Page 21 of When We Were Young
At first Emily wasn’t sure what the woman meant. “Ma’am?”
“A week before your mama’s accident, she called me. She told me she had learned to live without your daddy. And she had figured out how to make a life for you girls without him.” She looked deep into Emily’s eyes. “But she knew you were struggling in your faith.”
The truth cut Emily to the core. “She did?” All that time she had tried to pretend. So she wouldn’t trouble her mother with her doubts.
“She knew.” The woman seemed in no hurry. As if this were the most important thing she had to say all day. All year, even. “On our last phone call, she told me she had just one prayer. That you and Clara would stay close to Jesus all your lives. Not just go to church because she went to church. But really love the Lord. So the three of you would have eternity together.”
The woman’s words came like so many bursts of icy cold air. Her mother had said that? Her final wish was that Emily would love Jesus with all her heart? That Emily and Clara wouldn’t just go through the motions? Emily thanked the woman, but the news changed her.
There had been no final words with her mother, no last conversation or sweet goodbyes. No one had known that she’d hop in the rental car to run to the store for milk and get swept away in floodwaters. She hadn’t had time to call for help, let alone call her girls.
So the conversation with the woman at church became all Emily had, the only thing left of her mother. As if her mom had given her a final message after all. That night after Clara was in bed, Emily stepped onto the front porch and looked at the moon. And in the next hour she told God everything she wanted to say.
She asked Him why He hadn’t given Clara a healthy body and how He could stand by and watch while Clara limped and struggled through life. And she asked how her father could be so callous and then somehow think she and Clara would move in with him after all these years.
Even now she could hear herself, speaking her questions out loud into the summer night air. “I’m mad at you, God. I have a right to be mad. Clara deserves so much more. What’s going to become of her? What will her future be? And what about the people who are mean to her?”
One question after another, but finally... finally Emily ran out of questions. Or she ran out of breath. Whatever it was she sank to the lone chair and she hung her head. An ocean of tears came, and in the next hour she heard God. Felt Him right there beside her. His hands on her shoulders, holding her so she wouldn’t fall to the ground in sorrow.
The world was a mess, that was true.
But God... God was there. He loved her mother and He loved Emily and Clara. She would never get through the years ahead without Him. Her mother must’ve known that.
And now Emily knew for herself.
Whatever reason God had for taking their mother home so soon, Emily was certain where she was. Alive and whole and praying for her and Clara from heaven. Praying with one hope, one wish.
That Emily and Clara would love Jesus, too.
They didn’t miss a Sunday service after that. Not only did Emily find her way to a believing faith in God but she loved Him. More every week. Clara seemed to notice, because she was happier. Almost as happy as she’d been before their mother died.
Summer ended and Clara started back at the better school. Emily took a dance scholarship at Indiana University and somehow their schedules worked. Life was hard. But it was sweet and it was good. She and Clara had each other, and they were working toward their future.
Emily had no idea that three weeks later she was going to meet Noah Carter.
And that nothing would ever be the same again.
7
Noah’s head was killing him.
He had finished packing, and his bags both stood in the corner. But he could barely see them through his blurry vision.Concussion headache,he told himself. One too many hits back when he was a football player. Every now and then they struck again. The way they had in the days and weeks after his last injury.
Rub the temples,he reminded himself. He dropped to the edge of the bed and pressed his fingers into the sides of his head. Slow circles. Firm and steady. Anything to relieve the pressure. But it didn’t work. It had to be the concussions.
Or maybe not.
Maybe his brain was screaming at him to find some other way, any other way. He couldn’t stand being around Emily. But he couldn’t stand himself for leaving her. How could both be true? His outbreath filled his cheeks and leaked slowly through his lips.
One more look at the kids. That’s what he needed.
He opened his eyes and tried to focus on the suitcases. The edges of everything he looked at were still blurry. Nights like this he could feel that final hit again, feel the crush of the linebacker’s helmet against his. The way his head snapped back and slammed against the ground.
A clean knockout. That’s what the papers said later. Like they were in the ring for a heavyweight fight instead of playing college football. He remembered waking up and the whole room spinning. Not just a little, but fast. Round and round and round. He hadn’t made it to his side of the field before he threw up.
And that was just the beginning.
There were times in the weeks after that vicious blow when Noah wondered if he’d ever get through a day without the dizziness that made it impossible to open his eyes for more than a few minutes. His brain had been that bruised, that damaged.
