It Had to Be You (Christiansen Family) (27 page)

“You’re kidding. No second tries?”

“Nope. His entire team had to come in off the track. He crumpled right there in the grass. I’ll never forget it, the sight of my boy weeping in the middle of the field. And I wasn’t the only parent crying. It was terrible. His teammates came around him, and they were so kind. But Hudson never forgave himself. And it made it worse when one of the seniors on his team joined the military. He hadn’t landed a college scholarship like he hoped, so he joined up, went to Afghanistan, and was killed in a roadside bombing.”

“Oh no.”

“Hudson unraveled. He blamed himself. I tried to tell him that his friend made his own decision, but Hudson couldn’t hear it. He dropped out of high school, and suddenly my boy with so much potential vanished. Instead he became this man who hated life. Violent, angry. He started drinking and fighting, and too many times I picked him up from a bar or at the police station. I thought he was going to kill someone . . . or himself.”

She merged onto 694 as they approached the city.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t know what to do. At first I kept hovering. Making his breakfast, doing his laundry . . . being his mother. My father had died or maybe he would have figured it out, but . . . well, it took Hudson coming home wasted one night and throwing a lamp across the room for me to realize the truth.”

“What?”

“I had to let him go. It didn’t mean I stopped praying, but I did have to be willing to let him fail.”

She ran her fingers under one eye. “I told him that I would
always love him. That he’d always have a home with me, but that he had to start respecting himself
 
—and me
 
—if he wanted to live there. Three days later, he left. It was the hardest thing I ever did
 
—watching him tear out of the driveway, knowing I might never see him again. With everything inside me, I wanted to run after him. But I had to let him walk alone so he’d stop leaning on me and start leaning on God.”

Eden wrapped her arms around her waist, wishing Olivia would turn up the heat.

“And it wasn’t just for him, either. I’d let him give my life meaning. But that wasn’t his place. I, too, needed to learn to put my hope in God and let Him fill those empty places. And as I did, I discovered that I stopped being afraid, started seeing how much God loved me
 
—and my son.”

Olivia turned off 694 onto 94. “I prayed he’d be a missionary, but I forgot that in order to do that, he had to have his own encounter with God. And I had to remember that God loved my son as much
 
—more
 
—than I did. The best thing I could ever do was let him fail, stop being his savior, and let Jesus do that work.”

She went under the Minneapolis tunnel, then merged toward the hospital. “And then the most amazing thing happened. He found Jesus. And everything changed. He came back to me. Just showed up at the farm one day, whole, healthy . . . redeemed. He’d started working with some inner-city kids and a homeless shelter, and for the first time I saw what Myron and I had prayed for. A man with a heart after God.”

She focused on the road for a moment, then said, “Can I ask you something?”

Eden nodded.

“What made you want to look for my boy’s family? What made you want to find me?”

The memory of Hudson lying on the bed, peaceful yet alone, flooded back at her. Pity? Compassion? No . . . hope.

“I think God nudged me off the sidelines and into his life.”

Olivia nodded as she pulled into the parking garage. She found a space and turned off the car. Sat in the darkness for a moment. “I’d really like it if you came with me, Eden.”

Eden reached out and found her hand. “It would be my privilege.”

Jace couldn’t erase the look on Eden’s face from his memory, no matter how long he talked to Haylee. They’d headed back to Sammy’s, in case he might find his friend there, but Nell hadn’t seen him in days. Just to make sure, Jace had gone up to his apartment.

It remained how Sam had left it two days ago.

When Sam had talked crazy, nearly done something to derail his life. Not unlike Jace, who’d let his anger drill a hole clear through his brain. His heart.

He still couldn’t bear to talk to her, but she hadn’t called him either. And why would she? Especially after he let Haylee take a picture with him and post it online with a “J-Hammer Tells All” promo for her ESPN blog post.

He should have talked to Eden before jumping to conclusions. Just like he had with his dad. He was impulsive, and . . . why did he immediately assume that Eden would betray him?

Jace took out his phone, scrolling down to her number. Hovered his thumb over it. And what, exactly, would he say? The
shame made him put the phone away. Even if she had written the story, she didn’t deserve his behavior. He
felt
like a bully.

Instead, he’d track down Sam. And maybe, on his way, check on John Doe. He wasn’t sure if it had all been a game to Eden, but if she didn’t show up at his bedside, Doe would be alone.

The image of her at Jace’s own bedside in the ER, angry and fierce, rushed back at him. What had she said? She wasn’t a fan; she was
family
.

He leaned against the cool steel wall of the hospital elevator and closed his eyes, feeling that word seep into his chest.
Family.

Eden was family
 
—his family. Or he’d wanted her to be. The woman he woke up to every morning. He could almost see her hauling hockey gear from her van, him holding the sticks as they ran after their towheaded sons. And a daughter. He’d like one, like Eden, feisty and smart. So smart.

The image seemed so real that he didn’t realize the elevator doors had opened until an orderly on the other side alerted him.

Jace stepped out of the elevator, shaken from the vision.

Hungry for it.

Betrayed by it.

He heard voices from the end of the hall, turned the corner, and slowed, puzzled by the crowd gathered outside Doe’s room. Young people sat on the floor or leaned against the walls. Some of them praying, others chatting. A few texting.

“What’s going on?”

A kid with long, stringy hair under a wool cap peered at him. “Are you here for the prayer meeting?”

Huh? Jace frowned at him, then turned to enter the room. The door was open, people standing in the entrance, some sitting on
the empty second bed. He excused himself as he moved through the crowd.

And then he spied Matt Conners. Parked on the other side of John Doe, his Bible open, reading the Psalms. He looked up as he saw Jace.

“What’s this?” Jace noticed a woman in scrubs
 
—probably a nurse
 
—holding Doe’s hand.

“Hey, Jace,” Matt said. “Nice to see you again. We’re here to pray for healing. Wanna join us?”

He had no words.

“Jace Jacobsen? Are you the one who helped find Hudson?” This from the woman standing beside the bed. She was petite, with dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail, her eyes tired. But she smiled at him, warmth in her expression.

“Yes
 
—who are you?”

“I’m Olivia Peterson. Hudson’s mom.” She held out her hand, taking his in a firm grip. “I had no idea he was hurt or I would have been here. Every day.” She turned to the boy in the bed, and it tugged on Jace, an old, familiar memory.

Hudson hadn’t moved, his eyes closed, his vitals still monitored on a screen behind the bed.

“How did you find out?”

“Eden Christiansen found me. She drove out to St. Cloud tonight, just as I was leaving for my shift at the nursing home. She told me what you did.”

Eden. A bloom of renegade warmth filled him at the thought of her finishing their search. But he couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

Unless . . . “Did you know she works for the paper?”

“Oh yes. But she mentioned that she was there as a private citizen.”

He drew in a breath. “Is she still here?” He looked around in case he’d missed her. But he couldn’t imagine walking into a room and not spotting her.

“No. She said something about a story she had to write.”

A story. Yes, see?

“Apparently she pieced together what happened,” Matt said.

Jace noticed how Olivia turned back to her son, ran her hand down Hudson’s face.

Matt looked at Hudson too. “I remember when he first came to us. He showed up for the basketball program. Hung around for the Bible study and the food. I think he was taking classes at a local Bible college, but he hung out at the community center a lot.”

Olivia just kept holding his hand, such a look of love on her face that it could undo Jace.

“One night, I found him in the gym. Just . . . running. He’d get to the line, crouch as if he might be on a starting block, and then leap forward.” Matt held the Bible to his chest. “I never figured that out.”

“He was practicing his starts,” Olivia said quietly. “He spent way too much time hating his mistakes, even hating himself. I suppose sometimes they came back to haunt him.”

She said nothing more, and finally Matt continued. “He eventually collapsed on the floor, hot and sweaty, and I couldn’t help it
 
—I had to ask. He said that every race is a new one, and he was making sure he started right.”

“Matt mentioned he was interested in track,” Jace said.

“He was one of the best hundred-meter sprinters,” Olivia said. “But he never had a chance to be a champion. Not until he lost everything he dreamed about.” She kissed his forehead the way she might have when he was a young boy. “And then he became the
champion God wanted him to be. He finally stopped caring about winning
 
—or losing
 
—and learned to surrender.”

The words wheedled inside Jace.

“Hudson decided that he could start every day and be the man he wanted to be. One day at a time.” She pressed his hand to her chest. “He finally, finally understood grace.”

Jace glanced around him, noticed the room had gone silent. A couple of the girls were crying, a few of the guys examining their shoes. “Do you all know him?”

Nods.

“He tutored me in algebra,” one girl said.

“He shot hoops with me after school,” a young man said.

Olivia was smiling at them, her eyes shining.

“I’m so sorry this happened, Olivia,” Jace said.

She reached out and took his hand. The gesture startled Jace, and for a second, he didn’t know what to do.

“You know, Hudson was one of your biggest fans. He’d be honored to know that you had watched over him.”

Jace’s throat thickened. He swallowed past the burr in it, looked away.

“It’s a mother’s greatest privilege to give birth, to raise a child. But a woman’s greatest honor is to look at her son with pride and know that she’s helped him become a man.”

She sank down on the chair next to the bed. “They say he has no brain function. I can’t believe this is it. He had so much life left in him.”

Her words reached inside Jace, took hold, and the question spilled from his mouth before he realized it. “Olivia, I apologize for even asking this, but . . . is Hudson an organ donor?”

She stared at him a long moment, pain, even shock on her face. “I . . . I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Jace felt Matt’s eyes on him. Oh, he shouldn’t have asked that
 
—

But then she looked at him, something of desperation in her eyes, and he took a chance. He reached for the other chair and sat down. “Can I tell you about my friend Maddy Newton?”

E
DEN COULD HEAR MUSIC
pulsing out from under Owen’s apartment door
 
—loud metal, his workout playlist.

She stood in the hallway for a moment, holding a pizza, her courage dissolving. What if he slammed the door in her face, told her she had invaded his life enough?

Because she had
 
—she knew it. She wasn’t sure when she had gone from cheering to being so invested in his wins, his decisions, that they wove into the fabric of her own.

But she had to let him go.

She took a breath and knocked, then hit the button when he didn’t respond.

Owen opened the door, shirtless, wearing a pair of baggy
workout shorts, a towel over his head, his skin glistening. She offered a smile and held up the pizza. “Can we talk?”

His eyes narrowed, but after a beat, he held open the door.

She’d helped him find the two-story loft, helped him pick out the gray paint, buy the glass-topped buffet, the black leather furniture. She would have preferred more color and perhaps a Monet rather than the mural of the Blue Ox logo painted on the wall. But it wasn’t her apartment.

He walked to his stereo system, turned the ruckus down. A P90X DVD was frozen on the screen. He turned it off, then went to the fridge and pulled out a Powerade, opened it, and downed half of it in one gulp. He wiped his chin with his arm. “I suppose you’re here to pick sides.”

“Nope. I brought you a pizza,” she said. Then took a breath. “An apology pizza.”

He shook his head. “It’s about time.”

Eden slid the pizza onto his granite counter. “Owen, don’t be a jerk. I never picked sides against you. But what I did do is hold on to you too tight.”

He frowned.

“I can be a little bossy.”

His expression relaxed, the slightest smile tweaking his face. “A little bossy?”

“Okay, I can be a lot bossy. And overprotective. But that’s over now. I’m walking away.”

“What does that mean? I thought you said you weren’t picking sides. Are you not coming to my games?” For the first time, probably ever, he appeared to care.

In many ways, he was still that teenage kid who wanted his family in the stands. Or maybe he’d never give that up.

Maybe everyone wanted fans in the stands
 
—was that so terrible?

“Of course I am. I know I’m not Mom, but I’ve been your number one
 
—okay, maybe number two fan for as long as I can remember.” And she could remember a lot. Broken fingers, tears, frozen toes, even that small scar on his chin, parting his beard. “But somehow in the mix, I sort of started equating your successes with mine
 
—”

He moved as if to agree, but she held up her hand. “And your failures with mine.”

His mouth tightened.

“I have ached with you over your injury, Owen. I know what it means to you to give up hockey.”

“I’m not giving up hockey,” he said. “Hey
 
—you’re not talking about that press conference today, right? You know Jacobsen is just being a big shot after his hat trick. I can get a hat trick
 
—”

Don’t react. Don’t argue.
She just listened to him as he reminded her of his stats and everything he hoped to accomplish.

Finally she said, “I know you’re going to be a great success, Owen. Because I’m on your side. And so is God.”

After a moment, his expression changed. “Okay. You might have had a good reason to be bossy,” he said, his words quiet. “I’ve been . . . not handling things well.”

Oh? But she said nothing, just pulled out a stool.

“Even before the accident, I sort of thought . . . this is it. I finally did it
 
—became a hockey star, landed a stellar contract. I felt invincible . . . and that made me stupid. The more I dove into the life my buddies said I should have, the more it felt ugly and wrong. And . . . the more I couldn’t face you.”

Couldn’t face her?

He toweled the sweat off his head, threw the towel on the floor by the bathroom. She didn’t pick it up.

“I knew I’d disappointed you, and I hated that feeling. Fought it.”

“You only disappointed me because I knew you’d worked so hard and have so much potential. And I want you to hold on to it. But I’m going to stop trying to hold on to it for you.”

He considered her with an athlete’s eye as if sizing her up. “No more dragging me out of bars?”

“No more cleaning out your car.”

“No more telling me what women I can date?”

“No more crashing on my sofa.”

He nodded. “Deal.”

“Deal.”

Owen pulled the pizza over, opened the box. “Of course it’s Canadian bacon.”

“And green peppers and pineapple.”

He looked away then. Blinking. “Eden, you are more than a big sister to me. You’re my closest friend.” His gaze, when he returned it, seemed embarrassed, his smile lopsided. “If it weren’t for you, I don’t know where I’d be.”

“Still looking for your skate guards?”

He laughed. “Maybe.” He handed her a plate of pizza. “I’m watching game tape tonight. Wanna join me?”

She took the pizza, picked off the pineapple. Fought back the urge to ask why. To throw in cautions about him playing.

To remind him that he’d lost his mind, because with one hit . . .

The best thing I could ever do was let him fail, stop being his savior, and let Jesus do that work.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said, going over to the sofa.
Sitting down with his pizza, his Powerade. She refused to mention how the grease would be impossible to clean off the leather.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Good, because then I don’t have to bring up Jace Jacobsen and how I think he has the hots for you.”

She swallowed. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Sheesh, Sis, are you totally blind? He’s into you
 
—I saw it last weekend.” He picked up one of his slices. “Just watch yourself. He’s got a reputation.”

“I know. He’s trouble.” She smiled, wishing she didn’t have to believe her words. She needed to not care, to be disgusted by him. Clearing her throat, she found the words she really meant. “Fear not, Bro. We’re barely friends.” Hopefully he didn’t hear the tremble in her voice. But maybe if she said it enough, she could erase the memory of when she’d thought they might be more.

She clearly had to let Jace go too. Because Olivia was right
 
—the more she hung on to Owen or Jace, the more she used them to fill the emptiness inside.

“You’ll be at the game tomorrow, right?” Owen said, angling the pizza into his mouth.

“Have I ever missed one of your games?” But they wouldn’t let him play, would they?

Owen grinned, folding the rest of the slice into his mouth. “Nope.”

She picked up the remote. “One period.”

“Sam?”

The room looked like a dungeon, curtains drawn, only the monitor lending enough light for Jace to make out his friend.

Sam sat against the wall, on the floor, his head in his hands.

Jace slid down next to him, not sure his friend had heard him. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here. I called and texted
 
—”

“My phone died. I left my charger at home. I couldn’t . . .” He sounded hollow, his voice echoing out of him. “It doesn’t matter. Maddy has an infection. She’s not going to last long enough to get a heart.”

“Then she’s at the top of the list, right?” Jace found the words from deep inside, past the knot of panic. “And I have good news, buddy. The Blue Ox offered me a new contract. It’s a good one, and it’s enough
 
—”

“No.”

The word wasn’t sharp but blunt and defeated. “What?”

“It’s over.”

“Sam, you can’t talk like that. Maddy’s going to get her heart. I know it.”

“I let her go, Jace. I signed my daughter over to strangers so that she could get on the transplant list. I actually have no legal right to be here, but the nurses took pity on me
 
—”

“What are you talking about?”

Sam lifted his head, and the look on his face made Jace wince. Maybe he had said that too loudly. “What do you mean?”

“They termed our situation medically unsustainable. Accused me of neglect. Told me they’d take me to court
 
—”

“They can’t
 
—”

“They can, Jace. And . . .” Sam swallowed. Sleeplessness hung under his eyes. “And it’s for the best. I know that.”

“How can it be for the best for Maddy not to live with you?”

“Because Maddy will live.”

He had no words for that. But now, yes, he understood Sam’s tone.
Please, God, let him be right.

“We’ll get her back, Sam.” He had the strangest urge to leap from the floor, pull Maddy into his arms, run from the room at top speed.

And that urge silenced him. No wonder Sam had gone a little crazy.

“The thing is, I realized something.” Across the room, the monitor beeped, steady, the oxygen a soft rush in the night. “All this time I thought it was up to me to make sure Maddy got a heart, kept her heart. And yes, she’s my child. But it was right there, all the time. The answer.”

Jace stayed quiet beside him.

“‘And I will give them singleness of heart and put a new spirit within them. I will take away their stony, stubborn heart and give them a tender, responsive heart.’ It’s a verse in Ezekiel. Mia read it to me right before she died. She told me that God had already given her a new heart and that I had to let her go. I had a dream last night, before Maddy went into arrest . . . and I heard that verse again. And I knew . . .” He looked at Jace. “I had to let go.”

Jace frowned.

“I’ve been trying so hard to hold on through all of this. But I think I’m supposed to let go
 
—and ask God to hold on to me. To pick me up like I do Maddy and carry me. I can’t do it anymore. I’ve been angry and stubborn and . . . and I need a new heart as badly as Maddy does. I’m tired of trying to fix it. I can’t do it, and I don’t think I’m supposed to.” He closed his eyes, leaned his head back. “So I’m sitting here, letting go. Putting my daughter into the hands of the Lord. Believing His plans are greater than mine, and that He loves me and Maddy more than we can imagine. I’m
letting Him carry me where He wants. And praising Him with every beep of that heart monitor.”

Jace ran his thumbs under his eyes, wiping away the moisture.

Maybe he needed a new heart too. One not full of anger and stubbornness and . . . hatred.

He heard Eden’s voice, closed his eyes to let it soak through him.
My dad says that hope is one part confidence in God’s love for us and one part our delight in Jesus. And that when we start to hope, it changes us.

Maybe that’s what it meant to have singleness of heart. To trust in God’s love, to not be divided in that belief by your own fears, failures, doubts. To delight in Jesus. He hadn’t spent any time delighting in Jesus, too afraid Jesus might not delight in him. But if he had, if he truly knew Jesus, Jace might have more confidence in His love.

Or maybe he’d see more fully what a wretch he truly was.
I hate my father.
He still winced when he heard those words replay in his head.

But then Olivia was there, smiling at her son, so much tenderness in her eyes it could make Jace soggy.
Hudson decided that he could start every day and be the man he wanted to be. . . . He finally, finally understood grace.

Jace didn’t truly understand grace. Maybe that’s what made him feel like he had to keep checking, keep finding the limelight. Because he couldn’t get his head around the fact that he already had it. A fresh start, in God’s eyes, every day.

That’s what grace was. The chance to start over, to be used for glory instead of destruction.

The chance to forgive himself because God already had.
Maybe, in fact, he could be undeserving
and
favored by God at the same time.

Jace leaned forward, hung his head. Closed his eyes. Listened to his heartbeat.

And then, in the quiet, he heard her voice.

God’s love simply is. We can’t sin it away
 
—our only option is to accept or reject it.