An easy silence settled between them. Andy stared out the side window and thought about his mother’s statement. Was that really how she saw it? That he’d done everything Jared had ever done? He gritted his teeth and gave a slight roll of his eyes. Things hadn’t been that way at all. But if that was how his mother saw his friendship with Jared, maybe that was how everyone saw it.
Even Jared.
Andy had prayed more since his father’s death. The time in conversation with God made him feel as if he had a dad to talk to again, and now, as they made their way to the fire station, Andy did just that. God, help me be my own man. Please, God . . .
Usually when he prayed, he felt some sort of reassurance, a sense that God was right there whispering some kind of answer. But this time, with his heart angry and frustrated, he felt nothing from God. No response at all.
Beth Conner stared at the front door for a moment before making her way into the living room, dropping onto the nearest sofa, and staring out the front window. She pressed herself into the sofa back and folded her arms as the taillights of Jared’s car disappeared down the street.
Why did he have to get so mad?
Now he’d be gone the entire night, possibly fighting a deadly fire, and they hadn’t even parted on good terms. She hated that he wanted to be a firefighter. A friend of hers had lost her husband, a firefighter, in the collapse of the World Trade Center. Since then Beth had been even more aware of the dangers of the job. It seemed a fireman was always being killed in one kind of tragedy or another. The very thought of Andy in a burning building paralyzed her with fear.
Why in the world would Andy want a job so dangerous?
The answer was obvious. Jared. Andy hadn’t mentioned firefighting once until Jared took up an interest in it. No matter what Andy wanted to tell her, she was right about the fact that Andy looked up to Jared. Andy was a year younger, and since the two of them met in grade school, Andy had been Jared’s tag-along pal.
That wasn’t always a bad thing, but it wasn’t always good, either.
Her eyes fell out of focus and she thought back through the years. The time when the boys had been ten and eleven and they’d tossed rocks against the bedroom window of the girl across the street. That had been Jared’s idea, hadn’t it? And when one of the rocks broke the window, Jared had been the first to flee the scene. Of course, both boys took equal punishment for it, but Beth began to doubt the benefit of Jared’s role in Andy’s life.
The two had been in mischief again after that.
When they were thirteen and fourteen, Jared had grabbed the keys to his father’s pickup and taken Andy for a joyride through a local farmer’s field. Beth could still remember talking to Andy about that event.
“Why, son? Why did you get in the car?”
“Mom . . .” Andy had shrugged, his face blank. “I couldn’t let Jared go alone.”
For the most part, Beth had merely tolerated Jared’s role in Andy’s life. She closed her eyes. If only I’d broken up their friendship all those years ago, Andy wouldn’t be pursuing such a dangerous job . . .
She blinked and the images from the past disappeared. The reason they’d stayed close was because of Joe. Her husband had been happy and upbeat until the day he died, and his attitude about Jared had always been positive.
“He’s a kid, Beth,” Joe had always told her. “Of course they’re going to get in some trouble. But he’s a good boy. I think in the long run Jared will be good for Andy.”
Beth wanted to believe Joe, even now. Firefighting, after all, was not a bad thing. But it wasn’t safe, and the idea that Andy had gotten into it after Jared only convinced her that the older boy was still leading Andy into places where she didn’t want him to go.
She looked out the window again and exhaled hard. What was this feeling strangling her heart? For a moment she considered her feelings, the frustration and suspicion and, yes, meanness she exuded so often. Then her eyes shifted and she saw the Bible sitting on the table.
God, why can’t I let Andy go? And how come I can’t learn to like Jared? The situation keeps coming between me and Andy. God, I need your help. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes. Otherwise Andy’s going to hate me.
For a long while she waited, and then slowly, bit by bit, a feeling began to surface in her heart. She needed to give up her way of thinking in both areas. First, she needed to give Andy back to God.
“I can’t keep him safe, God.” She whispered the words into the empty room. “So you take care of him. That way I won’t have to worry.”
Second, she needed to believe that her dead husband had been right. Jared was loyal to Andy, and the two had certainly done as much good together as they had bad. Beth bit the inside of her lip and looked out the window to the dark sky beyond. “Okay, God, fine.” Her voice still barely audible, she pictured the two boys. “Help me love Jared. Help me appreciate his friendship for Andy. And help me see it as a good thing in my son’s life.”
The boys were halfway to the fire department when Jared turned to Andy and chuckled. “You must really be mad at her.”
“I guess.” Andy leaned against the passenger door and studied his friend. “She said some rotten things.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“No.” Andy glanced at the road in front of them. He would never let Jared know his mother’s feelings, that she didn’t think him a good friend. Andy managed a smile. “No big deal. Same old story, you know? Too protective; won’t let go. That kind of thing.”
Jared nodded, but as he did, he glanced down at Andy and his face fell. “Hey, man, put your belt on. Remember the rule?”
Andy remembered. The rule was something specific to their fire station, and it played over in his mind: Firefighters show the way; buckle up every day. It was a good rule. Not that it really mattered. The odds of a wreck were one in a million, right? He caught Jared’s eye and saw that his friend was still watching him.
“Come on, buckle up.” With his chin, Jared motioned to Andy.
Andy was about to reach for the belt when a thought hit him. This was just what his mother had accused him of, wasn’t it? Always doing whatever Jared suggested? He’d never been much for seatbelts in the past, and who cared about the guys at the fire station. Half of them probably didn’t buckle up, either.
But here he was, ready to do it simply because Jared told him to.
He let his hand settle back on his lap and leaned against the door once more. “I don’t like seatbelts.”
For a few moments, Jared said nothing to challenge him. Then he told him something he’d never said before. “You know something, Andy? All my life I’ve been lucky to be your friend.”
“You’ve been lucky?” The statement caught Andy off guard. He leaned forward. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve been lucky. Things haven’t usually been great at home, what with my mom divorced and dating all the time. But always, man . . .” He glanced at Andy again. “Always I have you.” He glanced at Andy’s seatbelt. “So buckle it, okay? I need you around.”
Something in Jared’s tone was strange, more urgent than usual. Neither of them had worn seatbelts before working for the fire station, and never once had Jared been so insistent. Once more, Andy thought of his prayer, the way he’d asked God to help him be independent. But maybe this was different. He thought for a moment more and then shrugged. It didn’t make him a mindless follower if he buckled his seatbelt, did it? Besides, how often had Jared come straight out and asked him to do something?
“Fine.” Andy gave an exaggerated huff and flashed a tired grin at Jared. He reached over, grabbed the buckle, and snapped it into place.
At the same instant, he heard Jared scream, “Look out!”
Andy never saw it coming. A flash of something metallic filled the windshield and then he was suddenly spinning, his senses consumed with the sound of screeching tires, shattering glass, and twisting metal. Not until the sickening noise and jarring motion
finally stopped did Andy realize what had happened.
They’d been in an accident.
The car had gone off the road and hit a tree. Now dust filled the compartment and broken glass covered his legs, but Andy was alive. He shot a quick look at Jared beside him and saw that his friend was awake, his eyes wide. Blood dripped down his hand, but otherwise he looked unhurt.
“Can you believe that?” Jared was breathless, shocked.
An understanding began to dawn in Andy’s heart. Everything had happened too fast for him to recognize the truth until now. Seconds after Jared had asked him to buckle up, they’d been in an accident. Seconds.
The doors were too jammed to open, so Andy and Jared waited until paramedics and firefighters from their own station arrived on the scene. Only then did Andy know for sure that his friend’s advice had been nothing short of a miracle. A miracle that had saved his life.
One of the firefighters explained what had happened. According to witnesses, a truck had swerved into Jared’s lane, causing Jared to jerk the steering wheel. The sudden jolt sent the car careening off the roadway straight into a tree.
“Good thing you had your belts on,” the fireman said. “An impact like that and you’d have been dead instantly. Straight through the windshield into the tree.”
Beth got the call from the hospital an hour later. Andy explained the situation, how the two of them had been driving along when for no understandable reason, Jared insisted he use his seatbelt.
“I thought about what you said, Mom. How I have to do everything Jared does. And you know what?” Andy’s voice still sounded shaken. “I almost didn’t use it because of that. But then Jared told me he needed me as a friend, that he didn’t want anything to happen to me, and that’s when I decided to buckle up.”
Beth’s hands began to tremble at the news, and long after the phone call was over she could only sit at the kitchen table and stare at her fingers. God had worked a miracle; otherwise Andy wouldn’t be alive. By criticizing her son’s friendship with Jared, she had almost killed him.
Then, as the reality of the situation sank in, she realized that Jared’s strange timing had also been an answer to her own prayer. First, that she let go of her son and trust him to God. And second, that she might learn to see Andy’s friendship with Jared as a good thing. The same way her husband had always seen it.
Now, in a single event that had saved Andy’s life, both prayers had been answered in an instant. And as Beth found her purse and keys and headed for the hospital, she knew what she wanted to do the moment the boys were released.
Take Jared in her arms and thank him.
Returning the Favor
Rob Garrett could hardly believe how quickly his life had fallen apart.
One month, he and his wife and daughters were happy and healthy, living in a dreamy part of Thousand Oaks, California, where they were involved in their church and every day seemed better than the last.
Then, just after Christmas, the Garretts’ youngest daughter, six-year-old Alicia, came down with a series of unexplained fevers. Two weeks of doctor visits gave them nothing to go on, no diagnosis. About that time, Alicia began bruising. Nothing that seemed out of the ordinary at first, just a bruised knee or a mark on her arm. But when the bruising got worse, Rob and his wife took Alicia back to the doctor’s office.
This time the doctor ran a series of blood tests. The news was worse than anything they’d imagined.
Alicia had leukemia.
“I’m afraid it’s advancing quickly,” the doctor told them. “She’ll need a bone marrow transplant very soon.”
Rob could barely feel his heartbeat as he listened to the news. It wasn’t possible. His brown-eyed little girl couldn’t have gotten so sick in so short a time. He forced himself to concentrate. “How soon, doctor?”
“Within a month.” The doctor looked from Rob to his wife and back again. “We’ll test your family members first, but if there’s no match there, then I’d say it’s time for drastic measures.”
Rob was on his feet, anxious to find Alicia and take her into his arms, desperate to love away her sickness. He studied the doctor one last time. “Drastic measures?”
“Yes.” The doctor shoved his hands into the pockets of his white coat. “Time to pray for a miracle.”
In Fort Wayne, Indiana, some two thousand miles away, Peter Hickman could barely get over how well his life was going. He was the president of a major division of a nationally known biotech company and married to the woman of his dreams, with two children—a boy and a girl.
He wasn’t a praying man, but lately he’d taken to thanking God and asking for just one thing: That he might find the man who had made his wonderful life possible.
That man was Rob Garrett.
Thirteen years earlier Peter had been the least popular boy at St. Thomas High School in Detroit, Michigan. St. Thomas was a private school with fewer than a hundred students making up each grade level. But among those, Peter had the least number of friends. Back then he wore tortoise-shell glasses and his clothes hung on his small frame. He loved math and history classes, but when he tried to discuss algebraic theories with his classmates, they only laughed and looked the other way.
For the most part, Peter was used to living as an outcast on campus. But one girl—Maryanne Ellis—had captured his heart from the first day of school. She wasn’t too tall, but she had blonde hair halfway to her waist and blue eyes that caught the sun. Peter was sure she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. But he was just as sure she’d never notice him, never know he was alive.
Then one winter day in his American history class, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Peter turned around to see Rob Garrett, the star running back of the football team and easily the most popular and athletic boy on campus. Rob had never been purposefully mean to Peter like so many of the kids at St. Thomas, but he hadn’t noticed he was alive, either.
At least not until now.
“Hey, Hickman, I got a favor to ask.” Rob kept his head low so the teacher wouldn’t hear him talking. “Can I get your number so we can study once in a while?”
For a moment Peter thought Rob might be making some kind of joke. But almost as quickly he saw that the football star was serious. “Why me?”
“Because,” Rob hissed, again trying to avoid being noticed by the teacher, “you’re the smartest guy in school, and I need an A in this class.”
“An A?” It hadn’t occurred to Peter that jock kids like Rob might be interested in getting As. “What for?”
“Because I want a scholarship, okay?” Rob glanced at the teacher. “Will you help me or not?”
Peter agreed and slipped his phone number to Rob. That afternoon, Rob called and the two made plans to study three times a week at the school library. Peter wondered if Rob’s friends would tease him if the two of them spent time together, but Rob never said a word.
Instead, as the weeks passed and they continued their study time, Peter began to think of Rob as a friend. Sometimes after they’d finished studying they’d talk for a few minutes. And every once in a while Maryanne Ellis would walk past and Peter would feel himself blushing.
“You like her, huh?” Rob would grin and cast a quick look at Maryanne as she walked past. “She’s hot, Hickman. I don’t know if you’re her type.”
Peter would push up the frames of his glasses and swallow hard. “Yeah . . . she’s out of my league.”
One day when they’d finished that same exchange, Rob studied him for a long moment. “Hey, Hickman. Can’t you wear contact lenses instead of those . . .” Rob pointed at Peter’s glasses. “Those bifocal things?”
Peter hesitated. “I guess. But contacts are a lot of work. These glasses came with the eye exam.”
“I can tell.” Rob raised an eyebrow. “Look, Hickman . . .” He lowered his head and leaned himself over the table so no one would hear his response. “Maybe if you let me help you, we can get somewhere with Maryanne.”
; “Really?” Peter was doubtful. The girl hung out with the most social kids on campus. If she actually knew Peter was alive, it was probably a bad thing.
Rob reached across the table and gave Peter a light punch in the shoulder. “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do.”
The same way Peter had outlined American history notes, Rob laid out a plan that would make even the lamest social misfit into someone worth noticing. First he took Peter to the mall for a set of contacts and a haircut. Next they picked up a few new pairs of jeans and three sweaters—looser and roomier, from the teen section of the store, not the business attire his mother usually picked up in the men’s department.
Finally, Rob taught Peter how to walk and stand with more confidence, relaxed and in control instead of hurried and nervous. Eye contact and a slower conversational style were the final touches. After three weeks of working together, Rob stood back and marveled.
“Peter, you look like a different guy.”
Peter had to agree. Though nothing had changed about his fascination with math or history, and though the school’s social circles still were less important than figuring out where to apply for college, his look had changed. Rob couldn’t wait to introduce him to Maryanne.
The winter dance was coming up, and Rob thought of another plan for Peter. A week later, when they were studying, he waited for Maryanne to pass by. This time, Rob called her over to the table and introduced Peter.
“Hi,” Maryanne’s smile was somewhat shy and surprised. “Are you new?”
Peter wasn’t sure what to say. He looked at Rob and grinned. “Sort of.”
After that, Rob flagged Maryanne down every day that week, and on Friday—as per the plan—Rob waited until Maryanne was sitting at their table and then he looked at his watch. “Shoot. I have a meeting with Coach West.”
He was gone before either Peter or Maryanne could say anything.
In the resulting quiet, Peter smiled at Maryanne and raised one of his shoulders in a casual manner. “Hey, Maryanne . . . I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”