Forever

by Karen Kingsbury

  But there was no use answering her. Not until he could open his eyes. If only he could get a clear picture of what had happened. There was Randi Wells. Only they weren’t filming a movie; they were at a restaurant. And there were paparazzi everywhere.

  A stream of light joined the tiny dots. He could feel his eyelids moving, but he couldn’t see more than shadows. Moving shadows close beside him. He tried to reach out and see if the closest shadow belonged to Katy, but he couldn’t lift his hand. Katy, I’m here. . . . Again no words came.

  He thought back once more. The memory was coming into focus slowly, like looking through the lens of a cheap video camera. He and Randi having lunch . . . no, not lunch. They were having breakfast and a dozen photographers were capturing every move, every bite. Then they were finished and getting into their separate cars and heading down Pacific Coast Highway. The pictures were slow and hazy, but they were no longer broken into short bursts.

  They were driving and he was following her. The paparazzi cars darted around Dayne to either side of Randi; then one of them lost control. He could feel himself moving, turning from side to side. The paparazzi car pulled back into his lane, but at the same instant a truck was headed right for . . .

  His eyes flew open, but the truck was nowhere in sight. Instead there in front of him in lines that weren’t quite clear was the only sight he wanted to see, the one who had pulled him from the darkest night.

  He didn’t blink, didn’t dare. He couldn’t risk losing her again, falling into the darkness once more and maybe never finding his way out. Had he been hit by a truck? Was that what happened? He felt sick at the thought. He could’ve died, but he was alive. God had helped him find his way to daylight, because she was here and he was here. Together. And in that moment, for the first time in what felt like ages, he found the strength to say the only word that mattered.

  “Katy . . .”

  Katy’s heart pounded out a strange rhythm against the wall of her chest. Dayne talked! He said her name! His voice was scratchy and weak, but it didn’t matter. Her name was the first thing he’d said. “I’m here, Dayne. I love you.”

  He opened his mouth, but no words came.

  “It’s okay.” Her eyes stung, and the sound that came from her was half laugh, half cry. “I can’t believe you’re awake.” She lowered the bed rail and leaned over him, careful not to put pressure on his chest. Then she did what she’d wanted to do since she first saw him here. She eased her hands beneath him and held him. He smelled like stale antiseptic, disinfectant, and something medicinal. But he was warm and alive and moving—even ever so slightly.

  When she had first arrived back at the hospital and raced to his room, she could barely see what Dr. Deming was talking about. But after a minute or so she saw Dayne’s fingers twitch, then his toes. With every half hour that passed, his movements had come more often, been more pronounced. In the past hour he’d started to move his lips and turn his head an inch in either direction.

  Dr. Deming checked in often, amazed. “He’s coming out very quickly.” She would grin and make a notation on Dayne’s file. “When victims come out quickly, it can be a good sign. The more severely brain-injured victims are very slow to wake up.”

  And now . . . now Dayne had opened his eyes, and he’d seen her. Katy had spent enough time talking to Dr. Deming to know that blindness was a possibility. But he wasn’t blind! And he was well enough to know her name, which meant two wonderful things.

  First, he remembered her! All this time, every minute of every day for the past month, she’d lived with the fear that he might come out of the coma only to have lost his memory. Now that wasn’t a concern. And second, he could speak clearly. He was groggy, but when he said her name, even through his slurred speech, she had no doubt what he was saying.

  She pressed her face against his and whispered, “Everything’s going to be okay, Dayne. You’re back now. God gave you back to me.”

  “Wha . . .” The sound was thick, and it seemed to take all his effort.

  “Shhh.” She straightened and sat on the edge of his bed. “Don’t make yourself tired. The words will come eventually.”

  He relaxed, and for the next three hours he made only an occasional attempt at talking. But the entire time he didn’t take his eyes off Katy. He refused to sleep, as if by closing his eyes he might fall back into the coma. During that time she told him nothing about the accident, only that she loved him, she was praying for him, and he was going to be okay. For a while she read the Bible to him. More from Hebrews and part of James.

  Later Dr. Deming came in to check on him.

  Like the breaking of a dam, Dayne’s ability to talk returned. “Tell me . . . what happened.” His words were painfully slow. But there was nothing slow about his thinking.

  Dr. Deming leaned over him. “You were in a car accident. You’ve been in a coma for thirty days.” The doctor smiled at Katy. Only the two of them knew the significance of Dayne’s coming out of the coma the evening of his thirtieth day. The day before he would’ve been considered a long-term case.

  Dayne struggled to swallow. His eyes expressed his disbelief at the news. “A . . . month?”

  “Yes.”

  “A . . . truck hit me.”

  “That’s right.” Dr. Deming shot a beaming look at Katy.

  Katy understood, and silently she celebrated the unbelievable victory. If he could remember that detail, then his damage might be only minimal. He could still have motor-skills issues, but at least his brain was working. And that meant she had Dayne back, the Dayne she loved more than life.

  Dayne looked at her. “I love you.” His gaze shifted to the doctor. “I want to go home.”

  Concern flashed on Dr. Deming’s face. “You’ve been asleep for a very long time, Dayne.” She pressed her lips together. “I want to be honest. You’ll need at least three months’ rehabilitation before you’ll be in any shape to go home. And that would be a best-case scenario.”

  Dayne narrowed his eyes and looked at the doctor for a long while. Then for the first time since he’d been awake, he lifted his hand. Not the sort of slight movements he’d been making before. This time he trembled as he lifted it all the way up, so his forearm was completely vertical. He turned his attention to her. “Katy . . .”

  She took his hand. Gradually at first, then with an increasing intensity, he squeezed. “I’m here, Dayne. What do you need?”

  A fine layer of sweat broke out on his forehead. Clearly he was working as hard as he’d ever worked before. She could almost feel Dr. Deming about to warn her not to push him. But the doctor stayed quiet. She probably felt the same way Katy did. After a month in a coma, if Dayne wanted to talk, no one should stop him.

  He looked more alert than even five minutes earlier. But he was tiring out. “What day . . . is it?”

  “October 2.” She searched his face.

  He looked like he was calculating, though that seemed impossible for someone who had been in a coma. “Three months . . . I can’t go home . . .” He rested for a few seconds. His words were coming slower than before, but his thinking still seemed sharp. He found the doctor again and picked up where he left off. “. . . until January?”

  “That would be the soonest.” Dr. Deming gave Dayne an understanding smile. “Your progress at this point is beyond my explanation. But rehabilitation follows a predictable path. Three months, Dayne. It’ll go quickly.”

  He shook his head. “We bought a house. I’m going home for . . . Thanksgiving.”

  A rush of emotion came over Katy. She replayed his words in her mind. If he wanted to go home for Thanksgiving, then home wasn’t here in California. It was with her, in Bloomington. Her heart soared. God . . . can this night get any better? This must be how Peter felt when he watched You walk across the waves.

  “Thanksgiving is in seven weeks. From a medical standpoint, it would be impossible to leave a rehabilitative setting by then.”

  Dayne looked like he might cry. F
or a minute he only worked his mouth, but no words came. He squeezed Katy’s hand again. “Help me . . . please, Katy. Seven weeks. Help me get home for Thanksgiving.”

  She couldn’t see for the tears in her eyes. “Yes, Dayne.” She kissed his fingers. “I’ll help you.”

  Dr. Deming appeared to want to say something to discourage Dayne from such unrealistic dreams, but she took a step back instead. “I’ll leave you two alone. I need to schedule some morning tests for Dayne.” She glanced at the file in her hands. “We’ll wait until tomorrow afternoon to tell the press. That way you won’t have to deal with a bunch of phone calls between now and then.”

  Katy thanked her. When she was gone, Katy brought her face close to Dayne’s. “You’re really back.”

  “Thank you.” His strength was almost entirely gone. But he brushed his cheek against hers. “For helping me.”

  Katy could hardly believe they were having this conversation, that he was really alive and awake and talking to her. She looked to the deepest part of him, and when she spoke her voice rang with conviction. “God gave us a miracle tonight.” She massaged her throat, loosening the emotion that was stuck there. “If we work together, maybe He’ll give us another one.”

  He started to say something, but his eyes closed and after a minute his breathing changed. It was scary, watching him sleep. Maybe it always would be. But she only had to tell herself the truth. He wasn’t in a coma any longer. He was resting. So that come tomorrow he could talk better and move better and start the long journey back to health.

  She picked up the phone near Dayne’s bed. Ever since she heard the news that he was coming out of the coma she’d wanted to call Ashley. But she wanted to make sure she had as much information as possible. And once Dayne was awake and talking, she couldn’t tear herself away. Now she couldn’t do anything until the Baxters heard the news.

  Dayne had long-distance privileges from his room phone. That way she’d been able to keep in contact with Jenny Flanigan and Ashley and John without having to leave the hospital and use her cell phone. She started to dial Ashley’s number, but then she stopped. Dayne was John’s son. He deserved to know first. She pulled out the notepad from the top drawer in the nightstand and found his number.

  He answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “John, it’s Katy.” Her voice cracked. “I have . . . good news.”

  “Thank God.” There was relief in his voice. “What’s going on?”

  She pressed her fingers to her lips and steadied herself. “He’s awake, John. He came out of the coma and he talked to me, talked to the doctor too. He . . . he still wants to come home for Thanksgiving.”

  The other end of the phone was silent.

  Katy could only imagine what he was thinking. John more than any of them knew how dire Dayne’s condition had been. And now more than anyone he was probably stunned by the news. He had found his son only to come far too close to losing him. But Dayne was whole and alive and awake, which made them witnesses to a miracle. The sum of it must’ve been more than Dayne’s father could take. Katy knew this not because of what he said, since he hadn’t spoken a word yet, but by the muffled sound she heard coming through the phone line.

  John Baxter was crying.

  Ashley stared at the magazines on her kitchen table with no idea what to do next. She’d read everything—every cover page, every index, and every splashy spread at the center of each tabloid.

  Twice.

  And still she was baffled. She understood how someone would’ve figured out that the Baxters were Dayne’s biological family, and she’d expected something this week—since every one of them had been photographed in the past ten days. With enough money and motivation, it was not a shock that the paparazzi would find the juiciest details to smear beneath each of their pictures or that they would contrast those with the fact that the Baxters were—as one magazine put it—“supposedly Christians.”

  What shocked her was Luke.

  The anger and hurt she felt toward him were so mixed she couldn’t tell one from the other. How could he say that about Dayne? “Blood doesn’t make him a Baxter”? Was that all he’d picked up along the journey of living with their mother and father, of seeing the way they always made family a priority over everything else?

  It was long since dark, and Cole and Devin were asleep. Landon was working a swing shift, and he’d be home soon. She stood and paced across the kitchen to the telephone on the counter. When she’d first seen the story, first read the quote from Luke, she’d picked up the phone and started to dial before she stopped herself. Whatever was causing Luke to act and feel this way couldn’t be dealt with in a barrage of furious words.

  Instead she’d returned to the table, where she’d spent the last hour reading and praying and trying to make sense of the situation. She stared at the phone. She hadn’t talked to any of the others yet. No doubt they were sorting through the stories, taking stock of how the notoriety would affect each of them.

  Ashley had played out the story for each of her family members. Brooke and Peter would be fine. They were private people, and very few patients would ever connect the dots between them and the magazine story. Erin would be fine, of course, and Kari too. Their friends and neighbors might mention the connection, and the visibility might hurt for a while. But they’d get over it, as would their families.

  Ashley and her father had already made their decision before they chose to travel to LA after Dayne’s accident. They would shout from the Hollywood hills if they had to. Dayne was family, and family didn’t shirk into the shadows just because a situation was difficult.

  More than the embarrassment and hurt from what the tabloids had dug up was the inconvenience that would likely follow. People looking for a path to Dayne might try to find it through one of the Baxters. They would need to change their phone numbers to unlisted, and at family dinners and holidays they would have to be aware of paparazzi.

  Yes, the hardship of being Dayne’s biological family definitely had the potential to be more damaging than the dirt splattered over today’s issues. Ashley was tired of looking at them. She collected them in a stack and put them on the seat of the chair beside her. Cole didn’t need to see his mother’s picture in a magazine. He was too young to understand any of it.

  She crossed her arms and thought about Luke. How could he do it? He must’ve known the photographer would use every word he said. A thought hit her. What if he hadn’t said it? He could’ve walked out the door and into the photographer’s trap. The guy could’ve taken an angry picture of Luke and made the whole thing up. If so, right now Luke would be crushed by the stories in the tabloids.

  Hurt took the upper hand over her anger, and she didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. There was no better time to make the call.

  She picked up the receiver and dialed his number. Please let it be a mistake. On the third ring, Reagan’s mother answered. Ashley identified herself and apologized for calling so late.

  “Not at all. We never have lights out before eleven.” Reagan’s mother sounded upbeat and friendly, the way Ashley remembered her from Luke and Reagan’s wedding. But her tone sounded strange in light of today’s news. She couldn’t possibly have read the tabloids. Otherwise she never would’ve sounded so cheerful. In that case, maybe Luke hadn’t seen the magazines either.

  They spent a few minutes catching up; then Reagan’s mom went to get Luke.

  “Hello?” Luke sounded gruff, as if he’d been called away from something far more important than his sister.

  “Hey.” Ashley took the phone to the living room and curled up at the end of the sofa. Curb my anger, God. . . . Give me kind words. She stared across the room at a framed photograph of the Baxters—taken before any of them were married. “I figured you’d be expecting my call.”

  “I guess.”

  Ashley made a face. “I’m talking about the tabloids. You’ve seen them, haven’t you?”

  “The women at the office brough
t in bunches of them.”

  “Okay then.” There was no easy way to broach the subject. She took a breath. “Those things they printed . . . did you say them?”

  “I don’t need this.” He muttered the words so low they were barely audible.

  “So you did say them?”

  “Yes, okay?” The gruff voice was one that didn’t fit him, didn’t even sound like him. “I said it and I meant it.”

  “What?” She was on her feet. “Dayne’s not your brother? Is that really how you feel?”

  “He’s not. Not the way you and Brooke and Kari and Erin see him.” Luke let out a frustrated breath. “Mom and Dad gave him up, Ashley. He was raised in another family, so that makes him someone else’s son.”

  “I see.” Ashley felt her face getting hot. “So that’s why the comment about ‘blood doesn’t make him a Baxter’?”

  “Yes.” Luke sounded defensive. “I didn’t know until it was too late that they’d plaster it across the magazine. Anyway, no one sees my point.”

  “No.” She walked closer to the Baxter family picture and studied the image of Luke. What happened to you, little brother? How could you grow up a Baxter and miss the whole point of family? She forced herself to stay calm. “Your point doesn’t matter. Neither does mine or our sisters’. What matters is that Mom loved Dayne. Dad loves him still. Think about it. If you and Reagan gave a child up for adoption before you had Tommy, you’d spend the rest of your days wondering about him, looking for him, hoping his life was everything you ever dreamed it would be.”

  Luke was silent.

  “You could tell each other not to talk about him, but that wouldn’t make him any less real.” She heard a catch in her voice. “Any less your son.”

  He remained quiet for a beat. Then he sighed. “I get that part.” For the first time in months, there was compassion in his voice. Compassion and pain. The real Luke, the one they all loved, was still there. Confused maybe, but deep inside he hadn’t changed completely.

  Ashley walked back to the kitchen. “Okay. If you get it, then why, Luke? . . . Why would you say that?”