Oceans Apart (31 page)

TWENTY-FIVE

It was Friday morning, time for Ramey to pray once more for a miracle.

She was sitting in her recliner with Buddy on the floor beside her. Dogs still weren’t allowed at the apartment, but due to the circumstances with Max, she’d gotten an exception from the manager.

In her lap was Kiahna’s journal.

Ramey had read all of it in the past week, desperate to better understand the relationship between Kiahna and Max’s father.

What she’d learned both touched and grieved her. After Connor Evans, Kiahna had never loved another man. Her entire life was devoted to Max and making a good life for him.

If Kiahna had cared about this Connor man so much, then maybe that was really where Max belonged. Maybe it was the very thing that would cause Kiahna to smile from heaven and know that things had worked out after all.

But there was a problem.

Marv Ogle called a few days earlier and told her about the Evans woman’s request. Apparently things weren’t working out with Max, which meant that he’d come home and be put up for adoption.

“I’m in touch with several private adoption attorneys,” Mr. Ogle had told her. “Older children are usually harder to place, but I think we can find a home for him.”

She was supposed to be happy with that bit of news, but she couldn’t be. She’d read the rest of Kiahna’s journal in the days since Max left and she knew the entire story now. The way Kiahna and Connor Evans had met at the airport and how she’d invited him 239

– Oceans Apart –

home only as a way of being kind. Island hospitality, really. Or maybe it was the hospitality she drew from her faith.

In the short time that she’d known Connor, Kiahna had come to love him. One journal entry stayed with Ramey and came to mind several times each day since she’d read it.

After Max was born, Kiahna realized something was standing in the way of her and God. Unforgiveness. How dare Connor sleep with her, make her pregnant, and leave without ever looking back?

Didn’t she deserve more than that? His callous ability to walk out of her life after what happened was something she couldn’t come back from.

Until Max was born.

At that point she realized that love had power beyond anything she’d ever known. And it occurred to her that with bitterness and hate in her heart, she never would be able to love Max the way she wanted to love him. After Max was born, she wrote in her journal that she’d finally figured out what love was.

Ramey found the entry and read it again.

Love is what happens when people forgive
.
I forgive Connor Evans. A
part of me will always love him, but from this day on I won’t hate him.

Not for one minute. I forgive him because he gave me Max.

If only the Evans woman could understand that simple truth.

Love happens when people forgive.

Ramey flipped a page just as the phone rang. She picked up the receiver from the table near her chair and clicked the on button.

“Hello?”

“Ramey, it’s Marv Ogle. How are you?”

She’d been to the doctor the day before. Heart disease was making an uncontested run at her body, but that didn’t matter. Her focus was on seeing that Max had a family. “Fine. What’s the news?”

“Good, I think. I got a call this morning from an attorney on the big island. He says he has a family who owns a B&B near the 240

– Karen Kingsbury –

beach. They’ve decided to adopt a young boy, someone to help them keep the place up, and take over the business one day.” Ramey scrunched up her face. “Where’s the good part?”

“I know.” The attorney was trying to sound positive. “That’s what I thought. But I called the couple and talked to the woman.

They lost their boy in a drowning three years ago. She’s interested in Max, Ramey.”

“Sounds like she needs a hired hand.” Beside her, Buddy lifted his furry head and gave a sad-sounding yawn. Ramey reached down and patted him. “Max is a little boy, Mr. Ogle.”

“I know. We talked about that. She said she’d homeschool him and teach him how to make pottery and build wicker furniture and put together an authentic Hawaiian luau. It doesn’t sound too bad, really. They live in a pretty remote area; sounds like they want a child to keep them company. Someone to leave their life’s work to.”

“What about Buddy?” Ramey heard the suspicion in her voice, but she didn’t care. Kiahna had loved Max with all her heart. Plac-ing him in a situation where he wouldn’t receive that type of love would be the greatest tragedy in Ramey’s life.

“Yes, well, that’s a problem.”

“How come?” Ramey rubbed the soft fur under Buddy’s ear.

“The woman’s allergic to dogs, apparently.” Ramey smacked her lips. “That would never do for Max. He needs a lot of love and he needs Buddy.” The attorney exhaled in a way that rattled Ramey’s nerves. “You need to understand something, Ramey. Older children don’t get adopted easily.” He paused. “Mrs. Evans said she and her husband were praying for the boy to find a family in Hawaii. They aren’t interested in keeping him.”

“Then
you
keep him.” Her voice was louder than before. Buddy sat up and rubbed his wet nose against the back of her hand.

241

– Oceans Apart –

“We’ve already discussed that. My wife and I are too old to be the boy’s parents. We love him, of course, but we’re on the road half the year traveling and neither of us are home during the day when we’re on the island. Max needs a family.” Angry tears filled Ramey’s eyes, and she rubbed her back teeth together to keep from crying. When she could speak, she made her voice more calm than before. “Wanna know what I think?”

“What?” The attorney sounded tired.

“I think Mr. Evans wants to keep Max. It’s just a hunch, but every time I pray about it that’s the picture I get.” She tapped her finger on the cover of Kiahna’s journal. “It’s that wife of his we need to pray for.”

“I’ll tell you what, Ramey. You pray for the wife, and I’ll pursue the couple on the big island. One way or another we’ll find Max a home. Deal?”

“Deal.” Ramey didn’t like the sound of that, but she had no choice, really. She said good-bye and hung up the phone.

Buddy cocked his head and made a whining sound. “You miss him, huh, boy?”

The dog gave a sharp bark.

“I know, me too.” She scratched Buddy beneath the chin and turned her attention back to God.

The praying had to get stronger, twice as often, twice as long as before. Because either God worked the forgiveness miracle for Max, or the boy would lose everything he had left in life. With that thought, Ramey bowed her head and began to pray for that forgiveness miracle she’d asked God about before Max left.

Only this time she prayed as if her next breath depended on the outcome.

242

TWENTY-SIX

Loren Evans had moved twelve paper towers from the living room into various other parts of his ranch house. It was one o’clock on Friday afternoon, and Michele was coming in an hour. He wanted the place to look respectable.

Now that he’d finished tidying up, he found his Bible, the one he’d purchased for himself a year ago Christmas, and sat with it at the dining room table. With gentle fingers he flipped to the back of the book, to a place where he’d made a list of the things he was asking God for.

The things he was begging Him for.

First on the list was that somehow, someday, he and his son might find a way to bridge the ocean that lay between them. And now, after years of not seeing Connor or his wife, Michele had called and wanted to visit. Loren studied his handwriting, the way he’d carefully written out the request:
Span the bridge, God. Bring me and my boy back together.

Yes, this visit from Michele had to be part of the answer, he had no doubt. The thing he wasn’t sure about was exactly what part her visit would play. After all, seeing her couldn’t possibly remove the thing that stood largest in the way of bringing the two of them together.

Because that thing was pride. A pilot’s pride. After twenty-five years in the skies, Loren Evans knew a thing or two about pilot’s pride. A pilot couldn’t afford to be wrong, not ever. Not that pilots didn’t make mistakes; that wasn’t it. But when a pilot erred, he didn’t view his actions as a mistake. He viewed it as a change in plans, something to be battled and dealt with.

243

– Oceans Apart –

Wrong was almost never admitted, at least not among the more talented pilots.

It had been that way for Loren, and he was certain it was that way for his son. That type of pride didn’t always fall away when a pilot stepped out of his uniform at the end of a day.

The very thing that made Connor and him strong as pilots was the reason the two of them hadn’t spoken in nearly eight years.

For most of that time, Loren had been content to wait. His decision not to give Connor the money for the airport was the right one. He stood by it even now. The boy had no idea what it took to run an airport. His only reason for wanting to buy the property was so he could run from the FAA investigation.

Loren understood. No pilot liked being scrutinized by the FAA.

But Loren had followed the case from a distance, talking to pilots in the know and getting the rest of the details when Michele called each Christmas. Connor’s case had been dropped, just the way Loren knew it would be. Connor was most certainly a stronger pilot for the trials he’d gone through that year.

So through the first six years, Loren waited for Connor’s call.

Once, halfway through that period, Michele asked him the obvious. “Don’t wait for him to call you, Loren. Call him. That would solve everything.”

Ah, but that’s where she was wrong. It was where she was still wrong.

A year ago Christmas, Michele called and conversation turned to Connor. “Does he forgive me yet?”

She made a tired sound. “Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“No, Loren. He’s holding onto it like his life depends on it.” Her voice had filled with tears. “I’m sorry. It’s Christmastime, and I wish . . . I wish more than anything that he’d call you.” 244

– Karen Kingsbury –

The brokenness of her voice that year stayed with him for days.

Later that week, his doctor expressed concern about his blood pressure.

“People don’t live forever, Mr. Evans,” the doctor had said.

“You’re on as much medication as we can give you. If the pressure keeps going up, it’ll only be a matter of time.” Combined with Michele’s sorrow, the events of that December caused him to do something he hadn’t done since his beloved Lau-rel was alive. He went to church and prayed for his son. But he realized a truth that stood to this day. A hundred phone calls from him wouldn’t help bridge the distance between them.

Not as long as Connor thought he was right.

No, it would take a change on Connor’s part. A realization that he no longer had a need to stay angry about the money Loren hadn’t lent him. An understanding that he was wrong to walk out that day, wrong to make a declaration that their relationship was over. And until he could admit that much, Loren was helpless to make a move.

Still, he prayed about it.

And since that Christmas, he hadn’t missed a week at church.

The new awareness of God and His workings in Loren’s life had caused some changes in him, made him a little less rough around the edges, a bit more quick to recognize his faults.

He saw less of Connor’s sisters these days; the girls were busy with their children, caught up in their own lives. The extra time allowed him more golf games with his friends from church, more time to play croquet with a few of the guys from the local school board he’d been appointed to.

But most important, it gave him more time to pray for Connor.

And for the next thirty minutes, until he heard Michele’s car pull up in the driveway, he did just that.

245

– Oceans Apart –

<

Michele’s palms were sweaty as she headed up the walkway and knocked on Loren Evans’s door. She wore a pair of beige slacks and a navy blazer, and she pressed the wrinkles out of it as she waited. Maybe he wouldn’t notice the weight she’d gained.

The moment he opened the door she chided herself for worrying about her looks. Loren lit into a smile that filled his entire face.

He was out on the porch hugging her before she had time even to say hello. “Michele, my girl, you look gorgeous!” Connor’s father had always been like this. Gregarious and out-going, friendly in a way that made people want to come back soon for another visit. He’d only been reserved around one person—his son. Connor explained it was because his father expected more from him than from other people. Either way, Michele always found it sad that she could hug Loren more easily than his own son could.

Loren still had his arms around her as she leaned back and took in the sight of him. His hair was whiter than before, thinning some.

But otherwise he looked the same. Tall and robust, the same way Connor would no doubt look when he was in his sixties. There was something different about his eyes, but Michele couldn’t quite place it. Maybe it was just old age. She kissed his cheek. “How are you, Loren?”