“He’s dead. Died before the paramedics arrived.”
Mike leaned back and sighed. “Ellen, I’m sorry.” He loosened his tie. “Come here.”
She paused a moment. Mike had never made an effort to be close to her father, and now that he was gone, she was angry with Mike for not trying harder. He didn’t understand what she had just lost—and with all her being she wanted to refuse his comfort.
Instead, she fell slowly to her knees and crawled the few steps that separated them. Then she dropped her head in his lap and gave way to the despair that gripped her.
“Why didn’t he take better care of himself?” Her anger brought fresh tears, and they spilled from her eyes. “It makes me so mad at him.”
Mike stroked her hair and said nothing. Finally, Ellen wiped her eyes and looked wearily up at him. He was her husband, and she believed God had brought him into her life. She loved Mike whatever his shortcomings, but she did not always feel loved by him. He rarely made an effort on her behalf—especially where her family was concerned. Now his attempts to ease her grief seemed too little, too late.
“My mom wants us to be there Sunday afternoon.” She leaned up and away from him. “That’s when Jane’s coming in. The funeral will be later that week, Saturday morning.”
“A week from now?” He sounded incredulous.
Ellen blinked twice. “Yes. That’s the soonest Aunt Betsy can get there. Is that a problem?”
She saw Mike’s hesitation, watched his eyes look away from her, as though he were trying to think of the right way to say something he knew she wasn’t going to like.
“Honey,” he started, shaking his head, “I’ve got a baseball game to cover that Saturday. I don’t know how I can find a replacement on such short notice.”
There was more to it than that, Ellen was sure. She knew Mike wasn’t comfortable at funerals, knew he wouldn’t be looking forward to spending a week at her parents’ house in Petoskey. She loved her family, but she was aware that they had their problems … that there would be bickering even as everyone pretended to get along.…
Still, the least he could do was be there for her. “A baseball game?”
“Honey, maybe it’d be better if you went by yourself.” He searched her face for a reaction. “I could always join you later when I can get away.”
She burned with anger and she didn’t even try to hide it. Drawing herself up onto her knees, she stared at him. “No, that wouldn’t be better, Mike.” Her voice was even and measured, a study in controlled fury.
“I have a game Saturday. Come on, Ellen, you know how the producers are about last-minute changes.”
“Wait a minute. I don’t believe what I’m hearing.” Ellen’s temper blazed. “This isn’t some friend’s wedding or a class reunion where you can back out and blame it on your work. My father is dead. My mother wants us both to come out for the week. Can’t you understand that?”
“I’m not married to your mother.” Mike looked like he regretted the words as soon as he said them, but it was too late.
Ellen’s mouth dropped open. “Fine. I want us both there. Okay?”
“Ellen, you know I can’t take a week off without any notice. Work is a fact of life.” He paused. “Besides, I don’t like funerals. I never know how to act.”
Ellen’s eyes grew wide, full of disbelief and accusation.
He cleared his throat before she could speak. “You’ll have your family there,” he insisted. “It’s not like you’ll be all by yourself.” Mike shook his head. “Oh, forget it! You don’t understand.”
“You don’t like funerals!” Ellen stood up and paced the floor. “No kidding, Mike—” She stopped and stared at him. “Me, neither. I don’t like death, for that matter. But my dad is dead, and I need you there. So don’t tell me I don’t understand!”
“Don’t yell at me. I don’t deserve that.”
“What? I deserve a husband who has complained about attending social events with me since we got married? A husband who doesn’t want to go with me to my own father’s funeral?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to go, Ellen. I told you I can’t get away. Not on such short notice.”
“What if it was you who died, Mike? I bet the station could get by somehow without folding.”
She went to slam the cordless phone back onto the receiver.
She was so furious she was shaking. She turned to face him, and when she spoke, even she heard the hatred in her voice. “What is it, Mike? Some ditzy little news anchor have your attention?”
He stood up, recoiling as if he’d been slapped.
“That’s unfair.”
“Is it?” Her voice was still angry, but softer now. “Is it really, Mike? My dad dies and you won’t take one lousy week off work for me? What am I supposed to think?”
Mike looked past her then and reached toward the fireplace mantel for his car keys.
“I don’t know what you’re supposed to think,” he said, pausing by the front door.
Ellen was speechless.
“Listen,” Mike’s voice was calmer as he continued. “I’m sorry about your dad. I loved him, too.”
“Oh, don’t give me that! Not now. You never even knew him, Mike. You never tried to know him. And you certainly didn’t love him. Not enough to take me to his funeral, anyway.” She snorted sarcastically. “I get the worst news of my entire life, and you can’t think of anyone but yourself. What’s happened to you, Mike? You’re supposed to be a Christian, remember? The spiritual leader of the household?”
Mike shook his head. “Oh, don’t throw that in my face. Not this time. Besides, I don’t exactly see you rushing to the Bible for comfort.”
“I’m not talking about comparing my walk with yours. I’m talking about you and me. You’re supposed to love me like Christ loved the church, give up everything for me. But not you, no sir. You won’t even take a week off work for me. What kind of Christian love is that?”
Mike’s shoulders sagged and he sighed loudly, dramatically.
“Ellen, I won’t let you guilt me into going with you to Petoskey when I have work here in Miami. I could meet you down there the day before the funeral, but I can’t possibly get a whole week off with no notice.”
“Forget it, Mike.” She turned her back to him.
“Look at me, Ellen,” he demanded.
She whirled around and put a hand on her hip. “What?”
“You obviously need time to accept the facts.” Mike’s voice was measured and forced. “Your dad’s dead. Nothing I can do can bring him back. You have family and friends in Petoskey, and you don’t need me tagging along for a week of funeral preparations. I can probably get out there for the funeral. But that’s all. Otherwise the topic’s closed.”
“Fly out for one day? I need you all week.” Her icy anger melted and she began sobbing softly as she turned away from him again. “Forget it. I don’t want you there.”
Mike was silent, then his voice came from behind her, cold and hurt. “Fine. I won’t go at all.” He strode across the room, and flung open the door.
“Jerk!” she shouted, glancing at him over her shoulder so that their eyes met for an angry moment. Then he stepped outside and slammed the door.
She stood frozen in place, studying the door and relishing the distraction of her renewed anger. At that moment it seemed Mike had always been like this, and she cursed herself for marrying him.
“Jerk!” She said it louder this time, even though no one was there to hear her.
She marched across the living room, picked up the telephone, and sat down at the kitchen table. She dialed the Miami Times, and in a voice that was almost unrecognizable, she told Ron Barkley that her father had died.
“I’ll need a week, Ron.”
“Listen, I’m sorry, Barrett.” Barkley’s voice was soft. “Call us if you need more time.”
She hung up and dialed the airline, scribbling flight numbers on a pad of paper and making reservations
to fly to Detroit without Mike. When she was finished, she folded her arms on the kitchen table, laid her head down, and sobbed until she thought her heart would break.
Of course she had seen it coming. Her father had heart disease and diabetes, and if high blood pressure and excess weight were any indication, he should have died more than a decade ago. But that didn’t make his death any less painful.
“So, this is it, huh, Dad?” she whispered, her eyes closed. “Time to say good-bye.”
She silently summoned a strength she had not known she possessed, one she would certainly have to draw on in the days to come. She would go home and face her four younger siblings, all of whom had been unable to get along for years. She would help her mother pick out a casket and plan a service. Then she would see that her father was buried. She would remember the past, walk through it, relive it, and try her best to put it behind her.
“God, help me get through it.” But the whispered words felt foreign, as if praying was something she had forgotten how to do.
She sighed and wiped her eyes. How could he be gone, the father who had shared so much of her life? How could she bury the one person who had always believed in her? He was the man who had attended football games with her, teaching her the rules of play even after she’d been hired as a sportswriter for the Detroit Gazette. There was nothing he would not have done for her, and now she would have to learn to live without him.
Never mind about Mike. She would be on a plane soon enough and then she would have one week before she would see him again. Meanwhile, she had a lot more to think about than what was wrong between the two of them.
Ellen lowered her head back down onto her arms. There had been a time when she thought the world revolved around Mike Miller, a time when she couldn’t have imagined a scene like the one that had just taken place. Back when they spent Saturday mornings laughing at I Love Lucy reruns and Sunday mornings at church. But somewhere along the path of deadlines and breaking stories and babies that would never be, something had changed.
She tried to think back to the beginning, to the days when she and Mike couldn’t stand to be away from each other. Images drifted through her mind.… Mike bringing her breakfast in bed on their first anniversary and the two of them giggling for hours because the eggs were rubbery and the toast like cardboard.… The birthday when she left work to find her BMW plastered with flowers and balloons, a task that had cost Mike a double lunch break.…
It felt good to remember those things—and it forced her to think of something other than her father. The memories raced through her mind like a highlight film and, despite herself, the corners of her mouth lifted as she remembered.
Mike Miller was handsome and intelligent, a Christian man with morals and a sense of humor. He had completely swept her off her feet. But too many times since then he had left her alone when she needed him. If he could let her face the week ahead by herself, then what strength did their marriage have?
Ellen dried her cheeks with the backs of her hands. She would go back to beautiful Petoskey, to the shores of Little Traverse Bay along Lake Michigan, to her childhood home. She would say good-bye to her father, then she would come back to Miami and see if there was still a heartbeat in her marriage … or if that, too, had grown ill and died.
Ellen sighed. Every muscle in her body ached. She barely had the energy even to stand. Rising from the chair, she stretched and headed toward her bedroom. She peeled off her clothes, leaving them scattered about the floor, and slipped into a long T-shirt. Then she pulled back the covers and slid between the cool sheets.
She did not often dream and that night was no exception. But in the hours before she finally drifted to sleep, she found herself remembering a time when her father was still very much alive. A time when she and Mike were just starting out … when Mike had loved her completely and had done something no one else had been able to do.
He made her forget about Jake Sadler.
As she closed her eyes, she found herself there, immersed in the vivid memories of a time that would never be again.
2
For as long as she could remember, Ellen Barrett had known what she wanted to be when she grew up. She was not like other little girls who talked of being princesses or famous ice-skaters. Ellen was a writer. It was something that grew from her heart and worked its way through her very being.
As a child Ellen spent hours writing short stories and poetry. Her mother took her for a silly dreamer, but Ellen was nothing of the sort. She was merely a single-minded young girl honing a skill she was certain to draw from in years to come.
When she was ten years old, Ellen first understood her need to place on paper all that already existed in her heart. It was then that she made her decision. One day she would write for the Detroit Gazette.
The Gazette was the biggest newspaper in Michigan, and after high school, when Ellen began plotting her way toward a journalism degree, it was with the sole purpose of one day being employed by the Gazette. A position on staff would mean living in a small apartment by herself, four hours away from her family and the small town she loved. But Ellen wanted a staff position desperately. She would have lived on the moon if it meant working at the Gazette.
In 1990, she was in her final semester at the University of Michigan when she was selected to do an internship for the Gazette. She was a Christian by then, and many of her childhood plans had undergone significant changes—but not the dream of working for the Gazette. From the beginning she saw the internship as an answer to prayer.
“Ms. Barrett,” the sports editor said when he called her at her dormitory that January. “We’ve reviewed your application and selected you as one of our sports interns for the coming semester.”
“Sports,” she repeated blankly. She had requested an internship in the news department, but her hesitation lasted only a moment. “Fantastic. That’ll be perfect. What will I be doing?”
“You’ll be taking scores over the phone several nights a week. Of course, you’ll need a complete understanding of most of the major spring sports. Baseball, track, softball, volleyball, wrestling, tennis, swimming. And the city league sports, bowling and high-pitch softball. That kind of thing.”
He droned on about the details. The job involved taking hundreds of scores and statistics from local sporting events and turning them into brief copy for the score-card in the back of the sports section.
“Sound okay to you?”
Ellen thought quickly. She didn’t know the first thing about the rules of sports. She wasn’t even sure she knew how to keep score. “Definitely,” she said before she could stop herself. “No problem. When do I start?”
“Next week. Stop by the office and pick up your schedule. You can fill out the paperwork then.”
When Ellen hung up the phone, she let out a shriek so loud it brought students from several rooms away rushing to see what the problem was.
“I got the internship! I can’t believe it! I’m on staff at the Gazette!”
The other students rolled their eyes and returned to their business, unaware of the significance of the moment. Within two minutes Ellen was on the phone with her father.
“Way to go, Ellen! That’s my girl! I knew you could do it, honey.” Ellen could see his smile as clearly as if he were standing in front of her. “This is only the beginning.”
“There’s one small problem, Daddy. I’ve been assigned to the sports department.”
“Sports?” John Barrett laughed out loud. “Honey, you wouldn’t recognize the difference between a ball and a strike. Why would they put you in sports?”
“My clip file included a few sports features I did. Remember?”
“You don’t need to know sports to write about the Michigan quarterback’s asthma condition. Didn’t they ask you if you’d ever covered a game?”
“They asked me if I understood the games.”
“What did you say?”
“I said yes.”
“Oh, honey
,” John muttered. “When do you start?”
“Next week. But I don’t have classes until then. I could get time off from the restaurant and I was thinking, maybe … ”
“Get in your car and get here as soon as you can. We haven’t had snow in a while so at least the roads are clear.”
Her father’s voice was kind and understanding. He was a professor at North Central Community College in Petoskey and spring classes didn’t start for another two weeks. “I’ll give you a crash course on everything you’ll need to know. Maybe between the two of us we can fool ’em.”
Ellen broke into a smile. “Thanks, Daddy. I’ll be there in time for dinner. One thing though.” She paused. “If Jake calls, don’t tell him I’m coming up. I don’t want to talk to him.”
“I won’t say a word, but he’s got it bad for you, Ellen. I’ll never understand you two.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
She and Jake had dated for six years. But they had been broken up for ten months and the subject was closed.
“Okay, but you’re breaking his heart.” Her father sighed dramatically. “I’m sure you have your reasons.”
I do, Ellen had thought. Jake Sadler broke my heart first. “It’s nothing I want to get into. Just don’t tell him, okay?”
“Okay, okay. Get your things together and get down here. I’ll have Mom fix something special for dinner.”
The week flew by in a blur of guidelines and rules and scoring methods. She memorized player positions, team violations, and rules of play. She learned the difference between the higharc and windmill softball pitches and that a slider was a type of baseball pitch, not to be confused with sliding into base. There were the spikes and sets and digs in volleyball, and whereas baseball gave its batters three strikes to get a hit, volleyball allowed three hits to form a play. She learned about the pin in wrestling, the splits in swimming, and the triple jump in track until finally the rules and terminology didn’t seem quite so foreign.
Once in a while they’d be working and the phone would ring. Her mother would answer it.