Reach for Tomorrow

by Lurlene McDaniel

  Morgan wasn’t quite sure just how to take Eric. Young and cocky, he thought. From down the line, a horse whinnied. “I’d better pitch out the stalls,” Morgan said, remembering that he had work to do.

  “I got stuff to do too. Catch you later.”

  Morgan watched Eric walk away. For the hundredth time in the past two years, he wished he could talk to Anne. She understood people. Morgan never had much patience with them. He preferred horses. But Anne was gone, and a dark cloud hung over his life. No time for girls, he told himself. And besides, caring for someone again before he had the test performed wasn’t really very fair, now, was it?

  “Where is everybody, and where’s the marching band to greet me?”

  “Lacey!” Katie jumped up from where she’d been sitting on the cabin floor, cutting out name tags, and ran to the screen door.

  Chelsea James followed on her heels. The three girls hugged and squealed, all talking at once.

  “Come in and meet Megan—Meg—she’s a counselor too. This is the infamous Lacey Duval,” Katie said, “the one we’ve been telling you about.”

  Lacey sized up the girl in front of her. “Not another blonde,” she cried. “And a pretty one too. Didn’t anybody tell her the rules? No blondes but me!

  Taken aback, Meg smiled. Could the tall, cool, beautiful Lacey she’d heard so much about all afternoon possibly think she, Meg, was pretty? Or was Lacey being nice?

  “Lacey means what she says,” Katie told Meg. “And she says exactly what she means.”

  Lacey sniffed haughtily and threw her suitcase to one side. “Are we all here?”

  “Even Dullas,” Chelsea said. “Kimbra brought her. We sent her off to pester somebody else.”

  “Who are Kimbra and Dullas?” Meg asked.

  “Kimbra is one of the administrators on staff here. She was actually a friend of Jenny Crawford’s. As for Dullas, well, you’ll meet her later.”

  Katie peered through the screen door. “Did Jeff bring you?” she asked Lacey.

  “Jeff is Lacey’s boyfriend,” Chelsea informed Meg. “They were both counselors at Jenny House last year.”

  “He couldn’t bring me,” Lacey said. “He got a job working at an architectural firm. And since that’s his major, he thought it was a good place to spend the summer. I drove myself.”

  “You drove all the way from Miami by yourself?” Chelsea asked.

  Katie knew Chelsea was notorious for being fearful, but when you had been sick and in need of a heart transplant for as long as Chelsea had before getting one, it was easy to forgive her anxiety.

  “It’s only a two-day drive. I spent the night with my aunt in Jacksonville.”

  The group flopped onto the floor and Lacey asked, “So, Chelsea, what do you hear from DJ?”

  Chelsea’s face went sad. “He’ll never care about me. He can’t get over what happened to his sister.”

  Katie explained briefly to Meg how Chelsea and Jillian had both needed the same organ transplant, and that Chelsea had gotten it, while Jillian had died waiting for it.

  Instantly Meg felt sorry for Chelsea. “The same thing happened to a friend of mine,” she said. “He died waiting for a liver transplant.”

  There was a moment of heavy silence. “This conversation has gotten far too serious,” Lacey said briskly. “Well, I’m sure there’ll be other guys, Chelsea. It’s DJ’s loss.” She turned to Katie. “I saw Josh when I pulled in. Did you know he was here, Katie?”

  Katie’s stomach did a flip-flop. “No.”

  “You mean you didn’t see him while you were at home? You haven’t talked to him since you got back from college?”

  “I—uh—I’ve been busy.”

  “Too busy to see Josh?” Lacey looked incredulous.

  “No way,” Chelsea added.

  “I’m not his keeper, you know,” Katie said.

  Lacey turned to Meg. “He’s the nicest guy in the whole world. And they’re perfect for each other. And someday our little Katie is going to wake up and realize it. We all just hope it won’t be too late.”

  Katie jumped up. “Give it a rest.” She went for the door. “See you all later. I’m going for a run.”

  “You can run, but you can’t hide,” Lacey called after her as she bolted through the doorway.

  Furious at her friends’ meddling, Katie jogged down one of the trails. Why couldn’t they understand how mixed up she was inside about Josh? They were right, however. She hadn’t called him while she’d been at home. And she’d left without ever letting him know she’d been there.

  She picked up speed, realizing how much better she always felt when she ran. For a while after she had learned about the virus in her heart, she had thought she might not survive, let alone run again. But the heart transplant had given her back the world she had been in danger of losing. She was grateful every day to the One Last Wish Foundation, which had made it all possible.

  She rounded a bend at full speed and ran smack into a male chest.

  “Whoa!” she heard the owner of the chest say. He caught her arms to keep her from falling.

  Katie looked up to see Josh’s beautiful blue eyes looking straight into hers.

  THREE

  “You’re still as fast as the wind, aren’t you, Katie?”

  A lump in her throat almost prevented her from speaking. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “Sorry for almost knocking you down,” she said, but she meant it in many other ways.

  He smiled. “Hey, I’m tough. I can take it.”

  “And I’m sorry because I didn’t call you while I was home last week.”

  He studied her face, released her arms. “The phone works both ways, Katie. I could have called you too, but I didn’t.”

  She didn’t know why he would have wanted to; she hadn’t been very pleasant to him. “I guess that’s true.”

  He offered his lopsided smile. “Don’t think I’ve been sitting around pining away. I got your message last summer and at Christmas that you wanted to move on with your life and that the advancement didn’t include me.”

  She started to protest, but he held up his hand. “It’s all right; no hard feelings. We had a wonderful time together while it lasted. Maybe it’s time both of us moved on.”

  “Are you seeing somebody else?” The question was out before she could stop herself.

  “I’m dating someone, yes.”

  The news startled her and gave her a sick sensation in the pit of her stomach. She should feel glad for him. Wasn’t this what she’d wanted? For them both to go their separate ways? “That’s good,” she said with a smile she didn’t mean. This wasn’t the time to remind him that only at Christmas he’d told her he still loved her.

  “How about you? Anyone special out there in Arizona?”

  “Um—not really. College was harder than I expected, and then with track and all …” She let the sentence trail off, remembering all the mornings he’d met with her after her transplant, encouraging her to run again. He’d hold the stopwatch, time her, cheer for her—

  “I know what you mean.” He interrupted her thoughts. “But at least I’m going to college. Gramps left me enough for my first two years, if I’m careful. Maybe by the time I’m an upperclassman, I can get some scholarship money.”

  “Well, if hard work is a determinant, then I’m sure you’ll get it. I know how hard you work, Josh.”

  He smiled again. “I’m glad we ran into each other. I wasn’t sure you’d appreciate me working here this summer, what with you not wanting to be around me and all, but the truth is, I can make more money doing this camp than I ever could working back home. Besides, it’s more fun here too.”

  “She’ll miss you, I’ll bet.”

  “Who?”

  “Your girlfriend.”

  His face reddened. “We’ll write. We’ll keep in touch.”

  Curiosity about Josh’s new girl was eating at her, but Katie knew she couldn�
�t start pumping him for information right here in the middle of the hiking trail. He might start thinking she cared more than she did. She and Josh were broken up. They were friends, not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. “I—um—should get back, I guess.”

  “Me too,” he said. “It’s going to be a good summer, Katie.”

  “Yes, it will be.”

  “See you, then.”

  “Yeah, see you.” She started jogging away from him. It was definitely over between them. Katie sighed. If that was true, why did she feel so empty inside?

  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see all of you.” Richard Holloway was talking.

  Meg looked around the rec center, fascinated by the group that had gathered. She knew that many of them had been there before, but even she, a Jenny House first-timer, was caught up in the importance of the summer ahead, and in the camaraderie she’d already experienced. Katie, Chelsea, and Lacey had made her feel like a welcome addition to their team, and Meg wanted to be part of the team in every way.

  Mr. Holloway’s talk was preparing her for the days ahead. These weren’t ordinary campers coming in, but special kids fighting diseases, sometimes fighting for their very lives. She recalled her days as a candy striper and realized these kids wanted the same things all of them did—to be accepted and liked for who they were. They already had strikes against them: They were different, set apart by illness. This camp was going to try to make them feel normal while never losing sight of the truth.

  “If you have any question about a kid in your cabin, you come and tell one of the medical staff,” Richard Holloway was saying. “We can’t take chances. And we’re only minutes from a first-class hospital. We’re a lot smaller this year, but full, so you’ll have plenty to do.”

  He went on to tell them the camp rules, then opened the floor to questions. He assigned campers to cabins, which were all named after birds. Meg would have six charges in her Sparrow Cabin. Katie was in charge of Bluejay Cabin, Chelsea of Lark Cabin, Lacey of Redbird Cabin; Katie’s former boyfriend, Josh, who Meg thought was handsome, was in charge of Eagle Cabin. Another boy, Kevin, would watch over Hawk Cabin. Once all the information had been given out, Mr. Holloway announced, “Now we’re going to take a little trek over to the construction site. The crew’s knocked off for the day, but I do want you to see what we’re doing over there. Then it’s back here for a cookout, and to bed. Tomorrow the campers arrive, and it’s going to be chaos.”

  Meg shuffled out with the other girls and fell into step for the walk to the site. Cool mountain air rustled the trees along the trail.

  “You’re new here, huh?”

  Meg turned her head and saw the girl the others called Dullas. She was a small girl and wore a nose ring. “Yep. But I’ve worked in my hospital back home with sick kids for a few years.”

  “I hated it the first time I came, but I like it now. I got adopted in April. Kimbra’s my new mom. Now I’ve got brothers and a sister down in Tampa.”

  “Lucky you. To get an instant family, I mean.”

  “My old man’s in jail, and my mother split when I was just a kid. Kimbra took me home after camp last summer, and now I live with her. My last name’s changed to Patterson too, so now I belong to them.”

  Meg was amazed that the girl felt no shyness about the most personal details of her life. “Lacey told me you have leukemia.”

  “Had,” Dullas corrected. “I’m in remission, and I don’t plan to ever let that disease get out to torment me again.”

  “You can do that? Just wish it away?”

  “I can, and I have. For the first time in forever things are going good for me, and I ain’t going to let stupid old cancer mess them up.”

  Meg laughed. “Good luck.”

  Dullas crossed her arms and bobbed her head. “It’s called a positive attitude. And I got it.”

  Light glinted off a necklace around Dullas’s neck, and Meg commented on its beauty. Dullas’s hand flew protectively to her throat. “It’s a real diamond. It’s an earring, but Kimbra had it put into a necklace for me so I could wear it always. I’m sort of in charge of taking care of it for a girl who died. I didn’t know her, but Katie, Chelsea, and Lacey did. They told me to take care of it for her. I’m like, you know, its guardian.”

  Meg figured she’d ask the others about it later. And it hit her hard that this indeed was no ordinary camp—here campers could die. She said, “Well, I think it’s beautiful, and it looks as if you’ve taken good care of it.”

  “It’s my treasure,” Dullas said proudly. “I’m going to wear it forever.”

  By now they were rounding a bend, and the construction site came into view. The building loomed out of the woods, its steel girders catching in the late-afternoon sun. The group stood in a hushed semicircle, looking at it. “It’s like the phoenix,” Meg said half to herself.

  “The what?” a boy near her asked. His name tag read MORGAN. She knew he was in charge of the stables.

  “An Egyptian bird from mythology,” Meg explained. “It rose again from its own ashes after being burned up.”

  He looked at her so long that she began to feel self-conscious.

  Good move, she told herself. A guy notices you because you said something dumb. Why couldn’t she be cute like Lacey, who was wisecracking and making others laugh?

  “You must read a lot,” Morgan said.

  “I love to read. Books have always been my friends.” She could have bitten her tongue. Why was she saying such stupid things?

  Mercifully Richard Holloway said, “Look at the structure to the right. It’s brand new.”

  Meg looked and saw another building rising out of the woods. Already she could tell it would be different from the institutional-looking first structure.

  “What’s it going to be?” Katie asked.

  “A chapel,” Mr. Holloway said. “The Jenny Chapel.”

  FOUR

  For a hushed moment, no one spoke. Mr. Holloway broke the silence by saying, “Come on, let’s get a little closer.”

  The group walked to what would be the entrance of the building, where the smell of freshly cut wood permeated the air. Katie could see that the building was bow shaped, with an angled front that soared several stories into the North Carolina air.

  “The front there, facing west”—Mr. Holloway pointed to the soaring beams—“will be a solid stained-glass window. Local artisans are creating it as we speak.”

  Katie felt chills go up her spine as she imagined it.

  “There will be a freestanding stone altar made from Carolina granite and walls of pine fitted together like the bow of a ship. There will be pews on either side in wedge-shaped sections with an aisle down the center. All of the interior will emphasize the altar and window.

  “In the back will be a spacious vestibule, and on the basement level, rooms for music playing, choir rehearsal, a library, and so on. I want this to be a chapel that’s used year-round.”

  Katie was moved. The chapel would be yet another monument to Jenny Crawford, and to Richard Holloway’s love for her. Jenny and Richard had fallen in love years before, but Jenny had been diagnosed with leukemia and had died when she was only a teenager. Since then Richard had devoted his life to keeping her memory alive and helping young adults like her, through Jenny House and the One Last Wish Foundation.

  “I think it’s fabulous,” Lacey said.

  “There will be memorial plaques on the walls of the vestibule for every kid coming through Jenny House who doesn’t make it. I want these kids remembered. For all time.”

  Katie remembered the makeshift memorial she and her friends had created for Amanda, and the sense of closure and peace it had brought them. Mr. Holloway was right—no one should ever be forgotten.

  “When will it be finished?” Josh asked.

  “Not until late fall or early next spring, depending on the weather. It will be the jewel in the crown of this complex.” Mr. Holloway’s voice rose with pride. “But here’s a w
arning. This site is off limits to the campers. Actually, they have no reason to even want to come over this way, since all the activity is planned on the far side of the property. Just make sure you do regular head counts, all right?”

  They all agreed. Finally the group headed back to the rec center, where the aromas of grilling burgers and hot dogs made Katie’s mouth water.

  “Last one there is ugly,” Dullas called, and started off at a dead run.

  Others broke into a trot, except for Meg.

  “You’re just poking along,” Morgan said, coming up beside her. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Do I look as if I’ve missed many meals?” Meg asked, then wondered why she had said it. Why emphasize the obvious?

  “You look fine to me.”

  “You’re kind.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m honest.”

  She blushed because she hadn’t had a guy flirt with her for a year and didn’t know how to act. “Well, Mr. Honest, you’re going to miss your supper if you drag along with me.”

  “There’ll be plenty. I met one of the cooks.” He told her he was from Colorado, and she told him where she was from. He remarked, “I liked what you said about the phoenix. I could see that, you know … this giant bird rising right up to the sky. I’ll bet you’re really smart.”

  “I get by,” she said.

  “You remind me of someone. She was real smart too.”

  “A librarian?”

  He smiled. “A girl I once knew.”

  Meg hoped he wasn’t going to start crying on her shoulder about some girl who’d dumped him. She wasn’t in the mood to be his buddy. “Sounds serious,” she said without much enthusiasm.

  “It might have been.”

  “A poet said that once. Actually, the exact words are, ‘for of all sad words of tongue or pen,/The saddest are these: “It might have been!” ’ ”

  “She used to do that too—say poetry to me. I liked it.”

  This surprised Meg. He looked rugged and out-doorsy, not the poetry-loving type. “Poetry’s pretty. I’ve always loved it.”

  “Emily Dickinson was her favorite.”