Second Chance (2 page)

I
F
there was one thing Vicki Byrne was sure of when she left New Hope Village Church that day, it was what she was feeling. No way around it, she decided. She felt guilty.

She stopped at the door and looked back to see Bruce Barnes sitting wearily, hands atop his head, fingers entwined. He was almost imperceptibly shaking his head.

“I'm going to go look for that little kid,” Lionel said, excusing himself as he slipped past her and out of the church.

“We'll be back, I'm sure,” Judd Thompson was telling Bruce. Vicki was certain of that too, and she felt bad because she understood how much Bruce Barnes cared and how urgent he felt it was that they make their decisions for Christ now.

Vicki started toward home, though it was
the last place she wanted to go. That empty trailer would only remind her how truly alone she was. She hesitated on the sidewalk, noticing the small bicycle someone had left out front. She assumed it was Ryan's. There was nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. She headed on foot for the trailer park.

Judd Thompson called to her from the door of the church. “So, what are you going to do?” he said.

“Same as you,” she said. “Think it over. Do the right thing. We both know what that means. I just don't want to do it when I'm so exhausted and keyed up at the same time.”

“I know what you mean,” Judd said. “But I meant what are you going to do right now?”

“Just go home I guess,” she said.

“You want to go somewhere with me?”

“Like where?”

“I've got to go get my father's car. I left it at O'Hare.”

Vicki shrugged. “Why not? How are we getting there? We gonna ride double on Ryan's bike?”

“That's my little brother's bike. I'm going to see if Bruce will let me leave that here. I was thinking of taking a cab.”

“You must have a lot more money than I do,” Vicki said.

“That's one thing I'm not short of,” Judd
said. “But I'd trade it all to be in heaven right now.”

“I know,” Vicki said. “This is awful.”

A few minutes later, Marc Thompson's bike was stored just inside the front door of the church and Judd was on the phone to a cab company. It took forever to get a connection and then for someone to answer. He was told there would be a premium on the fare. “What does that mean?” he asked.

“That it's going to cost you triple the normal amount. And we don't recommend trying to get into O'Hare. It's still a mess.”

“I need to get my car out of there,” Judd said.

“That parking garage is a disaster. A bunch of people disappeared while driving out of there, and their crashed cars left a gridlock that's going to take days to untangle.”

“I still have to try,” Judd said. “I want to make sure it's OK and get it before someone steals it.”

“Suit yourself. Somebody should be there for you within the hour.”

Vicki and Judd sat on the curb, waiting. She didn't recall having seen this boy before. Despite his scruffy look, it was clear to her Judd was a rich kid. Their paths would not have crossed for long, had they ever met. Vicki felt an unexplained need to keep some
sort of conversation going. Though she hated the idea of facing that trailer, what she really wanted was to get home to her own bed and bury her face in the pillow and cry over all that she had lost. What a waste her life had been, she decided.

Still, she was grateful for something to do, somewhere to go, someone to be with. She asked Judd to tell her more about his family. He cried as he told her, and that made her cry too. “We're both going to have to do the right thing here soon, aren't we?” she said.

“I know,” Judd said.

The cab arrived nearly two hours later. “Sorry it took me so long,” the cabby said. He was a burly man in a sleeveless T-shirt. He looked as if he could use some sleep. “It's hard for us to get to our call-ins because we're not allowed to pass by anyone who's trying to flag us down on the way.”

“And a lot of people are doing that?” Vicki said.

“I had three other rides before I got here,” the cabby said. “And I even told another guy to wait for another cab. He wanted to pay me to take him all the way to Wisconsin.”

“Wow!”

“You're telling me! I don't think he could have afforded it anyway, but I don't have to take somebody that far when I've got a
call-in. You kids aren't really going to O'Hare, are you? You know there's nothing flying out of there—”

“I'm just going to try to get my car out of there,” Judd said.

“That's gonna be no picnic either, son,” the cabby said.

“I know. But I have to try. I've got nothing else to do.”

Vicki was amazed to see so many fires as the cab snaked its way through the remains of car wrecks, traffic gridlocks, even fights. It was clear there would never be enough local police to go around.
So this is what it's like at the end of the world,
she thought.

Where were all these people going? All Vicki had noticed near the church were sirens in the distance and the glow of distant fires on the horizon. Now she could see that those fires were not so distant. “Why is everything burning?” she asked.

“You don't know?” the cabby said. “Nobody knows yet how many people disappeared late last night, but any of them who had anything on the stove just left it there. You leave something on the stove overnight, eventually the food burns up, the water turns to steam, the pan gets hotter than blazes, and before you know it your kitchen's on fire.
With nobody there to fight it or report it, boom, there goes your house.”

Vicki saw looks of jealousy on the faces of people waving at the cab from street corners, disappointed to see that it was already hired. What a mess. Were all these people just trying to find somewhere, anywhere, that wasn't turning to rubble?

As the night grew dark and the cab slowly picked its way through side streets and back roads toward Interstate 294, Vicki noticed that Judd had seemed to lose interest in talking. He sat with his chin resting in his hands. He had turned away from her and appeared to stare out the window as they slowly rode along. When would it sink in? she wondered. When would she feel her own fatigue and exhaustion and finally be able to sleep? And how would all this feel when she finally woke up and realized it was not a dream, not a nightmare, but reality? How do you go from being part of a family to becoming an orphan overnight? She sighed. She hadn't even liked being in her family. She didn't like it when her parents were loud drunks, and she liked it even less when they became Christians.

Now she realized, of course, that for at least the last two years—since her parents had become believers—she herself had been
the problem. She had somehow realized that her life would not be her own if she became a Christian like her parents. They had told her and told her that she didn't need to clean up her life before she came to Christ. “Jesus accepts you just the way you are,” her mother had told her. “He'll start showing you what needs to be changed and will help you change.”

The problem was, Vicki knew her mother was right. She simply didn't want to change, whether she herself was making the changes or God was. She had liked her life just the way it was because it was just that—her life. Why had it taken this, something so huge, so cosmic, so disastrous to show her how foolish she had been? She had been such a rebel, so mean to her parents and even to her sweet little sister, Jeanni.

And what was with this dolt sitting next to her? Judd Thompson seemed like a nice enough guy, having made the same huge life-and-death mistakes she had made. But had he even once asked her about herself or her family? Sure, she had told her story in the little meeting at New Hope, just like he had. But how was it that she knew to ask for more details, even if just to be polite, and he didn't? Wasn't that just like a rich kid to not care about anybody else? She had a bad feel
ing that she wasn't going to like this guy very much, despite what they were going through together. Well, she concluded, at least he had asked her to go with him on his errand. That was better than being alone just now.

Of course, she decided, that was the real reason he had invited her anyway. He didn't want to be alone any more than she did. Vicki was finally doing a little something for somebody other than herself. She could serve that purpose. She could keep this poor rich kid from being alone during the worst night of his life.

The tollway to O'Hare was stop-and-go when it was moving at all. Vicki simply didn't understand where all these people were going. But then, she and Judd were going somewhere, so why couldn't everyone else?

The cabby had fallen silent long ago. He kept taking huge swigs from a mug of coffee and opened his window so the cool night air filled the car. Vicki shivered and wished he would shut it, but didn't say anything. The way he looked, he had probably been driving for twenty-four hours. She was not about to discourage anything that would keep him awake.

Within a couple of miles of the airport, the traffic stopped dead. With Judd seemingly still more interested in staring out the win
dow than talking to her and the cab driver appearing to concentrate on simply staying awake, Vicki was alone with her thoughts. It was, she knew, time to talk to God. It would be the first time she had done that in as long as she could remember.

As Vicki rested her face in her hands, she felt movement next to her. She peeked at Judd, who was still turned away from her. His shoulders heaved, and she knew he was sobbing, though he was somehow able to muffle the sounds.

Vicki was suddenly overcome with an emotion she hadn't felt in years. She felt desperately, overwhelmingly sorry for this boy. Maybe he was a rich kid, maybe he was insensitive, maybe he was so selfish he couldn't even be polite. But he was suffering the way she was suffering. She knew exactly how he felt.

Almost without thinking, Vicki put her hand gently on his shoulder. Judd lowered his head to his hands and sobbed aloud. Vicki saw the cab driver's sympathetic glance through the rearview mirror. Judd whispered hoarsely, “I was so stupid. So stupid.” Judd moved slightly, and Vicki worried that he might be embarrassed. She pulled her hand away and retreated to her own thoughts.

Fighting a sob in her own throat, she
prayed silently. “God,” she said, “I don't even know how to talk to you, let alone what to say. Bruce Barnes said you loved us and cared about us and didn't want to leave us behind. I hope that's true because I want to believe in you. I'm sorry for having been such a bad person, and I'm sorry that it took something like this to make me come to you. I wish I could say I would have done this eventually anyway, but I can't. I had enough chances, but I didn't want to give you my life. If you can forgive me for that and still accept me, you can have whatever is left of my life. For a long time I hoped you weren't real and that I wouldn't have to answer to you someday, but I always knew down deep you were there. And if nothing else convinced me, this mess sure has. I know it can't be as good to believe now when I have no choice, but if you'll accept me, I will live for you for as long as you let me stay alive.”

Vicki and Judd sat in silence for almost another two hours while the cab slowly inched its way toward the international airport. Suddenly the cabby pulled off the road and sat on the shoulder, shifting into park. He turned to Judd. “I'm sorry, son, but you can see if I take that exit ramp to O'Hare right there, we might not get out of there for days. You're still a couple of miles from the
parking garage, but I think this is as close as I can get you.”

Vicki could see he was right. Nothing was moving on that ramp. Judd looked at her, and they both shrugged. Judd paid the driver and thanked him.

Suddenly Vicki found herself alone with a strange boy on a chilly night, on foot in a world that had come apart at the seams.

It was while walking with Judd that fatigue overcame Vicki. She didn't want to say so, but she wondered with each step if she could take another. This had been one long, grueling, horrifying day. Now, she thought, maybe she could finally rest in her own bed. The memories and her loss would still haunt her, but she believed God would allow her to sleep. She knew she didn't deserve to have him in her life, but she could do nothing less now than to trust him and believe in him and depend upon him.

Finally, walking in the grass next to the shoulder of the road, which was filled with cars barely moving, Judd broke his long silence. “Vicki, I've been thinking and praying.”

“Me too,” she said.

“Really?”

She nodded.

“That's good,” he said, “because I don't
think we're smart to put off our decision any longer. Who knows what might happen?”

“So you already became a Christian?” she asked.

He nodded. “I just figured it was really dumb to wait any longer. Not that I'm saying you're dumb, you know.”