The Chance: A Novel (39 page)

A foul was called, and Nolan went to the free-throw line. The camera captured a close-up of his face, the sweat and concentration, the determination. He bounced the ball a few times, and Ellie was instantly back in the gym at Savannah High, watching him play, mesmerized by his gift for the game.

“That’s him, right?” Kinz looked from the TV to Ellie and back.

“Yes.”

Kinzie grinned. “He seems nice.”

“He is.” Ellie smiled at her daughter. “He always was.”

They watched him sink another free throw, and Kinzie took a long sip of her Coke. “I really think you should call him. You used to love him, Mommy.”

“Remember? That’ll just be our little secret, okay?”

She frowned, but her eyes danced. “Okay.”

Their table was ready. Kinzie didn’t bring up Nolan the rest of the afternoon, and Ellie was grateful. The day of open conversation had been good for them. Exhausting, but good. The problem was Ellie had the same questions as Kinzie. And no matter what words she found to pacify her daughter, when it came to Ellie’s life, the truth remained.

There were no answers.

N
olan and Dexter were the last two in the locker room an hour after the Hawks’ loss to Orlando. Atlanta led the series three to two, but today’s game was the worst they’d played in the post-season. Nolan blamed himself.

No matter what he tried, he couldn’t find the zone.

“You ever question God?” Nolan draped a towel around his neck and dropped to the nearest bench. His legs felt like rubber.

“Sure.” Dexter leaned against the locker and stretched his feet out in front of him. “My wife’s friend dies of cancer when we’re barely out of college . . . a kid gets killed in a car accident . . . another soldier dies.” He looked at Nolan. “I have a list of questions.”

Nolan held on to either end of the towel. “I’m not supposed to wonder, right? I mean, I’m Nolan Cook.” His soft laugh sounded sad even to him.

“You’re human.” Dexter took the spot beside him. He leaned forward and dug his elbows into his knees. “How’d it go the other day with the singer’s daughter?”

“Kari.” Nolan pursed his lips and exhaled hard. “Not great.”

“Too bad.” Dexter rubbed out a bruise on his left calf. “She looked nice.”

“She was great.” He ran the towel down one arm and then the other. “But I brought up Ellie. Like . . . it got away from me before I realized.”

“Man, no . . . That’s wrong.” Dexter stood and paced the length of the locker room. He grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and brought it back. When he had it positioned over his calf he shook his head. “Ellie’s a figment of your imagination. Call me crazy, but I don’t think she wants you to find her. Otherwise she’d be leaving messages at the front office.”

Nolan stared at the ground between his bare feet. Dexter was right. “I need to call her.” He looked at Nolan. “Kari, not Ellie. Maybe after the play-offs.”

Dexter nodded. “Yeah. After we win the title.”

“Right.”

“Why’d you ask about God? About having questions?”

“Just thinking about my dad.”

“Mmmm. Yeah.” Dexter sighed. “He should be here.”

Several times when they were in college, Dexter’s family had welcomed Nolan for Christmas or a few weeks of summer vacation. His teammate was one of eight kids from Detroit, and when his family got together, it was like a scene from a movie. “You’re another son,” Dexter’s mother had told Nolan a number of times. She would pat his white cheek and Dexter’s black one, and she would grin. “See the resemblance?”

Dexter’s family got him through more tough times of missing his dad than Nolan could count.

“My dad would’ve loved this. The play-offs.” Nolan noticed a bruise on his right arm. Even in a fresh T-shirt and shorts, he was still hot from the game. He might not have found the
zone today, but he’d given it everything he had. He was glad they had a day off tomorrow. He stood and grabbed his basketball. “Come by later if you want. Bring your wife. The pool’s ready for the summer.”

“Okay.” Dexter grinned. “Might take the sting off today.”

“Yeah.” Nolan dribbled the ball through the locker room, down the cement corridor, and through the tunnel to the court. He didn’t want to tell Dexter, but finishing the play-offs had nothing to do with the timing of calling the singer’s daughter. He had to get past the first of June. Maybe then he could put Ellie Tucker out of his heart for good. He dribbled to the edge of the court. Most of the lights were off, but that didn’t matter. He jogged across the hardwood, found his place, and hit the shot on the first try.

Left side, three-point line.

For his dad.

Chapter
Sixteen

A
lan walked into Chaplain Gray’s office and closed the door.

He’d been looking forward to and dreading this since he made the appointment a week ago. The two men had worked together for three years, but not once had Alan allowed the chaplain, or anyone else, to see into his heart, into the ugly, lonely reality that made up his life.

“Alan.” Chaplain Gray stood and nodded. The man was military through and through, his words short and clipped despite his kind eyes. “Glad you came. Have a seat.”

“Thank you”—he sat in the leather chair across from the older man—“for making time.”

Chaplain Gray sat back in his seat, and for a long time he watched Alan, waiting. Finally, he folded his hands on the desk. “Tell me your story.”

Alan had never thought of his messy life that way, like a story. He scrambled through the bitter details and found a starting point. The only place his story could start—at the church picnic where he met Caroline twenty-eight years ago. Alan wasn’t big
on flowery explanations, and he absolutely didn’t want to break down. His tears had been close to the surface lately, but not here. He talked fast, so his emotions couldn’t catch up. If his life were a story, he would tell the condensed version.

He caught the chaplain up to the current page in about fifteen minutes.

“A lot of broken pieces.” The chaplain sat still, completely focused. “I’m sorry.”

“Yes.” Alan pictured Caroline and Ellie, wherever they might be. “Definitely a lot of broken pieces.”

“Tell me again about the letters.”

“The letters?” Alan imagined the box, the smell and heaviness in his hands. “There are hundreds.”

“And Ellie knows nothing of them?”

“No.” Shame burned his cheeks. What was the point, coming here and sharing this? vzyl Tears stung his eyes. He blinked.
Stay ahead of it, Tucker.

“Have you thought about whether that’s fair? To your daughter?”

Alan wasn’t sure if it was the fact that he couldn’t outrun his story any longer or the sound of the word “daughter”—a word he hadn’t spoken or heard mentioned in reference to Ellie in years. Whatever the reason, his tears came. They flooded his eyes and flowed down his cheeks. He tried to remember the chaplain’s question, but all he could remember was the word “daughter.” His daughter, Ellie.

How could he have done this to her?

“Here.” The chaplain’s eyes softened more. He slid a box of tissues across the desk. “Do you have an answer? Is that fair to Ellie, keeping the letters from her?”

“Of course not.” His words were small, trapped in the sea
of sorrow filling his heart. “I’m the worst father. The worst man.”

The chaplain waited a few seconds. “That’s not why you came, to tell me that you’re the worst father.” He leaned his forearms on the wooden desktop. “You want to do something about it. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

Alan nodded. He took a tissue from the box and ran it across his cheeks, quick and rough. He had no right to cry, no right to sympathy from himself or Chaplain Gray or anyone. Everything that had happened, all of it was his fault. He blew his nose and tried to find level ground once more. He blinked a few times and squinted. “Yes. I want to do something. I want to fix it.”

The chaplain thought about that. He pulled a well-worn leather Bible closer. “Have you read John 10:10?”

Alan searched his memory. “Not lately.”

“It reminds me of your story.” He opened the Bible and flipped to the book of John. “It says, ‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.’ ” He lifted his eyes to Alan’s. “That’s the first part.”

Steal . . . kill . . . destroy
. “The thief is the devil, clearly.”

“Yes.” Chaplain Gray frowned. “I see evidence of that throughout your story.”

Evidence?
Alan shielded his face with his right hand and closed his eyes. The awful words were written on every page of his life. The love he had for Caroline, the dreams they shared . . . his hope of being a loving, present husband and father . . . his relationship with Ellie . . . their family. All of it had been stolen, killed, and destroyed. When the parade of broken moments had finished filing across his mind, Alan looked at the chaplain.

The man seemed to be waiting. He looked at the Bible
again. “The rest of the verse says, ‘I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.’”

Alan shook his head. “It’s too late. Everything’s ruined.”

“You still have the letters.” Chaplain Gray sat back in his chair, as if he’d said all there was to say.

“I told you. Ellie doesn’t know about them.”

“Maybe she should.” He looked from the Bible back to Alan. “It’s never too late with truth. It stands outside time.”

Alan let the man’s words run through him a couple of times.
Truth stands outside of time.

Chaplain Gray seemed to see Alan’s struggle. “The promises, Alan. Jesus has come to give you life to the full now. It’s not too late if we follow His lead.” The man looked like he could see straight through Alan. “What’s God telling you to do?”

Again Alan closed his eyes. All he could see was the box of letters, the bulk of them, the enormity of them. Not telling Ellie about the letters. He wanted to think of something else God might be asking him to do. Extra prayer, maybe, or some act of service. He could join a mission trip this summer or lead a Bible study at the brig.

But deep down he knew that wasn’t what God wanted from him. He winced. “You think . . . God wants me to give Ellie the letters?”

“They’re hers.”

Alan nodded, slightly dazed. “She’ll hate me forever.”

“She already does.” The chaplain’s wisdom was quiet and gentle, otherworldly. “Maybe God’s asking you to write a couple of letters of your own.”

A sick feeling grabbed at Alan’s stomach. “To Ellie?”

“And Caroline.” Chaplain Gray gave a light shrug. “What do you think?”

He couldn’t imagine it. “What would I say?”

“Same thing you told me. How you made a mess of everything. How sorry you are.”

“They would never forgive me. It’s too late.”

The chaplain put his hand over the open Bible. “‘I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’” He looked at Alan for a long moment. “That’s what it says. That’s the truth.”

Alan shook his head, and again he closed his eyes. It was impossible. Caroline was probably living a whole new life. She had rebelled against his heavy-handed faith, the way he wielded his controlling ways like a blunt sword at her and Ellie. She didn’t seem to be dating Peyton Anders. At least not if the media was any indicator. And she wasn’t remarried. She couldn’t be, because neither of them had ever filed for divorce. Alan had never been able to go against God’s plan and officially end things. The sick feeling grew worse. What a sad joke. He had gone repeatedly against God’s plan for his marriage along the way. Certainly when he moved across the country from Caroline.

And every time he hadn’t reached out to her since then.

What good would an apology do now? She’d think he was crazy. And if she knew about the letters, how he’d kept them from Ellie?

She’d wish him dead.

Suddenly, Alan knew as well as he knew his name that the chaplain was right. God was calling him to do everything the man had suggested. Write letters to his wife and daughter—the only women he’d ever loved. He opened his eyes and felt the resignation in his own expression.

The pastor looked subdued in an understanding kind of way. “You’re ready?”