After All These Years

by Sally John

  Next time? Lia groaned to herself.

  “Aunt Lia. I’ve been thinking. Do you think I can call Mommy Mom? Mandy doesn’t say mommy anymore.”

  “That’s a good idea. Your mom would like that.”

  “Aunt Lia?” She raised her face, those big blue eyes boring into Lia.

  “Hmm?”

  “Sometimes I call you my mom when I talk to the other kids. Is that okay?”

  “Sure, honey. I’m your adopted mom, even though I’ll always be your aunt.” She hugged her silently for a few moments. “Did your dad say he would call you?”

  “Yeah. Can I see him again?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yeah. I mean, yes.”

  “We’ll see. You better get to sleep now.”

  “Okay. I love you.”

  “Love you, too, sweetpea.”

  Lia carried bed pillows to the front room. In an effort to keep Isabel’s home neat, her mother had folded up the hide-a-bed every day and stacked the pillows in Chloe’s room. Lia wasn’t sure how long she could keep up the chore. Hopefully they could move back into the apartment in a few weeks. The workers had allowed her upstairs that day. The smoke stench gagged her. Could it ever be washed out?

  A knock on the front door startled her. She knew Mitch Conway was locked up and that the deputy guard no longer needed to park on the street overnight. Like the smoke odor, though, she wondered if the fear would ever subside.

  She turned on the outside light and looked through the door’s peephole. It was Cal. Another kind of fear rooted her feet to the floor. He knocked again.

  She knew she would have to face him sooner or later. Dear Lord, give me grace!

  She slowly opened the door. “Hi. Isabel’s not home.”

  “I wanted to see you. Mind if I come in?”

  She stood aside and let him pass, and then she shut the door. Perspiration beaded on his forehead. “Cal, it’s 40 degrees and you’re sweating!”

  He sank onto the nearest chair, his face pale behind the full beard that had grown during his hospital stay. More than ever he resembled a teddy bear with his bristly face matching his light brown hair. He panted.

  “Are you all right?”

  He waved a hand. “I’ll be fine. Walking across the yards felt like a major hike. The back doors are closer, but I didn’t want to frighten you by banging on the porch window.”

  “You just got home today!” Naturally she had heard the news. “You shouldn’t be out at all!”

  “No choice. My thanks are long past due. Lia, thank you for saving my life.”

  She sat on the couch. “You’re welcome. You’re not taking very good care of it right now.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m a tough cop.” He paused, his breathing more even. “Except when it comes to you.”

  She allowed herself to meet his eyes. What would be his excuse? It didn’t matter. There was no place for him in her life now.

  “Lia, I about went nuts when you didn’t come visit. Then on Saturday Brady told me what Tammy said. No wonder you hadn’t shown up! But I’ve been going crazy since then, not being able to come and explain.”

  “Cal, save the effort. At this point, it doesn’t matter. We had a good friendship. You helped me out a lot, and I got you away from the fire. I guess you could say we’re even. There’s nothing else between us.”

  “Lia! Tammy’s not pregnant!”

  “I know that. Dot told me she lost the baby.”

  “There never was a baby!”

  She blinked, trying to process this information.

  Cal heaved himself from the chair and lumbered over to the couch. He sank onto his knees before her. “Lia, I have to explain something. Growing up, playing football, Brady was always my quarterback. After I became a Christian, he kind of became that again, only in real life ways. He’s always telling me what plays to run. Which ones not to run because they won’t work.”

  He stopped to catch his breath. “The point is, as far as I know, there’s only one natural way to make a baby, and it just didn’t happen. Tammy thought she could trick us into being engaged, get the whole town assuming we were together. She figured no one would tell me since I supposedly didn’t know. If I did hear, she could chalk it up to gossip. In the meantime she conveniently had a ‘miscarriage.’ What she didn’t figure on was me breaking things off. She didn’t really love me. I guess she thought I was a good catch or something.”

  Lia’s throat tightened. She touched his beard and whispered, “You are, Cal. You’re a very good catch. But I’m not fishing.”

  Cal stumbled back across the darkened lawns to his house, his head swimming. He knew Lia watched, concerned that he had pushed himself beyond the limit of endurance.

  He had, but it wasn’t physical. He felt a fierce loathing toward Tammy, which scared him. He desperately wanted to turn back time, to spin the earth backwards until he sat again in Lia’s apartment, kissing her goodnight, deciding against searching, deciding to sit and simply watch her sleep.

  He climbed his front steps and leaned against a porch post, panting and sweating.

  It didn’t feel as though he’d been stabbed. Instead it felt as if that knife had filleted him open, exposing his heart to damage he never would have imagined possible.

  Oh, God!

  He went inside and made his way to the kitchen and the bottle of pain pills, which he told the doc he didn’t need. He swallowed two.

  He had talked with Lia for over an hour. She explained that circumstances made her realize that Valley Oaks wasn’t working out for her. She was selling the business as soon as possible and leaving no later than the end of December. There wasn’t enough space in her life for a relationship. As she had said when they first met, she wasn’t looking for one.

  “But I love you, Lia.”

  “It’s only infatuation, Cal. There hasn’t been time for love to develop.”

  She wasn’t the soft woman he remembered.

  Now he realized she was running scared. She had been thrown off course, choosing Chloe over her own dreams, working hard to carve out a new life for them. She was impressively independent and not about to give that up to some guy she wasn’t sure she could trust. Where should he start? Would flowers help?

  Try prayer, bud.

  He didn’t know if it was his own consciousness or Brady or the voice of Jesus Himself, but he recognized it as the place to begin.

  Thirty-Eight

  Isabel stood on Michigan Avenue across from the Chicago Tribune Tower, the sky a brilliant blue against the nearly white stone that soared heavenward.

  She closed her jaw. At the radio station where she interviewed, they teased her about behaving like a tourist. She wondered now if Lia could help her develop a big-city air about herself. Teach her how to dress and walk, how not to gawk with her mouth hanging open.

  But this was procrastinating. She wanted to see Tony, to apologize, to…well, to just see him.

  Swallowing the intimidation that kept welling up, she made her way across the busy boulevard, dodging people in the crosswalk. Where in the world did all these people come from? Where did they all live? And park their cars? And buy groceries?

  She went inside the building and eventually found herself standing before a security guard.

  “Anthony Ward,” the woman said, reaching for a telephone. “That smart-alecky reporter. You sure you want to talk to him, honey? You look way too sweet for the likes of him.” She pressed the phone pad buttons. “Used to be I could send you right on up. Too many threats these days. I seem to remember one or two against him in particular. What’s your name?”

  “Isa—Izzy. Tell him Izzy is here.”

  “Mr. Ward, this is Sheila downstairs. There’s an Izzy here to see you. Oh! He hung up. Rude, rude, rude! You’d think he’d at least—”

  Isabel somehow made her way back out to the sidewalk, blinking rapidly to keep the tears from falling. Now that certainly manifested a big-city attitude. She dug in
her bag for sunglasses and a tissue. Well, she had tried. If he didn’t want to see her… Sunglasses in place, she glanced to the right and left in what she thought was a nonchalant manner. Where was her car again? The people at the radio station had given her directions to the Tribune building, just a short distance across town. There was no reason to stay and so much to do at home. And she had promised to work early tomorrow—

  “Izzy!”

  She turned to see Tony running toward her.

  “Izzy! What are you doing here?” He didn’t smile, but he wrapped her in a brief hug.

  “Um, looking for you.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Do you want to walk a bit? We can find a bench.”

  “You have time?” She tried to sniffle unobtrusively.

  “Sure.” He grasped her elbow and steered her toward the river, across a type of courtyard and away from the avenue.

  They walked without speaking for a few minutes. After descending a stairway, they reached a sunny bench in a quiet area overlooking the river. Across the way, skyscrapers rose, the early afternoon sun glinting off their black windows.

  “Izzy, you’re the last person I would expect to show up here.”

  “Guess what? I’m taking your challenge.”

  He shook his head and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “And which one would that be?”

  “The one about not hiding away in Valley Oaks.”

  “Iz, you know I’m full of hot air. You shouldn’t take me literally. It’s bad for your health.”

  “Tony, I’m sorry for not telling you about being pregnant. I should have told you years ago. I certainly should have told you before now.”

  “I’m sorry for jumping down your throat. I had no right to get nasty with you. If I were you, I wouldn’t have tried to tell me. Once a jerk, always a jerk. I pushed you so far out of my consciousness that after one feeble attempt to call you that summer, I forgot about you. I mean, I totally forgot about you. Now I know I did that consciously, because I was falling in love with you. And that, above all, gave me the heebie-jeebies.”

  You loved me? She fought down the emotions his confession ignited. “I’ve blamed you all these years for not coming after me and making an honest woman out of me.”

  He looked back at her. “I should have. I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t know.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through it alone. I’m sorry you never finished college.”

  “I survived. I can always go back if I want.”

  “I’d pay for it.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t entirely your fault.” She smiled. “You can pay for half.”

  He turned again toward the river. “I feel like I’ve lost a sister and a child.”

  She rubbed his hunched shoulders.

  He sat quietly for a while. She wondered if he blinked away his own tears. “Iz, I can’t write the article. Every time I try to work on it, I have this image of you walking away. And you’re walking with my sister. My mind goes blank.” He straightened, put an arm across the bench behind her, and smiled in that crooked, self-deprecating way with his head tilted. “Heavy, huh?”

  “What does it mean to you?”

  “God’s leaving old Tony Ward out in the cold.”

  “Why don’t you come in?”

  “Hmm. Like that song you sang to me at breakfast. Just come in and leave all that guilt outside.”

  “That’s all there is to it.”

  He drew her closer and hid his face in her hair. “You are so beautiful, Isabel Mendoza.” He let her go and crossed his arms. “Now tell me why you really came to Chicago.”

  “To see you.” She smiled. “I came for a job interview, but I think I came for that because you were here. I needed to apologize before any more time passed.”

  “Job interview? In Chicago?”

  “Mm-hmm. Radio announcer for a Christian Spanish-speaking station. Enough of a challenge to meet your standards?”

  “I’d say so. Did they like you? Silly question. Of course they loved you.”

  She shrugged. “They have to think about it. I have to think about it.”

  “You’d leave Valley Oaks?”

  “It may be time. I’m also considering missions work in Mexico. My heart is still there.”

  “If you moved here, I’d be like your only friend in a hundred-mile radius.” He winked. “So how are things in Valley Oaks? Cal solve the pharmacy thefts yet?”

  “Oh, you haven’t heard!” She filled him in on details of the attack and fire. “He got out of the hospital yesterday.”

  “Poor guy. I’ll give him a call. How are the lovebirds?”

  “Well, not so good. Tammy has sort of moved in and claimed her territory.” She decided not to fill him in on all the sordid details. “I should go. Don’t you have a deadline or something?”

  “Actually, all of my writing seems to be a bit off these days, but yes, I do have work to do.”

  “Tony.”

  “Uh-oh. It’s her serious tone.”

  “There’s a Spanish-speaking church here.” She pulled a pamphlet from her bag. “I went last night with the family who let me stay with them. There’s a pastor visiting here all week from…Colombia.”

  He went still.

  “He knows about your sister and her friends. Some of the people he ministers to met her.” Isabel folded the pamphlet in half. Pushing aside his crossed arms, she opened his sport coat and stuffed it into his inside pocket. “Go. Listen to him; they have interpreters. Stay after and meet him.” She met his deep-set blue gaze. “My challenge to you.”

  Tony watched her walk away and bit the inside of his cheek. She wore black boots, a long gray straight skirt, and a black jacket. The red highlights in her hair glinted in the sun.

  She looked too small under the huge buildings, too pure and innocent for the likes of Chi-town. Not fragile, though. No, she wasn’t fragile. She could move to the big city and fashion a life, making borders out of ideals and integrity. But…she would choose Mexico. Her talents lay in the city, but she would choose the extreme route. Just as his sister had done. And she would walk away from him and not turn back, just as in the image he could not erase. Just as his sister had done.

  He may have been falling in adolescent love with her seven years ago, but this was different. He could not remember what life was like before he entered that vet’s office in Valley Oaks two months ago. Only two months? A lifetime.

  Just now, he had asked her to keep him posted on her job decision. She smiled in that enigmatic way of hers, kissed him on the cheek, and left.

  He knew that kiss had meant goodbye.

  Tony sat in the back pew of the tiny church, totally absorbed in the service. He had even stopped listening to the translator, hearing the preacher’s Spanish and somehow—after all these years—understanding it. The short, mustached, European-looking man stood before the pulpit, no notes, words flowing effortlessly, hands gesturing elegantly.

  Tony’s vision blurred, creating the sensation of swimming underwater. He stretched one hand to the back of the wooden pew in front of him and clung to it. It was as if the water parted, giving him a clear, tunnel-like view of only the preacher. What am I doing here?

  After Izzy stuck the pamphlet in his pocket the other day, it crinkled whenever he moved. It sat on his kitchen table for twenty-four hours before he decided. He would take her challenge because he didn’t seem to have any other option. Through no choice of his own, his life was on hold and he didn’t know for what. He would go to the service and meet God and tell Him what he thought. He would set straight once and for all those hapless folks who thought he should celebrate his sister’s sacrifice.

  The tears started as the little man neared the conclusion of his passionate talk. The preacher spoke of obscene poverty and of unfathomable joy. He told of how people braved threats of guerillas, how Bibles were treasured, how many miles people trudged in order to join with other believers. He spoke of young
Americans who loved their enemies…and of how their deaths had softened some of the hardest of hearts.

  After the service, the man reached Tony before he was able to uproot himself from the pew. Their eyes met, and he sensed that somehow the preacher knew.

  The man grasped his shoulder. “My friend, I am sorry for your loss.”

  “How can I forgive the men who killed my sister?”

  “You can’t. Only Jesus can. Jesus living in you can forgive them. Do you want to forgive them?”

  “I can’t carry around this…this…” Name it, Tony. Say it! “This hatred around anymore.”

  “Then ask Jesus to live in your heart. He’ll set you free from the darkness you walk in now.” He laid a hand lightly on Tony’s head, murmured a prayer, and moved away.

  The underwater sensation returned. His face was wet. His palm ached from its grip on the pew. His chest felt as if a sumo wrestler sat on it.

  I’m sorry, God! I’m sorry!

  What had the preacher said? What had Izzy said? What had JoJo said? “Ask Jesus to live in your heart.”

  I don’t understand any of it!

  He could barely breathe.

  Just ask.

  All right!

  “Jesus,” he whispered, “live in my heart? Please?”

  The sumo wrestler vanished, leaving a gaping hole in his wake, ripping the breath from Tony’s lungs. The ache was unbearable.

  And then a warmth began to seep in around the edges, a fluid heat absorbing the pain, consuming the hatred, engulfing the doubts. An implosion of love.

  His tears continued long into the night. He had met God all right, but it was most decidedly not on Tony Ward’s terms.

  Thirty-Nine

  “Cal,” Isabel called from his kitchen, “I’m going to do a little housekeeping out here.”

  “Go for it.” He sat in his recliner in the living room, hand on the remote, eyes glued to a televised soccer match.

  “Chloe,” Isabel called out again, “you okay for a bit?”

  Cal glanced at the girl sitting across the end table from him. She sat on the edge of the other, smaller recliner that had been his grandmother’s. He couldn’t read her expression. She had come over with Isabel that morning, the two of them carrying enough casseroles and loaded grocery bags to keep him going for a week.