Ever After (30 page)

Joe wasn’t backing down. He’d never met the guys until today, but clearly he wasn’t going to let this moment pass. “Now?” He put his hand firm and hard on Dexter’s shoulder. “Now you get your education and you make something of yourself.” Joe’s lip quivered. “You make Justin proud, because that’s what he wanted for you. It’s what he believed for you.”

Bo took a step forward. His eyes moved around the group to each of the guys, and finally, to Dexter. “The man’s right.” He looked more composed than he had all day. “Justin believed in us. Maybe … maybe it’s time we believed in us too.”

For the first time, the idea seemed to sink in for Dexter. For the others also. Justin had believed in them. Dexter eased his stance. He bit the inside of his lip and gave the slightest nod. “Okay.” Then he motioned for the others, and they all started walking toward the van again.

Emily wanted to raise her fist in the air. Here it was, the victory she’d been looking for all day. Justin
wasn’t
gone. He wasn’t in the casket, about to be lowered into a dark hole in the ground. He was here. He was in the warm smile of a teary-eyed World War II Veteran, and in the innocent eyes of a busload of grade school kids. He was in the firm grip of a soldier named Joe Greenwald, and he was standing beside her, gazing out at Puget Sound. Where he’d always be. But in this moment, maybe most of all, he lived on in the words of a troubled young teenager.

A guy who would forever believe in himself, in his future, in his reason for being alive. And one day — no matter how long or sad the good-bye — they would see him again and know the impact he’d made, the legacy he’d left behind, the lives that had been changed.

All because Justin Baker had lived.

T
WENTY
-E
IGHT

L
auren was standing off by herself, watching Carol Baker grieve, when she saw her mother approaching. She looked older, more tired. Coming to the service was important to Lauren’s mom. She’d told them after hearing the news about Justin that she would’ve come even if she’d had to drive up. Instead she’d flown in yesterday afternoon and shared an early dinner with Emily and Lauren and Shane.

She’d raised Emily, after all. Of course she had come.

“This is the hardest thing my granddaughter’s been through,” she told Lauren after dinner. “I had to be here.”

During the service, she’d given them space, understanding that Emily was struggling in more than one way. She had lost Justin, yes. But unless a miracle happened, she was about to lose any hope of her parents ever reuniting. Lauren took her eyes off her mother and looked at Shane, across the green spread of grass, several rows of tombstones away. He was talking to Gary Baker.

There wasn’t much time; Lauren’s mother seemed to understand that too. Her return flight was set for tomorrow, and now, as she drew near, Lauren had a feeling she may have come to Tacoma for more than a chance to support Emily.

She stopped a foot away, close enough that Lauren could hear her ragged breathing.“Something in the air here.” She gazed at the trees that surrounded the cemetery. “Never had so much trouble drawing a breath.”

“You’re not sick?” Lauren wasn’t used to worrying about her. They’d been out of touch for nearly two decades, long enough that most of the time she forgot she even had a mother. But now that Emily had brought them all back together, Lauren expected to have her mom around for a long time. Especially after losing her father to cancer a week after finding him. Lauren lowered her brow, worried. “You’ve been getting checkups?”

“I’m fine.” Her mother waved her hand, as if she were swatting a fly. “Probably just allergies.”

“Could be.” She looked at her daughter, climbing into the van full of teens fifty yards away. “Emily says they’re bad up here.”

Her mother was quiet. When Lauren turned to look at her, she had no doubt. Her mother hadn’t walked over to talk about allergies. Lauren turned her back to the rented SUV and tilted her head. “You’re coming to the Bakers’ house?”

“I am. Haven’t had a chance to talk to Emily yet, not the way I want to.” Her mother narrowed her eyes, thoughtful. “She’s doing well. God’s carrying her. I can see it.”

Lauren gave a few slow nods. “He is. No way to get through a day like today without faith.”

“No.” Her mother drew a slow breath. She looked away, but only for a moment. “Lauren, there’s something I have to say.”

The words reminded her of the semi-speech she’d given Emily and Shane as they arrived at the cemetery. As if death had a way of making people get around to the point, a way of highlighting everything anyone ever said about life being too short. She studied her mom, the woman she’d spent so many years hating. All she could see in the older woman’s eyes was love. Lauren gave her a sad smile. “I thought maybe you did.”

“Yes.” She held Lauren’s eyes. “It’s about Shane.”

Lauren found him again, still talking to his friend. “Shane?”

Her mother looked over her shoulder at the two men, then back. “Don’t let him go, Lauren.” Her voice sounded suddenly scratchy. “It’s … it’s my fault you ever let him go in the first place.” She spread her fingers across her chest. “I take full blame. But now …” She looked at Shane again. “I see the way he looks at you, how he still watches you when you cross the room. The way he used to do all those years ago.”

Lauren’s heart fluttered. “Really?”

“Honey — ” her mother gave her a look that said she knew — “I’m not wrong about this. Shane loves you as much today as he ever did.”

The surprise of her observation was wearing off, and her heart fell back to a normal rhythm. But the thought stirred something deep in Lauren’s soul. Shane watched her when she crossed a room? The years fell away and she stared at him, Shane, the only one who could make her feel seventeen again.

“What I want to tell you, Lauren — ” her mother took hold of her hand and searched her face — “is that he loves you. He’s crazy about you. He’ll never love anyone the way he loves you.”

“I’ve been thinking that.”

Her mother made a relieved sound. “Good.” The familiar guilt and regret cast shadows on her mother’s face. “I couldn’t bear to see the two of you throw away what you had … what you still can have … all because of differing opinions.”

“Well …” Lauren looked at the flag flying near the corner of the cemetery, the way it unfurled in the breeze. The red, white, and blue and all it stood for. “Our opinions are closer than they used to be.”

Her mother’s brows lifted. She hesitated, absorbing that bit of information, then shifted her gaze to the van just pulling away. “I think of Emily, all she’s lost.” She had Lauren’s hand. “You and Shane still have a chance, honey. Don’t … please don’t let him go. Not again.”

Lauren was struck by the intensity in her mother’s tone. But at the same time, another sort of realization hit hard. Her mother was right. If she didn’t do something to stop it, in a few days, she and Shane would both board flights headed for two entirely different locations.

They’d already told Emily they’d stay another week, through Thanksgiving. Long enough to spend time with her, talk to her, and give her space to cry and laugh and remember the crazy, happy months since she’d met Justin. Emily wanted the three of them to visit the Space Needle and Issaquah, Blake Island and Pike Place Market, the spots Justin had taken her.

“If I go back now,” she’d told them, “I’ll still feel him with me. Before I forget how.”

There was no arguing with that, because there was no arguing with grief. A person simply did what her heart led her to do. If that’s where Emily wanted to go, how she wanted to spend her days after the funeral, Lauren and Shane would go with her. But at the end of the week, next Saturday, maybe they could spend an hour at the small church Emily had found.

Fallon wasn’t so bad now that Lauren understood the military a little better. An entire town full of men and women with the same mind-set as Justin Baker? That wouldn’t be such a horrible existence, would it? She and the others could disagree on politics, but some things finally made sense. The idea that a country like Iraq deserved freedom, and the notion that terror — the sort that would fly a plane into a building, or fire a bullet into a sign-waving man named Yusef, or detonate a bomb beneath a vehicle containing a kid who wanted everything good and right — that sort of thinking had to be eradicated. No questions.

Yes, she could live in Fallon now, because it was like an optical illusion. The people who lived and worked around the Top Gun facility used to seem like criminals to her, bullies looking for a fight, wanting to flex their collective muscle. But now she saw them more as police officers, people with the heart and courage to defend and protect.

A strange thing had happened since she wrote that first story about Justin and his fellow soldiers, since she dared to report the war the way so many people in Fallon had talked about it. Other reporters had started doing the same thing. One network correspondent who was interviewed the week before declared her admiration for the men and women of the military, and how it was an honor to risk her life beside them if that’s what it took to tell their story. Their real story.

Lauren smiled when she saw the interview.

The press was starting to get it, starting to understand that complicated matters were never entirely one-sided — no matter what a reporter’s personal views might be. She could leave the war reporting to the many other capable journalists in the Middle East, and
Time
would find another reporter to pal around with Scanlon.

She was finished, ready to move on with her life.

Shane’s face came to mind — his voice and his touch. They’d have their differences, of course. But what couple didn’t? And if Lauren returned to the sort of stories she’d been doing before — conducting interviews around the country — she would still have her independence, her time outside of Fallon. Most of all, she would have Shane and she would have peace — not the sort that she had spent her adult years writing about, searching for. But the type of peace that passed all understanding. A peace that could only come from God and His wisdom, and a knowing that she was finally where she belonged.

With Shane, where she had always belonged.

The thought that had hit her a moment ago returned. What about it? An hour in the small church where Emily and Justin had gone, a moment in time to promise forever to the man who had gently taken hold of her heart when he was only a kid. Would he have her? Would he believe that she could share a house with him in Fallon, entertain with him, and understand the people who made up his world?

Or was it too late?

Lauren took her mother’s other hand. Patience shone from her mom’s eyes, a patience and a persistence that said she wasn’t going to leave this conversation without an answer. Lauren looked at her for a long time. “I won’t let him go, Mom.” Conviction rose within her, a conviction she hadn’t fully acknowledged until now. “I know what I want.” The words sounded foreign coming from her mouth. She hadn’t voiced them to anyone yet, even herself. “Shane and I, well, we had this date all planned, something big set for Christmas Eve in Fallon.” Her heart beat harder at the thought. “But I’d do it this week. On Saturday after Thanksgiving … if Shane’ll have me.” She felt a tentative smile on her lips. “He might say no, because, well … I’ve been — ” she wrinkled her nose — “a little difficult.”

“Are you saying — ” her mother’s face lost a shade of color — “are you saying you’d marry him this week if he’d take you?”

Only then did she realize the significance of her words. The great and lasting significance. “Yes.” No hint of doubt remained. She wanted to marry Shane and grow old with him, love him the way she’d never been able to love him before. “Yes!” She let loose a quiet laugh. “I want to marry him, Mom. That’s what I’m saying.” Her forehead grew damp, even in the late afternoon breeze. She would marry him that Saturday if he would take her, if he would trust that she was ready to commit her life to him, if he would forego all the fancy planning and flowers and simply hold her hand at the front of the small church and promise her forever.

The way she was suddenly desperate to promise it to him.

Her mother’s eyes grew watery. “Well, then that settles it.”

“What?” Lauren’s heart was still racing within her, the future bright with possibilities that had eluded her all her life.

“I need to change my plane ticket.” Her mother squeezed her hands, her eyes glistening. The look on her face said that the wedding was already a done deal, as if she — even better than Lauren — knew without a doubt what Shane would say.

She grinned. “Because I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

T
WENTY
-N
INE

F
unerals were strange.

Emily was amazed how, as the day wore on, the group of family and friends who had known Justin best rode a wave of emotions that seemed to change with every passing hour. What had started at the beginning of the day as resolve had given way to gut-wrenching grief and unending sorrow.

But now that she’d made the round trip to Tacoma to drop off the teens, she joined the others at the Bakers’ house. The joy she found there surprised her, but after an hour she was laughing too. A laughter that would’ve made Justin proud to be a part of them. people told stories about him — the time he rode his bike through the neighbor’s freshly paved driveway and denied the charge to his mother.

“I only had to take him outside to see the black tire track leading all the way from Mrs. Johnson’s house to ours.” Justin’s father chuckled. He was sitting in one of the chairs at the kitchen table, his wife and daughter on either side, and Buster sleeping at their feet. Justin’s sweatshirt was tucked beneath the dog’s paws.

Also sitting around the table with her were her parents and grandmother, and Joe Greenwald along with a few other relatives. The stories kept them there, spellbound, celebrating Justin and every time he’d ever made them smile. Emily savored each one, learning a little more about him with each telling, each round of laughter.

Around seven o’clock, a lull fell over the table. The men moved into the family room, and the women headed to the kitchen to make coffee. Again the atmosphere was familiar. Trays of food on the counter, the smell of barbecued chicken and potato casserole and baked apples, all brought to the house by friends. Flames danced in the fireplace in the next room, and country music played, a soft backdrop for the conversations and occasional rounds of laughter that filled the place.

Emily closed her eyes and breathed in. This could’ve been any other gathering, a Saturday afternoon when their families had come together for a holiday party. She could picture him beside her, laughing with Joe and teasing his mother for breaking down and letting Buster in the house.

She blinked and the truth was glaringly obvious. Justin
wasn’t
there. He never would be again. With the others off to different rooms, she and Joe were the only ones at the table, and she studied him — for the first time since they’d spoken at the church earlier that day. He was staring at his hands, his shoulders stiff, uncomfortable.

Emily’s heart hurt for him. How must he feel? Today should’ve been another attempt at bringing order to the streets of Iraq. Justin should’ve been beside him in their Humvee, riding through Baghdad and taking care of business, counting the days until their tour was up.

“Joe?” Her voice was soft. “Wanna take a walk?”

He looked up and something crossed his expression, a sense of obligation and inevitability. He didn’t break eye contact. “I think we need to.”

She stood and found her coat near the front door. He did the same, but he also grabbed his backpack from the floor. Neither of them said anything as they went out the front door and closed it behind them. Darkness had already set, and with the clouds overhead, the only light came from the tall lamps that lined Justin’s street.

Emily pulled her coat more tightly around her and stuck her hands in her pockets. Winter was in the air, and rain in the forecast. The breeze was biting, but it made her feel alive, helped lift the stifling sense of death she had carried all day. They hadn’t walked too far when Joe stopped and leaned against a tree.

“It should’ve been me.” He breathed in sharply and stared into the darkness. “Justin … he had everything to live for.” Joe looked at her, to the part of her heart that was barely holding on. His eyes pooled with sympathy, empathy. “He loved you, Emily. So much.”

This was the moment they’d both put off, and Emily steeled herself against it, willed herself to hear what Joe had to say without falling apart again. “You were with him. When …”

There was no need to finish her sentence. Joe understood. He slid one foot up against the tree trunk and stared at the ground. “He was sleeping when it hit, dreaming I think. Because an instant after the explosion, he was calling for you.”

Tears gathered in her eyes and she held her breath. She didn’t want to cry, not now. This was the only chance she’d ever have to hear the details of that terrible hour. But she hadn’t expected this. He’d called for her? A moment after the explosion she had been there in his mind? The news filled her with a gratitude and sorrow greater than anything she’d known.

Joe sniffed. “It was like … like he was talking to you.” He lifted his fist to his mouth and waited. “He told you he was sorry, he … never meant for it to happen.”

The story unfolded, how Joe was cut, but alright, and how he crawled out of the mangled vehicle and found Justin on the ground. “His legs … they were torn up.” Joe raked his fingers through his short hair. “I knew he was in trouble. I started calling for help. Justin … he was pretty dazed. Didn’t know what had happened. But right away he started asking about his legs.”

Emily didn’t want to picture how Justin looked, how bad the scene must’ve been for Joe. She exhaled.
God … please get me through this.
She didn’t want the details, but she’d wondered about something ever since she got the news. Justin was a medic, and he would’ve helped a soldier in trouble. But had there been medics on hand in
his
hour of need? Or had he bled to death without any help? A cold bit of wind slipped in through her coat and she hugged herself to ward off the chill. “Were there medics? Nearby?”

“Not at first.” Joe narrowed his eyes, which again grew distant, as if the tragedy was playing out again in his mind. “I leaned across him, using my body to stop …” He shook his head, and anger crept into his tone. “It didn’t help. He was bleeding pretty bad.”

Emily felt sick, faint. There was a street sign a foot from her, and she leaned against it so she wouldn’t fall.

“He didn’t ask about his legs after that.” The anger faded from his tone. A sad sort of laugh came from him. “He was more worried about me, told me I had a cut over my eye and I needed to get pressure on it. I told him I was fine. I kept …” His shoulders hunched forward. “I told him to hang on, and he … told me to pray. So I did, I prayed out loud.” His eyes lifted to hers. “I kept telling him you were waiting for him, that he had to hold on for you.”

Sadness filled every part of her. She had questions, not for Joe Greenwald. For God. But they would have to wait. She kept her eyes on Joe, willing him to finish.

“The medics came then, and they tried.” His face twisted, and he suddenly looked like a young kid, crying because he’d lost his best friend. “It was too much. Too much blood loss, his injuries too bad. There was nothing — ” He stopped a sob midway and shook his head hard.

Emily had watched Justin’s friend suffer long enough. She took the backpack he was holding and set it on the ground beside him. Then she pulled him into her arms, hugged him the way she’d hug a brother. He clung to her, held on so tight, she could barely breathe. “Emily … I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She stroked his back, willing him to survive the loss, same as she was willing herself to survive it. “If it’s too hard, Joe, you don’t have to tell me.”

He released her and leaned against the tree once more. “No. I … I have to. I promised him.”

A car drove by on the street a few feet from them. As it passed, Emily lifted her words to God.
Please … help him through this. Help us both, Lord.
As she silently spoke the words, the chill inside her eased. God was with them, even now, even with her questions and confusion. Emily anchored herself against the street sign and waited.

“That’s when I noticed this.” He lifted the backpack and held it with one hand. With the other he reached inside, rifled through the contents, and pulled out what looked like a small picture. He handed it to her.

It was a laminated photograph of Emily, one that Justin had taken at the pier that day, just before their cruise. The picture was bent and splattered with dirt. The one he’d written to her about. Emily studied it, remembering that afternoon. Their future had seemed so real and bright. She turned her eyes to Joe. “He told me about this. He kept it in his boot.”

“He was holding it when … when the bomb went off.”

Emily stared at the photograph, tried to make out the image of her face through the cloud of fresh tears. If she’d had any doubt about his feelings for her, any doubt about whether she was on his mind in his final moments, this erased them all. He’d been thinking of her, looking at her picture even as his life drained away.

Joe held the backpack to his chest. “He told me to tell you he loved you, but …” He was more composed now, the sobs having retreated to a place where — like hers — they would never be far away. He squinted. “I told him to tell you himself. You were
his
girl.”

A sad smile lifted the corners of Emily’s mouth. She appreciated Joe, his heart and his spunk, his willingness to carry out the message for Justin, his determination in those final moments to spur Justin to hold on and fight for every breath.

“I think he knew he didn’t have long. He kept his eyes on your picture and — ” Joe’s expression changed and he swallowed hard. Whatever was coming next, his discomfort was evident. He searched her eyes. “He asked me to be your friend, Emily. That’s what he wanted.”

Emily folded her fingers around the bent piece of plastic and hung her head. As he lay there dying, Justin’s thoughts hadn’t only been about her, they’d been
for
her. That she might have a friend to help her survive his loss. She tucked the photo into her pocket and held her coat tighter around her body.
Justin … how can you be gone?

Then she remembered Joe, the soldier who had just bared his heart by passing on a request from Justin — a request that clearly made him uneasy. Her silence was bound to feel like rejection. Sure enough, as she lifted her eyes, he was looking at the ground.

“We don’t even know each other, Emily. It’s okay … you don’t have to … I mean, I only told you because — ”

“Joe.” Her tone was tender, but firm. She took hold of his arm and searched his face. This was what Justin wanted, and she was glad. Being friends with Joe would help ease the loneliness, give her someone to listen when all she wanted to do was talk about the love she’d lost. “I want to be your friend.”

The awkwardness in his eyes lifted a bit. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She let go of him and hugged herself again. “I think that’d be nice. You aren’t going back to Iraq, right?”

He absently touched the bandage on his forehead. “No. I’ll have to do my part from here now.”

“Okay, then.” They didn’t need a plan or a date. They could exchange cell phone numbers and make arrangements to meet for lunch or dinner or for a walk around campus. They would be friends because Justin asked them to be, and because it made sense. Overnight, Justin’s loss gave them more in common than they might’ve found in a year.

Joe reached into his backpack again. “I brought you a few other things.” He pulled out the red scrapbook, the one she’d given Justin before he left. With great care he dusted it off and looked at it. “He read the thing every night.” His eyes found hers. “I mean, really. He knew every page, knew it by heart.” Joe did a sad laugh as he handed it to her. “I think even I memorized it.”

Emily’s hands shook. She took hold of the book and brought it close. Somehow it smelled like Justin, and she felt her heart breaking again. She had never planned to get it back, never imagined a scene like this one. Joe’s words played again in her mind.
He read the thing every night … knew it by heart.
She held the book tighter. She would look at it later, study each page for signs that Justin had camped there, finger smudges or bits of dirt. She found Joe’s eyes. “Thank you. For bringing it to me.”

He nodded. “There’s more.” He pulled out a manila envelope. “All the letters you sent, and a few notebook pages, things he wrote when he couldn’t sleep.” He handed her the envelope.

Emily tucked it inside the cover of the scrapbook. The night was getting colder, and they needed to get back. Her cheeks were dry now, because the things Joe had told her had eased some of the pain. Almost as if she too had been there beside Justin when he died. “Did he … say anything else?”

Joe thought for a few seconds. Then his eyes shone with a sweet sadness. “Yes.” He looked at the dark sky beyond the trees. “He said he’d save a place for us. For his family and the guys at the teen center, for me — ” his eyes found hers again — “and for you. Those were his last words. He was looking at your picture, and he told me he’d save a spot for you.”

Another chilly breeze came over them, but a strange warmth made its way through her. She imagined the moment, Justin looking at her picture, wanting to save her a place in heaven. “Did he talk much about the boys, the teens at the center?”

“Mmmhm.” Joe eased the backpack onto his right shoulder. “All the time. After missing you, his next concern was for those kids.” Joe uttered a soft laugh. “And Buster, of course.”

Emily smiled. “Of course.” That was Justin, serving in one of the hottest spots in the war and worried more about his dog than his life.

Joe motioned toward the Bakers’ house. “We should get back.”

“Yes.” They began walking, their steps slow, pensive. How strange it was having this mountain of a guy beside her, a new friend she wouldn’t have found if it wasn’t for a promise between two buddies. “Thanks, Joe. For everything.”

He brushed off the thanks and slipped his hands into his coat pockets. Like before, he looked nervous, not quite sure about whatever was coming next. “About those guys at the teen center … maybe we could head out there and hang with ’em once in a while. The way Justin used to do.”

This time Emily’s smile started deep inside her soul. “I think they’d like that.”

As they made the rest of the walk in silence, Emily felt a connection with Joe she hadn’t imagined ever feeling. Because Joe wanted to be like Justin, same way Bo and Dexter and all the young guys wanted to be like him. So maybe that would become Justin’s legacy, another part of himself he would leave behind. His loss would always be a terrible thing. Emily could live a hundred years and she would never quite heal, never quite get through a day without missing the young soldier who had captured her heart that perfect summer on the shores of Seattle.