The Chance: A Novel (19 page)

The truth was something altogether different.

Life had moved on. His mom was dating someone these days, a good guy. Nolan clenched his jaw and turned away from the hutch. He needed to check e-mail, something left-brained to get his mind off the past. If he was going to get his team through the play-offs, if this was the year he might win it all, one thing was sure.

He needed to stay focused.

T
hey were thirty thousand feet over Tennessee or maybe Kentucky when Nolan woke up. The jet was a converted passenger plane, leather seats and footrests, the plane the Hawks used for away games. The ache in his heart from earlier had eased. His dad was with him. That would always be true.

He looked out the window at the topside of the clouds and beyond, at a narrow river cutting its way through the landscape. Every mile took him farther from Ellie. Where he last knew she lived, anyway. Nolan leaned back against the seat. How could more than ten years have gone by and he still hadn’t found her? He had unlimited resources, after all.

In his senior year with the Tar Heels, they’d played the University of San Diego. Nolan caught a later flight home because he spent an entire day in a rental car, driving the perimeter of Camp Pendleton and canvasing the closest supermarkets, a Walmart, and a mall. He came home no closer to finding her than before. He realized then that it was pointless to search for her in San Diego. She could be living anywhere.

When MySpace and Facebook first surfaced, he had tried to find her online. At least once a week since then he searched for her and came up empty. By the time he was drafted into the
pros, he wondered if she’d met someone in college and gotten married. If that was the case, fine. But he wouldn’t rest until he had closure, until he could talk to her or look into her eyes and see for himself that she no longer cared for him.

The way he still cared for her.

Nolan’s mind flashed back to the draft, how it felt to be taken third pick in the first round. They paid him $10 million for his signing bonus alone. He earned more per season than anyone had a right to. The day his first check cleared, he did what he’d wanted to do since the summer after his freshman year at Savannah High. He called a private investigator and explained the situation.

“Her name is Ellie Tucker.”

“That’s her name today?”

Nolan hated the question. “As far as I know.”

“So you don’t know her name.” It wasn’t a question. “What do you actually know about her?”

The questions caused one of his hardest moments since his father’s death. Proof that he knew nothing about Ellie, that too many years had passed to be sure about what had happened to her or where she lived or what she was doing. Too many years to even know her name.

Still, he paid the PI and prayed—really prayed—that God would help him find her. Instead, for a heavy price tag, he was given a spiral-bound report that basically said the thing Nolan had feared most. Ellie Tucker—the girl who he was going to marry—was nowhere to be found.

He closed his eyes. That brought him to now. This week his manager was doing everything in his power to set Nolan up with a nice girl. The latest of many who had all amounted to nothing. This one was the daughter of a Christian singer, a
Grammy Award–winning solo artist whose voice was one of the best in any genre. Her daughter was twenty-one, a recent graduate from Vanderbilt University. Brilliant, beautiful, and ambitious. She ran a ministry for kids in Uganda, and already her efforts had resulted in the building of three wells that provided clean water to people who were dying without it.

His manager had called fifteen minutes before his ride picked him up earlier that day. “Nolan, I’ve got details.”

“Details?” Nolan was reading e-mails, still trying not to think about how badly he missed his dad.

“About Kari Garrett.”

Nolan didn’t immediately connect the dots.

His manager chuckled. “You obviously weren’t holding your breath for this call.”

“No.” Nolan felt himself smile. His manager didn’t give up easily. “Who is she?”

“Kathy Garrett’s daughter. The singer, remember?”

It had all clicked. “Of course. Sorry.” Nolan pushed his chair back from the computer and rubbed his eyes. “What about her?”

His manager hesitated. “Remember? She wants to meet you. She’s perfect, Nolan. You’ll love her.”

“Right. It’s coming back to me.” He wished he could feel more excited. “What’s the setup?”

“The two of you and dinner in Atlanta the night after you get back from this run.”

Nolan exhaled slowly. “Isn’t that sort of awkward? Like I’m taking her on a date and I haven’t met her?”

“It’s not a date. It’s a hang.” He sounded confident. The plan wasn’t going to change now. “Just get to know her. You’ll thank me later.”

Laughter found its way across the phone line. “Okay. Text me the specifics.”

And like that, Nolan had a date with Kari Garrett. No matter what his manager wanted to call it. She wasn’t the only setup who had come his way. One of the brass in the Hawks’ front office was trying to pair him up with Tanni Serra, the nation’s top pop star. A girl he wouldn’t consider dating. Barely a week passed without someone trying to match him with a girl who otherwise would be untouchable.

“Man, what’s that feel like? You can have any girl you want,” his teammates teased him often.

“I don’t want any girl.” He would grin at them. Everyone knew the truth. Nolan Cook hadn’t slept around, hadn’t dated. He loved God, and he would one day find a girl who shared his faith. Still, the guys were right. He could have any girl he wanted.

Any girl except Ellie Tucker.

Never was he more deeply aware of the truth than on a trip like this, one that took him away from where he last knew she was living. In San Diego, California. The truth stayed with him as they arrived at the venue and stretched, and as they took the court to warm up. It stayed with him as they dominated that night, notching a third straight victory, and it stayed with him as he scanned the audience at every break, looking for her. The way he always looked for her. Just in case she’d moved to Wisconsin. The truth was this: If Ellie Tucker wanted to contact him, she could have. He was easy to find. For reasons he couldn’t begin to understand, that could mean only one very sad thing.

Ellie had moved on.

Chapter
Seven

Spring 2013

N
olan Cook placed an extra pair of Nikes in his Atlanta Hawks bag and zipped it shut. He didn’t need to leave home for half an hour, enough time to clear his mind, maybe figure out why lately the past felt like a dark cloud he couldn’t step out from underneath. He sat on the edge of his bed and breathed in deep.
What is it, God? Why won’t yesterday leave me alone?

Sometimes Nolan wondered where the seasons had gone. One year had blended into two, and two somehow became a blurry decade. His life looked almost exactly as he had pictured it, how his dad had believed it would look. His Hawks were in the play-offs, and his role as leading scorer was one he had prepared for. He did what he could to help his community, and his faith still meant more to him than anything. Teams wanted to acquire him, kids wanted to be him, and girls wanted to marry him. After yesterday’s game, the ESPN announcer told the TV audience that Nolan was the only pro player he knew with a heart bigger than his bank account.

All of that was great. His father would be proud, for sure. But for all that Nolan Cook had obtained, and for all that people held him up as someone who had it all, he didn’t have what mattered most. He didn’t have his dad. And he hadn’t accomplished the only goal that really mattered.

He hadn’t found Ellie.

Twenty minutes remained before his ride would be there. The one that would take him to the airport, to a private jet for the trip to Milwaukee. It was May 3, first round of the play-offs. The Hawks had already taken the first two games at home. They could advance by winning the next two on the road. He sat down on the plush bench at the end of his bed and looked out the window. He never tired of the view, of the rolling green acreage that made up his estate. He lived in a remote gated community out of necessity. Too many people clamoring for him.

At first it seemed a little pretentious. Too much for a kid from Savannah. But he’d come to this place. He could be alone here and then, in thirty minutes, be suiting up at the Atlanta Hawks locker room. Where he spent most of his time.

You should be here, Dad. You and Ellie.

A sigh rattled through his body. His father had been gone nearly eleven years, and still he missed him every day, every time he picked up a basketball. The whole world knew the story. If anyone had missed it years back, ESPN had done a feature on Nolan last week, how he played to honor his dad, and how he never left a gym without making the shot.

Left side, three-point line.

He pulled his Bible from beneath the bench, where he’d left it the day before. Without hesitating, he turned to Philippians, chapter four. The place he and his dad were studying the week of his death. The text was familiar even back then. But he didn’t
want to rely on memory. He wanted to see the words. He started at the beginning of the chapter and read past the greeting from Paul and the admonition to rejoice always. At all times. Past the verses about God’s peace and right through to the thirteenth verse. “ ‘I can do all things though Christ, who strengthens me,’ ” he whispered.

It was a verse that had gotten him through the past decade, in moments when he was angry at God for all he’d lost and on days when he was ready to give up. Basketball had filled the empty spaces, and his faith had given him a purpose, but nothing had eased the pain of losing his dad. And nothing had helped him find Ellie Tucker.

He closed the Bible, stood, and crossed his room to the dresser with the mirrored hutch. Almost never did he allow himself a few moments to do this, but today seemed special. First time they’d made the play-offs since he’d been traded to the Hawks three years ago. He opened the narrow glass door and looked closely at the contents inside. A picture of him and his dad taken after they won the conference, weeks before the heart attack. The photo stood propped up, simple and without a frame. Slightly curled and yellowed around the edges. But Nolan kept it here, raw and untouched. The way he kept the image in his heart.

On the next shelf down was the stuffed rabbit. The one Ellie gave him the night before she left. He brought it to his face and breathed deep. Then he slowly walked to the window, the one that made up the far wall of the bedroom. He leaned his forearm against the glass and clenched the rabbit in his other fist. How could she still be missing from his life? With familiar ease he felt himself going back, slipping through the yesterdays to that spring.

Back to the days after his father’s death. He was just a kid back then, so much growing up still ahead of him. Weeks passed before Nolan stopped heading to the gym to find his dad when school let out. A lifetime of sheer habit didn’t break easily. Long after his dad’s funeral and the touching show of sympathy from the whole school, Nolan would wake up certain his dad was alive. Somewhere, he had to be alive. He would sit there in bed, desperate and confused, and picture his father in his study down the hall. He had to be there, dreaming up defenses and outlining plays in his old notebook. Or reading his worn, cracked leather Bible the way he did every morning.

Over time, Nolan came to realize he would spend the rest of his days fighting against God or fighting for Him. Finding his own way or holding tight to the faith he’d claimed the day police showed up at his house with the news. He wrestled with the choice, desperate for one more day with his dad. Desperate to find Ellie. In the end, there was no real choice at all. His father’s faith was his own. Period. He wouldn’t fight against the one true God, the One who held both his father and his precious Ellie. He would serve Him all the days of his life, no matter what. He made the vow the first summer after losing his dad. He had never wavered on his decision since.

But a reality hit him that summer. As soon as school was out, it came over him like a Georgia heat wave. He was the man of the house. His dad was gone and he wasn’t coming back, and his mother spent much of her time with his sisters. They were twelve and fourteen that summer, and they seemed to take most his mother’s emotional energy. When she couldn’t contain her tears another moment, she sometimes came to him. “Nolan, I’m turning in early. Can you get dinner for the
girls?” He would hug her and agree to help however he could. With his dad gone, he was man of the house.