Chapter 16 #3
“Oh, Keely, your mom would be heartbroken to know that.” She sighed. “Poor Jimmy.”
Keely frowned at her.
“To miss out on knowing the woman you’ve become.”
The words could take out her heart. “Really?”
“Keely.” Vic gave her a soft look. “Of course.”
She nodded. “Funny, but . . . when I was at the cabin, I kept . . . I kept hearing his voice. The things he taught me. Like, ‘Stay alert, stay alive.’”
Vic nodded, chuckling. “Yeah. Max said that too.”
“And . . . I should have probably listened to this one—‘Trust your instincts. If something feels off, it probably is.’”
“Yeah. Also a Maxism. Jimmy did good.”
Keely nodded. “He did his best, I think.” It felt weirdly freeing to say that.
“People make terrible choices when they’re hurt. Or afraid.” Vic looked up, her eyes wide. “But my giving you to Anne and Jimmy wasn’t that. That was thought out, not rash.”
Keely held up her hand. “I get it. I struggled for nine months about what to do. I ended up giving Zoey away to a husband and wife who also couldn’t have biological children. It was . . .”
“Heart-wrenching.” Vic made a fist on the table, her mouth a grim line.
“Yeah.”
“And every day you think about her.”
Keely met her eyes. “Yeah.”
Vic smiled.
Yeah.
“So, why did you need an answer to your question?” Vic asked.
“Zoey’s parents were in a terrible car accident a few months ago, and . . . well, her mom died. And her dad is a quadriplegic.”
“Poor kid. She’s what—four?”
So Vic had been paying attention. “Yeah. And Bryce—the dad—wants me to take her back.”
Vic’s brow creased.
“They don’t have relatives who can take her. So while he’s in therapy—and it could be years—she’d be in foster care . . .”
“I see.”
“But there’s . . . Bliss.”
“Bliss.” Vic nodded. “Oh, Bliss.” She cocked her head. “Bliss can’t have a child?”
Keely lifted a shoulder. “I don’t think there’s room for both Bliss and Zoey in my life.”
“You’re creative, Keely. Figure it out.”
Oh.
“You came here to ask me a question, hoping the answer would give you peace about your own answer.”
A nod.
Vic cut her voice low. “The problem is that my answer is not your answer. Here’s what I know, daughter. God moves in mysterious ways. Unpredictable. Uncontrollable. But nothing happens in our lives that isn’t designed to give us the opportunity to know his love more.”
Huh. Sounded like something River had said.
“And we don’t know him more without risking our heart. And doing the hard thing. For me, it was letting someone else raise my daughter. For you . . .” She gave her a grim smile.
So that didn’t help at all.
The over-the-door bell rang, and she looked out onto the street to see Flynn carrying a boxed pizza, her copper hair bright in the sunshine.
The woman had been a little peeved at her. But maybe Keely was just as peeved with herself.
Could this be our forever, could we make this last?
Or is this just a beautiful moment that will soon be past?
She blinked away the deep sluice of regret.
“So, what are you going to do?” Vic said, cutting through her what-ifs.
Keely shrugged. “I don’t know. My voice is . . . it might never recover.”
“You don’t have to have a perfect voice to make a beautiful song, Keely.”
Keely stared at her, hearing her mother’s words. How . . .
Maybe it didn’t matter. The truth was . . . they were both right.
Her cell phone buzzed, a text coming in. She flipped over her phone and opened it. From Goldie.
Keely! I wondered if you’d gotten socked in with the storm and lost service. No can do on the driver, but I sent the jet to Anchorage. Get home.
Bryce Harper passed away.
Oh. Oh . . . Keely pressed her hand to her mouth.
“What’s the matter?”
She set the phone down. “Zoey’s dad died.”
Vic frowned, just a little, something of empathy in it. Then she reached out and caught Keely’s hand. “Then we’d better get you to the airport and on a flight home.”
She had the terrible feeling that home was what she might be leaving.
Dawson should have gotten on the chopper with the rest of the injured.
But, no, he had to look like an idiot, hobbling his way along the snowy road toward the sheriff’s office, his crutches landing on ice, the cold wind in his ears.
He’d call Flynn, but his phone had died, so that was perfect.
So much for finding Keely, making things right. By now, she was probably in Anchorage, getting ready to hop a flight and never look back. He didn’t blame her, really. But his chest ached, and not just from the strain of working his crutches.
A honk behind him made him jump, and he turned, ready to shout—I’m walking here!
Or hobbling. Whatever. Caspian perched in front of him, clearly with the same thought.
Except Dawson’s breath blew out as the vehicle pulled to the curb.
An old yellow 1988 Suburban with a roof rack and, from personal memory, a bench seat with a tweed cover.
The once-bright paint had died to a faded butter, and he guessed there must be nearly five hundred thousand miles on the odometer.
But his father was never good at letting go.
What was Clay Mulligan doing here?
The driver’s door opened, and although Dawson hadn’t seen him in a year, maybe more, the man seemed to have barely aged.
Still strong, robust, tan lines from hours outdoors, and thick brown hair with lines of gray that only deepened his blue eyes.
He wore a red-and-black checked heavy flannel shirt, a padded vest, a hat, and jeans over scuffed work boots.
“Dad?”
“Hey, son. I saw Moose at the house. He said you’d hurt your knee in some go-round with a local.”
Aw. Of course, news traveled like wildfire in Copper Mountain. Or Deke had called Moose, maybe. But the last thing Dawson needed was his dad thinking he had problems. He was just fine, thank you.
“Said you might need a ride from the hospital. We swung by, but they said you’d left. Figured I’d see you hoofing it on your own.” He smiled, winked.
But Dawson’s heart had stalled on We, then hiccupped as the passenger door opened. And yes, he knew she was in town, but . . .
It’d been three years since he’d last seen his mother, and then . . . then she’d been broken and angry, and he couldn’t bear to listen to her pain. Or watch the damage she was doing to herself to escape it.
Now, his mom looked . . . healthy. She’d lost weight, and her blue eyes seemed brighter. She wore her blond hair back in a braid and a thick, creamy white cable-knit sweater hung to her thighs over a pair of leggings and mukluks.
“Mom.”
Her smile touched her eyes as she came over to him.
Caspian offered a small warning, but Dawson touched his head. “It’s okay.”
Maybe very okay.
She glanced at the dog, then stepped up and wrapped her arms around him. “I missed you.”
He hesitated just a second, then put his arm around her, smelled cinnamon on her skin. Probably a remnant of hanging out with Moose’s mom. “Hi.” He let her go. “You okay?”
“I am.” She touched his cheek with her mitten. “It took a while, but I realized I was tired of living my life angry. I had a choice. Stay in the darkness or look for the light.” She looked at his father. “Time for all of us to start living again.”
Dawson couldn’t move, just stared at her.
His mother bent to pet Caspian, as if she hadn’t just dropped a bomb into the middle of his soul. “Who’s this?”
His comfort dog?
“Just a guy who needed a home.” His voice emerged roughened.
“Always the hero,” his dad said, still smiling.
And he didn’t know why he couldn’t just play along, but the words landed in a hard place, acrid and salty. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter, does it—you can do everything right and—”
“And the world still explodes around you,” his mother said softly. “Your sister’s death was nobody’s fault, Dawson. Not mine, not your dad’s, and not yours.”
And it all just . . . raked up and spilled out. “She was murdered, Mom. It was somebody’s fault.” He didn’t know why the fury suddenly boiled inside him, raw and fresh and—
“I get it.” His mom held up her mitten as if to stop his flow of words.
“For years, I lived in that fury. That injustice. And the truth is, terrible things happen. But we have a choice about how we want to let it all affect us. I chose . . . I chose to let it destroy me and our family.” She looked at his dad, who’d come over, put his hand on her shoulder.
“But the more I live in that pain, the less I live for today, and all I still have.” She leaned into his dad. “Like your father.”
He kissed her forehead.
Dawson just stared at them, rocked. What was going on here?
“And you, son.” She took his hand. “I hope I still have you.”
Oh no, he couldn’t breathe, and shoot, his throat turned scratchy. What the—
Caspian, of course, leaned against his leg.
Yep, good dog. Because he might just be having a panic attack.
“Maybe there’s stuff.”
He had to look away. What was his problem? He wasn’t seventeen again, losing everything. He’d grown up, learned to live with the ache.
Maybe his father read his mind because he put his hand on Dawson’s shoulder.
“We’ve been in counseling for a while now.
Apart. Together. And we’ve learned that even in darkness, God is trustworthy.
He does not abandon us to the screaming void of grief.
He holds us, if we’re”—he glanced at Dawson’s mom—“and sometimes even if we’re not—willing to hold him. Because he does love us.”
The words settled, soft, like the snow dusting off the banks, and it hit him then.
His stuff wasn’t anger. It wasn’t grief. It wasn’t even frustration.
It was rejection. The sense that no matter what he did, he couldn’t escape being always in the wrong place, the wrong time.
The wrong man.
Except, maybe he wasn’t.
“If you hadn’t been there.”
His father met his eyes, holding them. “I know it’s a little late now, but . . . we’re sorry. Because you are the good that God gave us in that dark time. We should have seen it then. But we do see it now.” He offered a smile, the kind he’d seen his grandfather wear. “We’re very proud of you, son.”
And weirdly, Griffin’s voice returned to him.
“In the ebb and flow of the world, of the terrible and the good, maybe darkness doesn’t win because God’s goodness is still in the world, through his people. Through his providence. Even when it feels like the darkness is winning.”
Then his dad pulled Dawson to himself.
“C’mon, son, it’s time to go home.”
And wouldn’t you know it, he turned into a child and let himself be held, and finally, at long last, wept.