Halfway to Forever (35 page)

Hannah sat between Matt and Jenny, and without hesitating she took their hands. She looked around and saw that people were listening, some of them nodding, eyes teary. Nearly everyone
knew the battle Jade was facing and the very real possibility that she wouldn’t survive.

The pastor continued. “Most of you know that Jade is battling brain cancer and that even now—days after delivering their baby daughter—she is undergoing severe treatment. Tomorrow morning doctors will perform a delicate brain surgery on Jade, and truthfully, her chances are not good. She could lose her memory, her personality … her life.” He gave Hannah a sad smile. “Hannah’s idea is this: Anyone wishing to participate will sign up for a half-hour block of prayer time, starting with midnight tonight. During that block, you will pray for Jade. Pray for her newborn daughter, her husband, and her son. Pray that God heals her and that nothing happens during the surgery to rob her of the person she is, of the dynamic personality she’s been blessed with.”

He searched the faces of the five hundred people in attendance. When he spoke, Hannah could hear the ache in his voice and she wasn’t surprised. “I guess what I’m asking is that you’d sign up. Please. And pray for a miracle for Jade Eastman.”

After the service Matt and Jenny went to get Kody from the nursery, and Hannah found the pastor. “Thank you.” She blinked back tears. “I’ll call you tomorrow as soon as we hear anything.”

“No need.” The pastor took Hannah’s hand, his expression more serious than she’d seen before. “I’ll be there first thing in the morning. I’m planning to stay all day.”

Hannah hugged him, losing the battle with her tears in the process. There was no question that Pastor Steve understood how ill Jade really was. She thanked him again, then hurried off to the foyer to check on the Jade Chain sign-up sheet.

What she saw stopped her in her tracks. What was this? Why were so many people bottlenecked in the church foyer?

Then it hit her, and her hand flew to her mouth.
Father, I don’t believe it … You’re so good, Lord
.

She stared, open-mouthed. The scene before her was the most amazing, breathtaking picture of a church family she’d ever seen or imagined in her life.

Snaking in a line up and down the length of the foyer were easily two hundred people.

Men, women, children … baseball players from the local high school, elderly men with canes and wobbly knees, a diabetic woman in a wheelchair. People Hannah knew well and others she wouldn’t have recognized if she’d met them on the street. All of them waiting in line to put their name on the sign-up sheet.

Each of them as desperate as Hannah to find a way to help Jade Eastman.

Patsy Landers stared at two handwritten letters spread out on her kitchen table and considered her options.

At first, the activities she and Grace had been doing seemed like they might be enough. Taking a walk, building a birdhouse, singing a song. Each had been fun, and once in a while Grace would even seem happy. Patsy knew this because every now and then Grace would smile.

But it was never her old smile, the one that used to light up a room.

Concerned that something might be seriously wrong with Grace, Patsy took her to see a counselor, a Christian woman whose office was across the street from Patsy’s church. For two days, the woman spent an hour with Grace, talking to her, asking her questions. Listening. At the end of the second session, the woman pulled Patsy aside.

“I’ll be candid with you; Grace shows all the signs of posttraumatic stress disorder.”

Patsy blinked. “Post what?”

Grace was sitting ten feet away. The woman glanced at her, and lowered her voice. “Mrs. Landers, the events that have taken place recently in your granddaughter’s life are affecting her deeply. In my opinion, she’s suffering from depression.”

Depression.

The word was like a tourniquet around Patsy’s heart even now. Depression? How was it possible? Yes, the child was bound to miss the Bronzans, but certainly she’d get over it. After all, Patsy had loved Grace since she was an infant. There were times in Grace’s four short years when she stayed with Patsy for months on end before Leslie would come around and whisk her away somewhere.

Patsy had been a rock for Grace.

So why now, when Grace knew she would never have to leave, was she struggling with depression?

Patsy sighed. As if those troubles weren’t enough, ten days ago she received the first letter in the mail. She stared at the letters again. The first was from Leslie; the second, from a woman who claimed to have a cell next to Leslie’s in prison.

Leslie’s letter was written in pencil. Patsy picked it up, feeling the same queasy feeling she’d felt the first time she saw it. Leslie’s attorney’s name and address were on the return corner of the envelope, and the moment Patsy received it she knew there had either been a problem or a miracle.

Leslie simply wouldn’t have written otherwise.

The letter took up less than a page, and Patsy studied it once more. Leslie had written it for one reason: to inform Patsy that the minute prison officials released her, she’d be back for Grace. Not only that, but apparently she’d dreamed up some way to make a living.

Patsy’s eyes ran over the strange last line in the letter:
Besides, I’ve thought of a way we can make enough money to survive. I know
we’ll never go hungry. Kiss her for me. Leslie
.

We? Who was we? Leslie and Grace? What possible way could Leslie and Grace make money? Patsy had studied the line for a long time and decided Leslie must have been referring to a boyfriend, someone she planned to live with once she was out.

However Leslie intended to make money, Patsy doubted her methods would be legal. That afternoon, when Patsy finished reading the letter, she was on the phone with Edna Parsons. “She can’t take Grace, can she?”

When Edna hesitated, panic raced through Patsy. “Well, that’s tricky. If Grace were adopted to another family, the answer would be no. But since you’re her mother, the courts see it as a gray area.”

The social worker went on to explain that if Patsy welcomed her daughter into her home and allowed her to visit with Grace, it would be very possible that one day Leslie would be given custody again.

“Besides, you haven’t actually adopted Grace yet. You’re her legal guardian, but even that becomes open to interpretation once the courts deem Leslie has paid her debt to society.”

“You mean she could hire an attorney and fight me for custody?”

Mrs. Parsons let loose a small huff. “If you welcome Leslie into your home, she could leave with Grace, and unless she breaks a law, no agency in the country would consider it a kidnapping.” She paused. “The alternative is to get a restraining order on her as soon as you know she’s out of prison, but even then you’d have to give cause.”

The conversation had played in Patsy’s mind a dozen times since then. Especially after she received the second letter. Three days after opening the first, Patsy found a letter in her postbox addressed to Mrs. Landers. The handwriting was unfamiliar.

Patsy set down Leslie’s letter and picked up the other one. The message was brief and to the point.

Patsy tried every way she could to read something other than the obvious into Candi’s note. It wasn’t possible. Leslie wanted to make money with Grace? In a way that someone sitting in prison thought was “pretty bad stuff”?

Horror filled Patsy as the possibilities slammed against her mind. Leslie had done some awful things in her life, made some terrible choices … but making money off Grace? The idea and all it entailed was more than Patsy could bear.

Again she called Grace’s social worker, Edna Parsons, and read her the note over the phone.

“Sounds like Leslie’s made some dangerous connections in prison.” Mrs. Parsons’s tone was troubled. “Save the note. It might help you get a restraining order.”

“But … do you think she’s talking about.” Patsy couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“Pornography or prostitution.” The words were hand grenades in Patsy’s heart. “I’d say it was one or the other. There’s an entire network of children Grace’s age trapped in that underworld. Police are constantly working to arrest the adults behind it, but it happens. I won’t lie to you.”

“And you really think Leslie could … could do that?”

The social worker sounded tired. “Mrs. Landers, I haven’t told you this information before, but maybe now it’s time you hear. The scene at that deserted field, when police found Leslie and Grace, was a grim one.”

The things Edna Parsons told Patsy then left her weak and in tears. Her stomach hurt, and she covered her eyes, confused about one thing. “But she asked for her mother for weeks after going to live with the Bronzans.”

“That’s normal. At that point she could transfer all blame for her situation on to the bad guys her mother spent time with. After spending time with the Bronzans she knew differently.” Mrs. Parsons drew a quiet breath. “I saw how Grace changed with that family. For the first time she knew what a real mommy was supposed to be like.”

The picture was becoming clearer. “That whole time she thought I was dead.”

“Right.”

Patsy’s tears felt hot on her weathered cheeks. “She must have believed she’d been given a new life, a chance to have a family who would never leave her. Never hurt her.”

“Exactly.”

The despair in Patsy’s soul was worse than anything she’d suffered in all the years of disappointments with Leslie. “What am I supposed to do, then? How can I make Grace feel secure?”

“It takes time.”

“And what about Leslie’s threats. She’ll take Grace whether it’s legal or not, by the sounds of it.” Patsy’s voice trembled and she felt utterly weak.

“First, you should get an attorney and see about officially adopting Grace. Second, I’d follow through with the restraining order. And you might want to consider moving, as well.”

Attorney? Restraining order? Moving? Patsy’s head swam and she could barely find the strength to speak. “In other words, I’d never see Leslie again.”

The social worker’s answer rang with finality. “Quite possibly. But then, she considered you dead before any of this ever happened.”

Memories of the conversation faded.

Patsy reached for a manila envelope on her lap and tucked the letters inside. She craned her neck and saw that Grace was still on the recliner where she’d been an hour earlier, watching television with the same dazed look she’d had since she’d arrived in Oklahoma.

God, what am I supposed to do?

There was no loud answer, no letters from heaven giving her step-by-step directions on how to raise little Grace. Patsy shifted her gaze forward once more and stared at her hands. Her shoulders shook and tears formed a logjam in her throat.

For years she’d prayed daily for Leslie, begging God to change her heart and bring her closer to Him. Now, in some ways, Patsy was being asked to choose. Give Grace the home and safety she deserved, but eliminate Leslie from her life entirely. It was the most gut-wrenching thing Patsy had ever been asked to do.

She closed her eyes, folded her hands, and brought them to her face.
Please, God, give me wisdom. I feel like I’m going to lose no matter what I do
.

Ask and you will receive … seek and you will find … for the L
ORD
gives wisdom
.

The Scriptures soaked through her frightened soul as though God Himself were writing them there.

Bit by bit, an idea began to form in Patsy’s head. One she would never have considered if not for Leslie’s threats and Candi’s
warnings—and most of all her own conversations with Mrs. Parsons.

Ever since receiving Leslie’s letters, she’d seen only one way of carrying on, a way that grew darker and bleaker with every passing day. But now … in light of God’s gentle whispers … she saw a way she’d never considered before. It wouldn’t be easy or pain-free, but suddenly it loomed as the answer to her prayers.

The idea grew and took root and by that evening, Patsy was sure it was the best answer. A way that, in the end, would not involve losing, but winning. Not just for Patsy and Leslie and Grace.

But for the Bronzans as well.

O
nly Tanner knew exactly how hard the treatment had been on Jade.

In two weeks she had lost fifteen pounds and most of her hair. She vomited several times a day and was often too exhausted to do anything more than make a short trip to the nursery to see Madison.

Ty visited every afternoon, and Jade made sure she had a scarf around her head before he came. He had a hard enough time understanding her cancer without watching her hair fall out. Finally he’d brought her his Los Angeles Lakers baseball cap.

“Here, Mom.” He helped position it over her balding head, pulling the sides down carefully over her ears. “This way you’ll have a part of me with you even when you sleep.”

Jade had worn the hat every day since, even when the convulsions in her stomach left her doubled over a bedpan for nearly an hour.

They had arranged with their neighbor to watch Ty any time that Tanner wasn’t home. And since the second day of Jade’s treatment, that had been almost constantly. He came home to sleep and spend time with Ty, but only when Jade insisted. At least four times he’d stayed the night, holding her hand and pulling back the thin clumps of hair that remained on her head so they wouldn’t fall in the bedpan.