An ocean of sorrow choked Abby as terrible thoughts assaulted her. Would John ever get to run and play with this first grandchild? Would he be able to walk the child around the block or bounce Nicole’s baby on his knee?
Please, God . . . let the doctors be wrong about his legs. Please . . .
In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome
the world.
The verse was one she and John had looked at a month ago, when the troubles at Marion High had intensified. There had been many times in life when the words from the book of John had not comforted her, but caused her fear. “In this world you will have trouble”? What peace could be gained from that?
But over the years she’d come to understand it better.
Troubles were a part of life . . . even events like losing their precious second daughter to sudden infant death syndrome or having her mother killed by the Barneveld tornado. Some troubles were brought on by a person’s own actions—like the years she and John lost because of their own selfishness. Other troubles were part of a spiritual attack—like what had happened this year at the high school.
But sometimes you simply stayed late at school correcting papers, pulled out of the parking lot for home, and found your life changed in an instant.
Troubles would come. After more than two decades together, this much Abby and John knew. The point of the verse wasn’t to dwell on the certainty of hard times, but rather to be assured of God’s victory through it all. If the Lord walked through the door of John’s hospital room right now, He would cry with them and feel for them.
But before He left, He would give them a certain, knowing smile, and these parting words: “Cheer up! I have overcome all of it!”
It was true.
The new life growing within her daughter was proof.
T
HE JAIL CELL WAS FREEZING COLD
.
Jake huddled in the corner on a cot. He had one roommate, a strung-out kid who he gathered had been picked up for attempted robbery. Jake peered at the guy when he was first brought into the cell, but neither of them had said a word since.
The past twenty-four hours had been like something from a scary movie.
Paramedics had given him and Casey a quick check, and then police had brought the two of them to the station. From there they were sent in different directions. Casey was already eighteen, an adult. Jake, at seventeen, was still a minor. That meant he had to spend the first night in a cell full of teenagers, all with attitudes.
The booking officer told Jake his mother was in the lobby, but he was being charged with a felony. He couldn’t have visitors until he was properly booked and placed in his own cell, all of which happened Saturday afternoon.
He still hadn’t been able to see his mother.
Everything she had warned him about had happened. He could hear her voice each of the dozens of times he’d gone out with friends since getting the car.
“Stay home, Jake. You’ll be too tempted. A car like that could kill someone . . .”
It had been the primary source of his parents’ recent arguments. Mom thought the car was only his father’s way of making up for lost time, an apology for taking off to another state and living the life of an unfettered single man.
On more than one occasion, his mother had yelled at his father over the phone, trying to convince him that Jake was too young to handle a car like the red Integra. “You’re a poor excuse for a father. If you loved him, you’d be here in Illinois. Not gallivanting around with some . . . some floozy on the East Coast.”
The last thing Jake had wanted to do was prove his mother right, deepen the rift between his parents. Yeah, well . . . no question he’d done just that.
He rolled onto his side and pulled his legs up. He was lonely and scared and sick to his stomach. What if Coach had died? And if he was still alive, where was he and how was he doing? What were his injuries? Though Jake dreaded facing his mother, at least she would know what was happening with Coach.
For that reason, when the booking officer rattled the bars on his cell, Jake jerked himself upright.
“Jake Daniels.” The man used a key to unlock the cell door. Across from Jake, the ratty teenager fixed his gaze on the barren wall once more. The man with the key barked at him. “You have a visitor.”
Jake felt like a mess. He’d been stripped of his street clothes and wore a plain blue cotton jumpsuit—the kind you saw on criminals when they testified in court and their pictures ran in the newspaper.
“This way.” The man’s voice was terse. He led Jake down a hallway of small cells into a half room. There were a dozen chairs facing a solid glass wall, each with dividers that formed a series of small cubicles. At each chair was a telephone. The officer pointed to the last one at the far end of the line. “Down there.”
Jake’s steps sounded hollow as he made his way to the last chair and sat down. Only then did he see her. His mother sat on the other side of the glass, a telephone in her hand. Her face was swollen, her eyes bloodshot.
Look what I’ve done to her
. Jake gripped his sides, his heart beating out a strange, fearful rhythm he didn’t recognize.
I’ve ruined her life. I’ve ruined everyone’s life.
His mother motioned to the telephone, and Jake picked up the receiver. Sweat beaded up on his forehead and his palms were wet. His jailhouse breakfast lodged somewhere at the base of his throat. “Hello?”
She started to speak, then she dropped her head in her free hand and cried instead.
“Mom . . . I’m sorry.” Jake wanted to put his arms around her and hug her, but the glass was in his way. Could he burst through it? If so, maybe the glass would slit his wrists and he would die the way he deserved to. He stilled his thoughts and cleared his throat. “I . . . I’m so sorry.”
Finally she looked up and ran her fingertips beneath her eyes. There were black smudges there, remnants of yesterday’s mascara. “What happened, Jake? The police say you were racing.”
The running feeling was back. Maybe he could slip out a door somewhere and leave everything about Jake Daniels behind . . .
But the doors on every side were locked, and the mountain of misery standing before him was not going away. Jake massaged his temples. “That’s right. We were racing.”
His mother’s expression changed, and Jake felt his breath catch in his throat. In all his life, he would never forget the shock and sadness, the disappointment that marked his mother’s face in that instant. She opened her mouth, but for a long time nothing came out. Then she said just one agonized word.
“Why?”
Jake hung his head. There was no good answer, none at all. He looked up and saw his mother was waiting. “I . . . uh . . . Casey challenged me.” He was suddenly desperate to explain himself. “No one shoulda been on the road at that hour, Mom. When Coach pulled out, there wasn’t time to . . .” His voice trailed off.
Through the smudged glass, his mother’s eyelids closed in what looked like slow motion. “Oh, Jake . . . it’s more than I can stand.”
“Is . . . is Dad coming?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “He’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”
The question was gnawing a hole through his gut. All day he’d wanted to ask about Coach, but now that his mother was here, Jake was terrified to do so. Finally he had no choice but to put his thoughts into words. “How’s Coach?”
“He . . .” His mother sniffed, her eyes full of new tears. “He made it through the night.”
A wild relief exploded in Jake’s soul, a relief like nothing he’d ever known. It made him glad he was sitting down, because otherwise his knees would have certainly buckled. Coach was alive! They could lock Jake up forever and he wouldn’t mind now. Not as long as Coach Reynolds was okay. He met his mother’s eyes again, then frowned.
She looked upset, like there was something she hadn’t yet told him.
“Jake, I talked to Mrs. Parker. She knows a family from the Reynoldses’ church.” His mother hung her head for a moment before looking up. “Coach is in bad shape, son. If he survives . . . he will almost certainly be paralyzed from the waist down.”
Paralyzed? Coach? Paralyzed . . . from the waist down? No way . . . not Coach! Jake felt like he’d wallowed into quicksand. Coach couldn’t be paralyzed. He was strong as an ox. The guys teased him that he was in better shape than anyone on the team. “Maybe Mrs. Parker’s wrong. What’s the news saying?”
“It hasn’t hit yet. The accident happened too late to make yesterday’s paper.”
Jake was shaking again. He ran his hand over the top of his head and down the back of his neck. “Mom, you can’t leave me in here like this. I gotta know what’s happening to him. It’s all my fault!”
She squeezed her eyes shut and sat perfectly still. He’d only seen her do that one other time—when his dad left home a few years earlier. Jake wasn’t sure, but he thought it probably meant she was having a breakdown. Once more he wanted to punch a hole in the glass, climb through, and give her a hug, but he couldn’t even do that. So many lives had fallen apart in one single moment, and it was all because of him.
“Mom, stop. I need you. The guy’s watching me and any minute he’ll take me back to the cell.” Jake’s urgent tone caused his mother to open her eyes once more. “I have to know what’s going on with Coach.”
“The officer told me you’ll stay here until Monday, maybe Tuesday. Whenever they can get you before a judge. They’re charging you with—” her voice broke, and fresh tears spilled onto her cheeks, “with felony assault and gross vehicular negligence. Also something about street racing and using a car as a deadly weapon. They want to try you as an adult, Jake. That could mean . . .” Her voice faded.
“Staying here a while.” Jake gripped the phone. “That’s okay, Mom. I deserve it.”
“More than a while, Jake. The officer said you’ll be lucky if you get out in five years.”
His mother didn’t understand. She could have told him he was in for thirty years and it wouldn’t have mattered. What was he going to do? His football days were over, so were his days behind the wheel. He could hardly go back to Marion High where everyone would know he was the one who’d ruined Coach Reynolds’s life. Yet he was only a junior, without a degree or training or any idea of how to support himself. He could hardly move to another town and start over.
No, he was trapped, and for now that suited him fine. This was where he belonged. And even here he could still walk down the hallway or pace across his cell.
If what his mother said was true, that was more than Coach Reynolds could do.
Hanging up the phone and walking away from Jake that afternoon was the hardest thing Tara Daniels had ever endured. But seeing Tim in the lobby of the city jailhouse the next afternoon was pretty close.
He walked in, his tie askew, eyes wide and bewildered, and immediately found her. After hearing the news, he’d taken the first flight he could find. This was the soonest he could get here.
Tara could think of a hundred things she’d wanted to tell him. When the phone call came from the police department telling her they’d arrested Jake for felony vehicular assault and that he’d been racing at the time of the accident, she wished they’d arrest Tim, too. Hadn’t she told him? Hadn’t she warned them both that a car that fast was dangerous for a teenage boy? Just like she’d told Tim their marriage was worth fighting for, that by leaving for New Jersey he’d only lose everything that mattered most: the love they once shared, the son they’d raised, and the closeness in faith that had once been so important to them.
She’d been right then, and she was right now.
But when Tim approached her, his face a mask of agony and regret, it didn’t matter that she was right or that Tim was wrong. All that mattered was their son had nearly killed someone, possibly paralyzed him. And life would never be the same again.
It was hardly the time to point fingers. In all the world at that moment, only one other person could understand the pain of what Tara Daniels was going through. And that person was the man standing before her. A man she still loved, even if it had been years since she’d liked him.
“Tim . . .” She held out her arms, and he came to her, slowly, like a man stretching out his dying moments. His arms came around her waist, and hers moved around his neck. There—amid meandering petty criminals and empty-eyed drifters, with an assorted number of officers and jail clerks going about their business—Tara and Tim did something they hadn’t done in years.
They held tight to each other and cried.
T
HE SWELLING ALONG
J
OHN’S SPINE STARTED TO RECEDE
two days later.
His doctor explained that until the swelling went down, it was impossible to know if John’s paralysis was permanent. So far, John was unaware of the possibility. Though he’d had visitors streaming in and out of his room around the clock since Saturday, he was mostly sedated. Too much awake time meant too much movement, and that could interfere with the respirator and trachea tube.
It was early Monday afternoon, and Nicole and Abby were alone in a quiet alcove at the back of the waiting room. John was napping, so they’d planned to catch some sleep themselves. Instead they sat together, exhausted but wide awake, staring out the hospital window at the changing leaves in the trees that lined the parking lot.
They hadn’t been there ten minutes when Dr. Robert Furin appeared. Abby and Nicole sat up straighter. Abby’s heart soared within her. The doctor’s smile could only mean one thing. John had moved his feet!
She felt the corners of her mouth lift some, despite the exhaustion that hung on her like double gravity. “He’s got movement in his legs?”
“Uh . . .” The doctor’s expression shifted. “No, Mrs. Reynolds. We’re still waiting to determine that. Could be sometime in the next hour.” He tapped the side of his pen against his pant leg. “I do have good news, though.”
Beside her, Abby felt Nicole’s body react to the letdown. She must have been thinking the same thing about John’s legs. “Okay. We could use some.”