Page 18 of To the Moon and Back
Of course she did. Sweet Cheryl Fisher was one of the kindest people Brady had ever met. On the table between the two sofas Cheryl had set a pot of coffee and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Brady didn’t typically do either. But he would fake it today. He could at least do that for Cheryl and Rodney.
Brady sat next to Rodney while Cheryl poured the coffee. “Still no cream?”
“No cream. Thank you, though. You’re too nice.” He looked from Cheryl to her husband and back again. “You don’t need to do this.”
“Brady, don’t you know?” Cheryl handed him the coffee. Fresh tears filled her eyes. “We look forward all year to this visit with you.”
Guilt thudded Brady in his chest. He lived seven miles away, but he made this trip just once every twelve months. On the anniversary. He glanced at the nearest bookcase. Had to be six Bibles on the various shelves, and on the wall was a framed print. It read: With God all things are possible.
Brady narrowed his gaze. Try telling that to his mother. Or to Jenna.
There you go again. Thinking mean and cynical. Trapped in hate and unforgiveness. Brady forced the slightest smile and turned back to the couple. He knew about God, of course. He just didn’t believe in Him. That’s why he didn’t come more often. Brady set the coffee down. “You gonna tell me about Jimmy?”
They did this every year. A smile lit up Cheryl’s eyes as she took her seat at the table. The first real smile since he’d gotten here. She looked at her husband. “Rodney, should we tell him?”
“Let’s do.” Rodney put his arm around her. He nodded at his wife. “You start.”
“Jimmy, Jimmy.” Cheryl shook her head and sighed. “Sweet little baby boy. Biggest brown eyes you ever saw.” She looked long toward the front window. Like she was seeing all the way back to 1995. “Oh, how that boy loved life. Right straight out of the womb.”
“True.” Rodney poked his finger into the air as if to highlight the fact. “Other babies cry when they’re born. Not Jimmy.”
“No, not Jimmy.” Cheryl glanced at her husband, and then at Brady. “Doctors thought something was wrong with him. How come he wasn’t wailing like a baby’s supposed to do?”
She stood and found a photo album on the nearby coffee table in the next room. When she was back at the table, she opened it. The same photo album they looked through every anniversary. “Here he is.” She pointed to the photo of a newborn Jimmy. His eyes shining with possibility. “Look at that. Grinning right straight from heaven into our arms.”
“That boy was always happy.” Rodney leaned close, studying the picture.
Cheryl turned the page and raised the book every so often to show Brady. “On his first birthday he put his whole fist in the cake.” She looked at Rodney. “Remember that? He learned how to say ‘Uh-oh’ that day!”
“Couldn’t forget it.” Rodney shook his head and turned to Brady. “Except he didn’t eat it like other babies. He held it out to me and his mama. ‘Dada?’ That little voice of his. ‘Dada?’ ”
Cheryl closed her eyes for a moment and opened them again. “I can still hear him, still see the way he looked at me that day. Just like it was happening all over again.” Cheryl turned the next page.
Brady knew the stories. He knew the pictures. He’d been sixteen when he met the Fishers on the anniversary of the bombing. The couple had bought him lunch that day and listened to his story. Before they parted ways, Cheryl had given Brady a phone number and an address. “Join us for dinner next Sunday. Four sharp.” And Brady did. That was the first time he’d heard the story of Jimmy.
In the early years after that dinner, Cheryl and Rodney had been there for Brady when he wasn’t sure he had the will to live. When he felt alone and when he couldn’t find Jenna. But then the Christian thing kept coming up. Cheryl would invite him to church or Rodney would want to open the Bible. Eventually Brady visited less often and in the last few years just on the anniversary. The least he could do was sit here and listen to them talk about Jimmy. Who else would care about their loss this many years removed from the bombing? Who else would care about his?
Cheryl continued through the photo album. She talked about the exact day Jimmy started walking and the day he threw a ball for the first time.
“He was gonna be the next Michael Jordan.” Rodney chuckled at his wife. “Isn’t that so?”
“Sure could shoot a basketball.” Cheryl touched a photo of Jimmy in a red Michael Jordan T-shirt, number 23, holding a small orange ball and smiling like it was the best day of his life. Cheryl grew quiet. “Played with that mini hoop all day, every day.”
Brady knew each detail of the story that followed. Jimmy was running by the time he turned two. Racing through the house, laughing and talking. He loved Bible stories and playing with blocks and Winnie-the-Pooh. He thought he was Christopher Robin. So much so that on his second birthday, Cheryl and Rodney threw him a party with a theme Jimmy had loved: the Hundred Acre Wood.
Two weeks later Jimmy was dead. Christopher Robin never got a chance to grow up.
The story slowed down as it neared the end. Tears spilled from Cheryl’s eyes. Rodney’s, too. Quiet tears. Stoic. Tears of regret and loss and what might’ve been. Especially that. Cheryl took a napkin from the table and dabbed her eyes. “We watched Winnie-the-Pooh one more time. Before . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Rodney covered her hand with his.
Cheryl closed the photo album. “That was him. Little Jimmy.”
“He’s with Jesus now. We know that.” Rodney looked straight at Brady. “We’ll see him again. Our Jimmy. Closer every day.”
Tears clouded Brady’s vision. He blinked them back. Struggled for composure. This was always the awkward part. How could he just get up, climb on his bike and ride away? Listen to them tell Jimmy’s story and then leave? Rather than be a friend to this kind couple all year long? Brady had no answers for himself.
He clasped his hands and stared at the floor. Until he could hear Cheryl’s crying slow some. “Jimmy and I . . .” Brady lifted his eyes to Cheryl’s, then to Rodney’s. “We would’ve been friends. Somehow . . . we would’ve found each other.”
