom was exactly what he needed.

  So he didn’t make a decision he’d spend a lifetime regretting.

  TWENTY

  Emily was pretty sure her father was an instructor at the navy’s Top Gun training facility. The problem was, she couldn’t prove it. She had his birth date, his physical description, and his name. But three times she’d contacted the academy, and all three times she’d come away with no information. The last time she’d called was Friday, two days ago, and her conversation was particularly frustrating.

  “Hi.” She tried to make herself sound older than her eighteen years. “I’m doing a story on your flight instruction program.” She held her breath.

  “You’ll have to talk to the public information office, Ma’am.” The guy connected her call to the right department.

  Emily didn’t mind. This had happened each of the other two times she’d called. She waited until someone picked up the call. “Media relations, Private Walton here.”

  “Yes, hello.” She paused, so she wouldn’t seem desperate. “I’m a freelance writer working on a feature story about flight instructors.”

  “How can I help you?” The woman was pleasant, but her tone said she was in a hurry.

  “Actually, I’d like to set up an interview with one specific flight instructor. Shane Galanter.”

  “Officer Galanter’s a busy man. Maybe I can fax you over a list of frequently asked questions and their answers.”

  “I already have that.” She gave a polite laugh. “It’s important for the story that I have a chance to meet face-to-face with one of the pilots. I’ve researched the instructors, and I’d really like to interview Officer Galanter.”

  “Tell you what, why don’t you fax me a list of questions, and I’ll see if Officer Galanter can get the answers to you sometime next week.” She sounded suddenly distracted. “Any thing else?”

  “You know,” Emily could feel the call slipping away, “maybe you could help me figure something out. I’ve met Officer Galanter one other time, and I want to make sure we’re talking about the same man. He has dark hair, dark eyes, and he’s tall, right? Thirty-six years old?”

  The woman hesitated. “Ma’am, we do not give out that type of information on our flight instructors, or on anyone else. I’m afraid I can’t help you with this particular story.” She hung up before Emily could say another word.

  Now it was Sunday afternoon, and her frustration was growing by the hour. She’d called the insurance company in Riverside, California. It hadn’t taken five minutes to figure out that the fifty-eight-year-old redhead who ran the office wasn’t the Shane Galanter she was looking for. The others had been easy to rule out also, so that left two choices. Either her father was an instructor at the Top Gun school, or he wasn’t listed anywhere on the Internet.

  She sat on her bed surrounded by her mother’s journals and short-story notebooks. Her grandparents were at the store, but they wouldn’t be gone long. Her grandpa had very little energy these days, and he looked far worse than he had at Christmastime.

  “I don’t understand,” she told her grandma one day the week before. “I never knew cancer could be fast like this.”

  “It is sometimes.” Her grandma was teary-eyed again. She dabbed at her cheek. “He doesn’t have long, Emily. We’re both so glad you can be home.”

  Emily shuddered at the memory. Thank heaven she didn’t have to be back to school until the sixth of February. Some of the kids took short, one-unit classes in January, but Emily decided to stay home. Her grandparents needed her. Besides, she had to find her parents. Absolutely had to find them. Her grandpa’s quick deterioration told her that much. First thing Monday she was going to do what she should’ve done a week ago. She would call the Top Gun academy and leave a straightforward message. Please have Shane Galanter contact Emily Anderson in Wheaton, Illinois. Then she would give her phone number and keep praying.

  With that decided she stared at her mother’s notebooks and journals, scattered on the bed around her, and willed herself to see something she had missed. She opened one of the journals and read several entries. Each one was another window to the girl her mother had been. But none of them had anything she could go on, nothing that would lead her to wherever her mother was living now. She stood and went to the window. A foot of snow covered the ground, and all of life looked the way the search for her mother felt: freezing and dormant. “God . . . ” She looked into the thick gray sky and tried to imagine the Lord looking down on her. “You know where she is. So show me how to find her, okay? I’m running out of time, Lord. Please . . . ”

  She was quiet, her nose against the cold glass window. Then, in the smallest inner voice, a Scripture began to play in her mind.

  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End . . . I am that I am.

  The verse was from Revelation, and it righted her world in a heartbeat. God was everything. He was Lord and Savior, Alpha and Omega. What did she have to worry about? A sense of awe came over her. God had more names than she could imagine, more names than —

  Like a bolt of lightning, it hit her.

  What if her mother had used more than one name too? Everyone assumed she’d changed her name, otherwise the private investigators hired by her grandparents would’ve found something by now. She darted back to her bed and grabbed the first spiral notebook she could reach. As fast as her fingers could move, she opened the cover and stared at the title page.

  A Summer’s Day

  by Lauren Gibbs

  May be her mother was using the name Lauren Gibbs! Emily stared at it, then she smacked her knee. Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of that sooner? Once her grandpa told her the name came from a fictional character, she assumed there was no point searching it on the Internet. The most she would find would be a novel her mom liked to read as a young teenager. But now . . .

  She dropped the notebook and sprinted down the hallway to the office. The computer was on and connected to the Internet in no time.

  “God — ” she whispered His name, her fingers trembling — “You gave me this. I can feel it.” She centered her hands over the keyboard, typed in the name, and hit enter. She couldn’t breathe while the machine worked, and then in a flash a list of entries appeared.

  Emily stared and began reading them out loud. “Time magazine correspondent Lauren Gibbs has been stationed in Afghanistan since — ”

/>   Emily’s heart raced. Time magazine correspondent? Her eyes flew to the next entry. “ ‘Children of War’ — a profile on the orphans of Operation Enduring Freedom, by Lauren Gibbs, Time magazine correspondent. Photos by . . . ”

  One after another she read the entries in the list of hits and by the time she reached the end of the page, she was shaking all the way to her toes. Every entry mentioned Lauren Gibbs as a Time magazine reporter. Emily pressed her palm against her forehead, pushing her bangs back, the way she did when a soccer game got too intense. “Okay, God, walk me through this.”

  Just because Lauren Gibbs wrote for Time magazine didn’t mean Emily had found her mother. She went back to the search line and typed, “Lauren Gibbs Time magazine profile.”

  The results were just as quick as before. The first link said simply “a profile of Lauren Gibbs, Time magazine correspondent.” Again Lauren held her breath as she clicked the link. And there, instantly, was a photo that took up a fourth of the screen. The woman was blonde and pretty in a plain sort of way. She wore khaki clothing, and in the background were what looked like army tents. More than that, though, was the look on her face. A haunting look that revealed everything and nothing all at the same time. A look Emily had seen more often than she cared to admit.

  In photographs of herself.

  “Dear God . . . ” Tears filled Emily’s eyes, and she reached out, brushing the image with the tips of her fingers. It was her mother, she was absolutely sure. After a lifetime of looking, she’d found the woman who had walked out of her life when she was just an infant. She had no doubts, none at all. Because in more ways than one, looking at the woman’s image was like looking at her own.