The Bridge (5 page)

Charlie worked his way to the end of the scrapbook and stopped cold, his heart heavier than before. On the last page were two of his favorite people, a couple of college kids who had hung out at The Bridge for most of two years. He ran his thumb along the edge of the photo. Saddest day ever when he heard they separated. He used to tell Donna that the two of them were what love should look like.

Molly Evans and Ryan Kelly.

They had signed their names beneath the photo, but Charlie would’ve remembered them anyway. Ryan stopped in every once in a while when he was in town. Charlie would ask how he was doing, but they’d lost touch enough over the years that the conversation was never very deep. As far as Charlie knew, Ryan was playing music for a country band. All grown up and famous. Charlie wasn’t sure if he ever married. Usually he talked more about Charlie than himself.

Molly hadn’t been around since she left town after
her sophomore year. Married some guy on the West Coast, according to Ryan. Such a shame. The two of them should’ve found a way to stay together. Their differences couldn’t have compared to the way the two of them shone so brightly together. Even now Charlie believed that if The Bridge were still standing, still in business, one day Molly would come back. His customers always found a way back.

But not if he closed his doors.

He shut the scrapbook and slipped it carefully back into the drawer. Then he leaned against the wall and breathed in deep. The place smelled dank and moldy. He had plans to paint the walls and bring in new carpet, improvements that would remove the odor. The line of credit was supposed to pay for that, too.

Father, what am I supposed to do? There has to be an answer. My dad said this would happen, and I never believed it, so You can’t let me fail. Please, God . . 
.

He turned and faced the wall, spread his hands against the cool bricks. The Union soldiers had felt warm and safe and dry here, as if things might turn out okay after all. He squeezed his eyes shut, his hands, his arms trembling from the great sorrow crushing in around him.
That’s all I want, Lord . . . I’m begging You. Let me rebuild The Bridge so the flood doesn’t win. Give me the second chance Edna talked about. Please, Lord, show me how
.

A Scripture passage whispered in his mind, one he’d shared with customers on occasion. It was from Deuteronomy 20:1:
When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you
.

God had brought him out of Egypt, for sure, he and Donna both. Their own personal Egypt. A tragedy no one in Franklin knew anything about.

That horrific time had led them to move here, to open The Bridge and find solace in books. It was the only thing Charlie could think of that might bring meaning to his life after what had happened. Painful memories tried to work their way to the forefront of his heart, but he refused them, refused to go back. He had the photos, the newspaper clippings, tucked in a small metal box in the drawer beside the scrapbook. He never opened it, never looked back.

God had rescued them from that, Charlie had been completely convinced.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

Fear and panic stood on either side of him as he turned and faced the front of his store. He had one more shot, one more chance at finding a loan. The banker and his wife—longtime customers—lived in town. The banker ran the branch in Cool Springs. Charlie hadn’t wanted to borrow from someone he knew, but he had no choice. He would call in the morning and explain the situation. Then he would know for sure whether God was still with him.

Or if He, too, had left Charlie Barton with the floodwater.

C HA P T E R  T H R E E

D
onna Barton couldn’t stop crying.

All her life she’d counted on Charlie. She relied on him and looked up to him, and from their first date, she’d come to expect his smile and optimism. Even at their lowest point as a couple, Charlie had been rock-solid. Unsinkable. His faith in God strong enough to keep them standing, whatever threatened to topple them. Even death couldn’t defeat Charlie Barton.

Until now.

Quiet sobs shook Donna’s thin shoulders as she drove south from Franklin to their small ranch house just outside town. She had held it together at the store, but she’d never seen Charlie this way, afraid and without answers. As she left her husband behind, as she stepped into the uncertainty of whatever came next, the sidewalk beneath her feet felt like liquid and her
mind raced with uncertainty. Noises around her faded until her senses filled with the sound of her heartbeat. For a moment she wondered if she were having a heart attack or a nervous breakdown. She stopped, grabbed hold of a light post, and prayed. Begged God for the strength to take the next step.

Somehow she’d gotten to her car.

The look in Charlie’s eyes, his desperate tone, all of it stayed with her as she gripped the steering wheel. Could she have said anything different, anything that might’ve encouraged him? Her responses had been honest—The Bridge made a difference in Franklin and to the people who loved it. But that time was past. If they couldn’t get a line of credit, then God was closing the bookstore, whether Charlie was ready or not. She had told him how she felt at the core of her existence.

She believed in him. She did.

But her belief in Charlie Barton wouldn’t pay the bills or make the lease payment. That would happen only if Charlie picked himself up, headed down to Publix, and found a job. A way to keep them afloat. Maybe that’s what scared her the most. She and Charlie didn’t see the situation the same way. He wasn’t
ready to give up, and she loved that about him. Loved that he wasn’t a quitter. But at this rate, they were going to lose more than the store. They were going to lose their house. Maybe she’d have to get a job, too. She could do that, right? Either way, Charlie needed to be realistic about the bookstore. She blinked back another rush of tears. Sometimes the only way to fight through a situation was to walk.

Give up one dream and take hold of another.

Donna settled back into her seat and tried to draw a full breath. The trouble had happened so suddenly. Neither of them had seen the flood coming, the flood that God could’ve prevented. Donna wiped her fingers beneath her eyes and tried to see the road ahead of her.

Snow like this hadn’t fallen in November as far back as Donna could remember. Franklin didn’t usually have temperatures below freezing until after Christmas, and the cold weather produced mostly flurries. Today two inches were forecast, with another five expected later in the week. By the looks of the snow coming down, the estimates were low. The sun had set hours ago, so Donna was mindful of ice on the road. She turned on the
windshield wipers and squinted to see through the thickly falling snow.

Driving took enough of her attention that her tears slowed. The storm drew her back, took her to the place in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she and Charlie had met. Charlie, that handsome, strapping young man with calloused hands and a tender heart. The first person Donna ever trusted.

Her past remained as ugly as it was painful, but while she drove home, she could do nothing to stop it from replaying. Donna was the only child of drug-addicted parents, a bright girl who spent her teenage years visiting one or both of her parents in jail. Routinely, she would come home to find her mom and dad crashed on the floor, Ziploc bags of drugs and dirty needles scattered on the kitchen table.

Sometimes Donna spent the night with a friend down the street. Mostly, she took all her heartache and sorrow out on her studies. Along the way, she developed a fierce determination to succeed, to stay away from drugs and danger and anything that would distract her from her dream. She hid the truth about her home life from everyone and easily carried a perfect 4.0 through high school, and no one was surprised
when Donna was named class valedictorian or when she earned a full-ride scholarship to North Carolina State.

Her mom overdosed on heroin three days before her graduation.

A teacher and her husband took Donna in, and she lived with them until she headed off for college. Her dad didn’t handle the loss as well. He stayed around for a month or so and then one night went out with his friends and never came home. Police found his car wrapped around a tree the next morning. And like that, Donna was alone in the world.

By the time Donna met Charlie, she was utterly independent. People had let her down and hurt her, so if she could rely on herself, on her academic abilities and her dreams of teaching, then she would survive. Charlie was interesting and different. He was in her freshman English composition class, and from the first day, he found a way to make her laugh. He was the only son of a local cement contractor, a man gruff and quick-tempered who expected Charlie to take over the family trade. Charlie didn’t want to spend his life leveling fresh-poured foundations and patios. His decision to study business at NC State was the most
rebellious thing he had ever done, and it created a rift with his parents that remained.

Donna remembered what Charlie’s father had told him, and the memories made her sick to her stomach.
You’ll never succeed in the business world
, his father had told him.
You’re a Barton, and Bartons aren’t businesspeople. You’ll fail and then you’ll come crawling back to me and the cement
.

Though his father had sold the cement business fifteen years ago, Charlie was still desperate to hang on to the bookstore. If he walked away from The Bridge now, his father would be right. Donna felt fresh tears fill her eyes. The enormity of that awful prediction must have weighed heavy on Charlie’s heart.

“Really, God? You’d let this happen to a man like Charlie?” She whispered the words, her voice broken.

She squinted again, the moments of her past still playing in her mind. No one had ever been able to reach her like Charlie Barton had. When the semester ended, Charlie took her to the beach and walked with her along the shore. “Look out there, Donna.” He stopped and stared out at the water, a smile filling his face. “What do you see?”

She laughed, nervous and excited and feeling more alive than ever. “Everything and nothing. I can’t see the end of it.”

“Exactly.” He turned and faced her, touching her cheek with his fingertips. “That’s what you deserve, Donna. Everything in all the world. Without end.”

“Is that right?” She had felt herself blush, felt the unfamiliarity of caring and wanting and longing for someone. “What if you’re the only one who thinks so?”

His smile made her feel dizzy. A sparkle shone in his eyes, and he shrugged. “Then I guess it’ll be up to me to make sure you get what you deserve.”

Somewhere between his sweet declaration and the walk back to the car, Donna remembered taking note of two things: the feel of the wind and sun on her shoulders and something else. Something was missing from her chest, and she realized by the time they were in his car that it was her heart.

Because from that day on, her heart belonged always and only to Charlie Barton.

Their wedding two years later was a simple affair in front of a justice of the peace, followed by their honeymoon, a weekend trip to a friend’s lakeside cabin.
After that, they shared a small apartment, and at night when they had no money, they would sit across from each other at their small kitchen table and dream. One conversation from those days stood out—Donna could see it, hear it as if watching a movie.

“My dad never let me read.” Charlie reached across the table and took her hands in his.

“What?” She gave him a doubtful look. “Be serious.”

He raised one eyebrow and tilted his head. His sad chuckle told her he wasn’t kidding. “I mean, in my early school years, he wanted me to read textbooks. Never for fun.” He ran his thumbs along the sides of her hands. “But I loved reading.”

Donna smiled. “Me, too.”

Charlie told her how, in middle school, he’d head to the school library instead of going outside at recess. “I fought alongside Jim Hawkins in
Treasure Island
, and I felt the splash of water on my face as I sailed on muddy rivers with Tom Sawyer.” He laughed. “I was probably the only guy in eighth grade who cried when Beth died in
Little Women
.”

Charlie’s fascination with fiction led him to check out books and sneak them home in his schoolbag.
He’d hide whatever he was reading beneath his bed, and long after his dad thought he was asleep, he’d slip under the covers and read by flashlight.

“So I was thinking,” he told her early in their marriage, “maybe I’ll open a bookstore. New and used books—so everyone has a chance to see the world through the pages of a story.”

Donna had been delighted at the idea, impressed with her larger-than-life husband and his grand dreams. His heart had always been bigger than the ocean she’d looked across on that long-ago day. Opening a bookstore had never been about making a fortune or finding the quickest way to success. He simply wanted other people to experience what he had experienced. The feel of ocean water on their feet as they salvaged a shipwreck next to Robinson Crusoe.