Even Now (20 page)

“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.

W
ar 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.

She reached room 722, slipped her card in the slot above the door handle, and pushed her way inside. She changed from her heavy khaki pants to a pair of shorts. The day promised to get hotter and spending time at the orphanage would mean she didn’t need extra clothing. There would be no slamming herself into the sand or hiding in craggy bluffs while a battle played out before her eyes.

Most Americans figured the war in Afghanistan was over. But there were uprisings of insurgents all the time, and an entire contingency of U.S. troops were still battling them on a daily basis. The problem wasn’t the insurgents, of course. Countries like Afghanistan would always have radical insurgents and terrorist groups. The problem was the innocent people harmed along the way. No wonder the country had so many orphans.

She sat on the edge of her bed and caught her breath. Her chest hurt and she leaned back on her elbows. The stairs must’ve done it, right? That’s why she felt so tight. But even as the thought tried to take root, she let it go. It was a lie. The walk up hadn’t made her chest ache. It was the little girl. The child’s eyes burned in her mind, taking her back the way orphans’ faces often took her back. Back to that terrible day, when she left the life she’d known . . .

She’d driven away from the hospital and headed for California, determined never to come home again. Her plan had been straightforward. She would live in LA until she found Shane. Three or four months, if it took that long. Then the two of them could find a way to stay together and, when things were stable, they’d go back to Chicago and have a proper burial for Emily. Give their baby the funeral service she deserved.

Much had gone just the way she’d planned. With a place to live, a car, and a job, she had no trouble getting her new ID and her residency established. School came easily, also. She passed the GED without studying at all, and the community college was more than happy to have her. Only one thing hadn’t gone according to schedule.

She never found Shane.

As the months turned into years, she thought about going home. She could walk up to the front door and tell her parents she needed their help to find him. By then, maybe they would’ve known a way to reach Shane. She would hug them and hold them and tell them she forgave them for what they’d done. At least she’d have a family again, even if she never found Shane.

But she couldn’t do it. She kept telling herself she needed to find him first. That way she could go home and make a clean start, without the need to hold anything against her parents.

The memories stirred dusty emotions in her soul, making her throat thick. She grabbed a water bottle from the half-full case on the nightstand next to her bed. There wasn’t one thing she hadn’t done to find Shane Galanter. She called high schools and eventually colleges. She searched out his last name, and three times she had help from one of her university professors, a man who specialized in investigative reporting.

“He must be living under his parents‘corporation name,” the guy finally concluded. “His parents could’ve called their California business just about anything. All the assets would be listed under that name.”

The question she never asked, the thing that didn’t make sense, was why Shane would do such a thing? Didn’t he realize she couldn’t find him if he lived that way? Of course, by changing
her
name she might’ve kept him away without meaning to. She’d done it to hide from her parents, not from Shane. Regardless, she kept looking. Every week she thought of something else, but each idea fizzled, turning up no sign of him. Sometimes she thought she’d go crazy looking. Back when every tall, dark-haired, Greek-looking man caused her heart to skip a beat. Back when she would race across a street and into a store or office building chasing after someone with Shane’s build, his look.

“Excuse me,” she’d shout at the man. “Are you — ”

He’d turn and she’d be looking at a complete stranger — who clearly thought she was crazy.

“I’m . . . I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

It happened again and again. A different street, different store, different tall, dark man. Sometimes she got close enough to touch his arm or his shoulder before realizing it wasn’t Shane.

“I’m sorry.” She would back away, her face hot. “I thought you were someone else.”

She didn’t give up until the ten-year anniversary of Emily’s death. On that day she took off Shane’s ring and put it in a small, square cardboard jewelry box with the pictures she’d kept: one of the two of them, their arms around each other, and the other of Emily. Before she closed the lid she read the words on the ring, words Shane had engraved for her alone.

Even now
.

They were still true that dark day. In some ways they always would be. She loved Shane, even now. Even when he was dead to her, when she had moved a million miles beyond the days of loving him.

As time wore on, she no longer lived under a different name. She
became
Lauren Gibbs. A single woman, alone in a world that had turned upside down overnight. If Shane had tried to find her, he wouldn’t have had a clue to look for her under that name. No one would’ve. Even so, she didn’t change her name back. She didn’t want to be Lauren Anderson again. That Lauren had been trapped by her circumstances and forced into a series of actions that cost her the two people she loved most.

No, Lauren Anderson was as dead as her baby daughter.

Lauren sat up straighter and took a long swig of the water. It was room temperature, as usual. She swallowed some more and then lowered the bottle back to her lap. A wind had picked up outside, kicking dust into the atmosphere and dulling the blue morning sky. What were her parents doing these days? They would be nearing retirement age, probably traveling and talking about the old days. In the beginning they probably looked for her, but after awhile it would’ve become obvious that she didn’t want to be found. Not then, and not now. Except . . .