Halfway to Forever (14 page)

Jade attended the meeting. Her argument that day caused the board of supervisors to change their mind and opt for different budget cuts.

But not before Jade had a chance to verbally slay Tanner and his ideas.

Tanner laughed again at the memory. Neither of them had recognized the other at first, but when the meeting was over, Tanner realized who she was. He caught her before she left and when the afternoon was over, they were old friends again.

Friends who spent the summer falling in love.

“Ahh, Jade … if only things had been different.” Tanner whispered the words as his eyes found their framed wedding picture on his hotel dresser. He never traveled without it, and now as he studied Jade’s green eyes a piercing sadness poked pins at his heart. “We lost so much time …”

Tanner remembered hurting when he learned the truth about Jade’s teenage years in Kelso. Life had not been easy for Jade since she’d moved from Virginia. By the time Tanner found her again
that summer, the walls around her heart were so high and thick, there were times he thought their relationship didn’t stand a chance.

But gradually Jade opened up and the walls fell. Not only that, but midway through July, Jade became a believer, a Christian with a deep love for God. With everything in common, Jade and Tanner’s time together was magic.

Until then, Tanner had kept himself from intimate situations, determined to wait until marriage before sharing himself with a woman. Jade, too, was a virgin, and early in their dating Tanner couldn’t imagine their relationship ever becoming physical.

Tanner bit his lip, his eyes still locked on his wife’s framed image. The truth was, they both let walls tumble that summer. By the end of August, the day before he was scheduled to go back to college on the east coast, there was nothing either of them could do to resist the temptation of being together.

And that single night—the decision to give in to a moment of weakness greater than either of them—changed everything about the next decade.

No matter how much time passed, the truth about what happened that fall was still depressing. It made Tanner long for a way to go back and change things so he and Jade could somehow share every one of the days they missed.

After their fateful night together, Tanner left for Europe on a lengthy mission trip. He was there, completely out of communication, when Jade learned she was pregnant. With nowhere else to turn, Jade called Tanner’s mother, who told her that Tanner was a liar who randomly slept with women and made them pregnant.

Tanner opened his eyes and exhaled in a way that filled the hotel room with sadness. The fact that Jade had believed his mother was always the hardest part for Tanner. That and what happened next.

Alone and pregnant with nowhere to turn, no one who seemed to care about her, Jade panicked. It was as simple as that.

She married Jim Rudolph, a man who shared nothing of Jade’s newfound faith. It was a marriage intended to do one thing: give Jade’s baby a chance at a normal life.

Instead, it caused all of them a decade of heartache.

Tanner stood and stared out the window at the distant Colorado mountains. There were no words to describe the pain that had suffocated him when he returned from his mission trip that fall and found out Jade was married. Tanner tried desperately to reach her, but to no avail.

Tanner turned back to the hotel room and glanced at the clock. Matt was right. What good was he doing Jade here in Colorado researching his next case? He could finish his research at home.

He wandered about his room, gathering clothes and tossing them into his suitcase. A heaviness settled over Tanner’s heart, and he knew it was from the flood of memories that had carried him through the past hour. The pain of losing Jade all those years ago never dimmed, not even a little.

Maybe that’s why he was running so fast these days.

He’d been heartsick watching her move away when he was a boy. Then after they’d found each other again in Kelso, after they’d fallen in love and made promises to marry, Tanner had been devastated by losing her a second time. It had taken years before her face didn’t haunt him at night, before her name wasn’t fresh on his mind in everything he did.

Now the stakes were higher than ever, and Tanner was sure of this much: If he lost Jade again, it would destroy him.

F
ear coursed through Patsy Landers’ veins as she sat on a stone bench amidst the wild daisies, pink roses, and brash violets that took up most of the courtyard outside her small house in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

This was her prayer garden, the place she came when she wanted quiet time alone with God. It was a place she’d visited often these past four months while she prayed about the situation with her wayward daughter. And now, as her heart raced within her, she was sure of His answer.

It was time to take action.

Not for Leslie’s sake. Unless Leslie gave her life over to Jesus, there was no way the girl was going to change. She was twenty-one, hooked on crack, and determined not to take help from her mother or anyone else. At this point she could be living on the streets or with a band of drug runners. There was no way to tell.

Patsy lifted her chin and let the breeze dry her tears. If Leslie were not a mother, it would be time to let her go. Let her come to the end she seemed desperate to reach.

But Leslie was not alone.

She had little Grace with her, even though Patsy had offered—as she always did—to care for the child herself. Patsy folded her gnarled hands and a small sigh slipped from between her teeth. The loan had been Patsy’s last-ditch attempt, the only way she knew to be sure Leslie would stay in Oklahoma. She borrowed against the equity in her Bartlesville home and gave the money to Leslie on one condition: Use it to purchase a house around the
corner, a small place where she and Grace could start a normal life, one that didn’t involve drugs and strange men and living out of various broken-down vehicles.

It was the money Patsy was going to use to have her hips replaced, an operation doctors assured her would ease her arthritis pain. But the surgery could wait.

If the money would mean getting Leslie and Grace out of California and off the streets, it was worth every penny.

Patsy was certain Leslie was going to cooperate. Together they toured the small house she’d chosen and contacted a realtor. Escrow papers were drawn up, and Leslie seemed excited about her new chance at life.

The day the deal was set to close, mere hours before Leslie was to show up with the cashier’s check and take ownership of the house, she fled. She left with Grace and the money, and Patsy hadn’t heard a word from them since.

At first Patsy considered calling the police and reporting the money stolen, but that wouldn’t have helped. Besides, she’d given the money to Leslie. Yes, they’d had an arrangement as to where the money was supposed to go, but either way, Leslie hadn’t stolen it. Not by legal definition.

Next, Patsy thought about getting in her car and heading down the highway toward California, because if she knew one thing about Leslie, it was this: If she was running, she’d eventually wind up in California. Santa Maria, to be specific. That was where her drug base was, the place where she could crash at any of a dozen houses and have people smoke and drink and shoot up with her. People who would watch Grace for days on end if Leslie wound up in a stupor that couldn’t be slept off.

Patsy was as sure as winter that Leslie was there.

But she was also sure that this time there was no point chasing her. Leslie would do what she wanted, regardless of Patsy’s
attempts to stop her. That being the case, Patsy chose to take an hour every day and do the one thing she knew with absolute certainty would make a difference: Pray.

She prayed that somehow Leslie would arrive in California and feel compelled to find a new start, that she wouldn’t return to her drugged-out friends, and that she’d realize there would never be another time when she’d have so much cash on hand.

“Help her think clearly,” Patsy would pray quietly while she sat in her garden. “Let her use the money for a house or an apartment. Something stable for Grace.”

Because really, what it all came down to was the child.

Patsy could release her hold on Leslie. She could shelve her concerns that her only daughter would wind up in a gutter someday, facedown, dead from a drug overdose. If that happened, so be it. There was nothing Patsy could do to stop it.

But Grace deserved better.

Sweet, precious little Grace. Patsy loved the child like she was her own and would gladly have raised her, would have fought Leslie in court for the chance to do so if only it seemed like the right thing. The problem was that Grace loved her mother. Every time Patsy considered using legal means to take the child from Leslie, she was stopped by that single fact. It was a terrible inner conflict. What was best for Grace? Life with Leslie, or life with her grandmother?

Now, in light of Leslie’s disappearing with the money and remaining silent these past four months, the answer seemed perfectly clear. Grace was four years old, after all, and there was no telling what horrific things awaited her if she accompanied her mother back to the culture of drug users and criminal types.

Patsy thought back to the time that had passed since Leslie’s disappearance. The months had been filled with pain, not just emotionally but physically. Patsy’s arthritis was worse than before
and even simple activities were almost more than she could bear. The weeks had become months, and still Patsy prayed. But not until this morning, with the rich smell of blossoms hanging in the humid air, was Patsy sure it was time to act. She took slow, painful steps toward the house. Once inside, she began making phone calls.

Two days later she had enough information to string together what had happened to Leslie and Grace since they left Oklahoma. The facts acted like so many spears, impaling Patsy’s heart further with each devastating blow.

As Patsy had suspected, Leslie headed for Santa Maria, but instead of using the money to find a safe place for her and Grace, she blew the entire amount on drugs. Neighbors who lived near a house that Leslie frequented were able to tell Patsy how wild things had gotten. So bad, in fact, that they’d taken to watching little Grace so she wouldn’t be run down in the driveway by the constant flow of traffic and party-goers.

Something the neighbor said knocked the wind from Patsy.

“Leslie told us you were dead,” the neighbor woman said. “She said you were sick and died. That’s why they left Oklahoma.”

It was a full minute before Patsy could speak. “She had … a lot of money. Did she say anything about that?”

The neighbor was quick to answer. “Yes. She said you left it to her in your will.”

When she hung up, Patsy felt numb from her toes to the basement of her heart. So that’s how it was. The guilt of what Leslie had done was so great that she’d simply written Patsy off.

The rest of the truth was no less easy to accept.

When the money was gone, Leslie did what she always did when reality crashed in around her. She took Grace and disappeared, this time in an old van. Police records told the story of what happened next. Broke and unable to buy food or water for
her and Grace, Leslie took to prostitution, something she’d done before. She operated out of the van, which she parked in an abandoned field outside town.

That’s where she was when police found her. Details of those final days were hazy, but one thing was terrifyingly clear. Leslie was in jail and Grace had been taken into foster care. The court intended to terminate Leslie’s rights as a mother. And that meant one thing.

Grace was about to be a ward of the court, adopted out to strangers, all because Leslie had been too proud to place a call to Oklahoma and give Patsy the chance to raise the child.

The policeman she’d spoken to had been kind enough to trace Leslie’s file and relay the information Patsy needed if she was ever going to find Grace again. Patsy thanked the man and scribbled down the name of a social worker, the woman who had placed Grace in the home of someone named Bronzan.

Patsy’s heart sank. What if Grace had already been adopted? What if it was too late?

She closed her eyes and held her breath. Help me get her back, God. She needs me. Besides, Grace is my little girl, my angel baby. She doesn’t belong with strangers.

Finally Patsy opened her eyes and allowed herself to breathe again. Then, without hesitating, she picked up the phone and dialed the number the policeman had given her. Someone answered on the first ring and Patsy cleared her throat and asked for Edna Parsons, Grace’s social worker.

There was a pause and then a woman came on the line. “Yes?”

“Mrs. Parsons?” Patsy winced as her body tensed.

“Yes, how can I help you?”

Patsy drew a deep breath. “I’m Grace Landers’s grandmother. I’d like to see about getting permanent custody of her.”

Edna Parsons’ heart skipped a beat the moment the caller identified herself. She hoped it was a hoax, one of Leslie Landers’s friends seeking to disrupt the termination of Leslie’s parental rights.