Page 24 of A Baxter Family Christmas
When rehearsal was over, Connor walked Maddie to her car. He didn’t try to hug her like before. She understood. She had made herself clear, no matter how much it hurt.
Before she climbed into her car, Connor folded his arms. “You still praying for your Christmas miracle?”
Maddie hadn’t thought about that for a few weeks. “It was more for my sister than me.”
“Hmmm.” He looked into her eyes, as if he were trying to see past the mystery. “Is she sicker? You said she had health struggles.”
“No.” Maddie remembered her mother’s words. How God had already answered one prayer after another where her sister was concerned. “Actually... maybe Hayley has already gotten her Christmas miracle.”
“Okay.” Connor seemed to take his time. As if he appreciated this moment alone with her. “What about you, Maddie West? What about your Christmas miracle?”
“For me... it’s more just knowing that God’s there.” She wasn’t usually this honest. But something about Connor Flanigan’s kindness made her open up more easily. “You know?”
“Definitely.” Connor hesitated. “Tell you what. Can I pray for you now? That God will show you He’s real? Sometime between now and Christmas?”
Maddie felt his warmth to the center of her heart. “Please.”
Connor took her gloved hands in his, and for the sweetest few minutes ever, he prayed for her. That God would speak to her and that she would sense His presence in many ways. But most of all that He would make Himself real to her—sometime before Christmas.
With Connor’s prayer lingering in her soul, Maddie had expected the night to be more relaxed now. If ever there would be a time when she didn’t think about her guilt, this had to be it. But that wasn’t how it played out at all.
As soon as she was in bed with the lights out, the images came at her full force. She was running inside the house, the one where the birthday party was held, and she was asking her daddy, “Where’s Hayley? I can’t find Hayley.”
And her father was scrambling up from his chair and there on the floor was Hayley’s life jacket. The life jacket she absolutely had to wear if she was out of the house for even a minute. That’s what her mom had told them both when she left the party for work.
But now the life jacket was on the floor. And Hayley was gone.
Maddie rolled around in bed, but the memory wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t let her go.
“Hayley!” Their father screamed her name. “Hayley, where are you?”
And Maddie ran behind her dad out to the backyard and there... there at the bottom of the pool...
“No! No, God! No!” Her father’s shout echoed through Maddie’s being—then, and every day since. “Hayley!”
And her father was diving into the pool with his clothes on, diving down to the deep end and sweeping Hayley into his arms. Swimming her up to the surface and out onto the deck.
She lay in a wet heap. Her body still. “Hayley!” Everyone was screaming her name now. The adults at the party, the other children. And Maddie. Especially Maddie.
“Hayley, wake up!” Maddie rushed to her daddy’s side, but he held her back. “Go inside, Maddie. Go!”
By then sirens were screaming in the distance. Shrill and piercing, sirens that told Maddie, even at five years old, the truth. This wasn’t a dream. Hayley had fallen in the pool without her life jacket and now she wasn’t breathing.
Her dad had told her to go inside, but Maddie hadn’t obeyed him. While her father pressed Hayley’s chest over and over, Maddie found a place at the side of the pool. There, halfway hidden in the bushes, she watched and cried and prayed.Please, God... please bring her back to life. Please!
And then there was a rush of feet and noise as paramedics ran into the backyard and they took over, doing CPR on Hayley’s little body. That’s when Maddie caught a glimpse of her baby sister that stayed with her still.
Hayley’s mouth was open... her eyes, too. Her face was blue and she was dead. Hayley was dead. There was no way around it. And Maddie ran into the house and hid under her friend’s bed. She stayed there for a long time until one of the mothers found her.
And every single image from that day still lived in Maddie’s mind as vividly as if it had just happened. Torturing Maddie. Reminding her day after day, night after night, of the truth.
Hayley had drowned at that long-ago birthday party because of her.
Because she hadn’t kept an eye on her little sister.
That’s why Maddie didn’t dare let herself fall in love. Because Hayley might’ve been given a miracle, a second chance at life. But that didn’t mean Hayley’s life would truly ever be the way it should’ve been. She would never experience love or independence the way she should have.
When Maddie woke up the next morning, exhausted from the memories of the night, she was convinced all over again. If Hayley couldn’t live a normal life, she wouldn’t either.
