This Side of Heaven Page 22

  Cody nodded. “I’m sorry. I figured this would be hard for you. I was surprised, too.”

  Annie wondered if Josh was upset with them, if that was why he could fathom giving his entire settlement to a child he’d never met—whether she was his own daughter or not. “Did he say . . . I mean, was he angry with us? Was that why?”

  “It wasn’t like he actually thought it would happen. He was in a lot of pain, but he didn’t think he had weeks to live.” Cody’s tone told her that he’d thought all of this through a number of times already. “Like I said, he wanted his debts repaid. But I think he just loved that little girl with all his heart.”

  Annie could almost hear the Lord telling her to pay attention. “Did he say anything else?”

  “He told me Savannah hadn’t had her daddy all these years. If something happened to him, at least he wanted her taken care of financially.” Cody sat up a little straighter. “He said he wanted her to grow up knowing how much he cared for her—whether he was alive or not.”

  Just like that, Annie felt everything change, felt the fight drain from her body like water from a sink. She’d asked God to show her the right thing, and now through Cody’s words He had. She kept her thoughts to herself as she and Cody talked a few more minutes about Josh’s renewed faith, how he loved singing along during the worship part of the service, and how he hung on every word the pastor said. “My wife and I had the feeling Josh was just starting to live.” Cody gave a sad shake of his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Warren, for your loss.”

  She saw him to the door and thanked him for his honesty. After he was gone she stood unmoving in the silence of the empty living room. The settlement belonged to Josh. Until now they could tell themselves that Josh would have wanted Savannah’s college education taken care of, but not her current needs, not if they had to go through Maria first. Until now they could have made themselves believe that he wouldn’t have wanted a dime going to Maria Cameron, not after what she’d put him through.

  But now . . .

  The conversation with Cody was all the proof Annie needed. When Nate heard what their son had said about Savannah and the money, Annie was sure her husband would see things the same way. God might as well have come through the door and told her the news Himself. The message was that clear.

  She started the song over again and closed her eyes, picturing Josh walking the streets of heaven free from pain and worry over when the lawsuit would be settled and how he was going to connect with his daughter. He’d left them to sort through what remained of his life, and they would remember him differently because of that. But he’d also left behind a daughter, and his wishes that she receive his settlement money. Even if her mother spent every dollar before Savannah’s eighteenth birthday.

  Annie wandered to the photograph on the mantel one more time. She picked up the wooden frame and stared into the eyes of her granddaughter. If Josh wanted her to have all the money, then so be it. She would call Nate, and then call Thomas Flynn, and the fight against Maria Cameron would be officially dropped. But she would demand one thing before walking away from the matter forever. Something that was almost worth two million dollars all by itself.

  A visit with Josh’s little girl.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The call to Josh’s lawyer was merely a routine favor Lindsay was doing for her mother. Her parents had been through so much in the past month that, even with her workload at the newspaper, she tried to do everything she could to help.

  Lindsay dialed Thomas Flynn’s number and waited while the line began to ring. Already this morning they’d all met at Josh’s apartment to load the rest of his things in the back of her father’s pickup truck. The last things her mother packed were the three photographs that had sat over Josh’s fireplace. She wrapped them in a pillowcase and set them on the front seat of the truck.

  Before they left for the last time, she and her parents stood in the doorway and her father had prayed. “Lord, You showed us so much about our son this past month.” His voice was strained as he continued. “Thank You for giving us this time and place so we could learn what we didn’t know about our son.”

  Lindsay and her mother both had tears on their cheeks as Nate continued, thanking God for the neighbors who had known Josh and for the ways in which they’d come forward to fill in the memory of all Josh had meant to this world. “A person doesn’t have to have a college degree or an investment portfolio or a big house to be successful, Lord. You showed us that this past month, and in the process You gave us a season of grieving and discovering that none of us will ever forget.”

  When they finally closed the door and locked it, they took Josh’s keys to the apartment manager and returned to their separate cars. Lindsay’s parents looked emotionally exhausted. They took Josh’s final belongings back to their house, and Lindsay returned to her home to make a few phone calls. This was one of them, to see if there’d been any response from Maria Cameron since she’d gotten the news that Josh’s settlement money was hers.

  A secretary patched Lindsay through to Mr. Flynn, and Lindsay kept her question short and to the point. But even before she could finish, Josh’s lawyer cut her off. “I was just going to call your parents.” His words came fast and colored with concern. “I got news from Maria Cameron’s attorney. She’s been arrested and put in jail for two weeks. Apparently, she got drunk and put on some public display.” His tone fell. “She tried to hit a waiter, and she slapped Savannah with a whole restaurant full of people watching.”

  Lindsay was on her feet, pacing from the kitchen to her dining room and back again. “So where’s Savannah if her mom’s in jail?”

  “In foster care. Her lawyer says the district attorney is sorting through a stack of warrants trying to figure out what to charge her with.” Mr. Flynn barely broke for a quick breath. “This could change things. Here’s what I’m thinking.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, Lindsay listened, and when the call ended, she picked up the phone and dialed her parents. Her mom answered almost immediately. “Lindsay? Did he have any news?”

  Lindsay steadied herself against the doorway in her dining room. “In fact, he did. How soon can you meet me?”

  “I was headed to the cemetery.” Her mom still sounded tired, drained. “I bought flowers for Josh’s grave.”

  None of them had spent time at the graveside. They’d been too busy sorting through Josh’s life to spend much time dwelling on his death. “Meet you there in an hour.”

  Her mind raced with the details Thomas Flynn had shared with her. With Savannah in foster care, Lindsay was still trying to absorb the fact that her mother’s prayers might be answered sooner than any of them thought.

  If Mr. Flynn was right, a visit with Josh’s daughter might be only an airline ticket away.

  Annie reached Josh’s grave first. She didn’t bring a chair or a blanket, because this wasn’t a long visit, more just a chance to pay her respects. Josh’s stone should be marked by flowers at least, so that people who passed by would know he was missed and that he mattered. If there was one thing Annie knew now, it was that single truth.

  Josh’s life did matter.

  She studied the temporary marker. Nate had ordered a permanent stone and an inground container to hold flowers, but they wouldn’t be ready to install until Thanksgiving time. For now there was only the simple piece of cement with Josh’s name engraved across the top: Joshua David Warren.

  “I miss you, son . . . so much.” She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the breeze drifting down from the mountains. Sometimes on days like this the light wind felt like Josh’s presence beside her, like she could reach out and touch him, his memory was so close. If she could—if she could have just one more time with him she wasn’t sure she would even know what to say. Carl Joseph had said it all, really. Josh was a hero, but as wonderful as that was, Annie had missed the fact. Tragically and completely, she’d missed it.

  “Mom.”

  For a fraction of a
second, the voice belonged to Josh. Not Josh the way he’d sounded the last time she talked to him, but Josh the way he’d sounded when he was ten or eleven and he had a frog or a flower to show her. But before the thought had time to root itself, Lindsay’s voice was soft beside her. “Sorry . . . I didn’t want to frighten you.”

  Annie opened her eyes. “Sometimes I can feel him.” She smiled—that painful sort of drenched-in-sadness smile. The one that would be her trademark whenever she thought about Josh for the rest of her days. “As close as wind against my skin.”

  “Hmmm.” Lindsay folded her hands and stared down at Josh’s marker. “I feel it, too. But it’s not the same.”

  “No.” She breathed in slowly through her nose, savoring the smell of evergreen on the breeze. “Thomas had news for us?”

  “You’re sure you don’t want to sit down? We could talk about it in the car.”

  Annie cocked her head and took another look at her son’s name on the temporary stone. “I’m okay. I need this time, the serenity of it.”

  Lindsay looked like she wasn’t sure where to begin. “He got news about Maria Cameron. Mom . . . she’s in jail. Public intoxication, and she has a list of warrants for her arrest. I guess she hit Savannah.”

  The details kept coming, but Annie couldn’t get past that one. She felt something fierce and protective come to life within her, and in the middle of Lindsay’s story she held up her hand. “She hit Savannah?”

  “With everyone watching.” Lindsay bit her lip. “Mr. Flynn says Savannah has bruises on her arms. She’s in a foster home for now.”

  Annie wasn’t sure whether to scream or break down in light of this latest sad development. All this time she’d had nothing but disdain for Maria Cameron, but only because of the way she’d treated Josh. Until now she hadn’t thought for a minute about how she’d treated Josh’s daughter.

  The truth nearly dropped her to her knees. What sort of life had Savannah lived? As Lindsay shared the rest of what the lawyer had told her, a frightening picture came into focus. Savannah and her mother lived with a known drug dealer, and Savannah slept on the floor beneath a desk—which was an improvement from the three times when police had picked the pair up in Central Park where they sometimes slept beneath a bridge near the pond.

  Annie wasn’t sure how much more of the story she could take. If Josh had known these details, he would have found a way to reach Savannah if he had to walk across the country. Again she was hit by the truth that if she and Nate had paid more credence to Josh’s insistence that Savannah was his daughter, then together they might have found out about her situation sooner, gotten the paternity test, and figured out some way to rescue her.

  Annie’s determination to find and help her granddaughter grew like a wildfire within her. Maria Cameron would never hurt Savannah again, not if Annie had anything to do about it. “If her mother isn’t fit, then Savannah should come live with us. What did Thomas say about that?”

  “Well, that’s the worst part.” Lindsay folded her arms. Her voice blended with the wind, every word washing over Annie whether she wanted to hear it or not. “Mr. Flynn says that Maria hasn’t been arrested in more than a year, and her landlord says that she’s usually a model mother.”

  “Which is clearly a lie.”

  “But the system is bound to pay attention to that. If her attorney can get the warrants dismissed, then she’ll probably get Savannah back. That’s what he said.” She took her mother’s hand. “But he also said that if you act fast, you can meet Savannah while she’s still in foster care.”

  “What?” Annie couldn’t explain the sense of joy that burst through her pain in that single moment. She was going to get to meet her granddaughter. Her dream of looking into the eyes that were so like Josh’s was going to come true. God had heard her prayers, and now in a matter of days she would meet the girl Josh had loved for the past seven years.

  She called Nate while she and Lindsay walked back to their cars. Once she had his okay, she called Thomas and then the airline. Lindsay and Nate wanted to go, too, so she booked three flights to LaGuardia. Thomas recommended that all of them go, because there was no telling what Maria would do once she had custody of Savannah again, once she had the money. The woman was under no obligation to stay in contact with the Warren family, despite the fact that they had willingly dropped the fight for Josh’s settlement.

  Thomas felt strongly that once Maria had the money, she and the girl would disappear, move to another state or another country, and that would be that. Which meant this might be their only chance to meet the girl Josh had longed to hold, the one he had planned to love and care for as soon as he had the chance to meet her. Annie tried to imagine what might have happened if Josh and Becky had gotten back together, if he’d finished college and if they’d married. Her grandchild would’ve had a different mother and a different life, and Josh would never have been working for the garage that night. Never would have had a reason to find himself suddenly in the path of a drunk driver.

  Annie drove home from the cemetery lost in a maze of questions. What would the girl be like? If she’d been abused or neglected, would she be quiet and withdrawn? Would meeting Annie scare her or confuse her? Did she love her mother despite the life she’d lived? Was she being treated kindly in the foster home where she’d been placed? But the question most pressing on Annie’s heart was the obvious one, the one she had thought about ever since the results of the paternity test came in.

  Did Savannah know about Josh?

  TWENTY-THREE

  Some nice people were coming to see her today, that’s all Savannah knew. Her foster parents bought her new clothes—a sundress, they called it, and a sweater. The sweater was white, and the dress . . . the dress was white with little purple and green flowers across it, and best of all, the sundress was brand-new!

  “Who are these people?” she asked her foster mother. “They’re very nice from what I understand, and they love Jesus.”

  That part made Savannah less scared about the meeting. But still it didn’t answer her question. “How do they know me?”

  “They’ll explain it to you, sweetheart.” That’s all her foster mother would say. The people would explain it when they showed up after lunchtime.

  It was after lunch right now, so Savannah sat on her knees on the sofa next to the front window and studied every car that passed by. There would be three of them. That’s what her foster parents said.

  Savannah had wondered something ever since she knew the nice people were coming. What if one of them was her daddy? He was out there somewhere, and her mama said she was going to meet him later. Much later, but still . . . this was much later than then. Maybe her daddy had a family and he was bringing them along. That’s what other people did, because when she and her mama were in Central Park and other people walked along with their kids sometimes there was a whole group all together.

  She had always wondered what it would be like to be part of a whole group.

  “You okay in there?” Her foster mother poked her head into the room. “You need anything, Savannah?”

  Just my daddy, she wanted to say. But she gave the old woman a nice smile. “No, thank you.” Then she thought about kneeling on the sofa and maybe that wasn’t allowed, so she covered her mouth real quick and felt her eyes get big. “Want me to get off the sofa?”

  The woman laughed real soft. “No, sweetie. You go right ahead and kneel on the sofa. The thing’s old as time anyway.”

  Savannah smiled. “Thank you.” She felt better now. Her foster mother was nice. At first Savannah thought about running away and finding her daddy, because that was all she really needed. Then she wouldn’t be a trouble to her mama, and she wouldn’t take up the time of the foster parents. But her foster mother was very nice, and she probably would’ve been sad if Savannah ran away. So she stayed and asked Jesus every day to bring her daddy very soon.

  Her foster mother walked back into the kitchen and Savannah looked out
the window again. Just then, a blue car stopped in front of the house, and after a few loud heartbeats, a man got out from the driver’s side. Savannah made her eyes squinty and looked at him real hard. He sort of looked like her daddy, but not really because he had gray hair. Mostly gray.

  Next came a woman from the other front seat, and a younger woman from the backseat. Savannah sucked in a little gasp, because the first woman, the one from the front seat, was very pretty. Like the queen in Sleeping Beauty, but with hair down to her shoulders. The three of them talked for a minute by themselves and then they started up the walk.

  Savannah quick ducked down beneath the windowsill. Why were people who didn’t know her coming for a visit? Were they friends of her mama’s? Or maybe friends of Freddy’s? Savanna poked her head up just enough to see them. No. They weren’t friends of either her mama or Freddy because they dressed in nice clothes and their eyes looked different. More like the people who gave them money when they begged in the park.

  “They’re here!” She shouted the news because she wanted her foster mother to answer the door. That was the right way of things for regular people, and Savannah wanted these nice people to think she was regular. When her mama drank too much whiskey or stayed up too late, she was the one who answered Freddy’s door. But that wasn’t regular at all.

  Her foster mother came into the room wiping her hands on a towel. She moved to the door and all of a sudden Savannah had a warm feeling inside her. So many times when she and her mama begged money, she wondered what it would be like to spend time with the people who