The Chance: A Novel (61 page)

He grabbed the wayward thought and pushed it from his heart and mind. He wouldn’t be afraid. Whatever had happened with Ellie, whatever her mother wanted him to pray about, God was in control. He had nothing to fear. The Lord had worked a miracle to this point. He wasn’t finished yet.

Nolan was convinced.

E
llie had to leave in a hurry.

Her heart raced in time with her thoughts as she paced across her mother’s kitchen. Kinzie and John were in the other room, watching a
VeggieTales
movie about Jonah, but all Ellie could think was the obvious. She needed to run.

“Honey, I don’t get it.” Her mom spoke in little more than a
whisper. She sounded practically desperate. “You told me how much you’ve missed him, how you wish the two of you never would’ve lost touch.”

“Yes.” Ellie worked to keep her voice down. “Because I’d be a different person if Nolan and I had stayed close. But now . . .” She held out her hands. Why couldn’t her mother understand? “Look at me. I’m not the same girl. He’ll be . . . he’ll be disappointed, Mom. Nolan Cook wouldn’t want me.” She didn’t want to spell it out, how she was a single mom with few accomplishments, but the facts remained. “I don’t want to see him.”

Ellie hadn’t realized how true that was until her mother came home from work early and told her what had happened. That Nolan had come looking for her was shocking enough. But now that he was only a few miles away and headed for her mother’s apartment, Ellie couldn’t get around the panic.

It was one thing to be curious, to want to dig up the tackle box and read what Nolan had said about her all those years ago. But facing him here in her mom’s living room? Introducing him to Kinzie and trying to explain away the last decade? The thought was more than she could take. Better to remember Nolan the way she knew him when they were fifteen than to see him pity her.

“Honey.” Her mother tried again. “I told him you’d be here.” She leaned on the kitchen island that separated them. Her tone was a mix of frustration and fear. “He’s looked for you since you moved.”

“I’m sorry.” Ellie walked around the counter and gently put her hands on her mother’s shoulders. “I need to go. I’ll explain later.” She grabbed her keys from the counter and hurried into the living room. Kinzie couldn’t know her frantic resolve. The child was too perceptive, too able to tell that something was
wrong. It was already a quarter to five. No time for explanations. She came up behind her daughter and touched her blond hair. “Kinz, we need to go shopping. Mommy has to get something at the store, okay?”

Kinzie looked at her mom and back at the TV. “But the movie’s almost over.”

“We can watch it later.”

“It’s okay.” John stood and stretched. He was tall, with dark hair and eyes as blue as Caroline’s. As blue as Ellie’s and Kinzie’s. John patted Kinzie on her head. “We can finish when you get back. I need to shoot hoops.”

“Okay.” Kinzie’s shoulders dropped a little. “I guess.”

John grinned at her, then walked down the hallway toward his bedroom.

“You ready?” Ellie tried to keep her calm. The minutes were falling away.

Her daughter patted out the wrinkles in her sundress. “Right now?” She picked up her dolly off the floor.

“Yes, baby.” Ellie fiddled with the car keys. “You ready?”

“I have to use the restroom.” Kinzie moved slowly, probably tired from sitting. “Here, can you hold her?” She handed over the doll.

“Yes.” Ellie reminded herself to be patient. None of this was her daughter’s fault. “Hurry, okay?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

The clock screamed at her, taunting her. She checked her phone. Seven minutes. That was all the time she had until Nolan Cook pulled up out front. Her mom came to her. “You’re really leaving?”

“I am. Tell him . . . I had things to do.” She turned and the two of them hugged. “I can’t see him. I just can’t.”

“He won’t believe that.” A slow sigh came from her mom. “It’s been so long, Ellie.”

“Exactly.” She smiled, willing her mother to understand. “Kinzie?” She kept her tone friendly. “Baby, we have to go.”

“Just a minute.” The little voice came from down the hallway.

“Can I say one more thing?” Her mom still faced her. “Don’t you think the timing is a little strange for all of this to be a coincidence?” She seemed less determined, more accepting of the reality: Ellie didn’t want to see Nolan. Period.

“It’s not that strange. This Ryan Kelly guy talks to you and then . . .” Ellie stopped cold. All she had focused on earlier was that Nolan had come by Caroline’s office, that he was coming here. But now the other details of her mother’s explanation screamed through her mind. “Ryan is Peyton Anders’s guitar player? And he came because he knew you and Peyton used to be friends?”

“Yes.” A depth came over her mother, both in her eyes and in her tone. “Peyton and I were friends.”

“When?” Ellie’s heart pounded faster, and she felt sick to her stomach.

“I met him thirteen years ago. We were friends for two years.”

“So . . . that’s . . .” Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t form the words, couldn’t imagine them. Instead, she searched her mother’s eyes as the blood drained from her face. If her mother had something to tell her, she could say the next words.

“What you’re thinking . . . you’re right. He’s John’s father.” Caroline dropped her voice to a whisper. “John doesn’t know all the details. Just that his dad was a singer who wasn’t ready to be a dad.”

Her mom was a groupie? The picture was so awful, Ellie couldn’t believe it. “I always . . . pictured you had been with someone . . . normal. Someone who loved you.”

“I thought he did.” Caroline’s tone said she wasn’t going to defend herself. But at the same time her eyes said there was more to the story.

Of course. Ellie caught her breath. There had to be more to the story.

Kinzie came bouncing down the hall, a grin on her face. “Let’s go. I decided a trip to the store will be fun.”

They had maybe three minutes. Nolan could pull up any moment. “Yes.” Ellie looked at her mom and felt her expression soften. “We’ll talk later.” They had both made decisions they weren’t proud of. Whatever had happened, her mother must’ve had a reason, an explanation.

If she’d known him for two years, she must have been more to Peyton Anders than a groupie.

They said good-bye, and Ellie put her arm around Kinzie’s shoulders. “Let’s race to the car!”

The little girl’s giggles made the world feel right somehow.

A minute later, they were out of the neighborhood, and Ellie noticed something.

She could breathe again.

N
olan could hardly wait for five o’clock. After a day at the river, he wasn’t sure he had ever prayed more intensely for Ellie Tucker. Whatever the situation, however she felt about him, and whichever way the past eleven years had played out in her life, he couldn’t wait to see her. Just knowing she was here in the same city made this one of his best days ever.

A day he wasn’t sure he’d have.

He pulled up outside her mother’s apartment and double-checked the address. He felt more nervous than he’d been back in middle school when he came to Ellie’s house, or when they’d meet at the park. He understood why. He was no longer sure of Ellie’s feelings or who she’d become.

Her mother answered the door seconds after he knocked, and from the moment their eyes met, he knew there was trouble. “Nolan, come in.”

The living room was quiet except for a boy sitting at the dining room table. He had a basketball on his lap, and he stood slowly when Nolan walked through the door. Nolan smiled at the kid and looked around, intent on getting answers. He kept his tone polite, but his panic must have been evident. “Where is she?”

“She left.” Her mother looked like she’d aged a year since that morning. Her voice held an apology. “She had a few errands to run.”

Nolan didn’t speak, didn’t move. In college he’d taken a biology class in which he learned about cortisol. The death hormone, it was called. A substance that the body released into the bloodstream upon suffering stress or hearing bad news. He was pretty sure he was experiencing an overdose of it now.

“I’m sorry.” Mrs. Tucker crossed her arms, clearly embarrassed. “I don’t understand her, Nolan. I told her you were coming, how you’d looked for her since she moved away.”

“Did she say if . . . Will she be right back?”

“No.” Caroline sighed and shook her head. “She doesn’t want to see you. I can’t explain it. I’m so sorry.”

The boy came closer, the ball still under his arm. He stood by Ellie’s mom, and Nolan understood. This was the child
she’d been pregnant with; he was the result of the affair that had caused Ellie’s father to move to San Diego. Nolan felt compassion for the child. None of the heartache and loss surrounding his birth was his fault. “Hey.” He held out his hand, and the kid shook it. “I’m Nolan Cook.”

“John, sir.” The boy clearly knew who Nolan was. “My friends aren’t going to believe this.”

“Nolan and I need to talk for a few minutes.” Ellie’s mother looked nervous.

“Yes, ma’am.” John returned to the other room and sat at the table, watching them from a distance.

Once he was out of earshot, Ellie’s mom lowered her voice. “I don’t know when she’ll be home. I’m not sure what to tell you.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Nolan was at peace about that much. “She has to come back eventually.”

“I just . . . I don’t think she’d like that. I’m so sorry.”

“I’ll let her tell me.” Nolan smiled, despite the way his heart had fallen to his feet. Ellie Tucker, avoiding him? The reality confirmed every painful possibility he’d considered over the years. She was alive, yes. But she didn’t want to see him. Now he had to figure out why. He wouldn’t leave until he had the answer.

Nolan had an idea. He took a few steps toward the kitchen. “Hey, John, I stopped by Savannah High earlier today. The coach has the gym open for me tonight. Sort of a private thing.”

“Really?” John was on his feet in a flash. The kid seemed nice, and judging from his Hawks T-shirt and the basketball in his hands, he was crazy about the sport.

“Maybe we should go shoot around. What do you think?”
Nolan looked at Caroline. “Would you mind? For an hour or so?”

“Please, Mom.” John hurried over to her.

Nolan watched the woman consider. She had known Nolan since he was a kid, and she trusted him. But letting John go meant that Nolan would have to bring him home later. Another chance to see Ellie. He tried to put her concern to rest. “Ma’am.” He kept his tone polite. “I can tell you this. Either way, I’m not leaving until I see her.”

“Well,” Caroline hesitated, losing her fight. “John would love it.” She smiled at her son. “As for the rest . . . I’ll pray.”

That was all Nolan needed to hear. He nodded to the boy to follow him. John kissed his mom on the cheek and hugged her, and with that, the two of them left for the gym. The place where Nolan and Ellie had spent almost half their teenage years. The court where he could feel his father again, see him coaching from the sidelines. God had brought him this far. He would play basketball with the boy, take him home, and do what he’d dreamed of doing since his last hour together with Ellie. He would hang out with Ellie and figure out an answer to the question that had parked dead center in his heart.

Why was she avoiding him?

Chapter
Twenty-five