Page 82 of To the Moon and Back
“Mom . . . I can’t move!” Brady screamed the words. “Send someone! I’m dying.”
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t keep his eyes open much longer in the searing heat. And his mother’s hand was right there, right in front of him, but he couldn’t grab it. Like it was more apparition than reality. Still he could see her, hear her. Even above the roaring fire.
Come home, Brady! Please, come home!
One last time, Brady tried. With everything in him he shouted at her. “Send someone to help me!”
And the moment the words left his mouth a man appeared. Tall and strong, he tossed aside burning pieces of roof and red-hot metal beams like they were made of paper. One after another, the man moved scorching sections of building away from Brady. He could see the man now. Surreal blue eyes. Blond hair. Even in the midst of the terrible fire Brady knew who it was.
Jag.
The stranger at the memorial.
“It’s time to come home, Brady.” Jag took his hand and helped him to his feet, and at the same time the heat and fire and flaming debris around them disappeared. Brady’s skin was normal and he could breathe again.
Jag’s eyes pierced his own. “Your mother is waiting for you. Your Father, too.”
With a shattering gasp, Brady opened his eyes and sat straight up, tangled in his bedsheets. His shorts and T-shirt were drenched with sweat, his lungs heaving. “What in the . . .”
He jumped out of bed, eyes wide, and looked around. No fire, no broken building parts pinning him to the ground. His breaths came in rapid succession. He was in his bedroom, whole and alive and exhausted.
But unlike any other dream Brady had ever experienced, this one had been real. He could remember every detail. Smell them. Feel them. And then—in a slow and steady rush—a strange reality dawned on him.
Jag—whoever he was—had rescued him from the warehouse fire.
There was no other way Brady would’ve escaped from the collapsed building that day. No one in the department knew how he’d made it out alive. And not only that but maybe Jag had rescued him from the Murrah Building. Wasn’t that what he’d said the other day at the memorial? That he’d seen him when Brady was five?
A shiver ran down his arms. And now that same Jag had been part of his dream. The man’s words echoed again. It’s time to come home, Brady . . . Time to come home.
He could see his mother crying out to him, begging him to join her.
Brady’s heart pounded against the wall of his chest. What did it mean? What was the message? Was Jag a person or was he . . . could he really be an angel? His mind flashed back to their conversation at the memorial.
Brady had no way of knowing for sure. But Jag’s message was unmistakable. There was a reason Jag had freed him, a reason his mother had appeared to him in the dream.
And slowly, like all of his life had led to this moment, Brady dropped to his knees. His legs and arms shook and his heart raced within him. He grabbed the edge of his bed and pressed his forehead into the mattress.
All of it was real. The rescue at the warehouse, the dream, and the cry from Jag and his mother. It was time for Brady to come home. Time for him to stop fighting against the God who was clearly pursuing him.
“I’m sorry, Lord.” Brady whispered the words into the fitted sheet. “I’m so sorry.”
With everything in him he could feel himself changing.
The dream had changed everything, and with his entire being Brady suddenly believed in the truth that his mother was safe in heaven and that he would see her again. And in the reality that Jag had been sent to rescue him. He believed in the obvious fact that Jenna had come back into his life for a reason, and he believed in something else, something he had never expected to believe in again.
Brady Bradshaw believed in God.
23
R ain was forecast that August morning, so Ashley had moved her painting of the Survivor Tree into the kitchen. She was nearly finished. Amy knew, now, that the painting was for her.
Ashley could hardly wait to hang it in her niece’s room.
She stood in front of her easel. It had been nearly a week since her call to Brady. If he’d found God, she knew nothing of it. A few days ago she’d received a random text from Brady asking for Ashley’s address. She figured maybe he was going to send her a card or a letter. She had texted back that she was still praying for him, and he had thanked her. That was it.
Jenna hadn’t reached out again, either.
The paint on the end of her brush was more brown than green. She dipped the bristles in the palette. Today she was highlighting the trunk of the great elm. Bringing it to life, she liked to say. This part of painting required her greatest skill, her most careful hand. She was focusing on a specific area when the doorbell rang.
