Chasing Sunsets (25 page)

A heart transplant?

Sometime before the end of the year?

Falling . . . falling.
Mary Catherine stood and steadied herself on the edge of her bed. Then with her remaining energy she walked to the window and looked at the blue sky. The beautiful Southern California sky. How could this happen?

She thought about her friends. Now she would have to tell Marcus. Not right away, but sometime soon. She’d have to tell all of them. If only she could stop falling, stop the blackness of the dark hole she’d stepped into. Before the call she’d
thought she had till she was thirty. Another seven years at least.

Suddenly thirty felt like an impossible number. Like a gift.

Maybe there was some mistake. She felt fine, right? She wasn’t short of breath or struggling with chest pains. People waiting for a heart transplant were very sick. Too weak to get out of bed. Mary Catherine clung to the window frame and thought about her morning, about the feel of Marcus’s arm against hers.
What about moments like that, God?
There would be no time to make a difference, no time for learning the guitar or taking voice lessons.

She wouldn’t live long enough for any of it. Mary Catherine closed her eyes, but the tears came anyway. The blackness was swallowing up the moment, and still she was falling. Everything was different now. Everything would change. And of course there was something else she would have to give up. The thing she only joked about every now and then and once in a while prayed about. The thing that would absolutely never be possible now.

Her hundred years.

23

L
EXY COULDN’T STOP SHAKING.

It was the morning of her prison tour. Mary Catherine and Marcus were going to pick her up and take her to the prison, an hour away. She stared at her full cereal bowl. She was too scared to eat. Too unsure about what was ahead.

Why had she agreed to the program? They wouldn’t have given her very long at Eastlake juvie, right? Less than a year, then she’d have been back on the streets. But going to prison? Even a day there would be terrible.

Prison was the sort of place that took a person in and swallowed them up and never let them see the light of day again. The way prison had done to her mother. Lexy looked at the photo on the wall across from her. She and her mama before the arrest. Lexy stood and walked to the picture. She touched it, running her thumb over their faces. In the photo her mama’s arm was around her shoulders and their smiles were the same. Their eyes, too. The arrest came the next day,
an afternoon Lexy thought about all the time. The day her mama was locked up and sent away.

The last day the two of them had seen each other.

Lexy might’ve been maybe six in the picture. Her mama, maybe twenty-two. Her mom was beautiful and intelligent. She could remember sitting with her mom on the couch that week and watching TV.
America’s Funniest Home Videos
, Lexy could still remember. Her mom was laughing and so Lexy had laughed, too.

When she was little . . . Lexy could remember laughing a lot with her mama. Why had her mom gotten into drugs? She could’ve done something different with her life. So why didn’t she? Lexy stared at the photo and blinked. The reason was obvious. No matter how long she looked at the photograph, no matter how the two of them seemed there on the wall.

Her mother didn’t love her.

Lexy was alone after her mama went away. Her grandma tried, but she never knew what was going on in the house. The summer Lexy turned eight was the first time she remembered the neighbor boy locking her in his bedroom and taking advantage of her. He was fourteen. At least she thought so. It had happened too many times since then. The bad all blended together. And none of it would have happened if her mama had been around.

Mamas are supposed to keep their babies safe.

Supposed to keep their babies in school and out of gangs.

Lexy felt her anger rising, taking over her heart and soul. If she had a soul. One day when she had babies, she wasn’t going to leave them. She would move out of the slums to
some nice place like Reseda. Lexy’s grandma was from Reseda. Nice town in the San Fernando Valley.

Gradually a resolve built in her.

She had prayed to God for help and he’d given her the chance at this program. It was a little late to start wishing she’d served time instead. If she was going to make a change for her own kids one day, then this was the only way.

The Last Time In
program. Whatever happened today, she could deal with it.

Her grandma’s Bible was open again on the other side of the table. The way it was always open.
Hate evil . . . cling to good.
That’s what the blond police officer had told her. And then he’d showed up again, right when Dwayne was going to kill her.

A sick feeling slammed into Lexy’s stomach. Yes, Dwayne was definitely going to kill her. He had wanted to hide out at her grandma’s house that day, but all of a sudden he looked at her like he was the devil himself and he ordered her back outside to the car.

“I can’t have witnesses, baby. You gotta understand.” That’s what he told her. He said it again and again until they were almost to the car and then out of nowhere there was the blond police officer. Again. Towering and looking like he could take down a whole gang by himself.

Then the craziest thing Lexy had ever seen in all her life. The cop had appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the gun. That wasn’t even possible. Anyone knew people couldn’t just appear out of thin air.

But that’s what the officer did.

Even that didn’t scare Dwayne. Lexy thought the cop
would shoot her boyfriend right there on the street. That’s when she had shouted out for help from Jesus.

Lexy didn’t understand it, even still. Didn’t know why she had called out the name Jesus, but something about that moment seemed to change things for the cop. Like he blinked a few times and he took his finger off the trigger. After that Lexy knew he wasn’t going to shoot.

He was too good for that.

Hate evil . . . cling to good.

She was reminding herself when a text came through on her phone. It was from one of the WestKnights.
You in or not, baby? You’re mine tonight. Dwayne’s gone. I got next dibs.

She stared at the text. Just stared at it as the words cut their way through her. Then she texted back without thinking.
I’m in.

She looked at it and her heart felt hard and dead again.

He sent one last text.
Be ready.

Tears slid down her cheeks. Who was she kidding? She would never have kids if she could help it. But if she did, she’d be just like her mama. How could she not? She was too far into the WestKnights to back out now.

There would be no babies, no family, no little house in Reseda. No life different from the one her mama gave her. No way to hate evil when it was a part of the air she breathed.

The time in prison today would not be her last time in.

It would be a preview.

24

M
ARY CATHERINE COULD’VE WON
an Oscar for how she pulled herself together and pretended to be fine. The acting had begun Friday night at the last training session and continued on to this morning when Marcus picked her up for the prison tour.

She was still in the dark hole, still falling. But she could see the light of day. If she didn’t have a year left, she was going to live her days like never before. Starting today with the Last Time In
program. This day wasn’t about her.

It was about Lexy.

In the driver’s seat beside her, Marcus seemed somehow aware that she was different. “You sure you’re okay?” He’d asked her twice already. “Sorry. It’s just . . . something in your eyes.”

A smile lifted the corners of her lips. “I’m fine. Just tired. I was up late reading.”

“Your pilot’s manual?” He grinned at her.

“No, a novel.” She told him the name. “My favorite author just had a book come out. I can’t put it down.” At least that much was true.

“I didn’t know you were into reading.” It sounded forced. Like he was trying to believe her. “Me, too. I love fiction.”

“You do not.” She laughed and she could feel the doubt in her eyes.

He raised his brow and pointed to himself. “Are you saying athletes don’t read?”

“Not many of them.” Even in light of her news, something about being with him made her forget everything but the moment.

“I take exception to that statement.” He tipped his baseball cap to her. “This Southern gentleman loves to read. For real.” His eyes stayed on the road. “When you finish this book that kept you up so late, I wanna read it.” He glanced at her. “Deal?”

She was still laughing. “Deal.”

The mood stayed light as they drove to Lexy’s, but after they picked her up it changed. Lexy seemed completely shut down. More than she’d been the other day. Mary Catherine sat in the front seat next to Marcus and tried. “How were the last few days?”

Silence.

“Lexy.” She kept her tone kind. “I know this isn’t easy. But please answer me.”

Silence.

“Okay, then tell me about your grandma. How does she feel about you going for the prison tour today?”

Again nothing.

Marcus reached over and gently touched Mary Catherine’s leg. Then he shook his head briefly, as if to say it wasn’t worth it. He mouthed the word
later
. Then he turned the radio to the local Christian station. Francesca Battistelli came on. The song was a new one Mary Catherine loved called “If We’re Honest.” She hoped Lexy was listening to the words.

Mary Catherine sang along. “ ‘Truth is harder than a lie, the dark seems safer than the light . . .’ ” As the song played out a thought occurred to her.

The words applied to her own life as much as they applied to Lexy’s.

Mary Catherine leaned back and let the lyrics wash over her. She loved every song by Francesca. This one and the one that had first given her hope that God might have more time for her than the doctors believed. The song was called “Hundred More Years.” Mary Catherine looked out the window while the song played. Despite her best efforts at ignoring her own situation and trying to make today about Lexy, she felt the tears.

Life wasn’t fair for her or for Lexy. Neither of them would likely ever have the lives they’d dreamed about. Mary Catherine’s teardrops spilled down her cheeks before she could do anything to stop them. She wiped them with the back of her hand, careful not to catch Marcus’s attention.

But he must’ve seen, because he reached out and took hold of her hand. He let the song play on, right to the last line
. . . If we’re honest.

Mary Catherine loved how her hand felt in Marcus’s, loved that he would reach out and comfort her when he saw
her tears. She smiled at him, no longer embarrassed by her watery eyes. Life was not all laughter and mornings at the beach.

It was okay to cry.

The music switched and it was Matthew West’s “Strong Enough.” Mary Catherine sniffed and settled into her seat. Crying might have been allowed, but it wasn’t possible during Matthew’s song. She sang along, quietly at first. “ ‘You must, you must think I’m strong, to give me what I’m going through.’ ”

Then, to her surprise, Marcus began to sing, too. Louder and more off-key than her. “We’d make quite a duo for
America’s Got Talent
.” He was still holding her hand and now he winked at her.

It was impossible to stay sad around him. Plus the words to the song were too powerful. Okay, so she needed a heart transplant. And sure, not everyone on the list received one. Maybe she did only have a year left.

But she absolutely refused to use her days trying to stop falling, trying to see past the blackness. There would be time to cry, yes. But she had to believe in the message of the song. Especially with Marcus singing it at the top of his lungs beside her. That God was strong enough for her. Strong enough for Lexy.

After a minute, he released her hand and pretended to sing into a microphone. “I’m ready for Fifteen Minutes.”

From the backseat Lexy said her first words of the morning. “Maybe not yet.”