That had been true for most of yesterday and all of today. The feel and sight of the South made Ellie realize how much she’d missed it. How had she waited this long to follow her heart? To get in a car and simply erase the distance back home? “How was your sleep?”
“Good.” Kinzie yawned again. “Know what I dreamed about?”
“Tell me.” Ellie focused on the road.
“Okay.” Kinzie sat a little straighter and took a big breath. “It was a long dream, and you were in it, and I was in it. We were in Savannah, and my grandma Tucker was there, and all three of us were going to church together.” She smiled at Ellie. “Isn’t that the best dream?”
It wasn’t the first time Kinzie had talked about church since they started the road trip. She had talked about Jesus and a happy-ever-after, and she’d talked about at least eight Bible stories she was learning. Some of them took an hour to tell. Ellie remembered the stories from when she was a little girl. The stories of Noah and Moses and Joseph. Jonah and Daniel.
Hearing Kinzie retell the stories touched Ellie’s heart. Made her less angry at God and more curious. Now she kept both hands on the wheel, thinking about Kinzie’s dream. Her daughter seemed to sense what she was thinking. “You love God, right, Mommy?”
“Well . . . I haven’t thought about it.” She could hardly tell Kinzie that she no longer believed. The news would shatter her.
“Think about it now.” Her happy tone was upbeat, matter-of-fact. “Do you love God?”
“God gave me you, Kinz.” She smiled in the rearview mirror. “So of course I love Him.”
She could feel the girl’s scrutiny, sense her trying to look more deeply into the answer. “So would you go to church with me sometime, Mommy? Since you love God?”
Again Ellie wasn’t sure what to say. She had expected these questions earlier in the trip, but now—an hour before they reached Savannah—she didn’t feel prepared. “Would that make you happy, baby?”
“Yes, it would.” Kinzie nodded, emphatic.
“Then I’ll do it.” Ellie glanced at her daughter. The answer seemed to satisfy her. She closed her eyes, and in a few minutes, she was asleep again.
Well before Kinzie’s birth, Ellie had stopped believing in God. If He was real, then how could He let her father take her from Savannah? How could Nolan’s dad have died so young? And how had everything become so broken? Still, there was no denying the fact that Kinzie had been going to church and praying for her. And now, without warning, her father had given her the letters from her mom. A few days before the first of June. She had forgiven her dad—at least in action—and she was almost to her mother’s house.
So was God behind all this?
Ellie let her head lean back against the seat rest. The reason she’d stopped believing in God had everything to do with her life after moving to San Diego. Her father would accuse her and doubt her and tell her that God didn’t want her to hang out with her friends. He would shout Bible verses at her and tell her she wasn’t following God’s word. Ellie thought about the years after they arrived in San Diego, the years she’d lived with her father.
He used God to justify his awful behavior back then. The Lord doesn’t want you out late, Ellie . . . God can see through your lies . . . Jesus warns people of the narrow way. On and on and on, as if he were only passing on orders from his heavenly Sergeant.
It was never really God who had doubted her and accused her, right? The thought hadn’t occurred to her until now. No wonder she’d stopped believing. And now he blamed himself for his actions, so what did that say about God? If He was real, then maybe He was working a miracle in her life. A miracle that was half an hour from becoming a reality.
She focused on the road again. A real miracle would’ve been finding Nolan.
She let that thought stay for a while, but it didn’t ring true. It was her own fault she hadn’t connected with Nolan. He wasn’t missing. She could’ve reached out to him at any time. The truth was, she didn’t want him to see how she’d turned out. How she hadn’t graduated from college or written the great American novel or waited for the right guy, the way she’d told him she would that last time they were together.
A slow sigh came. So many mistakes over the years. The fact that God had blessed her with Kinzie was proof that maybe He was real after all. The child was the single ray of light in what had been a whole lot of dark years.
Some of the places were starting to look familiar. A picture began to form in Ellie’s mind: the house she had shared with her parents back on Louisiana Avenue. If only her dad had loved her mom back then. If only he hadn’t forced her away.
She had been the happiest woman. Ellie remembered the two of them playing at the park and her mother pushing her on the swings. She could hear her again, the joy in her voice when she used to talk about the weekend. Daddy will be home on Friday, and then we’ll have a special dinner. We’ll come to the park and play together. The three of us. Funny. Ellie could remember her mother talking about that, but she couldn’t recall one time when the three of them actually went to the park together.
One memory after another settled on the screen of her heart like a slide show from a different life. One she never had the chance to finish living. If her father had been there, if he hadn’t chosen a life where he spent all week at the base, they could’ve been a real family. They would’ve played together and shopped for groceries together and done chores together on Saturdays. Sundays would’ve been for church, and her mother never would’ve felt alone. And Ellie never would’ve lost Nolan Cook.
She glanced again in the rearview mirror at Kinzie sleeping.
Things had a way of working out. She would never regret the path of her life, not when it had resulted in this precious daughter. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder at the cost, the price life demanded, all because her father had been unbending. Controlling and heavy-handed. He was mean in the name of Jesus—something that could never be from God.
If God were real.
One more turn, and suddenly she was back in her old neighborhood. She slowed and checked her mirrors. No one was behind her. She drove at a crawl until she reached Kinzie and Louisiana, the corner where she and Nolan had met more times than she could remember. She pulled over and put the car in park. It looked different. Older, a little more run-down. But it was familiar enough that she had only to look around, and she was back again. Fifteen again.
As if just being here could take her to the day before her father moved her to San Diego.
She didn’t want to wake Kinzie. Not yet. She eased the car back onto the deserted street. People would be getting home from church and making Sunday dinner. Families laughing together and catching up on the week. Here in the South, the streets were empty. No one was out running errands or getting to work. Chick-fil-A was closed. Ellie looked at the people sitting on their porches with pitchers of iced tea perched between them. The kids playing on the front lawns. Savannah and San Diego might as well be different countries.
A little way down, and she turned left onto Kansas Street. She kept her pace slow. This was the very street she had ridden her bike down on the way to see Nolan. She stopped again at the corner. She could see his house, the one where he lived back then. The new owner had painted the place yellow. But a coat of paint couldn’t take away the memories.
She and Nolan sitting on his front porch or walking across Edgewood to Gordonston Park. The talks about his science class or her biology exam. The laughter over something someone had said at lunch.
Their last night together.
That memory more than any other. The way he’d held her in his arms and his desperation before he’d come up with the idea of writing letters. The tackle box and the old oak tree.
She could see it all again from behind the wheel of her car.
Tears blurred her vision, and she blinked them back. Enough. She would come here tomorrow, back to the park. That was something else she’d decided while they were driving he
re. She wanted her letter. Maybe if she came here on June first and dug up the box, if she took her letter and read his, she’d have closure. Fully and finally.
Nolan was probably gearing up for the first game of the NBA finals. He and his teammates. If he had a day off, he was probably spending it with his girlfriend. His life had been so golden lately that he probably didn’t remember anything about the tackle box and the tree. She didn’t blame him. Kids didn’t keep promises they made that many years ago.
She began driving again, and this time she used the GPS on her phone and the address she had memorized three days ago. The apartment where her mother had settled in once her baby was born. Three and a half miles. A few major city blocks and a handful of stoplights, and she would be at her mother’s house. She pictured her raising a son on her own, scraping together coupons and living with the heat on summer days in order to cut corners. Week after week after week.
So many lives changed.
Another few turns and she was on Whitaker Street, across from Forsyth Park. The biggest park in Savannah. Ellie checked the addresses of the apartments with the one in her phone until she was directly in front of it. She made a U-turn and parked along the curb adjacent to the unit. The place was more of a condo than an apartment, and her mother’s was on the first floor. It included three stairs and a porch not quite big enough for a rocking chair. The paint was peeling off the walls, but the neighborhood felt safe. The park looked just like Ellie remembered it. She stared at the open field and watched a mom and dad playing with their little girl.
The memory she never made.
She took a deep breath and rolled down the windows. It was just after noon and cooler than usual, only sixty degrees or so, according to the panel on her dashboard. She would get Kinzie up in a minute, but first she wanted to see if her mother was home. Her knees shook as she stepped out and walked around to the sidewalk. She stopped and stared at the door and breathed. Just breathed.
So many years without her mom. Every weekend in high school when she needed someone to talk to, when kids started drinking and trying drugs and having sex. Even if she couldn’t admit it then, all Ellie ever wanted was her mother. Her mom to pour her heart out to. The way other girls did. Through every dance and every lonely summer and so many Christmases and birthdays and her high school graduation.
She would cry herself to sleep, missing her mom and hating her at the same time. Hating her for not caring that somewhere in San Diego, Ellie was growing up and graduating and hanging out with a soldier who wasn’t good for her. Her mother had a calendar, but year after year on her birthday Ellie would ache at the knowledge that her mother hadn’t tried to contact her.
And the whole time—through every moment of missing her mom—Ellie hadn’t thought once that her mother even cared. She pictured the box of letters. The reality was so different. While she was missing her mom, her mom was missing her. The two of them both wishing for a way back to yesterday.
Ellie breathed in sharply through her nose, walked up the stairs, and knocked on the door. The sound was nothing compared to her pounding heart. Sunshine baked down on her shoulders, but her nerves left her shivering. Would her mother recognize her? Ellie, a woman now, all grown up. Seconds felt like hours as she waited. Maybe she had the wrong address . . . or possibly her mom was out for the day.
Ellie was about to turn around when the door opened. And there she was, as beautiful as Ellie remembered her. “Mom?”
Her mother’s hand flew to her mouth, and tears flooded her eyes. “Ellie?” She didn’t need to ask how or why; her eyes made it clear. All that mattered was that Ellie was here. She had come. “Ellie.” She ran to her and hugged her, held her the way soldiers held their loved ones when they returned from war. Like she’d come back from the dead. “You’re here. You’re really here.”
“Mama. I got the letters.” Ellie savored the feeling, being in her mom’s arms again. She treasured it and let it replace all the times when her mother hadn’t been there. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too. Every day.” She held Ellie, rocked her. “Thank you, Lord. She’s home. Thank you!”
And there in her mother’s arms—for the first time since Ellie was fifteen—the thought occurred to her that God might be real after all. Because she could feel His love in the person of Caroline Tucker. The mother who had prayed for her and missed her and loved her since the day she left.
Ellie stepped back a few inches and studied her mom’s face, the familiar curve of her cheeks, the depth in her eyes. Eyes like Kinzie’s. “Mama.” She wiped at her tears, but they still came. More and more they came. Ellie looked back at her car and then to her mother again. “I have someone I’d like you to meet.”
Chapter Twenty-four
It was a miracle. Caroline Tucker had no other explanation for how it felt to have her daughter in her arms again. She hadn’t seen her since she was a teenager, but she would’ve recognized her anywhere. Her eyes, her pretty face, her graceful way. She had grown up. The teenage girl was forever gone.
But she was still Ellie.
Caroline’s tears came despite her joy. Her daughter was home! After eleven years she was here, and Caroline was never going to lose her again. She shaded her eyes and checked on John, at the park again, playing basketball with his friends. She would introduce them later. For now she watched as Ellie jogged back to the car and opened the back door. She bent down and seemed to talk to someone.
A few seconds passed, and as Ellie backed up, a little blond girl stepped out. Caroline’s gasp was silent. Ellie had a daughter? She had missed knowing her grandchild? What was Alan thinking, keeping her letters from Ellie? More tears rushed from the depths of her tortured soul. The girl wasn’t a baby. She was older than kindergarten. The losses piled up.
Ellie held the child’s hand and walked her to where her mother stood. “This is Kinzie.”
Kinzie? Caroline met Ellie’s eyes. The street where Ellie and Nolan met so often. Her daughter might’ve been gone for over a decade, but their ability to communicate remained. Caroline put her hands on her knees and looked at the little girl. “You have very kind eyes, Kinzie. They’re beautiful.”
Ellie’s daughter was still partly asleep. But at the sound of the compliment, she opened her eyes a little wider. “Thank you.” She looked intrigued. She batted her eyelashes a few times. “You’re my grandma Tucker, right?”
“Yes.” Caroline wiped her cheeks, knowing that her tears would only confuse the child. “Looks like we have a lot to catch up on.”
Kinzie nodded and leaned against Ellie. “My mommy says you used to take her to the park to play on the swings.”
Her words wrapped themselves around Caroline and told her something she was desperate to know: Ellie remembered. She remembered, and she had missed Caroline and her growing-up days in Savannah as much as Caroline had. Caroline lifted her eyes to Ellie’s, and again the look they shared held years of loss, but an even greater hope. She found her voice and put her hand on Kinzie’s shoulder. “It’s been a while . . . but I definitely like playing on swings.”
“Can I have a drink of water, please?” Kinzie peered past Caroline into the apartment.
“Of course, honey.” Caroline opened the door and ushered Ellie and Kinzie inside. She helped the child with a glass of water and gave her a plate of graham crackers, and then she and Ellie took a spot in the adjacent room.
“Dad gave me the letters. A few days ago.” Ellie reached for her hand. “I thought you didn’t want to find me. Like . . . ” She looked out the window for a long time, as if trying to see into the past. “Like you forgot about me.”
“Never, Ellie.” Caroline looked deep into her daughter’s familiar eyes. “I’ve been here the whole time. Praying, believing. Knowing that somehow you’d find your way back.”
“You wrote once a week.” She covered her mother’s hand with her own. “When I realized that, I left the next morning.”
Ellie told her abo
ut the letter she’d opened the night before she left. The one Caroline had written the day before Kinzie was born. Caroline remembered it well. “I felt like you were hurt or in trouble. Like something was wrong. I couldn’t shake it.”
“Grandma?” Kinzie had gotten down from her chair and joined them in the living room. “Can I sit by you?”
“Yes, sweetie.” Caroline released her daughter’s hands and patted the place on the couch next to her. “We three girls can sit here and catch up. How’s that?”
Kinzie smiled. “I like that.” She hesitated and patted Ellie’s shoulder as she walked by and took the spot beside Caroline.
There was no way to describe the fullness in Caroline’s heart. Her daughter and granddaughter on either side of her, the walls that had stood between them, forever gone. They had so much to talk about, so many moments to catch up on.
Ellie told Caroline about struggling with her father and never feeling good enough; she told her about C.J. Kinzie hung on every word, so Ellie’s expression told Caroline there were details she would have to share later. “He was very kind and very handsome.” Ellie smiled at her daughter. “Kinzie’s laugh sounds a little like his.”
Kinzie leaned in to Caroline’s arm, saddened by the story of her father, though she had clearly heard it before. Caroline’s heart filled with pride over the way Ellie had raised the girl. She was well-behaved and clearly very close to Ellie.
Carefully, again seeming to take note of Kinzie’s presence, Ellie explained that her dad hadn’t been in favor of her relationship with C.J., so when she’d gotten pregnant, she’d moved in with a friend. Ellie’s eyes held Caroline’s for a long moment. “We didn’t talk until the other day. When he brought me the box of letters.”
Caroline had always figured Ellie had a wonderful relationship with her dad, that the two of them had connected to the point where he filled her need for both parents. Instead, Ellie had been alone in the world, raising Kinzie, since she was nineteen. Anger and sorrow and helpless frustration fought for first position in Caroline’s soul.