The Chance: A Novel (58 page)

“Mama. I got the letters.” Ellie savored the feeling, being in her mom’s arms again. She treasured it and let it replace all the times when her mother hadn’t been there. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too. Every day.” She held Ellie, rocked her. “Thank you, Lord. She’s home. Thank you!”

And there in her mother’s arms—for the first time since Ellie was fifteen—the thought occurred to her that God might be real after all. Because she could feel His love in the person of Caroline Tucker. The mother who had prayed for her and missed her and loved her since the day she left.

Ellie stepped back a few inches and studied her mom’s face, the familiar curve of her cheeks, the depth in her eyes. Eyes like Kinzie’s. “Mama.” She wiped at her tears, but they still came. More and more they came. Ellie looked back at her car and then to her mother again. “I have someone I’d like you to meet.”

Chapter
Twenty-four

I
t was a miracle. Caroline Tucker had no other explanation for how it felt to have her daughter in her arms again. She hadn’t seen her since she was a teenager, but she would’ve recognized her anywhere. Her eyes, her pretty face, her graceful way. She had grown up. The teenage girl was forever gone.

But she was still Ellie.

Caroline’s tears came despite her joy. Her daughter was home! After eleven years she was here, and Caroline was never going to lose her again. She shaded her eyes and checked on John, at the park again, playing basketball with his friends. She would introduce them later. For now she watched as Ellie jogged back to the car and opened the back door. She bent down and seemed to talk to someone.

A few seconds passed, and as Ellie backed up, a little blond girl stepped out. Caroline’s gasp was silent. Ellie had a daughter? She had missed knowing her grandchild? What was Alan thinking, keeping her letters from Ellie? More tears rushed from the depths of her tortured soul. The girl wasn’t a baby. She was older than kindergarten. The losses piled up.

Ellie held the child’s hand and walked her to where her mother stood. “This is Kinzie.”

Kinzie?
Caroline met Ellie’s eyes. The street where Ellie and Nolan met so often. Her daughter might’ve been gone for over a decade, but their ability to communicate remained. Caroline put her hands on her knees and looked at the little girl. “You have very kind eyes, Kinzie. They’re beautiful.”

Ellie’s daughter was still partly asleep. But at the sound of the compliment, she opened her eyes a little wider. “Thank you.” She looked intrigued. She batted her eyelashes a few times. “You’re my grandma Tucker, right?”

“Yes.” Caroline wiped her cheeks, knowing that her tears would only confuse the child. “Looks like we have a lot to catch up on.”

Kinzie nodded and leaned against Ellie. “My mommy says you used to take her to the park to play on the swings.”

Her words wrapped themselves around Caroline and told her something she was desperate to know: Ellie remembered. She remembered, and she had missed Caroline and her growing-up days in Savannah as much as Caroline had. Caroline lifted her eyes to Ellie’s, and again the look they shared held years of loss, but an even greater hope. She found her voice and put her hand on Kinzie’s shoulder. “It’s been a while . . . but I definitely like playing on swings.”

“Can I have a drink of water, please?” Kinzie peered past Caroline into the apartment.

“Of course, honey.” Caroline opened the door and ushered Ellie and Kinzie inside. She helped the child with a glass of water and gave her a plate of graham crackers, and then she and Ellie took a spot in the adjacent room.

“Dad gave me the letters. A few days ago.” Ellie reached for
her hand. “I thought you didn’t want to find me. Like . . . ” She looked out the window for a long time, as if trying to see into the past. “Like you forgot about me.”

“Never, Ellie.” Caroline looked deep into her daughter’s familiar eyes. “I’ve been here the whole time. Praying, believing. Knowing that somehow you’d find your way back.”

“You wrote once a week.” She covered her mother’s hand with her own. “When I realized that, I left the next morning.”

Ellie told her about the letter she’d opened the night before she left. The one Caroline had written the day before Kinzie was born. Caroline remembered it well. “I felt like you were hurt or in trouble. Like something was wrong. I couldn’t shake it.”

“Grandma?” Kinzie had gotten down from her chair and joined them in the living room. “Can I sit by you?”

“Yes, sweetie.” Caroline released her daughter’s hands and patted the place on the couch next to her. “We three girls can sit here and catch up. How’s that?”

Kinzie smiled. “I like that.” She hesitated and patted Ellie’s shoulder as she walked by and took the spot beside Caroline.

There was no way to describe the fullness in Caroline’s heart. Her daughter and granddaughter on either side of her, the walls that had stood between them, forever gone. They had so much to talk about, so many moments to catch up on.

Ellie told Caroline about struggling with her father and never feeling good enough; she told her about C.J. Kinzie hung on every word, so Ellie’s expression told Caroline there were details she would have to share later. “He was very kind and very handsome.” Ellie smiled at her daughter. “Kinzie’s laugh sounds a little like his.”

Kinzie leaned in to Caroline’s arm, saddened by the story of her father, though she had clearly heard it before. Caroline’s
heart filled with pride over the way Ellie had raised the girl. She was well-behaved and clearly very close to Ellie.

Carefully, again seeming to take note of Kinzie’s presence, Ellie explained that her dad hadn’t been in favor of her relationship with C.J., so when she’d gotten pregnant, she’d moved in with a friend. Ellie’s eyes held Caroline’s for a long moment. “We didn’t talk until the other day. When he brought me the box of letters.”

Caroline had always figured Ellie had a wonderful relationship with her dad, that the two of them had connected to the point where he filled her need for both parents. Instead, Ellie had been alone in the world, raising Kinzie, since she was nineteen. Anger and sorrow and helpless frustration fought for first position in Caroline’s soul.

“I have a question.” Caroline didn’t really want to ask. Especially when she had a feeling she already knew the answer. “Have you talked to Nolan Cook? Since you left Savannah?”

“No, Grandma.” Kinzie popped her blond head closer so Caroline couldn’t miss her.

Caroline put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and turned to her. “You know him?”

“Mommy and I watched him on TV when we had lunch at the zoo.” She smiled at Ellie. “He’s very nice. That’s what Mommy said.”

“He is, baby.” Ellie acknowledged Kinzie, sharing the moment with her before lifting her eyes to Caroline’s. “We haven’t talked.” She looked unsure whether she should say the next part. “I changed my name. After I moved out of Dad’s house.”

Caroline wondered when the parade of surprises would end. “What’d you change it to?”

“Ellie Anne.” She didn’t look sorry about the fact. “I dropped the Tucker.”

An understanding filled Caroline. “So he couldn’t have found you if he’d tried.”

“Right.” She glanced at Kinzie. “Everything’s different. He found his dream.” She paused, and this time she locked eyes with the child for several seconds. Her smile was as genuine as summer. “He found his, and I found mine.”

Caroline could feel Kinzie beaming beside her. “That’s my name, too, Grandma. Kinzie Anne.”

Who could blame Ellie for no longer wanting the name Tucker? After how Alan had treated her? She cringed on the inside, imagining what it must’ve been like for Ellie, coming home and telling her father that she was pregnant. After what had happened with Caroline and Peyton? He must have called her unthinkable names, accused her of the worst possible things.

Again, they could talk later. For now Caroline put her hand on Ellie’s knee and gave her a look that said how very sorry she was. Her other arm was still around Kinzie, and she leaned close and kissed the top of the girl’s head. “I think your name is beautiful, baby girl.”

“Baby girl!” Kinzie giggled. “That’s what my mommy sometimes calls me.”

Caroline looked at Ellie, drinking in the reality of her presence, trying to believe it. Her daughter was here, and she was home. “I used to call Ellie that when she was your age.”

Kinzie’s eyes grew wide, and she made a quick gasp. “That ’splains it then.”

“Yes, it does.” Caroline listened for the sound of the basketball across the street. She could hear it, but she needed to
check on him. Every half hour or so she would catch a visual of him at the window or walk over to the park to watch him play. “I have an idea.” She tried to look excited, despite the gravity of Ellie’s story. “Let’s walk to the park. That way you can meet John.”

Caroline felt Ellie stiffen a little, felt a cooling that had not been there in this fresh new season. Kinzie blinked twice. “Your son?”

“Yes.” Caroline ran her fingers through Kinzie’s hair. “John’s my little boy. He’s ten. Going into the fourth grade.”

Kinzie looked around, slightly uneasy. “Is he hiding?”

“No.” Already Caroline felt a connection with her granddaughter. “He’s playing basketball at the park across the street. We’ll go watch, okay?”

“Okay.”

“But first . . . can we do something together?” Caroline looked from Ellie to Kinzie. “Yes! What do you wanna do, Grandma?”

Caroline was still grasping the idea that she was a grandmother and that her granddaughter had gone six years without her. Ellie looked slightly skeptical. Though they could read each other, time had placed a complicated distance between them. Distance they would have to work through, no matter how long it took.

Caroline took a breath and pushed ahead. “I was thinking maybe we could hold hands and pray.” She smiled at Kinzie and then lifted her eyes to Ellie’s. “Would you mind?”

Ellie hesitated. “It’s fine.” Her smile looked slightly forced. “Go ahead.”

A rush of emotion caught Caroline as she gently took Ellie’s and Kinzie’s hands. She closed her eyes and bowed her head,
her heart too full to speak. God had already answered so many of her prayers. She ran her thumb along the hands of her daughter and granddaughter and finally found her voice. “Father, You have heard our cries, and You have brought us back together. It’s more than we can believe right now. But I have the sense You’re not finished. Please have Your way with us as the hours and days unfold. Whatever miracle You are working in our lives, help us not to stand in the way of it. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

“Amen!” Kinzie’s response was upbeat and certain as she grinned at Caroline. “That’s how the pastor prays at church.” She raised her eyebrows, as if a possibility had just hit her. “Do you and John go to church, Grandma?”

“We do.” Caroline hesitated, not sure she should have this conversation with Kinzie before she had it alone with Ellie. Her daughter had agreed to the prayer, but again Caroline had felt her hesitation.

Ellie released Caroline’s hand and stood. “I’ll get our bags.” She didn’t look angry or upset. Just uncomfortable. She smiled at the two of them and then patted Kinzie’s arm. “You go ahead and talk to Grandma, baby.”

“Okay.” When Ellie was out of the room, Kinzie lifted her eyes to Caroline’s. “I go to church with Tina and Tiara. Mommy stays home and cleans the apartment.”

“Tina and Tiara?”

“Tina’s my mommy’s friend from work, and Tiara is her little girl. They’re like our family, kind of.”

“I see.” The picture was clearer all the time. The lonely life with Alan, his controlling ways, her own affair . . . everything that had happened since the move to San Diego. No wonder Ellie didn’t go to church. Caroline silently grieved her part in
harming her daughter and in the losses that had stockpiled since.

“Are you sad about that, Grandma?” Kinzie took her hand again. “About Mommy not going to church?”

“I am sad.” She smiled for Kinzie’s benefit. Ellie would be back any second, so the conversation couldn’t get too involved. Not now, anyway.

“I pray for her. Every night.” Kinzie pointed to the floor. “On my knees by my bed.”

“Thatta girl, Kinzie.” Once more Caroline felt an uncanny connection to the precious child. “Keep praying. God hears you, baby girl.”

“I know. And Pastor says that some people take longer to find their happy-ever-after in Jesus.”

“That’s right.” A new layer of tears formed in Caroline’s eyes. “Some people take a little longer.”

Kinzie leaned closer and rested her head on Caroline’s arm. “I’m glad we found you, Grandma. My mommy’s really happy about that.”

“Well.” She struggled to find her voice, her emotions too many and too great. “I’m really happy, too.”

Ellie returned with their things, and the three of them walked across the street to the park. Caroline called to John, and he grabbed his basketball and joined them. They all seemed to connect well, but Caroline had to keep forcing herself to listen to the conversation. She was too busy surveying the scene, taking it in. Amazed by it. Ellie was home! Seeing her and Kinzie and John talking together was like a scene from her dreams. The greatest answer to prayer she could imagine.