The Chance: A Novel (54 page)

When she finished praying, she didn’t hear a response, like she had earlier, but she had a sense that hadn’t occurred to her for many years. As she missed Ellie and loved her and wished for the two of them to reconnect, one thing was true, especially in light of this bittersweet news.

God loved her more.

A little over a week ago, Peyton Anders’s guitar player had shown up out of nowhere and prayed for Ellie. And now, after so many seasons of heartache and loneliness, something miraculous had happened.

Ellie had gotten her letters.

Chapter
Twenty-two

A
lan Tucker was dead. Never mind that his heart was still beating. He had died the moment Ellie took the box and turned away from him. He sat on the edge of his bed that Sunday morning and thought about the past week. His predictions about giving Ellie the letters had been right on. She hated him. She would hate him as long as she lived for what he’d done. He had pushed away the people he loved most in life, and that could mean only one thing.

He was dead.

No matter how long it took his body to catch up.

Still, as dead as he felt, he was also convinced of something else. He had done the right thing. The letters were hers, and she deserved to have them, to read them. If she could find her mother after all these years, she needed to do so. He might never find healing, but there was time for Ellie. Time for Caroline.

The thought of Caroline weighed heavy on his chest. She should’ve received the letter yesterday, if his calculations were right. That meant by now she might’ve had time to forgive
herself. He knew Caroline—no matter how long they’d been apart, he knew her. She hated the fact that she’d had an affair. He could still see the desperation in her face when she begged him to forgive her the night she told him the truth. Never would she have turned to another man if he hadn’t destroyed her first. He had tried to be clear about that in the letter. So she could let go of her own guilt, forgive herself, and move on. She would hate him because of the letters.

Same as Ellie.

But that was a small price for finally doing the right thing.

Alan slipped into shorts and a T-shirt. He needed to work out, needed to push his body past feeling comfortable. He might be dead, but he still had to move. Blame it on the marine training. Physical exertion had a way of taking his mind off his broken heart.

The house was painfully silent. Music. That would help. Matthew West’s latest CD was in the player. He skipped to his favorite song, “Forgiveness.” The song was about realizing that, ultimately, all anyone ever needed was the Lord. Alan could relate.

With the music on loud, he dropped to the floor and did fifty push-ups, slow and methodical. He loved how exercise made his muscles burn, how it punished him the way he deserved. He turned onto his back and powered through fifty sit-ups and fifty squats. Then he repeated the routine.

If he was honest with himself, Ellie hadn’t started hating him yesterday. She’d been angry with him since she was nineteen and came home pregnant, since he called her names and accused her of terrible things. Or maybe since the move to San Diego. Yes, she had probably hated him for a long time.

After his third round of calisthenics, he turned off the music.
You’re with me, God . . . I know that. I’m not really dead
. He’d
met with the chaplain again on Friday, the day before he took the letters to Ellie. The man had said something that stuck with Alan. As long as he was breathing, God’s greatest task for him was not yet finished. His highest purpose in life was still unfulfilled. It was why he would attend church that Sunday. The six o’clock service, same as always.

Because God had plans for him.

Alan found his running shoes. He ran five miles on the weekends, more than the usual three he logged every night after work. Today he might go seven or ten. However long it took so he’d be too tired to feel his aching soul.

He finished tying the laces and headed to the kitchen for water when he heard the doorbell.
Strange,
he thought. Solicitors didn’t usually canvas neighborhoods on Sundays. His mother’s house was a simple ranch in an older well-kept neighborhood five miles from the prison. Without stopping to look out the window, Alan walked to the front door and opened it.

What he saw nearly stopped his heart for real.

“Ellie?” His voice was a whisper, all he could manage. She stood on the front porch with a little girl, a blonder miniature of her. The child had her arm around Ellie’s waist, her eyes on Alan’s.

His mouth was instantly dry, but he opened the door wider. “Come in. Please.”

“We can’t stay.” Ellie didn’t sound warm, but the anger from before seemed gone from her voice. For a few seconds, she didn’t say anything. She looked down at her daughter. “This is Kinzie.” She sucked in a long breath. Something about her tone told him this was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. “Kinzie, this is your grandpa Tucker.”

“Hi.” Kinzie waved a little. She was beautiful, big blue eyes and the same innocence that once defined Ellie. And Caroline before her.

Tears blurred Alan’s eyes. He didn’t come closer, wasn’t sure he should. But he crouched down so he was on her level. “Hi, Kinzie. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too.” She kept her arm tightly around Ellie’s waist.

Alan stood and looked at his daughter, too shocked to speak. Of all the things he figured Ellie might do today, this wasn’t on the list.

“You said you were sorry . . . for what you did. For the letters.” Her voice broke, and she hung her head. Now Kinzie wrapped both arms around her waist and buried her face in her mother’s side.

“Ellie . . .” In the awkward, painful silence, Alan had to clarify something. “It would take me all day to tell you everything I’m sorry about. The list is too long. I . . . I loved your mother so much. I still do.” He moved to put his hand on her shoulder, but he stopped himself. His words sounded as broken as his heart. “I ruined everything. I’ll be sorry every day, for the rest of my life.”

Alan could only imagine the battle raging inside his daughter. She had every reason to hate him. Yet she was standing in front of him, which had to mean something. She looked at him, right through him. “I’m here because I forgive you.” She lifted her chin, holding tight to the walls around her emotions.

The shock working its way through him doubled. Forgiveness? That was the last thing he deserved or expected.

Ellie hesitated. “I’ve been teaching Kinzie about forgiving.
So”—she sniffed, barely keeping her composure—“if you’re sorry, I forgive you.”

For a few seconds, she didn’t move, didn’t speak. Slowly, tears trickled down her face, and Kinzie noticed. She leaned up and wiped Ellie’s cheeks. “It’s okay, Mommy. You did it. Now you can feel better.”

The child’s words cut Alan to the core. Ellie looked at him, her gaze deep and intent, as if she were trying to see into the mean and calloused places where he had been capable of destroying the people he loved.

“I’m sorry, Ellie.” He took a few steps back and leaned against the entryway wall. The pain in his daughter’s eyes was more than he could take. “If I could do it over again . . .”

Something inside Ellie broke. Alan watched it happen. As if the walls could no longer contain her tears. They didn’t fall all at once, but they crumbled a little at a time. And as the walls seemed to fall, almost in slow motion, Ellie came to him. She eased her arms around his waist, pressed her head to his chest, and let the sobs have their way with her.

Alan couldn’t breathe, couldn’t believe this was happening. His daughter was here, and she was in his arms. He brought his hand to her back and hugged her. Tentatively at first and then with more certainty. Deep down, Ellie was still a little girl like Kinzie, a girl who needed to know she was loved.

Especially since she had doubted that fact most of her life.

The hug didn’t last long. Ellie seemed to realize what she was doing and where she was. She gathered her emotions and stepped back. “We’re leaving, me and Kinzie.” She narrowed her eyes, seeing through him again. “I’m taking her to Savannah.”

Alarm pressed in around him. She had just found her way back to him. Her forgiveness felt like a start. A new beginning. “For how long?”

“Two weeks.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“We’re going to see my grandma.” Kinzie found her place at her mother’s side again.

Alan nodded. “Good. I’m glad.” He was, truly. He only wished he was going with them. “Can you . . . tell her I miss her?”

“Maybe you should do that.” Ellie’s response was quick, and in it was the anger that remained despite her forgiveness. An anger she would probably always struggle with.

“I wrote her a letter. She should have it by now.”

The shock of that relaxed Ellie’s features. That was obviously the last thing she had expected him to say or do.

“I wrote you one, too. It’s in the box.” He put his hands in his pocket. “I left it on top.”

Ellie looked puzzled. “I didn’t see it.”

“Maybe it slipped to the bottom.” He prayed she would see how different he was, how his heart had changed. “It’s definitely in there.”

“Okay. I’ll find it.” She took a step back. “We . . . have to go.”

Alan looked from Ellie to Kinzie and back. “Thank you for coming, for bringing her.”

The beautiful picture of the two of them here at his front door was one Alan would keep. No matter what happened after this.

Kinzie smiled at him. “Maybe we’ll come over after the trip. We could eat dinner with you.” She looked up at Ellie. “Right, Mommy?”

Ellie moved closer to the door. “Maybe.” She smiled at her daughter.

Kinzie took a step toward Alan, her eyes still on Ellie. She cupped her little hands around her mouth and whispered out loud, “Can I hug him, Mommy? Since he’s my grandpa?”

“Yes, baby. Of course.” Ellie crossed her arms and waited by the front door while Kinzie ran to him. Her hug was quick and certain, free from the baggage that stood between him and Ellie. “Nice to meet you, Grandpa.”

Again his tears made it tough to see. He pressed his fingers to his eyes and gave a quick shake of his head. “Thank you, Kinzie. You and your mom come for dinner anytime.”

“Okay.” She returned to Ellie.

Alan wasn’t sure what to say. They were leaving, and there was nothing he could do to stop them. If Ellie found her mother, then there might not be any reason for her to come back to San Diego. This could be the last time he would see either of them—for a very long time, anyway.

“Bye.” Ellie was the first to speak. She kept her arm around Kinzie, and the two of them turned and headed down the steps.

He followed them to the door and watched them go. “Ellie.”

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. Kinzie did the same.

“Thank you. For coming by.”

Ellie didn’t smile. The sadness emanating from her was too great. Instead she nodded and their eyes held. Kinzie waved once more, and with that they walked to their car, climbed in, and drove away.

As they disappeared down the road, Alan realized something had changed. He no longer felt like a dead man walking.
Their visit had breathed life into him the way nothing else could. He hung his head.
God, You are amazing. So faithful. I didn’t deserve her forgiveness and yet
 . . .

She was Caroline’s daughter. Nothing else could explain her ability to come by on her way out of town and tell him she’d forgiven him. He got the impression that she wasn’t walking close to the Lord or even believing in Him, necessarily. Something in her tone yesterday when he tried to bring up God. Even so, she was her mother’s girl—kind and compassionate, gentle in spirit.

Kinzie was another one.

A feeling started in his chest and spread through his soul. It reminded him of a video he’d seen on the Weather Channel. The image showed a tornado not bearing down on a house but starting there. A foggy, twisting piece of cloud seemed to grow from the ground and connect to a piece of the sky overhead. The birthplace of a tornado.

He felt that way now as he thought about how much he’d missed with Kinzie. His heart and mind were spinning counter clockwise like the beginning of an F5 twister. His stubborn self-righteousness had cost him almost seven years with his only granddaughter. He hadn’t been there for her birth or her first steps, not for her first words or first birthday. He had missed watching her learn to ride a bike and learn to read, and he had lost out on six Christmas mornings.

The child had no father in her life; the soldier had been killed in action. The only father figure she might’ve had was him. Alan Tucker. But he’d been too busy being right to notice. Too set in his ways to grab the box of letters and get it to Ellie years ago.

Eleven years ago. When it wasn’t a box of letters but just one.

If tornadoes came suddenly and left, this one was different. The damage of his actions would tear him up with every reminder of what he’d missed, all he’d lost. The cost of it was more than he could comprehend and here was maybe the greatest cost of all.

The sight of Ellie and Kinzie driving away.