Desperate to see Billy before enacting his plan, Adam made a decision. He would rob the first convenience store he saw in Vancouver, take enough money to buy gas, then carry out his steps the way he’d planned them. He took an exit in northern Vancouver and headed for the first mini-mart gas station he saw.
Sweat beaded up on his forehead as he headed for the front door. In his pocket was a loaded revolver. Okay, he thought to himself. This is it. Get a little cash quick and get out of here. The last thing he wanted was to use the gun or have someone hurt him before he had a chance to say good-bye to his son.
He walked through the front door and quickly toward the cashier. A glance over his shoulder told him the store was empty other than the man behind the counter, who was watching something on a small overhead television. Adam poked the tip of his gun through his jacket pocket and was about to order the man to hand over the cash in the register when he heard something behind him.
“Adam!” The voice was old and scratchy. “I can’t believe it’s you!”
Adam’s hands shook. Who would know him here, after so long away from the area? He spun around, the gun still poking through his pocket. “What do you w—”
And at that instant, Adam’s hand went limp. The man standing before him was Will Fredericks. He looked older, a little more stooped. But his eyes had the same bright glow as before. “Adam, it’s been too long.”
Adam took a step back, trembling from the emotions raging in his heart. Part of him wanted to yell at his old friend, tell him to leave so he could finish what he’d come to do. But if Will knew what Adam was up to, he didn’t let on. Instead he reached out and set his hand on Adam’s shoulder. “I hope this means you’re coming home.”
Then and there, with the cashier staring strangely at them, Adam began to cry. Will led him outside and they both climbed into Will’s pickup. The crying became weeping, the sort of grief-stricken sobbing Adam hadn’t done since losing Brenda. He covered his face with his hands and sniffed. “Everyone expected me to move on after losing her, and I couldn’t. I could barely remember how to walk, let alone live without her.”
Will listened for almost an hour, then he offered to pray. At that point, Adam held his hand up. “Me and God are done.”
“You are, huh?” Will managed a sad smile. “Well, we’ll see about that.”
They talked a while longer, and at the end Will gave Adam his trademark wink. “I think I’ll put some gas in your car so you can follow me home.”
“Follow you?”
“Yes. As soon as I saw you, I felt God tell me you needed a place. Maybe for a few nights.”
Adam could do nothing but nod his head.
That night was the beginning of a string of events Adam couldn’t come close to explaining. How could he have been back in the Portland-Vancouver area for less than an hour and run smack into Will Fredericks? How could Will have known about the empty gas tank? And how could this all have happened on the very night Adam had planned on killing himself?
The memories faded and Adam glanced at Will sitting beside him in the church pew.
Never once had Will done anything but love him. He’d helped Adam to see his son and watched as Adam held him for the first time since he was a newborn. And that, finally, was what had led Adam to this place—sitting beside his old friend in the pew of a church he’d vowed to never set foot in again.
He heard something behind him and turned around. There was Brenda’s mother, walking a toddling little Billy down the aisle. Adam watched them, his eyes teary. They’d talked and Brenda’s mother had agreed that gradually—as Adam found a job and stability—Billy would go back to him. For now, Brenda’s mother also had tears in her eyes.
Tears of joy.
She slid in beside Adam, hugged him, and placed Billy on his lap. “I still can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered to him.
Adam nodded and he wondered where he’d be right now if God hadn’t sent Will into the store that fateful night. Dead, most likely. Or in jail with a pending trial. He would’ve lost Billy forever. Billy, who had Brenda’s eyes and smile.
Adam shuddered and glanced at Will. “It’s a miracle I’m here. Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
Will’s eyes lit up. He leaned close and whispered something that made Adam feel loved and trusted and valuable all at once, something he remembers to this day: “You’re my friend, Adam. I asked God to help me out with you, and that’s what he did. It’s his miracle, not mine.”
S
teven Sanders and Jimmy Rowden grew up next door to each other in a suburb of Chicago. They were buddies before they were old enough to walk and fast friends by the time kindergarten arrived. Mornings were spent at school and afternoons at one of their houses, building snowball forts or, when spring came, pretending they were the Cubs, and their adjoining backyards, Wrigley Field.
They had something else in common. They were both being raised in broken homes, in which their mothers were busy working two jobs and a babysitter was the closest thing to adult attention they had in the afternoons and evenings.
“Those two need each other,” Steven heard another neighbor comment once. “I can’t imagine how they’d get along if they were separated.”
The boys’ friendship wasn’t just a matter of convenience and location. They both dreamed high, and by the time they reached third grade, Steven was sure he wanted to fly when he was older.
“I’ll be the best pilot in the world,” he told Jimmy on one of their summer bike rides around the neighborhood. “Up there in the air, it’ll be the best feeling in the world.”
Jimmy also had a dream. He was the fastest boy in his class, a few inches taller than Steven. He wanted to be a runner in the Olympics one day, maybe even the fastest man in the world.
“Everyone’ll know my name,” he’d say as he’d thump his chest, then giggle the way little boys do when their dreams are big. “I’ll win a heap o’ gold medals and then I’ll retire and go fishing.”
The trouble with Steven’s and Jimmy’s dreams was that no one in their lives thought they were attainable. Especially not their mothers.
“Don’t go expecting to be a pilot,” Steven’s mother would tell him. “Flying planes is a rich person’s hobby. And we’ll never be rich people.” She’d give him a distracted smile. “Think about working down at the factory like your grandpa. That’s a real job, Steven.”
Jimmy’s mother was equally discouraging. “Running isn’t something serious,” she said as often as the subject came up. “You can’t be a kid forever, Jimmy.”
The boys talked about their mothers’ feelings and agreed that their lack of enthusiasm only made them want their dreams more. Sometimes they’d run through the fields adjacent to their neighborhood—Steven with his hands outstretched like wings, and Jimmy covering the ground as fast as the wind. While they ran they’d shout back and forth, loud enough for people in the neighboring houses to hear.
“I want to fly!” Steven would dip one arm and raise the other in a tight turn.
Then it would be Jimmy’s turn. “I want to run!”
“I want to fly!”
“I want to run!”
Never mind about their mothers. Steven and Jimmy believed nothing in all of existence could stop them from reaching their goals.
But all that changed the summer before fifth grade.
One hot Wednesday in August, Jimmy’s dad picked him up for a day at a local lake with his cousins. Jimmy rarely spent time with his dad, so he’d been looking forward to the day for weeks. The lake had a pier in the middle of a roped-off swimming area, a wooden platform covered with kids jumping off.
“No diving, okay?” His father popped open a drink and dug his beach chair into the sand. “And look out for your cousins.”
Jimmy and his three cousins, each about the same age as him, headed for the water. In no time they swam out to the pier where a jumping contest turned into a game of tag. Jimmy, always quicker than the others, played game after game without being caught. The four boys were taking a minute to catch their breath when Jimmy’s cousins grinned and whispered something to each other.
“Your turn to get it, Jimmy,” one of them shouted, and then amidst peals of laughter and bursts of motion, they ran toward him.
“Oh, no, you’re not.” Jimmy raised his fist in the air. “No one catches me!” They were going for his shoulder, and Jimmy knew it. Forgetting his father’s warning, he pushed off the edge of the pier and dove into the shallow water.
For a single moment, Jimmy rejoiced at escaping their touch, at still being the only boy who hadn’t been tagged. But the very next second, his head hit the lake bottom and he felt a crushing, burning feeling in his spine. He started to scream for help, but he couldn’t find the breath, couldn’t kick, couldn’t make himself rise to the surface for air. Couldn’t do anything but hope his cousins could see the obvious.
If someone didn’t help him, he was going to drown.
Steven didn’t know something was wrong until two days later. Jimmy should’ve been home from his trip with his father, but Steven hadn’t seen a sign of him or his mother. Finally he went to Jimmy’s door, knocked, and waited. An old woman answered the door, someone Steven had never seen before.
“Can I help you?” Her eyes were red and swollen.
“Uh, yes, ma’am. Is Jimmy home?”
The woman covered her mouth with one hand and shook her head. Then she swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “He’s been hurt.” She blinked, and her eyes looked sadder than anything Steven had seen. “I’m his grandma.”
“Hurt?” A heaviness settled over Steven’s chest. “How’d he get hurt?”
And then the old woman told him.
Jimmy had broken his neck diving into the lake bottom. The fastest runner at Wright Elementary School would never run again. Jimmy was paralyzed from the waist down, and though Steven didn’t understand the medical term, he understood when Jimmy came home from the hospital.
Steven stood outside on the corner of his yard and watched in horror as Jimmy’s mother and grandmother pulled a wheelchair from the back of their car, spread out the wheels and the seat, and lifted Jimmy into it. From the distant place where he watched, he wasn’t sure what to do, how to help. But he was sure of one thing—a wheelchair wasn’t going to get in the way of his friendship with Jimmy Rowden.
For three straight days after Jimmy’s mother went to work, his grandma wheeled him out onto his front porch. On the fourth day, Steven was waiting. The boys waited until the old woman was back in the house. Then Steven leaned against the porch rail and looked at his feet, not sure what to say.
Finally Jimmy broke the silence. “I still want to run.”
Steven looked at his friend. He could feel tears in his eyes, but he didn’t want to cry. So he walked up to Jimmy’s wheelchair, put his arm around his friend’s shoulders, and said, “I still want to fly.”
Over the next few weeks, Steven became more comfortable with Jimmy’s paralysis. The two found their way around Jimmy’s handicap, tossing a football back and forth, fishing at the lake, and still spending more of their free time together than apart.
One day they were in Jimmy’s front yard feeling bored when Steven had an idea. “Let’s go to the field and play!”
Jimmy’s smile faded. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” Steven wanted Jimmy to do everything he used to do.
“Because.” Frustration sounded in Jimmy’s voice. He breathed a heavy sigh. “You know how bad my chair does in the dirt.”
“Oh.” Steven thought about that for a moment. “Wait! We can go to the abandoned road, the one on the other side of the field. Your chair can go there.”
Doubt clouded Jimmy’s eyes. “How’ll I get there?”
“That’s easy.” Steven flexed his arms and grinned at his friend. “I’ll push you.”
Steven wheeled Jimmy and his chair down the street, along a sidewalk near the empty field, and into a stretch of dead-end roadway. For a moment they stood there, silent. This was the place where their dreams had always felt most possible. But here, now, with Jimmy in a wheelchair, they seemed all but dead.
Jimmy looked at Steven. “Think I’ll ever walk again?”
“Sure.” Steven’s answer was quick. “I’ll help you. That ol’ chair is just for now, until your legs get better.”
Jimmy nodded and stared at the sea of wild grass on the adjacent field. The sun was hidden behind the clouds, and a chill wind blew down the empty street. Jimmy turned to Steven. “Think I’ll ever run again?”
The question seemed almost laughable. Jimmy Rowden? Of course he’d run again, right? But the truth was something altogether different, and even as a young boy, Steven knew better than to say yes. But just then, with the certainties of tomorrow looming more empty than the open field, Steven had a thought.
“Hey.” He turned and stared at Jimmy. “Maybe we can have our dream today, right here!”
Jimmy twisted his brow. He put his hands on the wheels of his chair and moved it back a bit. “What dream?”
“You know . . .” Steven pointed to the sky. “Me flying and you running.”
Before Jimmy could say anything, Steven ran behind his wheelchair and began pushing it. Faster and faster he went, straight down the long, dead-end road. When he’d picked up enough speed, he jumped up and placed his feet on a bar that ran along the back of the chair. Then, leaning his body forward against Jimmy’s back, Steven held out both arms and laughed out loud. “Look, Jimmy!”
His friend turned his head enough to see. “Steven, you’re crazy.” Jimmy didn’t sound confused anymore. A familiar easy smile filled his face. “What’re you doing?”
“Can’t you see?” Steven let out a loud hoot and let his head fall back, arms still outstretched. “I’m flying, Jimmy. I’m really flying!”
When the wheelchair came to a stop, Steven hopped down, breathless. “Okay,” he walked around to the front of Jimmy’s chair. “Now it’s your turn.”
“Wha—”
Jimmy couldn’t even get his question out before Steven stooped down, pulled Jimmy’s limp legs around his own waist, and shouted, “Hold on!”
“Really?” Jimmy looped his arms around Steven’s neck.
“Really.” Steven bounced a few times to shift Jimmy up. With his friend balanced in piggy-back style, Steven took off running back down the street. Faster and faster he ran, and from behind him he could hear Jimmy’s laughter mixing with the wind.
“I’m running! You’re right, Steven! I’m running again!”
Indeed, in that moment their dreams felt as real as life itself.
But the years passed and still Jimmy did not learn to walk again. The friends began praying to God, asking him that one day Steven might learn to fly and Jimmy might find his way to the Olympics.
Everything about their friendship came to a halt in seventh grade, the year Jimmy and his mother moved to California.
“I’ll write,” Jimmy promised the day before he left. “We’ll always be friends. And whatever we do, let’s promise to pray about our dreams.”
And at first the two boys did write. But over time the letters slowed and eventually stopped. What didn’t stop was their determination to pray about their dreams. Despite physical and financial limitations, Jimmy wanted to be in the Olympics and Steven wanted to fly. And though they were no longer in contact they continued to pray and pursue their goals.
Seventeen years passed, and Steven worked his way through the Air Force Academy and into a job as a commercial pilot. Often when he took to the skies he would thank God for letting his dream come true—flying was everything he’d hoped it would be. But he also wondered about Jimmy, whether doctors were ever able to help him walk again, and even more—whether he had learned to run.
One winter morning Steven had more time than usual after his flight preparations. He nodded to his copilot and motioned toward the cabin. “I’ll be back. I wanna check out the cabin.”
He made his way down the center aisle, smiling and making eye contact with passengers. When he had time, Steven loved to see the people he’d be flying; their faces made him realize the awesome responsibility of taking so many people into the air. He was almost to the back of the plane when he spotted a man who looked familiar.
Steven needed only a few seconds before his breath caught in his throat. He walked up to the man and cocked his head. “Jimmy Rowden?”
The passenger’s eyes fell to the gold name plate and the word
Sanders
on Steven’s uniform. His eyes grew wide. “Steven?”
“I can’t believe it’s you! I figured I’d never see you again.”
Jimmy shook his head, his eyes damp. “This is too strange.”
Right there, with passengers filling the seats, the two men clasped hands.
“You got your dream, man! Look at you, flying this big ol’ plane.”
They talked about their families—both were married with two children—then the conversation stalled. All Steven could think about was whether Jimmy had gotten the use of his legs back. He opened his mouth to ask his long-ago friend whether he’d gotten his dream, whether he was running or not. But at that moment he spotted a pair of short crutches lying against the empty seat beside Jimmy and a sudden fear seized his heart. If Jimmy still had crutches . . .
His old friend made a small coughing sound and then grabbed the crutches and swung himself up to his feet. He gave Steven a hard hug and a friendly pounding on his back. “Did you pray for me?”
“Yes.” Steven struggled to find his voice. Why hadn’t God healed his friend, given him back the use of his legs? “Yes, I prayed for you all the time. I still do.”
“Me, too.” Jimmy shrugged, a smile stretching across his face. “So I guess God heard both our prayers.”
Steven didn’t know what to say. “What . . .” He couldn’t ask, couldn’t look Jimmy in the eyes after so much time and question whether he’d really gotten his dream or not.
Almost as if he was guessing Steven’s thoughts, Jimmy laughed. “Guess where I’m flying to?”
“Where?” Steven kept his voice lower than before. The passengers were almost completely seated and he’d have to take the cockpit in a few minutes.
Jimmy held his arms out, his eyes dancing. “The qualifying meet for the Olympics, man! I’ve been working on it for a few years now, and I’m a long shot for the 100-yard!”
“The Olympics?” Steven didn’t want to stare, but he caught himself glancing at Jimmy’s crutches.
“The Wheelchair Olympics!” Jimmy leaned against the side of his seat cushion and shook his head. “I still wanna run, and this feels almost the way it did back when I still could. Right before you came down the aisle, I was thinking about that, remembering how we’d take that field shouting, ‘I want to run!’”
“I want to fly.”