CODY KEPT HIS distance on purpose. He didn’t want his feelings for Elle influencing his decision to stay or go. Because if he stayed, he wanted to go to her not only with empty hands, but with a full heart. Full of hope and promise and excitement for tomorrow and every day after it.
So that week he kept his distance from Elle and his parents, and in some ways even Carl Joseph. In the process, he took his brother’s advice and prayed. He talked to God every chance he had. Should he go and spend a year sorting through his options, his feelings? Or should he stay, roll up his sleeves, and work alongside a girl who filled his senses? Was he ready for that, or would he be better off by himself? Him and God.
The way he’d never really been even after Ali died.
Until now, now that he’d let her go.
Day after day he prayed, stopping in each morning to take Carl Joseph to the center, and forcing himself to stay only a few minutes, so he wouldn’t change his mind and stay all day. He was that drawn to Elle. In some ways, he expected the answer to come easily. Should he stay or go? Simple question, simple answer. But God didn’t shout at him or whisper in his heart or make the answer clear in any way.
The answer came on Friday, after Carl Joseph’s field trip.
Cody had ridden Ace that day, and he was in the barn brushing the horse down, patting his neck. He heard Carl Joseph tromping out to meet him long before his brother appeared at the door.
“Brother!” It was midafternoon, and the sun splashed rays on either side of Carl Joseph. “Supermarkets are fun!”
Cody set down the brush, dusted off his hands, and crossed the hay-covered floor to the door. He wiped his brow and smiled at his brother. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“What?” Carl Joseph didn’t pick up on sarcasm. It was one more innocent way about him.
“Yes, Buddy.” Cody patted his shoulder. “Supermarkets are a lot of fun.”
“Yeah, and I picked out a melon and”—he held up two fingers—“a two-gallon milk and butter unsalted and wheat bread.” He clapped his hands and laughed the way he did when he was practically overcome with joy.
“That’s great, Buddy. I’m proud of you.” He meant it. Every field trip, every class session was another victory for Carl Joseph, another step closer to Goal Day.
Carl Joseph bounced a little, nodding and explaining in detail about the trip. But after a minute of talking, he stopped and his smile dropped off. He pushed his glasses up onto his nose and squinted at Cody. “Why, Brother?”
“Why what?”
“You didn’t go. I like you to go, Brother. But maybe you don’t like supermarkets?”
Cody stared at his brother, past the extra chromosome to the tender-hearted boy inside. A boy who had looked up to him and longed for his attention since he was old enough to talk. And there, in the guileless question from his only brother, Cody had the answer he was looking for.
Just as strongly as if God had walked into the barn and hand-delivered it.
CODY AND CARL Joseph walked into the center ten minutes late, but Elle was nowhere to be seen. Cody’s heart pounded, but he expected that. He’d taken his answer back to God and prayed about it over the weekend. Time and again the feeling in his heart was the same.
Now it was time to act on it.
Carl Joseph didn’t know what Cody was about to do or how today was different from any other day. He bounded into the classroom, stopped, and was about to give Cody a good-bye hug when Cody stopped him. “I’m staying, Buddy.”
His brother’s eyebrows lifted high up into his forehead. “You’re staying?” He made a few disbelieving guffaws. “Really, Brother?”
“Really.” Cody patted his brother’s shoulder. “I’ll sit here by the door. You go with your friends.”
Carl Joseph ran to the group, waving his hands. He was just announcing, “Brother’s staying! Brother’s staying!” when Elle walked back in from the break room. She must’ve felt Cody watching her because she turned to him and their eyes met and held. They held while Daisy jumped to her feet and as she danced around Carl Joseph, celebrating the fact that his brother was staying.
Elle put her things down on her desk, turned, and slowly came to him. Her expression told him that she was confused, that she didn’t understand whether he was staying for the day, visiting with Carl Joseph’s class.
Or staying in Colorado Springs.
When she reached him, a hundred questions shone in her eyes. But she asked just one. “You’re staying?”
He hated the way she looked nervous. Elle Dalton, whose heart had been through enough. He stood and glanced at the class. The aide was working with several students. He searched her eyes again. “Can you step outside for a minute?” His pounding heart grew louder, so loud he could barely concentrate. He steadied himself. Breathe, Gunner. Take a breath. He could do this. God had made it clear.
Elle announced to the class that it was time for group discussion. She gave a knowing look to her aide and then smiled at her students. “Find your seats, please. I’ll be right back.”
She followed Cody outside, and a warm wind met them on the patio. He leaned against the cool brick wall and waited until she was a few feet in front of him. “I have a question.”
“Okay.” She ran her tongue along her lower lip. She looked nervous, no idea what was coming.
He smiled, and never broke eye contact. “Is that position still open? Running the fitness program here at the center?”
Surprise worked its way across her face, but it took only a few heartbeats before her eyes lit up. “Are you serious?”
Cody felt the anxiety leaving him. “On one condition.” In this moment there was Elle, and only Elle.
A happy cry came from her. “What?”
“I want a dance studio.”
Her reaction wasn’t slow or measured or cautious. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, the sort of victory hug the moment demanded. But it demanded more than that.
He eased back just enough so he could see her, and slowly she took her arms from him. They stood there, inches from each other, and the mood between them changed with a sudden intensity. He crooked his finger and brushed it against her cheek. “I was right before.” He reminded himself to breathe again. “I feel it, too. I felt it then on the mountain.” He moved closer, searching her eyes. “And I feel it now.”
“Cody…” Fear shadowed her eyes, and she looked away. “I don’t know.”
“I won’t hurt you, Elle.” He took her hands in his. “I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t thought this through.”
When he rehearsed this moment in his mind, he hadn’t been sure where exactly it would take place or how it would wind up. But he knew one thing. He wouldn’t let her go until she was clear about his feelings. Only now, with her class waiting for her and doubt trying to distract her, he could think of just one way to convince her.
Gently, with a tenderness that he had learned a long time ago, he released her hands and worked his fingers along the sides of her face and into her soft brown hair. Then in a moment he was sure they would both remember forever, he leaned down and kissed her. It was not the kiss of passion and desire, even if those feelings were hidden inside him. Rather it was the kiss of everything new and tender and innocent. A tentative kiss that lasted only a few seconds.
When he straightened, he never took his eyes from hers. “Well.” He hugged her again and whispered into her hair. “Do I get the job?”
She didn’t answer him, and at first he wondered if she’d changed her mind. Not about him, but about the fitness program. But then he felt the trembling in her shoulders. She wasn’t hesitant.
She was crying.
And for the first time in far too long, Cody savored the sound. Because this time Elle’s tears did not come from a place of utter despair and heartbreak.
They came from pure, boundless joy.
ELLE SNIFFED AND wiped her tears. “Yes.” She pressed her cheek against Cody’s chest. “You can have the
job.”
He stroked her hair, and after a little while they moved apart and he took her hands again. “Good thing, because I don’t exactly have a Plan B.” He smiled. “Not anymore.”
She was about to ask him what happened, how come he’d stayed away all week only to come here now with his mind made up. But with his fingers around hers, she suddenly noticed something.
He wasn’t wearing his wedding ring.
“Cody—” she ran her thumb over the smooth indentation, the place where the ring had been just a week earlier. She looked at his finger and then back at him. “Why?”
“I wanted empty hands.” Sadness touched his eyes, but only in a distant sort of way.
She could imagine how hard it must’ve been to make this move, to set aside his wedding ring. As much as she felt giddy and alive, as much as her head was spinning trying to believe what was happening, she couldn’t have him doing this unless he was certain. She framed his face with her hands and looked deep into his eyes, all the way to his heart. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” His answer left no doubt, and his eyes told her he wanted to kiss her again. But he resisted; they both did. This wasn’t the time or place, and there would be no rushing whatever lay ahead. There were plenty of reasons to take things slowly.
He grinned, and his eyes danced. “So I was thinking that tonight, well, Carl Joseph and Daisy haven’t seen each other outside of class for a long time.”
“A week.” She felt like shouting out loud. She felt that good.
“Right, a whole week.” He gave a shake of his head as if to say a week was far too long. “So what about tonight the four of us go out for pizza?”
Elle tilted her head. She could feel the stars in her eyes. “That’d be amazing.”
She soothed her fingertips over the empty place where his wedding ring had been. “What made you do it, Cody?”
“I took your advice.” The laughter in his voice eased off a little, but the sorrow was gone.
“What advice was that?”
“I used a life skill.” He was serious, even though the air between them was light.
“Oh, really?” Already she could see where this was going, how it would play out in the weeks and months ahead. God in all His glory was giving her a new beginning, the one her mother and sisters and even she had prayed for. The future suddenly had all the streaky pinks and blues of a brilliant sunrise and Elle could’ve shouted her thanks to heaven because she could hardly wait.
She wanted to know what he meant, and she caught his eyes once more as they headed back toward the classroom. She worked to focus, but her head was still spinning. “Which life skill?”
“Prayer.” He smiled, and it gave her a window to his soul. “The one that matters most.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Mary Gunner stood at the door of her house and waved good-bye. Cody and Carl Joseph were setting off to help move Daisy into her new apartment, the one she was sharing with Tammy, another student at the ILC.
Daisy had reached Goal Day the week before, and Mary and Mike had celebrated with Daisy and Elle’s mother, and all the students and their families. She had a job now, taking tickets at a movie theater one mile down from her apartment.
“Just two bus stops,” Daisy liked to say.
The moment was bittersweet for Mary. Spurred on by Daisy’s efforts toward independence, Carl Joseph was making record progress toward his own Goal Day. His new medicine was working, but he still had terrible seizures every week or so. Mary sucked in a breath and held it. In four days Carl Joseph had a job interview at the western feed store—cleaning floors and stocking shelves. Elle had explained that she was fairly certain Carl Joseph would get the job. The manager understood about his potential for seizures. They didn’t worry him.
Mary watched Cody pull out of the driveway and turn left toward the city. The two brothers were closer than ever. Mary smiled and felt all traces of sadness leave her. Yes, Carl Joseph would be leaving home soon. Cody and Elle had found a group home in the same complex where Daisy and Tammy lived. And that was the right thing for her son. She had believed it when they enrolled him at the center, and she believed it now. Even if once in a while her heart wavered.
Long after Cody’s truck was no longer in sight, Mary stood there, pondering all that had happened. Elle had said they might be moving Carl Joseph into the group home in six to nine months. Already he had a roommate lined up—Gus. That way they could share the same independent-living coordinator, a social worker who would come once a week to make sure they were following their routines, remembering their medications.
She smiled. For all the amazing growth and change in Carl Joseph, the greatest change was in her older son.
Cody was in love. Deeply and completely, in a way Mary had thought would never happen again for him. Cody and Elle were inseparable, and already she’d heard mention of a wedding sometime in the near future. In a little more than a month, over Presidents’ Day weekend, the two of them were traveling with Daisy and Carl Joseph on a special trip. Something that had Carl Joseph literally counting down the days.
Mary leaned her head on the doorframe. Once, a lifetime ago, before she and Mike married, her mother told her something that stayed with her. She said, “A mother knows she’s done a great job when she has an empty nest and a full heart.”
She pictured Cody and Elle, lost in their own world, helping Daisy move into her apartment while Carl Joseph chattered on about his Goal Day. There were times in the last decade when she wondered if she was an absolute failure as a mother. Back when Cody wouldn’t speak to her and anger was his only language, or when she realized that by not expecting more of Carl Joseph, she had nearly doomed him to a life of watching television from his spot on the living room sofa.
But here, with her empty nest right around the corner, and her heart so full it could burst, Mary could only hope that maybe her mother was right.
That maybe between her and God, she’d done something right, after all.
THE BIG DAY dawned beneath thick, dark clouds.
By the time they reached the airport, a steady rain was falling, and in the backseat Daisy had her head on Carl Joseph’s shoulder. “I hate the rain.”
“Don’t hate, Daisy.” Carl Joseph was talking a little more quietly lately. “ ’Cause it’s not nice to hate.”
“Okay, I get scared in the rain.” She rarely argued with Carl Joseph, rarely tried to be right the way she did with just about everyone else. Cody had noticed, and the fact made him smile.
As much as Cody and Elle were falling faster and deeper every day, Carl Joseph and Daisy were, too. Yes, their friendship was more complicated, but it wasn’t impossible.
And Cody had decided if his brother wanted to get married someday, if he was well enough to handle the process, Cody would do whatever it took to help him. That way, the lessons Ali had taught him would live on in Carl Joseph.
Cody reached over and took hold of Elle’s hand. “What time’s the flight?”
“We have ninety minutes.” Her face lit up the morning, in spite of the rain. “I can’t wait.”
“You?” He chuckled and kept his voice low. “This morning Carl Joseph showed up at the breakfast table wrapped in his Mickey Mouse bedspread. He wanted to wear it today, so everyone would know where he was going.”
Elle smiled. “Daisy packed six colored pictures for Minnie. Three for each day we’re there. So”—she raised an eyebrow—“I think we’re about equal.”
Cody kept his eyes on the road. The trip to Disneyland was Elle’s idea, but he had been in favor of it from the beginning. They had purposely waited until just a week ago to tell Carl Joseph and Daisy. Otherwise the distraction could’ve messed up her Goal Day, leaving her too preoccupied to prove she was ready to live in an apartment.
He found a parking spot. “All I know is I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“I know.” Elle smiled and it found its way to his soul. “My mom told me t
o fill a two-gig memory chip with their reactions, everything from start to finish.”
“Well”—he looked back at his brother, still comforting Daisy—“let’s get going. Disneyland’s waiting!”
Once they were at the airport gate, they found a quiet corner where they could wait. The moment they were settled, Carl Joseph gasped and then caught himself. He uttered a softer breath this time and pointed at the ceiling. “Swing music!” He took hold of Cody’s hand. “Come on, Brother. We can dance.”
“Oh, no.” Cody shook his head. He could feel Elle laughing at him from her seat beside him. “Not this time, okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll need my feet for Disneyland.” She whispered near the side of his face.
“Thanks.” He squeezed her hand. “I told you, we have to take lessons. Real lessons.”
A few feet away, Carl Joseph was undaunted. He took Daisy’s hand instead.
She stood and did a graceful bow. Then they began dancing to the elevator music at Denver International, and with the bustle of activity along the concourse and near the gate attendant, only a few people noticed. But those who did walked away with a smile.
Elle had been teaching Daisy fear-management techniques and ways she could pray when the rain made her feel too afraid to move. Here, then, was progress. It was raining outside, but Daisy had found the courage to dance with Carl Joseph instead of cowering in his arms. Whatever Elle was doing, it was working.
“Did you work out the rooms?” Elle slid her fingers between his.
The closeness of her still took his breath. He loved everything about her, loved her in a way he never could have if not for Ali. He kissed her forehead. “You and Daisy across the hall from me and Carl Joseph.”
“Perfect.” She was about to settle into the chair when the gate attendant instructed their group to board.
Cody motioned to Carl Joseph and Daisy to get in line, and suddenly—as if she had just noticed the rain again—Daisy clung to Carl Joseph and started to whimper.
Immediately, Carl Joseph put his arm around her and patted her hair. “It’s okay, Daisy. ’Cause you won’t melt.”