Even Now

by Karen Kingsbury

  “You know what I love?”

  “What?” Emily gripped the stool’s arms and swung her feet.

  “Watching you and your grandfather pick a tree. I think we’re twelve years running finding the absolute most interesting tree on the lot.”

  Emily giggled. “Interesting?”

  “Definitely.” Angela laughed out loud. “Remember last year? You wanted a tree that would reach the ceiling, but the tall ones were scraggly on top.”

  “Right.” She tipped her head back, her eyes dancing. “That’s because a Christmas tree doesn’t have to be perfect.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Angela smiled. Neither did people. That was something else she’d learned this second time around.

  Their laughter died down and Emily drummed her fingers lightly on the counter, a familiar and comfortable action. It washer sign that she had something deep to talk about. Angela waited. Finally Emily drew a long breath and their eyes met. “Grandma, can we talk about my mom? I wanna know more about her.”

  Angela steadied herself. Emily had asked this sort of question before, and always she’d been content with basic answers. But Angela had known that one day Emily would want more. She put her hand over her granddaughter’s. “What would you like to know?”

  “Well . . . ” Emily squinted, as if trying to sort through which questions were most important. “You’ve looked for her, right?”

  “Yes.” Angela felt a heaviness in her heart. How many hours and conversations and phone calls had they made? As technology advanced, they’d used the Internet, sometimes every day. “Yes, we’ve looked.”

  “Okay, but how did she just disappear? I mean, she thought I was dead, but then what? She just drove out of town?”

  “It seems that way.” Angela ordered herself to stay unemotional. Emily needed her to be calm; she couldn’t give into nineteen years of sorrow. “She was exhausted and frantic. The two of you had just driven back from halfway across the country, and you were very, very sick.”

  Emily looked like she was trying to imagine how her mother must’ve felt, scared and tired and then convinced that her baby was dead. “But you think she went to California, right?”

  “We have our theories.” Her hand was still covering Emily’s. She gave it a soft squeeze. “She might not have made it to California, for one.”

  Emily nodded. “I’ve thought about that. She might be dead.”

  “Yes. Or maybe she changed her name. If that’s what happened we could look forever and not find her. In my heart I believe she’s alive and out there some where.”

  “Me too.” Emily looked out the kitchen window.

  From the side, her profile was so like Shane’s, a mirror of his striking Greek features. Between that and the fact that she had Lauren’s eyes, Angela had a constant reminder of the kids they’d lost.

  “I was thinking today whether she ever found my dad and whether they got together or not.”

  Angela doubted that. “Anything’s possible.”

  “So the last time you saw her was at the hospital, right? When I was sick?”

  “Yes. She was overwhelmed, honey.”

  “I was wondering today,” Emily looked at her again, “whether she was a writer or not.”

  “We’ve talked about that.”

  “But I wish I knew for sure.”

  “Wait. . .” Angela straightened. “I just remembered something.”

  A few days earlier Bill had found a box of Lauren’s things in the storage section of the garage. Until then, they’d assumed Lauren had taken all her personal belongings with her. But since they’d just moved to Wheaton at the time of Emily’s birth, apparently Lauren’s box had been shoved with a dozen others into a corner they’d designated for records and tax documents.

  Bill was cleaning out there when he found it and called to her. “Angela, come quick.”

  She hurried to the garage and over to his side. “What is it?”

  “Look at this.” He was standing next to a big cardboard carton with Lauren’s name scribbled on the side. The sight of her daughter’s handwriting brought pangs of both joy and sorrow. They lifted the lid, and inside were what looked like old yearbooks, photo albums, and journals. Everything sentimental that had ever mattered to Lauren. She looked at Bill. “I thought . . . I figured she took this stuff with her.”

  “Imagine what the private investigators could’ve done with this if they’d had it back when she first left.”

  They brought the box inside and took it up to what had been Lauren’s room. It was a home office now, a sterile room with as of a sleeper along one wall. The only trace that it once belonged to Lauren was a photo of her that sat on the desk. That afternoon they spread the contents of the box out and looked at it. Halfway through, though, they stopped and packed it back up. “I can’t do this without Emily,” Bill said. “There’s nothing in here that would help us find Lauren now.” He dabbed at his eyes. “Emily deserves to see it first.”

  Angela agreed, though she thought Bill’s reluctance to look through the box had at least as much to do with the fact that it was too painful to sort through. But since Emily was coming home for Christmas, they agreed to wait. It was one more reason she’d been looking forward to the holidays. But in the rush of seeing her and sitting with her, she’d forgotten about the oversized box until just now.

  “Grandma, what is it?”

  Angela slid down from the bar stool and motioned to her. “Follow me.”

  They went into the hallway and Angela pointed to the carton in the corner. “We found that a few days ago.” She walked closer and put her hand on the edge of the box. “Everything in here belonged to your mother. I’m not sure it’d help us find her now. But . . . we thought it would help you know her a little better.”

  Emily stared at the carton, her eyes wide and unblinking. When she looked up, tears shimmered on her cheeks. “Do you . . . know what’s in it?”

  “Some.” Angela put her arm around Emily’s shoulders. “Yearbooks, photo albums, journals. That sort of thing. Everything that was special to your mother.”

  A framed photo sat near the top of the box, and Emily reached for it. The image was a picture of Lauren and Shane, taken before a formal dance their freshman year of high school. Emily had seen photos of her parents before, but nothing from a professional photographer. She held it up, studying it. “Look at their eyes.”

  Angela removed her arm from Emily’s shoulders and leaned in closer, staring at their faces. That’s when she saw it, saw it clearer than she ever had when the kids had been a part of her life. “Yes. I see.”

  “Grandma, they were so in love.” Emily pressed the photo to her chest. Her eyes were damp, but her smile lit up her expression. “It makes me feel so good to know they loved each other.”

  Regret wrapped itself around her, squeezing her chest and making it hard to draw a breath. Why hadn’t she seen the depth of their feelings for each other back when Lauren and Shane wanted so badly to be together? How different would their lives be if she’d recognized it then? She swallowed her sorrow and gave Emily a partial smile. “That’s why we wanted you to have these things, to look through them while you were home.” Angela sniffed. Watching Emily cradle the framed picture gave her a flashback, and she saw Lauren, cradling Emily as a baby. The memory was gone as quickly as it had come, but the sadness lingered. Angela had a feeling that not everything Emily would find in the box would leave her feeling happy and whole.

  Still it was her right to look through it.

  In the background, they heard Bill getting out of bed and heading into the bathroom. “Dinner’ll be ready in a few minutes.” She looked at the box. “Papa will help you get it up to your room. You can look through it later.”

  Emily bit her lip. “I can’t wait.” She kept the photo tight against her heart. “Grandma, can I ask you something else?”

  “Yes, honey. Whatever you want.”

  “My parents didn’t have God in their lives,
did they? Not God and not peace.” She held the photo out enough to see it.

  Angela felt the regrets again, as heavy as they’d been in the days and weeks after Lauren left. “No, Em. They didn’t have either.”

  “Do you think they have that now?”

  Angela had asked herself the question a hundred times every year. Was Lauren happy and at peace, had she found the faith that had been missing in her childhood? A sad sigh eased up from the deepest corners of her soul. She shook her head. “I don’t think so, honey.”

  Emily looked at the picture again. “It was because of me, right? She got pregnant and everything fell apart.”

  Angela worked the muscles in her jaw. Emily was right, more so than she knew. There was no way around the truth. “It felt like a tragedy at the time. You understand that, right?”

  “Yes.” Emily looked up, her expression far wiser than her eighteen years. She pursed her lips and let her eyes find the faces of her parents once more. “But if my birth tore them apart, then maybe I’m the only one who can bring them back together again.”

  “Hmm.” Angela wanted to warn her not to think that way. If two decades of private investigators and elected officials couldn’t find her, what could Emily possibly do to find either of them? Instead she gave a slow nod and framed Emily’s face with her hand. “I’m praying for a miracle, Emily. You are too. It’s certainly worth a try.”

  Emily set the photo back down, and the two of them greeted Bill in the hallway.

  “Papa! It’s so good to see you.” Emily threw her arms around his neck and held on tight. “I miss you so much!”

  A lump formed in Angela’s throat because she knew what Bill was feeling, how precious this Christmas would be with Emily. But it wasn’t time for sorrow now. Bill tousled Em’s hair and looked her up and down. “Looks like that soccer coach has you down to skin and bones.”

  “Ah, it’s not that bad.” She linked arms with him, and the three of them went to the kitchen and worked on dinner. When they were seated at the table, Emily said the prayer. “Jesus, you have me home this Christmas for a reason. I sense that so strongly.” Emily squeezed her grandparents’ hands. “Thank you for letting my papa find the box of my mom’s things. I pray that somewhere inside we’ll find a miracle.” Her voice was clear, as genuine as a summer sunset. “So that I can meet my mom and dad and help them find the peace that might be missing from their lives. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

  As she finished the prayer, the strangest thing happened in Angela’s heart. She felt a surge of hope, the kind she hadn’t felt since the first year of Lauren’s disappearance. As if maybe God was telling her something very important. That they were indeed standing on the brink of a miracle.

  And Emily would have everything to do with it.

  FOURTEEN

  War didn’t take a break for Christmas. This was Lauren Gibbs’s third Christmas season on the war-torn fields of Afghanistan and Iraq, and still it amazed her. The opposing sides would set up roadside bombs, aerial attacks, and raids on insurgent headquarters right through December 25. As if the birth of Christ didn’t matter at all.

  Not that it affected her one way or the other. Christ’s birth didn’t mean anything to her. It was four days before Christmas, and she didn’t feel anything different — no special magic or joy or desire to marvel at a decorated evergreen tree.

  She had her memories. That was enough.

  As a correspondent for Time magazine, her duty was in Afghanistan. Her assignment was complex. First and foremost, she was responsible for reporting the trends of the war before the competition figured them out. In addition, she looked for daily stories, word pictures, snapshots of a war-torn life. She was also responsible for feature stories and predictions on when the white flags would wave and the American troops would head home.

  Her job meant everything to her. She was thirty-six, single, and unattached. Her life in the Middle East was comfortable, an apartment in an eight-story building near the border, a place where dozens of journalists stayed. A few of them had spent years there, the way she had. Her days in the States were so few that she’d sold her condo a year ago. For now she needed to be here. It was almost a calling.

  “Hey, Gibbs. Wait up.”

  She turned and walking toward her was Jeff Scanlon, a Time photographer. The two had spent more time together in the past three years than most married couples. But they’d only let their friendship cross lines a few times. Scanlon was interested. His rugged good looks had gotten any girl he wanted in his younger years. Now, at forty, he seemed interested only in spending his days with her.

  She was fine with that. He was good company, and he shared her views of peace at all cost. But she didn’t want a relationship, not when it meant revealing layers she’d spent a lifetime hiding. Layers that felt like they belonged to someone else altogether.

  “Hey.” She smiled. It was a beautiful day, clear blue skies and eighty degrees. It could be LA but for the broken buildings and starving people lining the narrow streets. “I wanna get out to that orphanage. The one ten miles from here.”

  They kept walking, heading for the apartment building. Scanlon had a room there too. “Maybe I can get a photo-essay out of it.”

  “Perfect.” Her pace was fast, the way she liked it. “My story’ll be a little longer than usual.”

  “They always are when kids are involved.” He heaved his camera bag higher up on his shoulder and gave her a lopsided grin. “Ever notice that?”

  She hesitated. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  They reached the entrance to the building. A frail-looking woman sat huddled near the door. Next to her were three children, their arms and legs bone thin. The woman didn’t say a word, but she held out a cracked ceramic bowl.

  Lauren stopped and rifled through her pocket. She pulled out a handful of coins and set them in the container. Scanlon stood nearby while she stooped down and gave a gentle touch to each child’s forehead. One of them was a little girl, and her eyes made Lauren’s breath catch in her throat. Something about them made her look almost like . . .

  No, she wouldn’t go there. Not now. Not with Scanlon standing next to her. She blinked and looked back at the mother. In a language that was becoming more familiar to her than English, she said, “I want peace as you do. May I buy you food?”

  The woman’s eyes widened. She was new to the journalists’ building. Most of the street people were regulars and knew to expect help from Lauren. The woman put her arms around her children, clearly protective as she locked eyes with Lauren. “Yes.” She spoke with a shame and disbelief that was common among the Afghans. Years of repression had caused most women to fear speaking at all, let alone to an American stranger. The woman lifted her chin a little. “That would be more than I could ask.”

  “Very well.” Lauren nodded to Scanlon. “It’s early still. Let’s meet down here in half an hour.”

  “Okay.” They went through the doors together. A café on the first floor was operational now that Western journalists were always passing through the lobby. At the entrance, Scanlon waved. “I’ll meet you here.”

  She nodded and turned her attention to a young girl working behind the café counter. Service was slow, but she paid for four rice bowls and four juice drinks. Then she took them outside and handed them to the children’s mother. It was important that the woman be the one to give the food to her own children. It was one small way of giving her back some of her dignity.

  “Thank you.” There were tears in the woman’s eyes. “All Americans, I thank you.”

  Lauren smiled, but gritted her teeth. Not all Americans. Some Americans still believed they were doing everyone a service by fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. But whatever slim reason the president might’ve had for starting the war, it was long past. It was time to call the war off and send over humanitarian help. If she were the one in charge, peace in this part of the world would be easy. But it was peace in her own life that was impossible to figure out.


  She flipped her straight blonde hair over her shoulder and nodded at the woman. Then she turned back, went through the entrance, and walked past the elevator. Her room was on the seventh floor, and she always took the stairs. She could lie in foxholes next to soldiers, taking notes and working on a story while missiles exploded all around her. But she couldn’t ride an elevator to save her life. The idea of stepping inside one was enough to make her heart race. Just the thought of them made her feel trapped, like she was suffocating.

  She headed into the stairwell and started up.

  The little Afghani girl’s face flashed in her mind. What was it about her? Those eyes maybe, dark striking eyes, like Shane’s. The sort of eyes Emily might’ve had. Of course, if she’d lived, she wouldn’t be a little girl now. She’d be a young woman. For a moment Lauren stopped and closed her eyes, her hand tight around the railing.

  It hurt so much spending time with children, knowing that her daughter would be alive if she’d been a better mother. If she hadn’t taken chances with her baby’s life. She opened her eyes and kept walking. As much as it hurt, she’d rather spend time with Afghani children than with any of the adults she’d met. Children reminded her that no matter how frozen her heart felt, no matter how driven she was to be the best, most hard-hitting reporter at Time, somewhere inside she was still seventeen years old, driving from Chicago to Los Angeles, grieving the loss of her little Emily. How different her life might’ve been if her daughter had lived.

  Stop it! She’d given herself that same order so many times. Not that it made much difference. She breathed in and closed her eyes for a moment. How come I can still smell her, still feel her in my arms?

  Enough. Lauren opened her eyes and picked up her pace. Scanlon would be down early, the way he always was. After a few minutes she reached her floor. The stairs were good for her. They helped her stay in shape, a crucial factor if she was going to continue reporting from active areas of the war theater. And she would continue, as long as she believed her articles might have even the smallest influence on bringing the war to an end.