The Chance: A Novel (32 page)

E
llie had a feeling that tonight’s bedtime routine would take longer than usual. She sat on the edge of Kinzie’s twin bed and waited for her to brush her teeth. The day had been long and marked with emotion. Kinzie wanted so badly for her to go to church, and as always, Ellie got out of it by claiming she had to vacuum and do laundry. Sunday was cleaning day. But her daughter was learning more at Sunday school, learning about people who run away from Jesus. She was getting old enough to understand that cleaning could happen on another day.

Kinzie came in from the bathroom, her pink flannel nightgown swishing around her ankles. She smiled at Ellie, but as she folded back the covers and slipped into bed, her eyes looked troubled. Ellie ran her hand along her daughter’s blond hair. “So, Kinz, you want to talk about anything?”

A serious look crossed her daughter’s face. “Anything?”

“Sure.” Ellie tilted her head, wanting desperately to connect. “Whatever you want.”

“Okay.” She blinked a few times, the way she did when she was nervous. “Did you ever believe in Jesus? When you were a little girl, like me?”

Ellie kept her smile. “I did.” Her tone was kind, gentle. “Believing was part of my life back then.”

“So,” she paused, “now you don’t believe?” She looked heartbroken at the possibility.

“Well.” Ellie felt tears in her eyes. “Not like I used to.”

Kinzie let that sink in. “Are you mad at Jesus?”

“Hmmm.” She hadn’t really thought about it before. “I’m not sure.” Who was she mad at? Her parents, of course. And yes, maybe even Jesus. He could’ve prevented all this, right? Kinzie was waiting for an answer. “I guess life just got hard. With my mommy and daddy.”

“When they broke up and your daddy moved you here?”

“Yes.” Ellie had long ago explained why there was no grandma or grandpa in Kinzie’s life. “It’s hard to believe sometimes.” Answering the questions was like walking through a minefield. Ellie breathed deep and remembered to smile. “Anything else, sweetie?”

For a long time Kinzie looked at her. The sweetness in her eyes was back. “I’m sorry, Mommy. That it’s hard to believe.” She sat up and kissed Ellie’s cheek. “I’m praying for you every day.”

“Thank you.” Ellie searched her daughter’s eyes, the innocence and faith there. “Keep praying. I know it helps.”

“I will.” Kinzie nodded and yawned at the same time. “I love you always.”

“I love you forever.” Relief flooded Ellie’s soul. The exchange was something they’d read in a book once, and ever since then it had been their special way to say good night. She rubbed Kinzie’s back till she fell asleep. Enough talk about faith and believing.

Ellie tiptoed out of the room and shut the door behind her. With everything in her, she wanted one thing—to pile the two of them into the car and drive east. As long and far as she could without stopping, just drive and play the radio and think and cry. It wasn’t weighing on her only lately. Her birthday had made her think about her dad again. How he must
have felt, living on his own, and how sad it was that the two of them hadn’t talked. Other than Kinzie and Tina and Tiara, Ellie had no one. Her roommate was still awake, and Ellie found her in the kitchen.

Tina studied Ellie as she walked up. “Everything okay?”

“Just a long night.” Now wasn’t the time to go into it. She didn’t want to talk about church or God or the reasons she struggled to believe. “I need to take a drive. Think about life.”

“You’re not doing it again, are you?” Tina gave her a look that demanded truth.

“What?” Ellie crossed her arms.

“You know what. Thinking about Nolan Cook.” Tina shook her head. “You have to let that go. You were kids, Ellie.”

“I know we were kids. It was a lifetime ago.” Her tone was more defensive than she intended. She forced herself to whisper so she wouldn’t wake up the girls. “Of course I still think about him. His name and picture are everywhere.”

“I’m just saying . . .” Tina’s expression was filled with compassion. “You can’t move on while you’re clinging to a fantasy.”

Even Tina didn’t know about the tackle box or the letters or the significance of June first. Ellie took her keys from the hook on the wall. “Thanks, Tina.”

“Don’t be mad.” Tina followed her to the door. “I only want to help.”

Ellie stopped and faced her friend. “I know. That’s why I need to drive. So I can figure out why I haven’t moved on.”

“I’ll pray for you. That you can figure out a way to let him go.”

Ellie didn’t want to hear that. Who did Tina think she was, offering to pray? Like she was better than Ellie? Her anger grew with every heartbeat. She needed to leave before she said
something that would hurt them both. Not until she was in her car and halfway down the street did she think again about what Tina had said. Nolan was a fantasy . . . she would pray for Ellie to let him go. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and her knuckles turned white in the moonlight. That’s all Nolan was in Tina’s mind? A fantasy?

She took a deep breath and exhaled with deliberate calm. Tina knew only Nolan Cook, the famous NBA player. If she’d seen Ellie and Nolan sitting under their old oak tree all those years ago, she would have understood. Nolan Cook was not a fantasy. He wasn’t.

The thought shin-kicked at the edges of her conscience. Or was he? Who was she kidding? Nolan lived in a different world from the one they shared when they were fifteen. He was one of the most sought-after millionaires in the country. If he remembered her, it was probably only on occasion, and if he could see her now, a single mom unwilling to attend church with her little girl, Ellie knew exactly what he’d think. He’d be sad that life had changed Ellie Tucker, and then he’d wish her the best. He would probably offer to pray for her—like everyone else in her life—and that would be that.

No wonder Tina’s comment hurt so badly. Regardless of what Ellie wanted to believe or what she sometimes let herself believe, the truth was blatantly obvious. Nolan Cook would never be interested in her now.

She was two miles away from her apartment before she realized she was headed toward her father’s house. The one that belonged to Ellie’s grandmother before she was moved to a nursing facility. When Ellie and her dad first moved to San Diego, they ate most dinners at her grandmother’s house. The old woman never liked Ellie’s mom; everyone in the family
knew that much. Quickly, it became clear to Ellie that her grandmother didn’t care much for her, either. It was the reason Ellie hadn’t given Nolan her grandma’s address as a way of keeping in touch. If mail came from Savannah, her grandma probably would have thrown it away.

Her grandma would talk about Ellie’s mom and how terrible she was for walking out on her family and how she was too beautiful. Then she’d say that Alan had better be careful, because Ellie looked just like her mother. On and on and on her ranting criticisms would go. Back then every awful thing she said or alluded to forced Ellie to remember a different happy time with her mom, some special memory. Just so she wouldn’t forget the way her mom really was. Or the way she had been before her affair.

But eventually, even Ellie’s memories couldn’t offer a defense for her mother’s behavior. After a year when her mom didn’t attempt to contact her, Ellie had no choice but to acknowledge the truth—her mother had changed. She no longer loved her the way she once did. First her grandma, then her mother, and finally her father all turned away from her. By the time Ellie walked out of her father’s life, she had no one to call family.

No one but Kinzie.

Ellie kept driving, heading toward the little clapboard house. The one she had avoided for the past seven years. She wasn’t sure what compelled her to drive here tonight. Whether it was the conversation with Kinzie, or the questions about why she didn’t believe like she used to, or the eleven-year mark drawing close.

Whatever it was, she became more determined with every mile to see the house and maybe even park for a while. Watch for the man inside who had given up on ever reconciling with
her. She didn’t think about the absence of her parents every day, but the evidence was always with her. They had moved on, as if they’d never had a daughter. Sure, her parents’ lives were messy. Her mom lonely, drawn to an affair. Her dad brokenhearted, controlling and dominating, always assuming the worst of Ellie.

But that didn’t excuse them.

Suddenly, Ellie was consumed with curiosity. How did her father spend his nights, alone in the little house? Did he come home from a day of bossing people around and fall asleep in front of the TV? Or did he read his Bible all night and remind himself how right he’d been, how much he was a victim of his wife’s unfaithfulness and his daughter’s rebellion?

She turned down her grandmother’s street, and as she neared the house, she killed her headlights. The closer she came, the slower she drove until she was parked in the dark shadows just out front. Sure enough, lights were on inside, and after Ellie watched for five or six minutes, her dad passed by the window. He carried a large box, and she watched him set it on the sofa in the front room. For a while he stood there, staring at it. Then he sat down and pulled something from it.

Ellie’s heart raced, and her palms felt damp against the steering wheel. He still looked fit and handsome, a decade younger than most men his age. Fresh hurt and anger rushed to the surface. Why didn’t he do something to fix their family? This was her father, after all. How did he live his life every day without trying to make things right with her, his only child? Or with his wife? A sick feeling came over her. She hadn’t done anything to bridge the gaps, either. How did
she
live this way?

Her dad seemed consumed by the box and whatever it held. Ellie had no idea what he was doing, and she wondered at the
timing that would randomly lead her here and allow her to see this scene play out. Maybe he was going through old pictures, something from his past. Their past. The box was too big to be bills or mail, but it might be full of scrapbooks or yearbooks or photo albums. She had a feeling the box held something purposeful, or he wouldn’t have brought it out to the sofa to look through it.

Before they moved to San Diego, Ellie had spent years praying for her parents. That they’d stop fighting and get along the way they used to. That they’d laugh and love again. Night after night after night. She narrowed her eyes. What good had it done? Her mom still had the affair and her dad still lived in his bitterness. The two of them had let her go without a chase. Now she wondered if the box held some window to the past for her father. Ghosts from happy days gone by. Maybe the loneliness without his wife and daughter bothered him more than his silence let on.

She pictured him the way he’d been before they left Savannah. His hug at the end of a day, how he’d taught her how to ride a bike. Even when they moved—as badly as Ellie wanted to stay in Savannah, she believed she and her dad would be okay. And at first he was. His words were kind and helpful, encouraging. He listened to her talk about being let down by her mom and about missing Nolan.

Things changed when she started school. Instead of a hug, he greeted her at the end of the day with questions. A year later, the questions became accusations.
Who were you with? What does he want from you? Why were you out so late? You were drinking, weren’t you? Let me smell your breath. If you’re doing something with those boys, you need to tell me. You know what’ll happen, Ellie . . . you’ll wind up pregnant, just like your mother.

Enough.

She ordered the battering memories to stop. If only he’d really known her. The way she never crossed a single line, never cussed or drank or did anything with boys, not until she graduated from high school. By then she felt guilty every time she was around her father, constantly compelled to prove him wrong.

At a James Taylor concert in the park that summer with her girlfriends, Ellie met C.J. Andrews, a handsome soldier six months from being sent to Iraq. He kept her out late at night and told her things she was desperate to hear. He was in love with her, and he’d waited all his life to meet a girl like her, and he would do anything for her. She was young and naive and inexperienced. On their fourth date, he took her back to his apartment and promised her they wouldn’t go too far. The promises didn’t stop until she had given him everything she had to give.

As soon as she got out of bed, she ran to the bathroom and threw up. Disgust and fear and filth crashed together inside her, and she demanded he take her home. He only flopped into a chair by his bed. “I’m not taking you anywhere.”

Ellie had analyzed that terrible night a thousand times, and always she came to the same conclusion. C.J. really thought she’d stay, that he was some sort of gift she couldn’t walk away from. But that was exactly what she did. She left his house that night and walked four miles back to her house. The whole time she couldn’t think about what had just happened or how he’d lied to her or what she’d done.

She could only think about Nolan.

How much she missed him and how she wanted to find him in the worst way. She would tell him what happened and
ask him to pray with her, to help her find her way back to the innocence of that Savannah summer. But she couldn’t bring herself to call him.

When she got home that night, her father was waiting up, and for the first time, his accusations were right.
Only a harlot stays out this late, Ellie. Where’ve you been, and who’ve you been with?
Ellie only stared at him, blinking. Then she ran to her room and barely came out for the next two months.

By then she knew something was wrong. Her period was late, and she felt sick to her stomach in the mornings. She bought a pregnancy test, and as soon as she had the results, she told her father. There was no point in hiding it from him. She half expected him to kill her. And that would be that. Instead, he pulled out the Bible and forced her to listen to twenty Scriptures on sexual sin and giving in to the flesh. He told her she wouldn’t be allowed out of the house until she could live a godly life.

His accusations and criticism made it impossible to breathe. That night she packed her things and—just like her mother—she left Alan Tucker for a new life without him. By then Ellie had already started classes at the same beauty school Tina attended. She walked to Tina’s apartment and knocked on the door.