Forever (29 page)

“Yeah.” He sounded colder than before. “And maybe I won’t be.”

Luke said good-bye and hung up before Ashley could question 228

him, before she could express her outrage at his attitude. How come everyone else in the family was okay with the curve they’d been thrown? All of them had reason to struggle with it, and at times all of them had. Mostly they’d struggled with their parents and how they could’ve kept such a colossal secret for so many, many years.

But how did any of them have a right to struggle with Dayne? None of this had been his fault. He had been adopted by missionaries and given a lonely childhood in an Indonesian boarding school, and before he graduated his parents had been killed in a small-plane crash. Yes, he’d gone on to take drama classes at UCLA and made a string of hit movies, but he had no control over what happened after that-being placed at the center of America’s fascination with celebrities.

Ashley closed her eyes and turned her back on the small snapshot. She could understand Luke’s having concerns about the change in their family if he hadn’t met Dayne. But he’d spent a week with him. How could he lash out about having Dayne as a brother after knowing Dayne? She covered her face with her hands.

God. . our lives are a ball of knots. I can’t even begin to unravel it by myself.

She heard a key in the front door and the sound of footsteps. Ashley peered through her fingers. She could smell smoke long before her husband reached her.

“Rough night?” Landon had dark smudges on his face and his uniform. He grinned, but his eyes were warm with sympathy. “I’d kiss you, but then you’d smell like me.”

“You fought a fire?” There was no reason to sound surprised. Her husband was a firefighter. Still, she always felt a ripple of alarm when she knew he’d been face-to-face with a wall of flames. Especially since he’d nearly lost his life in a burning building twice before.

“We put it out.” He set his helmet on the counter, grabbed a glass, and filled it with water. “No victims, no injuries. Just a 229

blazing warehouse.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “It got a little crazy. Nothing serious.”

Ashley lowered her chin. “Landon … you’re telling me the whole story, right?”

“Yes.” He angled his head, the way Cole did when he laid on the charm. “It was perfectly safe.”

She pictured him walking through a building full of flames and falling beams.

“Never mind. You’re home. Thank God.”

He winked at her. “I have.” He guzzled the glass of water in four swallows and filled it again. “Unless you were playing hide-and- seek, I’d say your night might’ve been a little rougher than mine.”

She laughed out loud. She must’ve been a sight, standing in the kitchen with her hands over her face when he walked in. The laughter felt good, but it didn’t last. Her smile faded. “It was pretty bad. I talked to Luke.”

“About the tabloids?” Landon had been home when Ashley came back with the stack of magazines. He hadn’t had time to read them, but he saw the pictures and he knew the news wasn’t great.

“Yes.” She motioned toward the tabloids on the kitchen chair. “He said Dayne wasn’t his brother.” For the first time since she’d opened the first magazine, her eyes grew damp. “But he is our brother. And now the whole thing could split our family down the middle.” She moved closer and slid her arms around his jacket. “I don’t care about the smoke. I need you.”

Landon cradled her close and rubbed her back. “Honey, nothing could split your family. Not time or distance or even death.” He kissed the top of her head.

“Definitely not this.”

The smell only reminded her how blessed she was. Landon had survived another fire, and God had brought him safely home. One more time. “Thanks.” She snuggled against him.

“For what?”

“For always knowing what to say.” She took a step back. “Go shower. I’ll make you a sandwich.”

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He reached for his helmet. “You know what I think?” “What?”

“I think you ought to take the afternoon tomorrow and paint.”Hmm.” She smiled. Weeks had passed since she’d pulled out her brushes and sat in front of an easel and an empty canvas “Sounds wonderful.” She wrinkled her nose. “But Kari and I arc taking the babies to the park midmorning, and then I’ve got a CKT meeting after lunch.” She felt most tired about what came next.

“Then there’s Katy and Dayne’s house.” Her shoulders sagged. “I’m not sure I even know where to begin.”

Landon’s eyes shone with love and understanding and strength. “Start where we always start, Ash.” He pointed up. Then he smiled and headed into the hall and up the stairs toward their room.

Ashley watched him leave, amazed at the way he loved her, the way he always loved her. He was her rock in times like this, and here was why. “Start where we always start, Ash… “

And, of course, that’s exactly what she would do. It was what she had been doing. Only most of the time throughout the day praying hadn’t felt like enough.

But it was. It always would be. Peace stilled the rough waters in her soul, and she lifted her voice to God then and later with Landon after he showered and came back down.

They prayed that God would remove the bitterness and anger in Luke and replace it with compassion, and they prayed as they’d done each day that Dayne would wake up and that he’d have a full recovery. This time they prayed that Ashley wouldn’t gain one brother only to lose another.

Three minutes after they finished praying, the phone rang. Landon jumped up and jogged to the kitchen. He answered it, and after a minute, he headed toward Ashley. He looked like he was trying to hide a smile. “It’s for you. It’s your dad.”

“Thanks.” Ashley stood and reached for the phone. Somehow everything would work out. God was always faithful, whether a

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person was in a season of blessing or a season of growing, whether in triumphs or trials. It was like her mother had always said: In the journey of life, it was a better ride if a person took the passenger seat and let God do the driving. Because along the way there were bound to be unexpected turns.

And some turns only God could maneuver.

She picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Ashley …” Her father sounded funny, like he’d been crying.

Ashley frowned. Why would he be upset? An idea hit her. This better not be about Elaine. Apparently her dad and his friend had gone through some kind of falling-out. She wondered once in a while if their trouble had anything to do with the way she had treated Elaine that night when Elaine was helping in the Baxter kitchen. The woman had no right to access their family. The trouble between her dad and Elaine was just as well. Her father had mentioned the other day that he hadn’t talked to his friend in weeks. Ashley was glad. Her father needed time with his memories.

She pressed the phone to the side of her face. “Dad, is everything okay?” She glanced up. Landon was grinning bigger than at any time tonight.

“I … can’t believe it.” Her dad cleared his throat.

“What?” This wasn’t about Elaine. It was something bigger. Much bigger.

It took a while for him to speak, but when he did the words came in a hurry.

“It’s Dayne. He’s awake.”

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233

REAGAN SAT On the floor across from Tommy and Malin. They were building a tower with oversize plastic LEGO blocks, and it was all she could do to stay awake.

But then, the exhaustion was becoming part of life.

“Tommy need a green one.” Tommy was talking very well lately. With his light brown hair and big blue eyes, he looked more like Luke all the time.

Reagan reached across the carpet and found a green block. “Here you go.”

Tommy concentrated on the masterpiece in front of him. He placed the block and clapped. “Big castle.”

Neither of them spotted Malin until it was too late. She wasn’t quite walking yet, but she could crawl faster than any baby Reagan had ever seen. She reached Tommy’s building and tried to stand up against it. Reagan barely had time to catch her, but it was too late for the tower. It tumbled to the floor and broke in five sections.

Tommy screamed and then froze. He turned and shouted, “No, Mali, no! Bad!”

234 Malin didn’t know what to make of her brother’s anger, and combined with her near fall, her expression changed. She opened her mouth, and after a buildup that seemed to take a minute, she began to cry. The problem vas, when Malin cried it was more like a scream. A temper tantrum even.

“Tommy, please …” Reagan stood and lifted Malin onto her hip. Her daughter’s screams were so loud that she doubted Tommy could even he her. “Your sister didn’t mean to hurt your tower. Mommy can help you build it back.” Tommy started crying too. Then he glared at Malin, pointed his finger at her, and made a firing sound. “Tommy shoot her!” “Wonderful,” Reagan mumbled. She shifted Malin to her other hip and stooped down to Tommy’s level. “We do not shoot She left Tommy sobbing in the middle of a pile of LEGOs, his gun finger still cocked and ready to fire. She carried Malin to the kitchen. A pacifier would lighten the rnood, if only she could find it. Reagan looked beside the sink and between the canisters and in a basket near the fridge where she usually kept a spare.

The phone rang, and she answered it on the run. “Hello?” she “Hi.” It was Luke. He paused. “What’s happening?”

“Just another-” she bounced Malin back onto her hip”Oh. Well …” His voice was too faint to hear above the noise. “What?” She moved a fruit bowl to the side. Where was the “Never mind.” He was shouting now “I’ll see you tonight.” “Fine.” She hung up without saying good-bye.

Malin’s crying rose a notch. She he out her hand for her pacifier. “Poppy …

poppy, Mama.” Then she dropped her head back and shook her shoulders. The full-blown temper tantrum was right around the corner. Part of the reason was the pain in

hat to make of 1 ..ar fall, her ex 1 after a uildr The problem N A temper tantri Reagan stood ai reams were so tr her. “Your

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as shouting now without saying 1 notch. She I )py, Mama.” The )ulders.

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people, Tommy. I’ve told you that.”

But there was no sign of it.

shouted above the crying and screaming.

“happy afternoon.”

pacifier? “I can’t hear you.”

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her ears. Yesterday she’d been diagnosed with another ear infection. Her third in the past six weeks. The doctor was talking about surgery and putting tubes in her ears.

Reagan had her hands full between Mali’s ears and Tommy’s recent fascination with guns. Yesterday Tommy had gotten a checkup at the same time. When the nurse was taking his blood pressure, he slowly looked up at her and scowled. In the corner bouncing a moaning Malin, Reagan knew what was about to happen. She could only hope she was wrong.

As the cuff tightened on Tommy’s little arm, his scowl got deeper. He made a gun with his finger, aimed it at the nurse, and uttered a firing noise. Immediately the doctor-a guy-burst out laughing.

But the nurse made a face and sent Reagan a disapproving look. “That’s not funny.”

At least he hadn’t finished off the job with the announcement he’d been making more often lately: “Tommy shoot her.” Luke thought the whole thing was funny. In fact, Tommy was the only one who could make him laugh these days.

Reagan tried her best to convince their son that he should shoot only the errant dinosaur or tiger that had managed to get into the house, and once in a while she succeeded. Earlier that week he’d come running out of his room, carefully aimed his finger at nothing, and fired loudly. He proceeded to clear the apartment of approximately seventeen dinosaurs, six snakes, four bears, two tigers, and a swarm of bees.

But an hour later Tommy ran from her, and before she could catch him, he turned around and fired straight at her. Reagan’s mother had warned her that the terrible twos didn’t necessarily stop at two. Indeed.

Reagan glanced in the other room. Tommy had moved to the couch. He was lying on his stomach crying into a pillow. I’m a terrible mother, she thought. I can’t even get through a normal hour with these two.

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Malin lifted her head,held out her hand again, and let out .t long wail.

“Poppy!” She held out the middle of the word at .1

“I know, sweetie.” Reagan picked up her pace, frantical I\ searching the kitchen. The pacifier had to be here. Every time anyone in the family saw it on the floor it was washed and sel aside right here so they could find it in a moment like this. She blew at her bangs and kept looking. The silverware drawer, the

The problem was, sometimes Tommy found it on the countel where it was supposed to be or in the basket, and he’d hide it “Tommy hide Mali’s poppy!” he would exclaim joyfully.

The Tupperware cupboard, the plastic-wrap drawer, the space where her mother kept the pot holders. Still nothing Please, God … help me. Reagan bounced Malin as she moved “It’s okay, honey. Shhh. Mommy’s looking for the poppy.” She moved down the counter a ways and opened the place-mat drawer and the utensil drawer. Finally, in the last possible place, she opened the junk drawer and ti it was. Hidden treasure. She grabbed the pacifier and placed it in Malin’s mouth. Malin sucked on it as if her life depended on the action. Then she rested her head on Reagan’s shoulder and made much quiReagan braced herself against the counter with her free hand the drawer. Rubber ban( s and receipts and batteries and a pair of broken sunglasses, but on the left side, right on top, was a pile of what looked like unopened mail. To hadn’t announced that he was hiding mail in addition t(3

Mali’s pacifiers, but

With Malin settling down a little more and Tommy’s cries reduced to a low moan in the next room, she picked up the stack and spread the envelopes on the counter. Sure enough, nothing had been opened. She sighed and sorted through it.