Homestands (Chicago Wind #1) (36 page)

If you’d like to contact me, please visit me at my website,
sallybradley.com
, or my Facebook page,
Sally Bradley, Writer
. Until then, I pray you stay close to God and let His Word guide you every day.

Sincerely,

Sally Bradley

PS: Turn the page for a sneak peek at
Shelf Life
!

October 18

Nothing good would come from this.

Kyla Burkholder eased onto her cream sofa. Why had they agreed to do this interview again?

As far as she could see, her home was in chaos. The crew from ESPN had covered half the living room with their equipment—wires, lights, cameras. They’d dragged the couch across her Brazilian hardwoods and positioned it several feet in front of the fireplace. As if the eyes in the back of their heads appreciated that view.

They’d need eyes in the back of their heads once the interview aired.

Of course, Brett didn’t agree. He’d convinced her so well after ESPN first called, asking them to relive the nightmare for the entertainment of sports fans everywhere.

Kyla shivered.

“Cold?” someone asked.

She looked up.

Angelina, the make-up artist, stood in front of her.

Kyla shook her head. “Nervous.”

“Don’t be. You’re made for TV. Let’s do a last touch-up, and you’ll be set.”

Angelina held up her powder and brush, and Kyla closed her eyes. If the worst that came from this was a gouge in her floor or something knocked over and broken, she’d be ecstatic.

The brush swept across her cheek and nose.

Maybe whoever had sent the letter wouldn’t see the interview. She’d pray nonstop that the writer would be at work when it aired. Or sick. Or—better yet—dead.

Dead would be great.

Angelina adjusted her hair. “All done. You can open your eyes.”

The key lights had been turned on, momentarily blinding her. She looked away, toward the foyer doorway just as Brett entered.

He crossed in front of the couch and plopped down beside her, his face and shaved head touched up with just enough makeup for television. He took a deep breath and blew it out.

“Sure we should do this?” she asked.

“Of course.” The look he shot her asked if she was stupid. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And you don’t know anything will. It’s been a year, Kyla. If they haven’t done anything yet, they’re not going to. Besides”—his smile felt cold—“this turns the tables on them. It shows if you pull stunts like that, people are coming after you. Ain’t that right, Ryan?”

Kyla looked from Brett to Ryan, the producer, who’d walked up to them.

Ryan nodded. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’ll side with the guy any day.”

Brett lifted a fist, and Ryan bumped it with his own, then winked at her. “Brett, let’s have you move right next to Kyla. And put your arm around her.”

“Like we’re in love?” Brett slid his arm around her shoulders, sending her his own bold wink as he did.

The three men on the crew chuckled, and Kyla rolled her eyes in pretend annoyance. Leave it to Brett to get all flirtatious with an audience present.

He started to pull away. “Now if we were an old married couple—”

She flicked his thigh. “We
are
an old married couple. We’ve got the kids to prove it.”

He leaned in close, eyes sparking with a look she knew well after almost ten years together. “We are
not
an old married couple.”

She held his gaze. His eyes snapped with a warmth she hadn’t seen in months. Where had this come from?

A snicker sounded from one of the crew.

Of course. She lifted her chin. Just like Brett’s pitching, his kids, his personal life, and his marriage had to be the best, and everyone within viewing distance needed to know it.

That had been fine when what he bragged about was true.

“That’s great. Stay there.” Ryan checked his clipboard. “We’re going to tape the part where Kyla finds the death threat. Kyla—” He smiled at her. “Just talk to us. We’ll stop you if necessary, but tell us what happened, what you did, all that stuff. Keep your eyes on me like we’re talking. If you want to glance at Brett from time to time, go ahead. Just don’t overdo it.”

She nodded. An acidic flavor coated her throat, and she swallowed it away. She hated what this shadowy person had done to them. The threat might be old, but the fear came fresh every morning. If telling the story would end it, then she’d tell it. She was tired of living scared.

She folded her hands and tossed her head.

Angelina darted forward.

Kyla cringed. “Sorry,” she said as Angelina toyed with a long strand.

Brett’s callused fingers caressed the base of her neck, and she turned her eyes to him. What would she read on his face this time?

“You’ll do fine,” he whispered. His eyes drilled into her, encouraging her, supporting her.

Kyla willed her smile to be strong. Sometimes hope surprised her.

April 12, six months later

Only eight minutes from home.

Only eight minutes from chatter to silence.

Only eight minutes from life to death.

Kyla turned her Escalade onto the side street and drove beneath a chipped concrete trestle complete with a graffiti-covered train. She scanned the drab scene before her—a used car lot on one side, a black chain-link fence on the other, that overgrown evergreen, and then the sign for Lakeland Memorial Park. She flipped on her blinker. How fitting that the closer she got to the cemetery, the uglier the surroundings would be.

Above the cemetery’s sign, treetops covered with infant buds and baby leaves announced that spring had arrived, that nasty season she’d learned brought only bad things. She drove through the gates. At least the grass was lush and green, thanks to a snowy Chicago winter. And overdue for its first mowing. She twisted her mouth at that. They should have looked for a better cemetery, but she’d liked that this one was so close to home. And two years ago no cemetery had seemed good enough to leave a child.

Halfway down the second curve, the marble tombstone appeared on her left. She parked and turned off the engine, then searched the grounds for Brett’s gaudy red Alfa Romeo.

The tiny cemetery was empty.

She rested her head against the steering wheel and blew a deep breath into its center. Why she got her hopes up time and again made no sense. Brett had made himself clear—their loss was sad but over. The baby girl they never knew had little effect on him.

Kyla would never be the same.

She opened her door and stepped down. Robins chirped in the branches high above her. Maybe he’d come later—

No. She shook her head. Over breakfast, she’d told him her plans for the day. He’d nodded and stabbed another pancake from the pile as if she’d announced she was getting a pedicure.

Brett wasn’t coming.

Other than the funeral, had he ever come? Had he ever loved their youngest child?

She crossed the paved, one-way road to the thick grass and stood before the gravestone.

Ashlyn Rose Burkholder

Received April 9, returned an angel April 12

Kyla closed her eyes, half embarrassed at the words she’d chosen two years earlier. But what had she known then about life after death? Unbidden, the Ashlyn she’d dreamed of rose in her mind, a curly-haired, blonde pixie with a dimple in each cheek, white bows holding her hair back.

But the Ashlyn she’d cried over, the Ashlyn attached to tubes and monitors in the NICU, bore no resemblance.

Kyla kneeled on the ground and ran her hand over the grass as she would have run it over Ashlyn’s arm or leg, the way she ran her hand over Haleigh’s hair when she slept. “Hi, Ashlyn.

She doubted Ashlyn heard in heaven, but up there she was alive and happy.

“Haleigh and Jax are in school or they’d be here. Haleigh asked me to give you a kiss.” She swallowed the rock in her throat. “They might come later. We’ll see.”

Brett should be here.

“Your daddy’s working hard these days. He hired a pitching coach to help him figure out what’s wrong. He’s happier now that he’s busy.” Which wasn’t saying much. “Maybe he’ll be back in the big leagues soon. It’d be nice, just to get him out of the house.”

Her eyes slid shut at her words. She should be more understanding of what Brett was going through, but it wasn’t that simple when he talked like he’d pitch in the majors forever. She’d never dreamed the Wind would release him two weeks before the season opener. He was completely unprepared for life after baseball.

What if he’d already pitched his last? If things were stressful now, what would they be like in a few months when his last check arrived?

A car door slammed behind her.

Kyla stiffened. She wouldn’t look. It wasn’t Brett. He hadn’t come.

Still, she imagined his arm draped around her shoulders and his kneeling beside her. She could almost feel his sculpted chest as he held her against him. She wiped a rogue tear. She should be crying for her lost daughter, not her marriage.

Except Ashlyn wasn’t lost. Ashlyn’s departure had prompted Kyla’s search into life after death. The woman she’d sobbed all over that first Sunday in church had told her about Ashlyn’s new home. She’d shared how that home could be hers too, and finally Kyla accepted it—not for the reunion with Ashlyn, but for the meeting with the God who’d paid for her many, many sins.

Haleigh and Jax believed now. And Brett, well…

“You’re my favorite, Ashlyn.” Kyla laughed. “There. I’ve said it. And it’s not because I never had to change your diapers. Without you—” She swallowed. “Without you, our family would never have a chance to be together. Forever.” She stood and brushed bits of grass from her jeans. “We’ll see you someday, Ashlyn. All of us.” Eventually Brett would be persuaded. And they’d be a family of five again, once they reached heaven.

Behind her a female voice sounded. “Kyla?”

Kyla turned, her throat tightening.

Her neighbor Lacey stood beside an SUV, plain brown hair fluttering with the breeze. “I thought—I hope it’s okay—”

“Of course it’s okay.” Kyla crossed the road, Lacey meeting her halfway and wrapping her in a tight hug. How wonderful to feel arms around her in this cemetery. “I’m glad you’re here. I dread coming alone, but I can’t stay away either.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you don’t ever have to come alone. Call me.”

Somehow the words stung. “You shouldn’t have to do my husband’s job.”

“Then how about I do a friend’s job?”

Kyla moaned. “Lacey, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

For letting her frustration out on the most selfless woman she knew. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot. I just wish Brett was here too.” What was wrong with him? She unclenched the fist she didn’t know she’d made and motioned across the road. “Come with me now?”

“Now is good.”

They crossed the asphalt and grass until they stood before the grave. “Lacey, this is…” Words vanished. Her throat swelled.

“You don’t need to say anything, Kyla. I know how much Ashlyn means to you.”

The end of a physical life. The beginning of a handful of spiritual lives.

For a few minutes, she stood there with Lacey, looking at the tombstone, listening to the birds sing, feeling the crisp breezes dance around them. Kyla inhaled the grassy scent and thought back to the day two years ago when the tiny casket had sat there. The pain then had been so sharp, as if it attacked her.

But today—even with her anger at Brett and the pain that threatened—today felt different. Somehow this place held more hope than the last time she’d come. And a little more than the time before that too. Maybe it was Lacey’s presence.

Or maybe it was God’s.

Beside her, Lacey sighed. “Sometimes I envy your having a grave to visit.”

Kyla watched Lacey’s profile. Despite the confession, her features stayed calm.

Lacey released a little laugh. “That lilac bush in the backyard is my spot to remember the baby. Maybe it’s silly. I don’t know.”

“It’s not silly.” Lacey had miscarried a year ago, and Kyla—driving by—vividly remembered seeing Derek consoling Lacey in their backyard. His words had been impossible to hear, but, knowing Derek, Kyla had filled them in.

That he loved Lacey and would be there for her, whenever she needed him.

That God knew what he was doing, that he would help them through it.

That she could cry on his shoulder any time.

What Kyla wouldn’t give for a husband who said those things to her. “It’s not silly,” she repeated.

Lacey gripped Kyla’s hand as if she understood.

But she didn’t. Kyla loved Lacey and Derek, but sometimes watching them just plain hurt. They were a constant reminder that there were men out there who loved God and who loved their wives for the right reasons. Men she’d missed. Had probably shunned.

Maybe… maybe that part of her life would change. She had to hold on to hope. For all she knew, everything could be about to change.

Lacey nudged her. “What are you smiling at?”

“Nothing. Hope. Dreams, I guess.”

“Dreams are good.”

“As long as they come to pass.”

Lacey flushed. “Maybe.”

Lacey with secret dreams? Kyla elbowed her. “Spill it.”

“No way.”

“Lacey! I thought we were buds.”

Lacey shot her a glance, blushing again. “There are things I don’t tell Derek, Kyla.”

“And I don’t tell Brett every deep, dark desire either.”

“Then you understand.”

Flashes of her own longings sprang before her, secrets she would never tell Brett. Or Lacey. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “Okay.”

If Lacey only knew…

But she didn’t. Kyla rubbed her forearm, thoughts she refused to think making the silence uncomfortable. “We should head back.”

Lacey nodded. “You okay then?”

“Better.” Kyla forced a smile. “Thanks for coming.”

They walked back to their cars, and Kyla cast one more glance around before opening her door. Yes, she was better than she’d been a year ago. Two years ago. Much better.