Even Now (32 page)

Every time he flew he felt God leading him home at the end of a mission. He was serving his country, serving his fellow man, and following the life God had given him all at the same time. His only sorrow was missing Lauren. For more than a decade that void hit him at the end of every day and between shifts and in noncombat situations when he was forty thousand feet up behind the controls of a jet.

He would gaze into the endless blue and remember the note she’d scribbled for him back when they were kids:
You’re gonna fly one day. When you go
,
take me with you.
Only he never found her, so she never knew. Never knew that he’d done what he wanted to do, what God had created him to do. He breathed in the cool Reno air. And now . . . here he was. On the wrong path again.

How did it happen? How did he let Ellen convince him that a position in politics would be better than working at Top Gun, better than driving out to the naval training base every day and living his dream? There was something else too. Since he’d been seeing Ellen, he’d come to believe that he didn’t want children, that with all the plans ahead of him, there wasn’t time for raising a family. All because for a short while, his own understanding seemed better than God’s.

But not anymore.

The doorbell rang, and then he heard the sound of her in the entryway. “Hello?”

“Ellen. I’m back here.” He stood and met her. “You look pretty.” He kissed her cheek and led her back into the house. “I’ll get my keys.”

“Shane.” Her tone was a mix of no-nonsense strength with a hint of vulnerability.

He turned around. “Yes?”

She exhaled slow and tired. “It’s over, isn’t it?”

For an instant, he almost denied it. How could she have known? All he’d told her was that he wanted to talk. Nothing more. He slipped his hands in his pockets and took a few steps closer. Her eyes told him that she wasn’t guessing. She knew. Somehow she’d figured it out.

He stopped and looked to the deepest places of her heart. “How did you know?”

“This.” She pulled something that looked like a small photograph from her purse and handed it to him. “I found this on the front seat of my car this morning. It must’ve fallen out of your pocket.”

Only when it was in his hands did he look at it. As he did, his heart sank. It was his picture of Lauren. She was right. He’d been looking at it the night before, when she pulled up to take him to dinner. In the rush of the moment, he slid it into his pocket and hurried out to meet her.

Ellen lifted her chin, her pride clearly intact. “I thought you’d let her go, Shane.”

“I have — ” No. He stopped himself. Anything he said about letting go of Lauren Anderson was a lie. He promised Lauren long ago that he would love her until the day he died. Wasn’t that what he’d engraved in the ring he bought her?
Even now
. Even now, when it made no sense to hang onto her memory, his promise was good. He put the photo on the closest bookshelf and took Ellen’s hands in his. “I’m sorry.” He worked the muscles in his jaw. “I thought I had.”

She smiled, and the brilliance of it almost hid the pain in her eyes. “I thought so too.” She wriggled the ring from her finger. It contained a total of two carats, nothing like the small ring he’d bought Lauren a lifetime ago. “Here.” Her eyes glistened. “I can’t be second best, Shane.”

“I know.” He took the ring and tried to see past her pretense. “I think we would’ve made a good team.”

“Me too.” She gave his fingers a heart felt squeeze. “But I don’t want a teammate, Shane. I want someone who adores me.”

“I understand.” He pulled her to himself and folded her in his arms. “I’m the problem, Ellen. Not you. You’re perfect.”

She nodded, and when she drew back he noticed her makeup was still intact, her eyes dry. “I’ve spent the day working through this, so, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll get going.”

“Okay.” He released her and she took a step.

Holding her purse close to her side, she nodded at him. “Good-bye, Shane.”

“Good-bye.” He held up his hand and waited as she turned and headed back to the door.

When she reached it, she looked at him once more over her shoulder. “You didn’t want to be governor anyway, did you?”

The sadness in his heart was genuine. She had offered him the kind of life most guys in his place would’ve jumped at. He felt God’s words shouting from the foundation of his heart.
Lean not on your own understanding
;
in all your ways acknowledge him
,
and he will make your paths straight.

Ellen was waiting, watching him. He took a few steps closer one last time and shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers. “No, Ellen. God made me to be a pilot. I love politics, and I’d vote for your father and everyone on the party ticket as long as the issues are what they are today.” He brushed his knuckles against her cheek.
God
,
let her move on quickly from here. She deserves so much more. “
But the truth is, I only thought I’d like politics because I liked you. Your father was a politician, and I thought it made sense if I became one too.”

She covered his hand with her own, and after a few seconds she took hold of the door handle and backed up another step. “You know something?”

“What?”

“I’m glad you figured it out.” Her smile was more genuine now, as was her sorrow.

“Me too.”

She opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. “And I’m flattered that you liked me that much.” She nodded at him and held his eyes another few seconds. Then she turned and walked down his sidewalk to her car waiting along the curb. When she was gone, he grabbed his phone and went back outside on his patio. His chest ached, and he knew why. She wasn’t right for him, but he cared about her. He was going to miss her, and once again he was going to be alone.

Now it was time to break the news to his parents.

Sheila Galanter hung up the phone and barely made it into the living room where her husband Samuel was reading the newspaper.

“It’s over.” She leaned against the doorway. Moving any further into the room wasn’t an option. All her energy was taken with trying to sort through the news.

Samuel lowered the newspaper to his lap. “What is?”

“Shane and Ellen. They called it off.”

“Hmm.” He looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “Can’t say I blame him.”

“Samuel! Listen to you.” She was catching her breath now. “Ellen was a lovely girl.”

“She was that.” He looked at her. “But she had Shane’s life planned out for him.”

“We did the same once, remember?” She walked into the room and sat on the edge of the chair opposite him.

He groaned and released the footrest in the recliner. It snapped down into place, and he sat straighter than before. “Sheila, it was only a few weeks ago that you were chock-full of doubts about this impending marriage.”

“I
didn’t have doubts.” Her tone changed. “I was worried he did.”

“Well — ” Samuel leaned forward and gave her knee a quick squeeze — “looks like you were right.” He studied her. He knew her so well. “Shane’s still young, Sheila. He’ll find someone else.”

It was exactly what she was thinking. But Shane’s age wasn’t the problem. The awful reality was that their son hadn’t truly loved someone since — “What if this is all our fault, Samuel?” Her voice slipped to a whisper. “Have you ever thought of that?”

A shadow fell over her husband’s eyes, and he folded his hands on his lap. For more than a minute he said nothing, as if he was being sucked back to that awful time when they’d felt forced to start a new life in order to protect their son.

A long sigh escaped him. “I haven’t wanted to.”

“But you have, right?” All those years, two decades since they’d left Chicago, and never once had Sheila gotten up the courage to talk to her husband about this. They made their decision and never looked back. But now the past had limped into the room with them, torn up and bleeding, impossible to ignore. Not that they were crushed about the breakup between Shane and Ellen. But the fact that their son had never let goof Lauren Anderson. She watched her own feelings play out across his face, and she already had her answer. “Samuel, talk to me.”

He drew in a deep breath. “When we moved that boy here, I knew with everything I was that it was the right decision.” He spoke through clenched teeth, allowing a rare show of emotion. “He was seventeen, Sheila. What were we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know.” A crack formed in her heart and she hung her head. Samuel was right. They’d wanted only the best for him. The move had been Samuel’s idea, but she had supported it. To the point of losing her best friend, she’d supported it.

“He wanted to marry her and . . . and be a father all before he finished high school. I couldn’t stand by and let that happen.” Samuel spread his fingers over his chest. “Please . . . tell me you don’t blame me, Sheila.”

“How can I?” She lifted her hands and let them drop in her lap again. “I was the one meeting with Angela, telling her we needed a plan.” The crack widened. “I talked about Lauren like she was — ” She looked at the floor, the memories so close she could touch them. “I talked about Lauren like she was completely to blame.” She twisted her expression and looked at Samuel again. “I lost my friend because I couldn’t, not for one minute, think Shane was anything but a victim.”

Samuel took her hands in his. For a long time he ran his thumbs along hers. Then he shook his head. “We were wrong. I’ve known it for a long time.”

“He’s looked for Lauren all his life.” She felt her eyes grow distant. “Sometimes when I’m on the Internet, I type in her name, just to see what comes up.”

He studied her, eyes wide. “I’ve done that, too.”

“We should’ve looked for Angela and Bill. They would know where to find her.”

A strange look came over him and he gave a single shake of his head. “No. They have no idea. At least they didn’t five years ago.”

What was he saying? She held tighter to his hands so she wouldn’t fall off her chair. “You called them?”

“I called Bill one day at work. The conversation was short. No apologies, no accusations. We didn’t talk about the baby.” He shrugged. “I asked him if he could tell me how to get in touch with Lauren.”

“You did that?” She’d been married to him for thirty-eight years. How could they not have talked about something this important?

“Shane was gutsy and strong and a military hero, but he was dying inside for missing that girl.” His expression grew soft. “I asked myself how I could show Shane I loved him. How much I really love him.” He blinked twice, but his eyes remained damp. “Finding Lauren was the best thing I could think of.”

“Sam . . . ” She slid to the floor and crawled the few steps that separated them. She had never loved him more. “You were exactly right.”

“Only Bill told me he didn’t know where she was. She ran away after she had the baby. That was the end of the conversation.” He eased his fingers along the back of her hand. “I guess we all paid for what we did to those kids.”

A small cry came from her. “If I’d known that was going to be my only grandchild . . . ” She hugged his legs and rested her head on his knees. “Oh, Sam. We’re
still
paying for what we did.”

“Yes.” Sadness choked his voice. “Sometimes I lie awake at night wondering if the baby was a boy or a girl, and where that eighteen-year-old child might be now.”

In that moment, Sheila felt the crack give way, felt her heart tear in half. She knew with utter certainty that she would never be the same. Because here was the truth. She wasn’t the only one who dreamed about the grandchild they’d walked away from, or who agonized at her son’s loneliness. She and Samuel had lived their lives in a sort of quiet denial, never talking about their biggest decision, never facing how it had for ever changed them all.

And what about the Andersons? How could Lauren run away and never look back? Where had she gone? A tingling started at Sheila’s forehead and worked its way down her face. Lauren would’ve only run to one place — Southern California. Because she would’ve been as driven to find Shane as he had been to find her.

This new realization added yet another layer to the hidden tragedy that was their lives. The only thing that could save them was if the broken pieces all found their way together again. Healing
could
happen if Shane found Lauren, if she and Samuel made things right with the Andersons. But how? How was that even possible?

Guilt and regret smothered her, made her wish with all her being that somehow that might really take place. But it was impossible. Miracles like that simply didn’t happen.

At least not to horrible people like them.

I
t was the right decision, but that Monday morning Shane could still feel the ache in his heart. He missed Ellen, missed the way she made him laugh and the animated way she entertained him with stories from her father’s world. Without her, the weekend had been quiet and uneventful. Shane didn’t need anyone to tell him how the next season of his life would go. It would be a lonely one, maybe the loneliest yet.