by Irene Hannon
As he stepped into the lobby of the Chronicle, David tried to calm his erratic pulse. The first moments would be awkward, at best. Please, Lord, help me find the words to make the apology I came here to offer, he prayed.
“May I help you, sir?” A dark-haired woman, who looked to be in her early thirties, spoke to him from behind a desk. Her nameplate identified her as Mary Ramirez, receptionist.
“Yes. Is Caroline James in?”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No. I just took a chance she might be available. I only need a few minutes.”
“May I tell her what this is about?” The woman reached for the phone.
“I’m an old...acquaintance. She’ll know the name. David Sloan.”
The woman didn’t look convinced, but she punched in some numbers, anyway. “She’s got a very full schedule. I’m not sure she’ll be able to see you.”
Caroline’s mother had told him that she was the managing editor of the paper, so he was sure she was busy. And perhaps not inclined to mix professional and personal business. But since she didn’t have a listed phone number—he’d checked that first—he hoped she’d give him a few minutes at the office.
“Caroline, it’s Mary. There’s a David Sloan here who would like to see you.” After several seconds of silence, the receptionist spoke again. “Caroline? Are you still there?”
Shock. That had to account for Caroline’s delayed response, David reasoned. Which did not bode well for the reception he was going to get—if he got one at all.
“All right.” The woman was speaking again. “Yes, I’ll let him know.” She hung up and gave David a speculative look. “She’ll be out in a sec. Have a seat while you wait.” She gestured to a small grouping of furniture with a coffee table in the middle.
Relieved, David nodded and moved to one of the modernistic upholstered chairs. He didn’t feel like sitting, but pacing wasn’t an option, either. The receptionist was already casting discreet, but interested, glances his way. He didn’t want to arouse any more curiosity than necessary. With studied casualness, he sat in one of the chairs, reached for a copy of the newspaper from among those fanned on the coffee table, leaned back and pretended to read the blur of words on the page in front of him. He was more nervous about this encounter than any of the high-powered, deal-making sessions he’d once participated in, when hundreds of millions of dollars had sometimes hung in the balance. Maybe because the capital here was emotional, not monetary. And for another reason he didn’t want to consider.
As the minutes ticked by, David grew more apprehensive. What if Caroline had changed her mind? What if she refused to see him? He’d get the medallion to her somehow, he vowed, find another way to apologize. Perhaps he’d resort to a letter. That would be easier than dealing with her face-to-face. But not as personal. Or as noble. Still, if she didn’t come out, he’d have to conclude that she didn’t want to see him, and he’d be left with no other option. It wasn’t ideal, but he...
Suddenly, the door to the inner offices opened and Caroline stepped through. He set aside the newspaper and rose slowly, using the opportunity to do a quick assessment of the woman who stood before him.
She was still gorgeous, no question about it. Michael had always appreciated beautiful women. Just as it had the first time they’d met, David’s heart tripped into double time. Caroline was model-tall, just three or four inches shorter than his own six-foot frame. And slender. Maybe too slender now, he corrected himself. A jade-green silk blouse was tucked into her pencil-slim black wool skirt, and a delicate gold necklace dipped into the hollow of her throat. She radiated the same style, class and poise he recalled from their first meeting, when Michael had brought her home for Christmas to introduce his fiancée to him and their mother. Now, as then, he was struck by her sleek, shimmery hair, which was the color of an autumn hillside—rich brown, laced with glints of gold, bronze and copper. She’d changed the style, though. He recalled her hair being shorter. Her new look was longer, just brushing her shoulders.
He noticed other new things, as well. Faint, parallel furrows in her brow. Fine lines at the corners of her eyes, and a deep, lingering sadness in their hazel depths. She’d also aged in some subtle way he couldn’t quite identify. He knew she was a year younger than him. Michael had mentioned it once. And it wasn’t that she looked older than her thirty-five years, exactly. It was just that there was a weariness in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. A timeless, ancient expression not related to age, but to experience. The kind of look shared by people who’d seen too much, been through too much. But at least the animosity he’d glimpsed at the funeral was gone. In its place was wariness.
As David stood there, Caroline looked him over as well, though she had a less vivid picture in her mind for comparison. The Christmas they’d come home to announce their engagement to both families, she’d been focused on Michael. And at the funeral, her grief had been so overwhelming that she’d been aware of David only on a peripheral level. In fact, she’d gone out of her way to avoid him as she’d tried to deal with the avalanche of shock, guilt and resentment that had buried her in a suffocating blackness.
But she had always recognized the distinct differences in the two brothers. David was a couple of inches shorter than Michael, and his hair was dark brown while Michael’s had been sandy and sun-streaked. Their eyes also provided a contrast. Michael’s had been a sparkling, vivid blue, while David’s were quiet and deep brown. Just as their physical appearance differed, so, too, did their personalities. Michael had been an adventurous extrovert. David was a cautious introvert. Or at least that’s how Michael had characterized him. He’d always referred to David, five years his junior, as his kid brother, and called him “the suit” in a good-natured way. He’d told Caroline that David was destined for the corporate world and power lunches, that one day he would be rich and famous while Michael continued to tilt at windmills. And that was just fine with Caroline. It was one of the things she’d loved about Michael. His absolute passion for truth and his zeal for his job were the first things she’d noticed about him. The world needed more people like him. Instead, it had one less. Thanks to her—and, to some degree, the man now looking at her from across the room.
Caroline had almost refused to see David. But what good would that have done? Any blame he bore for Michael’s death was far less than her own, after all. And Michael wouldn’t have wanted her to be unkind to David. Though the brothers had been estranged for several weeks prior to Michael’s death, she knew that their break had weighed on his mind. Despite their difference of opinion on their mother’s care, Michael had never stopped loving his kid brother. And she suspected the feeling was mutual. She was sorry they hadn’t had a chance to resolve their dispute before Michael was killed.
But that was in the past. Right now, David was waiting for her to speak, and she forced herself to walk toward him. Michael would want her to be cordial, she knew. Still, she found the whole situation awkward. And unsettling. Not to mention painful.
“Hello, David.” She held out her hand, and her fingers were engulfed in a warm, firm clasp.
“Hello, Caroline. Thank you for seeing me.”
His voice sounded huskier than she remembered, and despite the almost palpable tension between them, he exuded a deep-seated, inner calmness that somehow eased her nerves. Yet another difference between the brothers, she mused. Michael’s dynamic energy had infused those around him with excitement and enthusiasm. David, on the other hand, came across as calm, steady and in control. Someone who planned before plunging. Michael had always plunged first and planned on the fly. That spontaneity was one of the reasons he’d been so good at his job.
“I’m afraid I don’t have much time,” she told David.
“That’s okay. I took a chance stopping by without warning. But after I ran into your mother yesterday, I decided I’d put this off
long enough.”
“Mom told me she saw you at the post office. How is your mother doing?”
“She died a year ago. The Alzheimer’s progressed far more rapidly than anyone anticipated. And her heart just kept getting weaker.”
Her query had been routine and mundane, and she’d expected the same kind of response. Instead, his reply shocked her. Sympathy replaced wariness in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. It was a shock, but in many ways I’m glad God called her home. Alzheimer’s is an awful disease. It robs people of everything that made them who they were. In the end, she didn’t know me anymore, or remember anything about the past. The mother I knew had left months before her physical body stopped functioning.”
So now David was alone. Michael had told her once that they had no other relatives. Both of their parents had been only children, and their father had died years before.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated.
He lifted one shoulder. “I survived. My faith was a great comfort.”
Another contrast between the two brothers, Caroline thought, recalling Michael’s skeptical attitude toward religion in general. Though the brothers hadn’t been raised in a household where faith played a central role, David had sought out the Lord as an adult. And the Christmas they’d met, Caroline had discovered that he’d found something that she had envied deep in her heart. An inner peace. A sense of greater purpose. Something to cling to through the turbulent seas of life. She’d wanted to question him about it, but the time hadn’t been right then. Nor was it now. In ten minutes she was scheduled to do a phone interview with the mayor, and she needed to get focused.
“Well...I do have to get back to my desk. Was there something you wanted to talk about?” she asked when the silence between them lengthened.
With a jolt, David realized that she wasn’t going to invite him to her office. Although Mary appeared to be busy, he suspected that she was tuned in to the conversation taking place only a few feet away, and what he had to say wasn’t meant for public discussion. But he wasn’t leaving without accomplishing the purpose of his visit.
“Is there somewhere private we could speak?” He lowered his voice and angled his body away from the receptionist.
After a brief hesitation, Caroline nodded. “But I have a phone interview to do in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be brief.”
Without responding, she turned and led the way to the inner door, holding up an ID card to the scanner. The door responded with a click and she pulled it open.
The office was much more expansive than David expected. And far more modern than the quaint exterior of the building had suggested. The newsroom was quite large and honeycombed with dozens of cubicles. There was a hum of activity, and staff members stopped Caroline twice to ask her questions as she led the way through the maze.
When they reached her glass-enclosed office, she stepped aside and motioned him in, then followed and closed the door behind her.
“Busy place,” he commented.
“And this is a quiet day. You should see it when things are really hopping.” She moved to her chair, putting the desk between them.
“I guess I didn’t realize that a smaller paper would be so...thriving.”
“The Chronicle isn’t small. It’s the second-largest paper in the city, next to the Post-Dispatch, and we continue to acquire smaller community newspapers. But I don’t need to tell you how mergers and acquisitions work. You deal with that every day.”
“Not anymore.” At her surprised look, he explained. “I took a new job a couple of months ago. As executive director of Uplink, an organization that pairs gifted high school students in problem environments with mentors for summer internships. That’s why I moved to St. Louis. But it seems you’ve changed directions, too. I thought you’d be back at the Associated Press by now.”
Her eyes went flat. “No. I’ve seen enough blood, sweat and tears to last a lifetime. This suits me just fine.” She checked her watch, and he got the message.
“I know you’re on a tight schedule, so I won’t keep you.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a small, tissue-wrapped object. “When I was packing for the move, I came across this among Michael’s things. A few weeks after he...after the bombing...AP sent me some personal effects that had been returned by the authorities. I didn’t give them more than a cursory look at the time. It was too hard.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I did notice this, but to be honest, I thought it had been sent to me by mistake, that it belonged to one of the other victims. It wasn’t a symbol I would have associated with Michael. But when I was packing, I looked at it more closely and saw the initials. I think it must have been something you gave him. So I thought you should have it.” He handed it across her desk, his lean, strong fingers brushing hers as she reached for it.
Curious, Caroline unwrapped the tissue. Nestled inside lay a small pewter anchor on a chain. As she stared at the medallion, the air rushed out of her lungs in a sudden whoosh. She groped for the edge of her desk, and for a brief second the room tilted. Then firm, steadying hands gripped her upper arms, and the world stabilized.
“Are you okay? Why don’t you sit down for a minute?”
She drew in a ragged breath before she lifted her head. David’s concerned face was just inches from hers as he leaned across her desk.
“I’m fine. It was just a...a shock.” Nevertheless, she made a move to sit in her chair, not trusting her shaky legs to hold her up.
As David released her arms, he shoved one hand in the pocket of his slacks. “I was pretty sure the initials on the back were yours.”
Turning the anchor over, she traced the familiar inscription with a gentle finger. CMJ to MWS.
“I gave this to Michael the Christmas we got engaged.” Her voice was whisper-soft. “He always told me that I was his anchor. That whenever the world got too crazy, he would think about me, and then everything made sense again. That I kept him stable through the storms of life. After I gave this to him, he never took it off. He said it was his good luck charm.”
Her voice choked on the last word, and David swallowed hard. No doubt they were sharing the same thought: that he hadn’t been so lucky the day he’d gone to the marketplace.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to say to you for two years, Caroline. I’m sure you know that Michael and I argued about Mom the night before he was...before he died. And that our relationship had been strained for several weeks. You have every right to put at least some of the blame for his death on me. I know he was upset when we talked. And I’m sure he was distracted when he went out on that assignment the next day. I lived with the guilt for almost two years, and even though I found some measure of peace about it after a great deal of prayer, I suspect it will always be with me to some degree. I just want you to know how sorry I am. And that I hope you can find it in your heart someday to forgive me.”
The regret and anguish on David’s face mirrored that in her heart. Yet she knew hers was far more deserved. That she was even more culpable than the man across from her. No one else was aware of that, though. She’d never spoken to anyone of the part she had played in Michael’s death. But now that she realized the depth of David’s distress, had glimpsed the burden of pain that weighed down his heart as he shouldered all the blame, she couldn’t in good conscience keep her role a secret from him. It wouldn’t be honest. Or moral. She might not agree with the steps he’d taken, against Michael’s wishes, to institutionalize their mother, but she couldn’t let him continue to think that he alone was at fault for the tragedy.
Gripping the medallion in a tight fist, Caroline rose. When she spoke, her voice was taut with tension. “The guilt isn’t all yours, David. Or even mostly yours.”
“What do you mean?” He sent her a puzzled look.
Sh
e tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. “Michael shouldn’t have been in the marketplace that day. It was supposed to be me. I was working on a hot story, but I got sick. He volunteered to meet my contact for me.” Her face contorted with anguish, and when she continued her voice was a mere whisper. “I was the one who should have been killed by the suicide bomber.”
A shock wave passed through David as he digested Caroline’s revelation—and tried to comprehend its ramifications. Somewhere, in a far corner of his mind, he realized that her confession had absolved him from a portion of the blame for the tragedy, and he felt a subtle easing of the guilt that had burdened his heart for two years. But in the forefront of his consciousness was the realization that for those same two years the woman across from him had borne a burden even greater than his on her slender shoulders. The man she loved had done her a favor, had taken her place and he’d been killed. He’d thought his guilt had been wrenching. How much more intense it must have been for Caroline, who lived now because Michael had died.
The devastated look on her face bore that out and twisted his gut into a painful knot.
“I’m sorry, Caroline.” The words were wholly inadequate, but he didn’t know what else to say.
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” she whispered. “You have every right to hate me.”
“How can I hate you for getting sick?”
“Because I shouldn’t have let that stop me. I still should have gone. It was my responsibility, not Michael’s.”
“How sick were you?”
She shrugged. “Pretty sick. I had some weird virus.”
“Did you have a fever?”
“Yes. A hundred and three.”
“You needed to stay in bed.”
“That’s what Michael said.”
“He was right.”
“No.” Her voice was resolute. “I should have gone.”