He drew back, his eyes searching hers. “But she was wrong, Ramey. She thought I would want to go, but I don't. Not ever.” He took three quick breaths and rubbed his cheeks. “Do I have to, even if I don't want to?”
Ramey's heart hurt and she made a mental note to take additional nitroglycerin that night before going to bed. Stress like this wasn't good for her. She cocked her head to the side and managed a sad smile. “Yes, Max. You have to go. You leave Friday.”
His mouth hung open, and his eyes filled with hurt, as though somehow she'd betrayed him by letting Mr. Ogle and his mother's friend make plans without his approval. He gave a few slow shakes of his head and then he gulped back another wave of sobs. “Is … is Buddy coming with me?”
Ramey moved her hands to his shoulders and hoped with everything in her that Max would understand, that he would move past the pain he was feeling to a point where he would be open to whatever God might do in the coming weeks. If God had heard her prayer.
“No, Max.” She chewed on her lip for a few seconds. “Buddy will stay with me.”
For a moment, Max didn't move. He stared first at Ramey, then at Buddy. “No … that isn't fair, Ramey.” His voice rose and he pulled away from her. “No!” Then he turned and ran, hard and fast, toward the surf.
Buddy seemed confused by the boy's outburst. He stood, looked at Ramey, and wagged his tail. Then he followed after Max. Ramey watched the boy reach the water and shade his eyes.
“No, Mommy!” He shouted the words out over the water. “Don't make me go, not without Buddy!”
This time Ramey could do nothing to stop her tears. They escaped from her heart and made a silent stream down her face. It dawned on her that she needed to ask God for one more part to the forgiveness miracle. Because before Max could ever learn to like the man in Florida—or any part of his family for that matter—he would have to do something he'd never had to do before.
He would have to forgive the mother he loved more than life.
FOURTEEN
Ocean water was getting Max's shorts wet, but he was too mad to care.
He lowered his voice, and this time the words he spoke to his mommy were whispered. From his heart to hers. “Why … why should I go?”
The ocean made a whooshing sound, and Max had the strongest feeling. If only he could swim across the ocean and find her plane, maybe she wasn't really dead at all. Maybe she was sitting on top of it, waiting for someone to find her. He could be the one, couldn't he? He could find her and sit up there beside her and ask her why she wanted him to take a trip to Florida, wherever that was. Especially when all he wanted to do was stay with Buddy and Ramey.
He dropped to the sand and felt a little bit of wave fill into his shorts pockets. Buddy leaned close to him and licked his face. “She could be alive, don't you think, Buddy?” Max turned his nose to the dog and accepted another swipe across his cheek. “Yeah. Me, too.”
A long huff came from inside him, from his heart, maybe. He looked back out at the water, and all of a sudden he remembered what Ramey had told him the day he found out about his mother's plane.
She's dead, Max. No one on the plane lived … no one on the plane lived … no one on the plane lived.
New tears covered over his eyes and made the ocean blurry. His whispery words were more scratchy than before. “But … what if she was the onlyest one?” Buddy made a little whining sound, and Max rubbed him behind his ear.
This time he looked up to the sky, the place where God lived. “Is she really gone, Jesus? Is she with You? Or is she on the plane, waiting for me to help her?”
Most of the time God didn't actually talk back to him. Not with words. But once in a while he could sort of feel what God was saying. He shut his eyes and waited. And just then it came. A feeling that was happy and sad all at the same time, because Ramey was right, that's why. His mommy wasn't on the plane at all, not anymore. She was up in heaven with Jesus.
But what was he supposed to do with the mad in his heart? Mommy should've known he wouldn't want to leave the island to stay with some friend of hers. He wanted to be here, near the water where the two of them had played as far back as remembering could go. Near their apartment and Ramey's apartment and Buddy.
He stretched out his legs, opened his eyes, and let the water come over him. The ocean had a thing called tides; that's what his mommy taught him. When the tide was out, the sand was extra big. But when it came in, it moved real slow up the beach until most of the sand was underwater.
The tide was coming in now, but Max didn't care. Waves could come to his waist and he wouldn't move, because he needed to understand. He squinted his eyes up at the sky again. “God … I don't want to go to Florida.” He lifted his arm and wiped at his cheek with his shoulder. “But I don't want to be mad at Mommy either.”
A sense came in him then. A sense was when you knew something even though no one had said it. Mommy told him that good senses came from God, and that when they happened, Max better listen to them in case God was trying to tell him something. This time the sense was that Mommy had a reason for asking him to see her friend.
A reason?
Max had never thought of it that way. But when he turned it around in his brain, the sense seemed pretty smart. His mommy always had a reason for telling him something. She wanted him to wipe his shoes on the mat after playing at the beach, but that had a reason. So he wouldn't make the carpet dirty. He had to wash his hands before he ate, and that had a reason, too. So he wouldn't eat germs with his food.
Yes, maybe the sense inside him was right. Mommy had a reason for the Florida trip. All he had to do was not be mad at her so he could pay attention to what the reason was. The sense got stronger. If he went to Florida, if he used his best manners and didn't complain too much, he would know the reason why his mommy wanted him to go. One day God would make the reason extra clear to him.
Max ran his hand along Buddy's back and leaned against him. “I'm gonna miss you, Buddy.”
A comfortable sound came from Buddy's nose. He brushed his head up against Max's and then lowered his furry chin down on top of his paws.
“Listen, Buddy.” Max sat up and stared at his dog. “Don't get sad, because I'm coming back, okay? I'll come back just like Ramey said, and after that you and me will be together forever, okay? Okay, Buddy?”
The dog lifted his eyes and then let them fall back again. That's what Buddy always did when he was sad. Max leaned over and hugged the dog, held him close the way his mommy used to hold him when he had a hurt knee or a bad day at school. “That's okay, Buddy. I'm sad, too. But I have a sense. Everything's going to be okay, Buddy. You'll see.”
One more time Max sat up, and this time he stood up. Warm ocean water ran down his legs, but he didn't think about it too much. He looked up at the sky one last time and smiled. Smiles could happen even if tears happened at the same time. Max had found that out ever since his mommy went away. He sucked in a breath and whispered one more thing to God.
“Thanks for the sense, God. I felt it.” He wiggled his toes until his feet sank a little in the sand. “I'm sorry for getting mad. And could You tell my mom something, please? Tell her I'm not mad at her for making the part in the letter about going away for two weeks. I forgive her, okay? Could You tell her that, God?”
Max didn't need a sense this time. His mommy taught him a long time ago that God was good at passing on messages to people, and God 'specially liked it when people forgave each other.
“Know what love is, Max?” his mom used to ask him sometimes. “Love is what happens when people forgive.”
Max was glad he thought of that. He loved his mommy very much and he couldn't stay mad at her.
He looked over his shoulder at Ramey. She looked old and tired and a little bit cold. He didn't want to stay mad at Ramey, either. The trip to Florida wasn't her fault. Max brushed the sand off his shorts and looked real quick at his dog. “Come on, Buddy. Let's go home.”
Buddy followed him
again, and as soon as he was close enough to Ramey, he said the things in his heart. “I thought about it, Ramey. I'll go to Florida.”
Her forehead got bunchy lines on it and surprise showed in her eyes. “Really? You're not mad anymore?”
Max shrugged and felt the corners of his lips lift up. “I'm scared a little, but I'm not mad. God gave me a sense.”
Ramey leaned closer. “A sense?”
“Yes. Sense is when God tells you something. But you have to be very still to hear it.”
“Oh.” Ramey reached for his hand and wrapped her fingers around his. “What sense did you get?”
“That one day I'll know why.”
Ramey's mouth stayed open and at first no words came out. Then she said, “Why what?”
“Why Mommy wanted me to go on the trip.”
“Oh, right.”
One more thing was in his heart to tell her. He took a step closer and looked at her eyes. “I'm sorry, Ramey. I didn't mean to be mad at you. ”
Then Ramey said the thing that his mother said meant love. In a happy sort of sad voice she said, “I forgive you, bucko.”
And right then, as she said those words, Ramey got something happy in her eyes. Something happier than she'd had for a long, long time.
FIFTEEN
All week, conversation between Connor and Michele came in fits and starts, and the trip to the airport that Friday evening was no different.
Michele wanted to come, wanted to be there to see her husband's reaction when his only son walked off the Jetway. Other people might have to wait at the security staging area, but not Connor and Michele. Pilots had privileges, even with the changes in travel since September 11.
They rode in silence, and a Martina McBride song came on the radio. Michele wasn't really listening, but the point of the song seemed clear enough. “You'll get through this … you'll break new ground …”
She leaned over and changed the station. Martina had no idea what Michele Evans could survive or what type of ground she was capable of breaking.
Connor drove, his eyes locked on the road ahead. She didn't have to see his expression to know what he was feeling, that mix of fear and excitement over what lay ahead, the fact that he would finally get to see the boy whose existence had so thoroughly changed their lives in a matter of days.
He was driving sixty-five, seventy. Fifteen miles over the speed limit. She rolled her eyes and gazed at the traffic ahead of them. “Speeding won't get him here any sooner.”
He shot her a confused look. “I'm not speeding.”
“You are.”
“No.” He looked at the speedometer. “I always drive like this.”
“Right.” She hated the sarcasm in her voice, hated how it seemed part of her persona now. The bitter wife, still in the dark about why she hadn't been enough for her husband. The angry spouse, bent on punishing Connor for finding her less than perfect.
Connor exhaled and it sounded like steam releasing from the darkest places inside of him. “I'm not in a hurry, Michele. His plane doesn't come in for another hour.”
She said nothing. These days if his statements didn't demand a response, she didn't give one. Twice he'd tried to sit her down and explain what had happened with the boy's mother. But always she stopped him before he got started.
“Spare me the details, will you, Connor? I'm not interested.” She flashed angry eyes at him. “Besides, I can use my imagination. Long layover, planes grounded in a storm, some smart-looking flight attendant wants your attention and you think, She looks a lot better than the one I have back home. ” She uttered a poisonous laugh. “Believe me, Connor. I don't need the details.”
Each time her response seemed to paralyze him. He'd stand there in front of her, his mouth open. As though he truly wanted to tell her more about what happened, wanted to explain his actions in some way. But then his mouth would close. He'd drop his shoulders and turn away. What could he say? That Michele had nothing to worry about because he'd never so much as called Kiahna after their time together? That he'd never loved the girl?
Michele turned away from Connor. She already knew that much.
Lust. That's what happened to Connor. And now the product of his lust was about to walk into their lives. She hated that, too. The boy had nowhere to go, but still she felt nothing but spite for him. What had happened to the kinder, confident person she'd been two weeks earlier? How could she dream of holding anything against an orphaned little boy?
She had no answers for herself.
Connor took the next exit and the road veered in a semicircle. The sensation made Michele dizzy, not that it took much these days to do that. Her eating habits were completely out of whack. An entire pack of Oreos one day, nothing but water and herbal tea the next. She wanted to starve, never eat another bite of food again. But sometimes her feelings were so jumbled up she couldn't do anything but eat herself into a bloated state of oblivion.
She hadn't told Connor, of course. He didn't need to know about her binge eating. It wasn't something she did all the time. Only when her emotions were more than she could handle. He'd tell her the same thing Renee would tell her, the same thing her sister, Margie, would tell her. Get a grip. Get some help. Grab onto God and don't let go. Eating wasn't the answer; prayer and Scripture and counseling were.
But so far, she hadn't felt like doing anything but eating. Eating and crying and hiding in her craft room so the girls wouldn't see her tears. So Connor wouldn't see the cookie wrappers. She kept a role of paper towels in her bottom desk drawer. Any food trash was squished into a ball, wrapped inside a paper towel, and tossed in her trash can. That way no one would be the wiser.
Besides, what did it matter? Connor could say he was sorry, he could tell her that he still loved her, still found her beautiful. But he'd been saying that back in 1996, hadn't he? Why should she believe him now?
“What are you thinking?” Connor kept his eyes on the road ahead of them.
“Don't ask.”
“Michele …”
The pain in his voice made her cringe. She was new at hating, and sometimes when his voice sounded the way it did now, she longed to lean over and hug him. Cry with him and scream at him and hold onto him for dear life. Instead she looked out the side window and said nothing.
“Michele, don't do this. What's Max going to think if this is how we are?”
She turned to him. “Max?” Her voice rose a level. “Is that what's worrying you, Connor? What Max will think when he comes home to a family that's falling apart?” Another bitter laugh. “Well, don't be surprised when I tell you I don't exactly care what Max thinks.” She clenched her fists and made a sound that was part moan, part yell.
“I'm just saying it'll be awkward.” Connor's tone had lost all of its previous sureness. He sounded more like a nervous child dealing with an abusive parent than the conquer-anything pilot.
She lowered her voice. “You want awkward, Connor? Look at the faces of our girls when we get home. See the subtle knowing in Elizabeth's expression and the fear in Susan's. You think those girls don't know something's wrong?”
“Of course they do.” For the first time that day, he raised his voice at her. She watched him make a straight line of his lips. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell. What I'm saying is, nothing will be right as long as you stay mad at me.”
He might as well have kicked her in the gut. Did he really think that's all this was? A case of her being mad at him? “You had an affair, Connor. You slept with some woman in Honolulu, and a few weeks later you came home and acted like nothing ever happened. Every year since then you lived with the truth, but never, not once, did you come clean with me.” She dug her fingernails into her thighs. “As long as I'm mad at you?”
“Okay, I get it, but at some point you need to listen to me, Michele. Let me explain what happened.” He worked the muscles in his jaw, checked the traffic, and changed lanes. The West Palm Beach airport was two miles up the highway. “It was years ago.
” He clenched his teeth for a moment. “Yes, you just found out about it, but that doesn't change the fact that I've been faithful for almost eight years. It doesn't change the way I feel about you.” He reached for her hand but she pulled away. He hesitated but only for a moment. “I love you, Michele.”
Deep within her a voice echoed in her soul. Don't say it … don't say it, Michele.
“Yes.” She closed her eyes and ignored the warning. “But right now you love that little boy more.”
Connor said nothing after that. Michele stared out the window, but in the corner of her eye she could see her husband's expression harden. Again, she wanted to hug him, tell him she was sorry for being so mean. But the wall between them was cement block and razor wire.
She couldn't imagine a way over it, even if she wanted to.
They parked and headed into the airport, side by side. It struck Michele that they finally looked the way she'd seen other couples look in crowded places. Back before her world stopped turning, she and Connor would be walking together, holding hands and leaning in for an occasional whispered one-liner, when they'd pass a couple with dead eyes and three feet of space between them.
“Let's never be like that,” she'd whispered to him more than once.
“Never.”
But now here they were, just like that. Part of the community of walking dead, together but as cold and alone as if they were in separate parts of Alaska. They reached the gate as the boy's plane rounded the corner and pulled up. Michele crossed her arms and held herself tight as she watched the Jetway accordion out to meet the aircraft.
Fitting … that Connor's world would connect with the Hawaiian flight attendant here, in an airport. The same way they'd first connected that summer night in Honolulu.
Connor moved a step closer and focused on the tunnel leading from the plane. “He should be one of the first ones off.”
Again she said nothing. What could she say? Good? Great, that they'd be seeing him sooner than later? She clenched her jaw and followed Connor's gaze. Two flight attendants came through first. They each took a waiting wheelchair and disappeared down the tunnel again.