“Was that when Dad came home?”
“No.” Abby’s vision grew dim and tears filled her eyes as she remembered. “I finished reading and went out to the pier, past the tables still set up from your wedding, past the empty glasses and crepe paper and streamers, out to the place where your dad and I had always connected.” Abby glanced at Nicole. “A few minutes later, your dad came up behind me. He told me something I’ll never forget.”
“What?” There was the hint of hope in Nicole’s eyes, and Abby knew she’d done the right thing. Her daughter needed to hear this story. Especially in light of all the years she and Matt had ahead of them.
Abby closed her eyes for a moment. “He said he needed to tell me about the eagle.”
“The eagle?”
“When the eagle mates, he mates for life.” Abby gazed into the distance again, seeing John the way he’d looked that night as he walked onto the pier, hands outstretched. “At some point in the eagles’ courtship, the female eagle will fly to the highest heights and then free-fall to the ground. The male eagle will then swoop down and lock talons with her. In doing so, he conveys a simple message: he is committed to her.”
“I didn’t know that.” Nicole’s features were softer than they’d been all afternoon. “That’s beautiful.”
“Your father took my hands and told me he didn’t ever want to let go again. Never. That if it killed him, he wanted to love me like an eagle loves his mate. Like the Lord wanted him to love me. Holding on until death made him finally let go.”
Abby blinked and the memory faded. She looked at Nicole and saw tears in her eyes.
“So . . . that was a turning point for you?”
“Yes, very much so.” Abby stroked Nicole’s hand. “We’re happier than ever, now. It was a miracle really. So, you see, honey. Don’t be afraid about the baby. God will use this—and every other season of your life, even the hard ones—to bring you closer to each other, and to Him.”
Nicole gave a sudden gasp. “Wait a minute. I just remembered something.” She stared at Abby. “That night, when Matt and I were checking into our hotel, I had the strangest sense that God had talked to me.”
“About what?”
“About you and Dad. Like He reached down, tapped me on the shoulder, and told me my prayers for you had been heard.” Nicole thought for a moment. “I even told Matt about it.”
A chill ran down Abby’s spine. It really was You, Lord . . . thank You . . . thank You. “God’s so much bigger than we give Him credit for. We see something like this accident and we think, ‘If only God would make it all better.’ But nothing gets by God, absolutely nothing. He has it all figured out, and one way or another, everything He does happens for a reason.”
Someone was approaching them, and Abby turned. It was Dr. Furin. This time he wasn’t smiling. His steps were slow and measured, and he looked at both Abby and Nicole before taking a seat across from them.
“Mrs. Reynolds, I’m afraid I don’t have very good news.”
Nicole slid closer to Abby and linked hands with her. Calm, Abby . . . be calm. Remember the words you just spoke . . . God is in control. She found her voice. “Did you . . . do the tests?”
“Yes.” He frowned. “We did several. They all point to the same thing. The accident injured your husband’s spinal cord in a very delicate area. The result is something we’ve been concerned about since the beginning.” He paused. “Mrs. Reynolds, your husband is paralyzed from his waist down. I’m sorry.”
As bad as the accident had been, as close as they’d come to losing John, Abby never for a minute believed this would be the final diagnosis. Not for John Reynolds. The doctor was saying something about how if the injury had been a centimeter lower, he might have walked away from it . . . but if it’d been a centimeter higher, it could have killed him. And something about rehabilitation and special wheelchairs.
Nicole was crying softly, nodding as though everything the doctor said made perfect sense.
But Abby barely heard any of it. No longer was she sitting in a stuffy hospital waiting room getting the worst news of her life.
She was fourteen again, stretched out on a blanket near the lakeside bonfire, with a young John beside her, tossing a football in the air, grinning at her, his blue eyes shimmering with the reflection of the moon on the water. You got a boyfriend, little Miss Abby Chapman? Then she was seventeen, seeing him for the first time in three years, just before he played in the Michigan football game. You’re beautiful, Abby. Do you know that? Go out with me tonight, after the game . . . And suddenly he was on the field, reeling back and throwing a football like he was born to do so, running with it, bigger than life, the wind beneath his feet. The image disappeared and she was in a church, John gazing at her with all the love he could muster. I, John Reynolds, take you, Abby Chapman, to be my lawfully wedded wife. Then they were dancing, but the image changed and they were in the Marion High gymnasium and Paula was telling them to keep the beat.
“Mrs. Reynolds?”
Abby blinked, and the memories vanished. “Yes?”
“I said you two could go see him now. He knows about the diagnosis. He asked, and, well . . . we thought he should know.”
“I don’t want to go.” Nicole’s expression was etched with fear. She shook her head at Abby. “I can’t see him. Not yet.”
“Now?” Abby looked at Dr. Furin. She felt like she was underwater, like everything around her was happening in slow motion at a level she couldn’t quite understand.
“Yes. He asked for you.” The doctor stood. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Reynolds.”
Abby nodded, but her mind was numb, desperate for the chance to go back in time even a few minutes. Back to the place where there was still a chance John might walk again. They’d lost so many years . . . was this really God’s plan? That just when everything was better than ever, John would be paralyzed?
Abby’s heart raced. How could she face him? What would she say? John had spent his life using his legs. Even now, in his midforties, he still ran as easily as he breathed. In the classroom he was the most active teacher on campus, spinning off impromptu comedy routines or outjumping the basketball players in his class to see whether they’d have a pop quiz that day.
Once they’d gone to Chicago to see Riverdance. The next day John entered every class by Irish-dancing his way to the front of the room. No wonder the kids loved him. Deep in his heart, he was still one of them. And that was especially true now that he and Abby were happy again. It was as though a decade had slipped off the aging process for both of them.
And now . . . this?
What would they do now that John would never walk again? Maybe never make love to her again? Her heart sank like an anchor. She hadn’t thought about that before, the idea of never knowing John in that way again. It was unimaginable that their physical love might be a thing of the past. What in the world was she supposed to say about that?
Abby had no answers for herself. She was too terrified to cry, too shocked to feel anything except the certainty of one thing: John needed her. And because of that, she would go to him. Even if she had nothing to offer, no comforting words or bits of hope.
She would hug him and love him and cling to him, talon to talon, even if life would never, ever be the same again.
She entered his room without a sound, but his eyes found hers immediately. She made her way across the room and sat on the edge of the bed.
“John . . .” Only then did the tears come. “I’m so sorry.”
There was a fresh bandage on his neck, where they’d pulled the tube. His body looked older somehow, smaller. Like he’d lost three inches off his six-foot-four frame. Then, for the first time since the accident, he looked deep in her eyes and spoke.
His voice was the only thing that hadn’t changed.
“Tell me what happened, Abby.” The words were painfully slow. His throat must have been raw after having tubes there for the past few days. “Tell me. I have to know.”
And for the next half hour, she did.
He said nothing while she shared the article and carefully told him every detail she was aware of. When she was finished, when the facts were laid out for him to accept or rage against, he spoke. What he said told Abby that the John she loved was still in there, that an accident could take his legs, but not his heart and soul. “How . . .” He hesitated, his eyes searching hers. “How in the world is Jake?”
Sixteen
CHUCK PARKER COULDN’T SLEEP.
Sure, his son was facing hundreds of dollars in fines and who knew how many hours of community service for being involved in that stupid accident. And yeah, the boy had blown any chance of an athletic scholarship or even acceptance to one of the better schools.
But that wasn’t Chuck’s trouble. Coach Reynolds was.
The man was going to live, and Chuck supposed that was good— but there was one detail about the accident that troubled him. What was Coach doing at the school after midnight?
That detail—combined with others that had come out in yesterday’s paper—kept him up most of the night. And that never happened to Chuck. Never.
In fact before the accident he’d slept even better, mostly because he was so tired. The smear campaign he’d orchestrated against Coach since the season began was a tough job.
For the past few months Chuck had worked the stands like a car salesman, sidling up to parents and subtly swaying them to his way of thinking: Coach Reynolds needed to go.
“He’s a nice guy,” Chuck would say to whomever he was seated beside. “Don’t get me wrong. But we have the most talented boys in all the state right here at Marion High. Our kids need a visionary, a coach with fire in his blood. Someone who understands today’s kids. Besides, Coach Reynolds needs a break. He should concentrate on his younger son, spend more time with his family.”
Chuck smiled often in the course of such a statement, and before long—it almost never failed—the parent would be nodding and agreeing and making promises to attend one of Chuck’s meetings.
That was where the gloves came off. In those meetings, letters were formulated, plans were made. Coach Reynolds would be fired. He had to be. It was the parents’ prerogative. They’d held three such meetings so far, and after each, Chuck Parker made sure the athletic director got a report.
“Herman, the parents want him out. The Eagles need a new direction.”
Most of the time Lutz would sit back in his office chair, mouth shut. Then, just to seal his plan, Chuck would remind Lutz of the drinking and street racing the players had done during summer training . . .
“Is that the kind of coach you want at Marion High?” Chuck would raise his voice just enough to make Herman nervous. “Someone who looks the other way while the kids break every rule in the book? We need a coach with courage, a man who’ll demand the best from our boys without compromising moral character.”
The plan was working, too.
Lutz had assured him the last time that he was taking notes, making arrangements. Finally the man admitted the one thing Parker had longed to hear: “I’m not planning on renewing his contract, if that helps.”
Chuck could hardly believe it. Lutz was totally and utterly spineless. But that was the beauty of the situation. Herman Lutz was putty in his hands, and Coach Reynolds was all but fired. A few more games and it would be a done deal.
Of course, Chuck didn’t really believe Coach Reynolds knew about the drinking and street racing. Shoot, he wasn’t even a bad coach.
But Reynolds had made a fatal mistake: he’d chosen to sit Chuck’s
Casey was one of the best quarterbacks in the state. Okay, so he had a few Fs on his report card. And yes, he got in trouble sometimes for mouthing off to a teacher. So what? Casey was an intense kid, as driven as they came, one of those superathletes who—and Chuck was convinced of this—would one day lead an NCAA Division I team to a national championship.
Or he would have, if Coach Reynolds hadn’t been so particular about his players’ attitudes. Jake Daniels wasn’t a better QB. Just a better kiss-up. And now it was too late for Casey. His entire high school and college football careers had been ruined by Coach Reynolds’s ridiculously high standards.
But it wasn’t too late for Billy.
Chuck’s younger son had an even better arm than Casey. The kid was a freshman this year, tearing up on the ninth-grade team. A full-ride college scholarship was a given for a kid like Billy, and that would only be the beginning. Chuck believed fully that one day Billy would wear a Super Bowl ring. He could picture him, accepting the award of NFL Most Valuable Player.
Too bad Billy’s attitude was worse than Casey’s.
Not a problem to Chuck. But to a man like Coach Reynolds? If Chuck didn’t do something, Billy would wind up riding the bench just like his older brother. And Chuck simply could not have that.
For that reason, the campaign against Coach Reynolds would’ve come regardless of the Eagles’ wins and losses that year. The fact that they’d lost far more games than they should have only made Chuck’s job that much easier. Especially with Herman Lutz in charge. What the man knew about scheduling and practices and sports in general could fit in an ashtray. But one thing Lutz knew: what it took to keep his job. And since the man was already making a poor showing, he absolutely insisted that his coaches win.
All of it—the evenings spent working player parents, the after-hours meetings, the discussions with Herman Lutz—was going exactly as Parker planned, and not once had he had trouble sleeping.
Until the accident.
There had been two articles in the paper since then. The first was factual. It told the story of the street racing and the seriousness of Coach Reynolds’s injuries. There had been a chance the man would die. Of course, like everyone else, Chuck Parker prayed Coach would live. And like everyone else, he was relieved when Monday’s article said his condition had improved.
But that wasn’t all Monday’s article had said.
The reporter had gone into the hospital waiting room and interviewed as many kids as he could find. It was their story—along with Coach being at school so late that night—that Chuck found most troubling.
According to the article, the kids at Marion High loved Coach Reynolds as much as they loved football. One player said that football and Coach were one and the same, and would forever be for anyone who called himself an Eagle.
Their quotes told the story.
“Some Saturday mornings he shows up with bags of breakfast burgers, enough for the whole team.”
“Coach cares about more than football. He’s someone you can talk to and he’ll always have the right advice. A lot of us think of him like a second dad.”
“Every season we go to Coach’s house for his famous Backyard Barbecue the night before one of the home games. He treats every one of us like sons. The thing with Coach is he loves us.”
The kids’ statements felt like they were written in permanent ink across the stone tablet of Chuck Parker’s heart. If Coach Reynolds was so wonderful, why hadn’t Casey done better?
Coach’s answer never changed on the matter: Casey had an attitude problem. Chuck had always dismissed that. His son was just intense and competitive.
But ever since the accident, Chuck wondered if maybe . . . just maybe . . . Coach was right.
After all, what was Casey doing racing in the first place? The way the story went, Casey and Jake exchanged words at a party, and Casey challenged Jake to take it to the streets. The boy had been honest with the police, at least. It was his idea to race, his idea to beat Jake Daniels in at least one thing. And if it meant breaking the law, then so be it.
Talk about a bad attitude! A defiant, privileged attitude that couldn’t possibly help Casey succeed in life.
All of which left Chuck wondering if maybe he’d been wrong about Coach Reynolds. There was only one reason Chuck could think of to be at the high school after midnight on game day. Reynolds must have been catchi
ng up on whatever it was teachers do when they’re not coaching. Writing assignments . . . planning class time . . . correcting papers. Something like that.
It was something Chuck hadn’t ever considered. Coach Reynolds was just a hardworking, honest, devoted guy . . . and Chuck had spent all season trying to undo him. He knew there wasn’t one stitch of truth in what he’d wanted people to believe about Reynolds. The truth was there in the article.
No wonder he couldn’t sleep.
It was Tuesday morning, and after another sleepless night, Chuck was so tired he felt drugged. He stumbled out of bed, splashed cold water on his face, and found his way down the stairs to the front porch. The newspaper was his window to the world these days. Casey was back at school, but he’d been kicked off the football team and couldn’t drive. He was useless at providing Chuck with information about the case.
But the paper would have something. The story had played on the front page each of the past two days. There was bound to be another update that morning. He picked up the paper, shuffled into the kitchen, and spread it out on the counter.
The headline at the top of the page caught him cold, stopped his heart for more than a beat, and turned his stomach: Marion High Coach Paralyzed in Street Racing Accident.
There had to be a mistake. Reynolds was in great physical shape. The guy was tall and built, probably as strong now as he’d been in his college heyday. A man like that couldn’t be paralyzed.
Chuck read the article.
Doctors announced Monday that Marion High Coach John Reynolds sustained a permanent spinal injury when his car was hit by a teenage street racer early Saturday morning. The injury has left Reynolds paralyzed from the waist down.
Chuck pushed the newspaper away. His stomach lurched and he bolted for the bathroom. There he fell to his knees and retched. Again and again his insides convulsed until he felt like his gut was turning inside out.
He fell back with a groan. What kind of creep was he, leading a charge against a man like John Reynolds? Coach had only done what was best for the kids at every turn. Even Chuck’s own son.
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