Charlie’s breath came in short bursts, and as his eyes fell on the asking price for the small house, he felt his knees start to buckle. He couldn’t pay the gas bill, let alone buy the building. He skipped ahead to the next section, where the manager regretfully informed him that he had until January 1 to either leave the premises and turn in the key or make an offer on the property.
Less than three weeks.
Even with the loan, he wouldn’t be able to make things right now. Although maybe he could use the loan to catch up on his back payments and convince the owner not to sell. Not yet, anyway. He felt a gasping bit of hope, and without ceremony, he grabbed the second envelope and tore it open. This one was longer and less formal.
Dear Charlie,
I love your heart for the people of Franklin, and I love your desire to keep The Bridge open. I can remember a hundred times when my wife and I hung out at your store and shared books that stirred our souls.
As a couple, there was a time when we grew busy. Life and kids and carpools and grocery shopping. We almost forgot how to love. But every time we came to The Bridge, we remembered. You and your books reminded us what was important, Charlie. I’ll never forget that.
If anyone would want to loan you this money, it’s me. In fact, if I had it myself, I’d be down there handing it to you. I feel that strongly. But banks don’t make decisions based on emotions. I personally took your packet to our loan department, but no matter how many programs we looked at, they couldn’t make the numbers work. I’m sorry, Charlie. We have to decline your application.
Please know that if anything comes up in the future or if your situation changes, we would . . .
Charlie stopped reading and the piece of paper fell to the floor. He grabbed the edge of the counter and leaned into it to keep from falling. His chest hurt, but he wasn’t having a heart attack. This was a different sort of pain. The sort of pain that came with defeat. It was a feeling as horrific as it was unrecognizable.
He would lose the store for sure, and without the loan, most likely they would lose the house, too. And then what?
Charlie worked his way to the window and clung to the frame. He rested his forehead on the cool glass and tried to grasp the severity of the blows. As he did, he remembered Donna, out buying groceries. But now she was the only one he wanted to talk to, the only voice he wanted to hear.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed her number. They’d already lost their old cell phones. This was a pay-as-you-go phone, one they shared, and it dropped calls constantly. Still, Charlie had to try. He waited while the home phone rang, and just when he was about to give up, she answered.
“Charlie? Where are you?” Her voice held a cry of fear. “I come home from the store and you’re gone.”
“I came to The Bridge.” He squeezed his eyes shut and drew a slow breath. “The mail came. I thought . . . I figured I’d look through it down here.”
Her hesitation seemed loud and irritated even before she made a sound. “You left most of it here, by the looks of it. I’m holding seven unopened bills. Your life insurance will be the next thing to go. We can’t pay it this month, Charlie.”
“I know.” He hated this, hated having to voice the truth to her. She had believed in him since the day they met. “Donna, we didn’t get the loan. The bank . . . they had no choice, I guess. They turned us down.”
“Charlie . . . no.” She sounded weak and broken. As defeated as he did.
“There’s more.” His head was starting to hurt. He kept his eyes closed, trying to imagine the disappointment on her face. “The owner of the building is giving us until the end of the year. Then we have to be out or buy it.”
“What?” Her voice was shaky, as if already tears were overtaking her. “Can they do that?”
“Yes.” He tried to draw a full breath, but this time he couldn’t. The hurt in his heart was too great. He clenched his teeth, forcing the words. “I need to think. There has to be a way, Donna. Help me think of something. Maybe a banker out of town . . . or out of state. Something online where—”
“Charlie! Stop!” Though she was crying, she was angry, too. The way he had heard her get angry only a handful of times in their decades together. “Please.” She lowered her voice, but the frustration remained. “It’s time to walk away.”
“Donna, people need bookstores. God wouldn’t want me to give up on everything—”
“Look. He didn’t come through this time. That means we have to figure it out on our own.” She seemed more in control, less teary. “Just say your good-byes and come home. Let’s figure out a way to put our lives back together.”
His mind raced, searching for something to say, something to do. The answers were as nonexistent as the books in his store. What used to be his store. “Okay.” The word pierced his heart, and when he opened his eyes, he wasn’t sure he could do it, wasn’t sure he could walk away from The Bridge without ever looking back. But his wife needed him. And since he could no longer make a living at his bookstore, he could at least do this.
He could come home.
The voices started in again as soon as he hung up. Charlie, it’s official. You’re a failure. It was worthless. Everything you’ve ever done, all the people you talked to, those thousands of days you worked. The countless books you sold. Worthless. You can’t even pay your life insurance.
“No.” He shook his head again, desperate for clarity.
Even Donna doesn’t believe in you anymore.
“She does.” He slammed his fist against the wall, and a rough sliver of wood from the window frame lodged itself in the side of his hand. “God, where are you?”
Really, Charlie? After all you’ve been through, you still call out to God?
“Yes.” His answer sounded weak. What had Donna said? God hadn’t come through for them this time, was that it? So what, then, walk away? Give up on the faith they’d clung to from the beginning? He was already halfway insane, here in this frigid empty store, talking to the voices in his head.
He remembered Donna’s disappointment, how she’d made a point of telling him about the seven bills and how the life insurance would be the next to go. The bill was due before the end of the—
Suddenly, everything stopped. His breathing and his heartbeat and his reasons for despair. Before he drew his next breath, only one thought consumed him.
The life insurance.
His policy would pay off every bill they had and leave Donna enough to be comfortable the rest of her days. He looked out the window again. The snow was falling hard, the ground covered. A car accident on a day like this would be believable, right?
Of course it would be believable. Get in the car and do it, get it done. You’re worth more dead than alive, Charlie. Good that you finally see that.
The voice literally hissed at him, pushing him to grab his keys. God would understand, right? He hadn’t provided any way out, any answers they could stand on. He could end it tonight and never have to face Donna again, never have to see his own failure reflected in her eyes.
So get it done. What are you waiting for?
He wanted to shout at the voices, demand that they be silent. But he felt funny using Christ’s name to shut them up when he was on his way to kill himself. The voices couldn’t hurt him. Life . . . losing The Bridge . . . having their home foreclosed on. These were the things that could hurt him. He slid the phone back in his pocket and grabbed his keys. He knew the back roads, knew the winding routes that would cause anyone to lose control. If he did it just right, he would slip off the road and into a tree, and that would be that.
His final act of love for his precious Donna.
One last time he looked around the empty bookstore. Even now it was hard to look at it without seeing it the way it once was. Floor-to-ceiling shelves full of novels and mysteries and biographies. Customers thumbing through classics and current bestsellers, looking for the sense of adventure that had made him fall in love with books all those
years ago.
He blinked back tears, breathing it in. Too many memories to take with him. Slowly, he backed out the door. At the last possible minute, he turned toward his van and shut the door behind him. Not until he was out of Franklin and headed for Leiper’s Fork did he realize he’d forgotten the scrapbook. That was okay. It would be Donna’s best reminder of all that had mattered to him. The scrapbook and his Bible.
Charlie felt the back tires of his van slip a little as he took the first corner. He couldn’t stage just any accident. It had to be swift and deadly. Straight off a cliff and into a tree.
Make it happen, Charlie. Don’t mess this up. You’re worthless, a failure. Get this right, at least.
“Jesus, quiet them. Please.”
As before, the voices fell silent. Chills ran down Charlie’s arms, and he realized the reason more clearly than before. The name of Jesus. Evil had to flee at the sound of that name. The Bible said so. Promised it. He blinked hard and focused on the road ahead of him. There had to be a spot somewhere here, he could picture it. And in a few seconds, he knew just the spot. The sharp turn up ahead that he’d driven past many times before. The one that always made him think, If a person weren’t careful, he wouldn’t make it past the curve to the other side.
The snow fell harder, and all around the images blurred to white. White sky and trees and pavement. Even the air was solid white. The only thing he could see clearly in all the white was yesterday. He and Donna with their broken hearts, moving to Franklin and leasing the storefront. They had always liked that their business would operate from an old house.
“Our home away from home,” Charlie had told her when they shared coffee and doughnuts in the empty building that first week. “And the customers will be our family.”
Tears gathered in Charlie’s eyes. Hope and promise, adventure and purpose. The Bridge had given them all of that, and through every stage, Donna had believed in him. She swept the place and helped patch the mortar between the bricks. She was at his side when they picked out vintage oak shelving and as he ordered new and used books. Together they had decided where fiction and history and travel books would go. Over the first few months, they had shopped antique hideaways for the living room furniture where Molly and Ryan hung out upstairs, and for the Victorian chairs that had stood for decades near the rustic brick fireplace and for the high-back tufted sofa by the front window.
When the books arrived, Donna had helped him unpack every box. With great awareness of each title’s potential, they savored the process. They checked the books against their master list and found the perfect spot in the store for each. Once in a while they would take a break, sit near the fireplace, and read a few pages aloud to each other.
He would remember one particular day forever. Charlie had purchased a few early edition copies of Treasure Island, the book he loved most as a boy. As he lifted it from the box, he ran his fingers over the cover and stared at it. “How many kids like me have read this book and dreamed they were Jim Hawkins?” He looked at Donna, and what he saw, he had never forgotten.
Donna had tears in her eyes. Happy tears. “Have I told you lately how proud I am of you?” She took the book from him and set it carefully on the shelf. Then she put her arms around his neck and looked deep into his eyes. “This is your dream come true, Charlie. But it’s more than that. Books are a love affair for you.” She smiled. “Nothing could be more beautiful.”
He blinked, and the image of his youthful Donna—gazing admiringly into his eyes—disappeared. He reached out after her, but his fingers connected with the cold windshield instead. What was happening? He blinked a few more times and remembered. He was driving through the snow on the winding roads toward Leiper’s Fork. Driving so he could plunge off the road into a tree and—
A quick look at his speedometer grabbed his attention and brought him back to the moment. Sixty miles an hour? Into a steep downhill? He must be crazy driving this fast. Suddenly, he could see the road ahead of him more clearly. This part of the drive was lined with so many trees that the sun never hit it. He was no longer riding on snowy asphalt but on ice.
Black ice.
“No!” He shouted the word, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. He applied the brakes gently, tapping them, struggling to maintain control. But the van only flew faster down the hill.
What had he done? Donna would go to her grave brokenhearted if he ended things this way. Please, God, I don’t want to die. I love her too much. His tears came harder, and he wiped at them with his shoulder. God, I see the truth now. Donna might be disappointed, but we’ll get through this. Don’t let me die, please! His prayer came in silent furious bursts and already he could feel the wheels beneath him sliding. “Help me, God!” Ahead of him was a tree—the tree he had pictured driving into, the trunk wider than any along this stretch of roadway. Only now he wanted to avoid it with every bit of strength he had left.
“No!” His vehicle flew down the hill out of control, heading toward a hairpin turn and the enormous tree. He slammed on his brakes because he had no other choice. No options left. The van responded by fishtailing one way and then the other until the ice whipped it around in a full spin. “God, please!”
Even as he screamed, he felt the wheels leave the hard surface and take flight. The sounds of breaking glass and crunching metal were the last he heard. Was this God’s answer? Charlie would die this way, and Donna would finish her life alone? In a rush of thoughts and regrets, this one surfaced—at least he hadn’t done it on purpose. The noises grew louder, and Charlie felt himself thrust against the door and the dashboard. His last thought was the saddest of all.
He hadn’t told Donna he loved her.
“God!” Charlie held tight to the wheel, but the van was spinning so fast that he couldn’t see anything, couldn’t tell what was coming. “I’m sorry! Help me! Please . . .”
Then there was nothing but darkness.
C HA P T E R S E V E N
The article in the Tennessean was small and otherwise insignificant. A one-column headline in reduced italic font:
Owner of The Bridge in Critical Condition
After Accident
Ryan was flipping through the newspaper when he saw it, and immediately, he felt the blood drain from his face. “No . . . not Charlie Barton.” He whispered the words out loud as he raced through the ten-line article.
Longtime owner of The Bridge bookstore, Charlie Barton, 59, is in critical condition after his van slid off an icy road in Leiper’s Fork outside Franklin, TN, Tuesday afternoon. Barton’s vehicle struck a tree and the Jaws of Life were used to remove him from the wreckage. Barton was rushed to Vanderbilt Hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Barton and his wife, Donna, moved to Franklin in 1982 and opened The Bridge, a bookstore that has become iconic in the downtown area. The flood of 2010 gutted Barton’s store, destroying its contents and sending him into apparent financial struggles. Records show that The Bridge has not reopened and that Barton’s business taxes for the current year remain unpaid.
Ryan felt dizzy with the news. How had he missed this, the fact that The Bridge hadn’t reopened after the flood? Other businesses had struggled to find their way back, but The Bridge? While Ryan was busy on the road, he assumed life in Franklin had figured out a way to recover. That Charlie Barton was selling books and making conversation and giving people the one thing they could find less often these days.
A bookstore to call their own.
Ryan read the article again and his heart pounded inside his chest. Poor Charlie. The man existed to run The Bridge. He must have been desperate every day since the flood to reopen. Along the way, of course, he’d suffered financial trouble. Ryan doubted the man owned the building, so lease payments had probably piled up. An insurance policy on the store’s contents wouldn’t have been much help. Charlie had invested in the store’s stock for decades. How could anyone put a price tag on that?
Suddenly Ryan knew what he had to do.
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Charlie had spent his life helping the people of Franklin. Now it was their turn to do something for him, rally around him and let him know the difference he’d made. He pushed back from the table, grabbed his cell phone, and called Vanderbilt Hospital. “Charlie Barton’s room, please.”
There was a pause as the receptionist looked him up. “He’s in ICU. I’ll ring his nurse.”
“Thank you.” Ryan walked to his kitchen counter, and tapped his fingers on the granite. He needed to know the situation, how serious it was. And whether Charlie would survive or not.
A nurse came on the line. “Sixth floor, neurosurgery ICU. How can I help you?”
Ryan closed his eyes, trying to find the words. If Charlie was in the neurosurgery section, that meant he’d suffered a brain injury. Why hadn’t he stopped in to see the old man since he’d been home? Ryan clenched his fist and blinked his eyes open. “I’m a friend of Charlie Barton’s.” He worked to keep the emotion from his voice. “Can you tell me how he is? If there’s an update on his condition?”
“No, sir. I’m sorry. That information is for immediate family only.”
Ryan wanted to tell her that he was one of Charlie’s favorite customers, and that made him immediate family. Instead he cleared his throat. “Okay, then is Donna there? His wife?”
“She is.” The woman’s voice was kind, but clearly, she wasn’t about to provide him any information. “Who can I tell her is calling?”
“Ryan Kelly.”
She put him on hold, and after thirty seconds Ryan was thinking about hanging up and driving to the hospital, finding his way to Donna on his own. But just then her voice came on the line. “Ryan?”
“Yes.” His words came in a rush. “I read about the accident. Donna, I’m so sorry.” He didn’t want to ask, but he needed to know before another minute went by. “How is he?”