After All These Years

by Sally John

  “Wreath? No thanks.”

  She nudged Chloe and rolled her eyes. “Bachelor.”

  “So how’s junior year going?” he asked.

  “Great. My favorite class is woodworking.”

  “No kidding. Bet you’re the only girl in there.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, actually that part’s kind of fun, too.”

  “Staying out of trouble?”

  “Of course. My mother would kill me otherwise.” It was her standard response, spoken in her customary open way. “How about yourself?”

  “Just looking for it.” He paused, counting his money out for Chloe. “Know of any?”

  “The usual, Cal. And you know as much as I do.”

  “Sometimes.” He knew who drank. Which parents didn’t stop the parties. He knew who smoked and what they smoked. He had a lead on the current LSD supplier. He knew who was on probation, who was doing community service. But he didn’t know— “Morphine, Chelsea.”

  She stared at him. “Don’t doctors use that stuff?”

  “A high is a high.”

  She shook her head. “My friends swear grass and beer is all they do. They know I’d kill them otherwise.”

  “I’m not talking about your friends.”

  She met his gaze. “I haven’t heard.”

  “Keep your ear to the ground? This one involves theft and innocent people. Okay?”

  She handed him his plastic shopping bag, concern erasing her smile. “Okay.”

  The bell dinged again as he left. He felt ten pairs of eyes boring into his back. It reminded him to stop by the florist two doors down the street.

  Cal drove into the vet’s parking lot. He parked his truck beside Gina’s car.

  At the florist’s, he had gone a little hog wild. Bev was one intense saleswoman. It was fall, mums were on sale. He’d walked out with a mum for Tammy, of course. One for Lia, who definitely needed cheering up, but he’d probably keep it himself because he didn’t want it to look as though he was treating her any differently. Trouble was, he couldn’t figure out if he would have given her a mum before last night… One for Isabel, because she really was a great neighbor and her yard was full of flowers. And one for Gina.

  Another bell jangled above a door. It was almost noon, closing time, and the waiting room was empty. He sat, feeling downright un-coplike holding the potted plant on his lap.

  A few minutes later a collie appeared, followed by Dick Mackenzie and his kids, then Gina. After exchanging greetings, the family and dog left.

  Gina turned to him. “Cal. Hi.”

  He held out the plant. “You have to stick it in the ground. And then you have to stick around to see it come up next year.”

  She blinked rapidly and bit her lip.

  “Sorry.”

  She took the plant. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Well, I thought I’d put in my two cents.”

  She pulled a tissue from her white lab coat. “All right.”

  “He made a stupid mistake, but it’s the worst he’s done in 33 years. And it was out of character. The second dumbest thing he’s ever done was not telling you. He would never hurt you.”

  “I know.”

  “So you’ll stay?”

  “If I don’t, will he stalk me?”

  “No!”

  “He did it once, Cal! In a sense, at any rate.”

  He felt his face flush, but the confusion in her eyes froze the shout of protest on his tongue.

  “He deeded his property to me! He gave up his most cherished possession. If I hadn’t moved to Valley Oaks, he would have followed me, leaving all his friends and family and moving halfway across the country just to be near me.”

  Their eyes locked. The aftermath of her words melted something in Cal, and he sensed his cop glare soften. “Gina.” He paused, grasping for words to define his emotions. “Brady is like Jesus to me. Not that he’s perfect, but most of the time I can count on him being in tune with what’s right. There is only one reason he would give up his most cherished possession. It’s the same reason God gave up His most cherished possession.”

  She swallowed. “Love.”

  “Not just any love. It’s called agape. He did it because he thought it was best for you. You needed to take your job in Seattle. Yes, it gave him the vote on the zoning board to help preserve the neighboring property as open space, but he would have paid you rent for the rest of his life. He wanted you to have the freedom to choose where you lived, what you wanted to do, whether or not it included him. If it included him, nothing would tie him down back here.”

  “He was going to follow me.”

  “He was going to visit. He never would have moved until you invited him. Nicole was toxic to him. Somewhere along the way in that relationship he took his eyes off God. He calls it his time in the desert. He went from being friendly and outgoing to majoring on being so caught up with her demands, he couldn’t see straight. He worked triple time to please her with money. He lost all common sense when she left because she never told him why. He took off after her because he needed an explanation.”

  She stared at him, uncertainty still written in her creased forehead.

  “Brady never stalked Nicole. After he got to California, it took him a while to track down where she was living. She traveled for her job; she didn’t have an office. He never called her. He went to her apartment one time and simply asked her why. She said she didn’t love him anymore. He told me that it was in that moment that he saw how blind he had been. Unfortunately, before it sank in, the boyfriend came to the door. Brady realized that they’d been living together for a while and…” Cal shrugged. “He slugged the guy. Your classic knight-in-shining-armor reaction. He got on a plane that night and came home.”

  “But he was arrested.”

  Cal hesitated. It was a black memory. He had to think it through, get to the end of it, to the fact that it had been the catalyst prompting Cal himself to put his faith in Christ. “I took the call from the Los Angeles police, then I went out to the house and arrested him.” He briefly closed his eyes.

  “How awful!”

  “You’re telling me. Anyway, we were just taking his prints when Nicole’s pitiful excuse for a conscience kicked in. She called and they worked it out. She dropped the charges, kept the ten-thou…” He stopped.

  “Ten thousand? Ten thousand dollars?”

  “Ugly ring. Bottom line, Gina, he loves you. I’ve never seen him so happy or clearheaded. He’s a better person with you. He wants what’s best for you and, if that means moving halfway across the country, so be it.”

  She exhaled. “Cal, I do love him. That hasn’t changed. I just need to process the whole thing. Maybe we moved too quickly.” She eyed the diamond on her left hand.

  Cal noticed it wasn’t quite as big as he remembered Nicole’s, but then Gina the practical vet and natural beauty would not have wanted or needed it so. “Okay. I’m sorry for intruding—”

  “You’re no intrusion. You’re a part of Brady’s life. An integral part.” She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Part of the equation to life with Brady here. If I left…” Tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped at them and sniffled. “So,” her voice rose, forcing a perky note, “assuming this hurdle gets jumped, we should have dinner with you and Tammy.”

  “Yeah. Well, take care. And call me if you want to know about any other stupid things he’s done, like how he blew the game against Orion.”

  She smiled. “Okay. Thanks, Cal.”

  Outside in the crisp football-season air, he felt sad. Tammy refused to have dinner with Brady and Gina. Brady had supposedly snubbed her at one time. Now that he thought about it, it wasn’t right that he wasn’t allowed to be with his best friend and his best friend’s fiancée. Talk about losing all common sense because of a woman! It wasn’t right that he felt guilty accepting a pie from Lia. Especially banana cream.

  Something was going to have to give here.

  Twenty-Three
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  From her front window, Isabel watched Tony stride up to her house, hurrying through the breezy afternoon turned too cold for early October.

  Her throat caught. He wore that soft crew neck blue sweater beneath a black sport jacket. It would hurt to look at his eyes because they would glisten brilliantly like a hot summer Mexican sky…and she would remember again.

  Blue jeans made him appear younger than his 32 years. You’d think after 32 years he would have grown kinder.

  Isabel considered not opening the door. It was late Saturday afternoon, time for the movie date they had planned earlier in the week. Since talking with Cal Thursday night, she had been praying for this confrontation. No, she hadn’t prayed Thursday night. She had been too angry then. Friday she told Celeste—the most trustworthy woman on the face of the earth—all the details Tony knew about Brady. And then she started praying.

  Celeste had called her five times since, advising her not to lambast him. “We need you to persuade him,” she said. “Coerce him, but gently. Ask him to please exclude from his story the part about Brady’s incident in California.” She argued that Tony needed their prayers and forgiveness.

  As far as Isabel was concerned, Gina and Brady could forgive him if they wanted to. She figured her role was to set him straight. It wasn’t her life he was into destroying.

  No…he’d already done that.

  The doorbell rang.

  Her face felt warm. This wasn’t a good sign.

  She leaned her forehead against the door. Father, I’m losing it. I know I’m despicable, but he’s off the charts. He doesn’t deserve—

  There was a loud knock.

  Isabel yanked open the door and hollered, “Tony Ward, how could you?”

  At least he didn’t smile. Holding open the exterior aluminum door, he lowered the hand raised to knock again. “May I come in? It’s freezing out here.”

  She stepped aside.

  “Thanks.” He eyed her warily, opened his mouth as if to say something, and then closed it.

  “How could you?” she asked again, quietly this time.

  “I take it this has something to do with Brady’s skeleton?”

  “For starters.”

  He lifted his arms and then dropped them at his sides in a helpless gesture. He walked over to the couch and plopped onto it. “Izzy. It’s my job.”

  “Don’t give me that line! You don’t drive a wedge between two people just to feel a sick satisfaction that you’ve somehow avenged your sister’s death. That is not your job! That’s twisted and mean and underhanded.”

  “My job is twisted and mean and underhanded, and it gave me no satisfaction whatsoever to hurt two of the kindest, most refreshing, most delightful people I’ve ever met.”

  The tirade she’d phrased and rephrased for almost 48 hours crumpled like a pinpricked balloon. “Why did you do it, then?”

  “Come, sit down.”

  She shook her head.

  “Brady Olafsson is too good to be true. Readers wouldn’t believe a word I wrote about him.”

  “That’s your excuse? So you won’t look foolish?”

  “No. I wanted to make him human. I mean, I asked, but you couldn’t even tell me something like he’s got an enormous ego or hoards his money or kicks his dog. That’s not real, Iz. Brady’s more believable, more approachable, if some dent in the armor shows up.”

  “You just sacrificed two people, not to mention all their friends you’ll hurt—”

  “By being authentic? Come off it, Izzy. Brady knows he’s a public figure, open to scrutiny. He doesn’t really care what people think of him—”

  “Except for Gina!”

  “Except for Gina. If they can’t weather this storm, they weren’t meant to be. He’ll thank me for forcing the issue.”

  “Talk about ego.”

  He leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees.

  With a start she noticed he needed a shave. Tony never needed a shave.

  Lacing his fingers together, he stared down at the carpet.

  “You’re right, Iz.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

  “The real reason is that I want revenge. I want to punish every Christian who ever influenced someone through music, books, or art. I want them to suffer for their proselytizing.”

  “And you don’t proselytize in your own way, you reporters? The whole point in your writing is to change readers’ beliefs about something. You plant doubt about someone’s integrity. You slant a story so people will be afraid to buy a certain product. Or that they’ll support or not support a certain company. You make or break movies, books, plays, and political candidates all the time.”

  Head still bent, he didn’t respond.

  She realized this wasn’t the point. “Oh, Tony. Your sister gave up drugs! Nobody made her go to Colombia. I don’t know. Maybe she did have a crush on a band member, but from what you’ve told me, I know she fell in love with Jesus. And she wanted to love her enemies, like He said. It’s a radical teaching. She thought going would make a difference.”

  Still no response.

  Isabel knelt and touched his arm. “I am so sorry that she died. There’s no human explanation why.”

  When he looked up at her, she saw unshed tears in his narrowed eyes. “Oh, there’s an explanation. It’s because she fell for a bunch of nonsense.”

  “You’re right. That is the human explanation. But from a supernatural standpoint, there’s something else going on here that we can’t understand. Tony, life doesn’t end when this body dies. And while our hearts are breaking, Joanna’s alive and well, in the presence of Jesus Christ, and she understands why it happened.”

  Tony closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You sound like Brady’s book.”

  “Really?”

  “Haven’t you read them?”

  “I have. Have you?”

  “Started the first one this week.”

  “And?”

  He shrugged a shoulder and gave her a small smile. “Now there’s a guy too good to be true.”

  “But He’s God!”

  “But…it’s fiction and unbelievable and yet supposedly true. I was hoping we could talk about it over dinner.”

  Still on her knees, Isabel wrapped him in her arms. As if struck by lightning, she propelled herself backwards and landed on the floor with a loud thump. “Ouch!” She crinkled her nose. “Sorry. I forgot we’re not hugging.”

  He didn’t laugh, only gazed at her as if in amazement. “How do you do that? Hug me as if I’m not the pariah you know I am?”

  She started to nonchalantly lift a shoulder when it flashed through her mind that she did not hug him of her own accord. It was Jesus in her hugging him…forgiving him. “It’s called forgiveness.”

  “I think I could use some more of it.” He stood and held out his hand to her. “And I promise it’s got nothing to do with kissing.”

  “Well, if you promise.” She let him pull her to her feet and take her into his arms. As she slipped her arms around him and heard his heart beat in the ear she pressed against him, she began to pray in earnest for his soul.

  A mental fog settled in early Sunday morning. Isabel awoke startled, a subconscious thought bursting into the conscious: She was in love with Tony Ward.

  No, she loved Tony.

  More precisely, she had never stopped loving him.

  Which was why she hated him.

  That was when the fog crept in.

  Last evening with him felt like a distant memory. Instead of a movie and pizza, they had driven into Rockville and eaten at a homey Mexican restaurant where they sat for almost three hours before the conversation flagged.

  Tony pondered minute details of Brady’s book. The fictional account of someone meeting Jesus—in this case a sister of Peter’s and a blind man—was the catalyst for debate. It was exhilarating and exhausting, satisfying and disconcerting. Tony argued and he belittled. Isabel defended and challenged and finally ended
with a question, “Yes, but what if it’s all true?”

  Not replying, he stared at her, those deep-set blue eyes intensely somber, threatening to unravel her.

  Thankfully, the conversation didn’t turn personal as it had earlier in her house. Yet they lingered, as if not wanting to part, at last concluding that they could still catch a late showing of the movie. The remainder of the evening was casual. As lifelong friends might do, they laughed, shoulders brushing, heads bent together, fingers touching in the popcorn bag. She dabbed butter from his chin. He grasped her hand, pulling her at a run through the cold night air to his car. At her front door they shared a brief hug.

  “Tony, do you have to use it?” The unsettling question of his story and Brady had remained just below the surface all evening.

  “I don’t know.” He hugged her again, her neck in the crook of his arm as he kissed the top of her head. “I’m writing tomorrow, all day, just me and my laptop in my little Valley Oaks furnished apartment. Then I’m heading home. Mind if I stop by your girls’ meeting on my way out of town?”

  “More research?”

  “Mmm…”

  “Truth.”

  “Probably, but I really want to say goodbye.”

  “Gina will be there.”

  His breath frosted the air. “Well…good. That’s good. If she’ll listen, I can tell her goodbye, too. And she can tell me good riddance.”

  Isabel giggled into his shoulder. “You can stop by for a minute. The girls will enjoy ogling the city slicker.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Isabel kicked off the covers now. No, she wasn’t sure, but when his arms were around her she would agree to just about anything.

  Still? After all these years?

  She made a strangled noise of frustration and padded down the hall. Her usual Sunday routine was out of the question. First off, she’d better give Gina a heads-up call. Then she would go into East Rockville, sit in a pew between her mamá and papá at the church she had grown up in, hear the word of God in her native language, and try to put some order to the disarray that had become her life.