Ever After Read online

  “Because you act like you are.” He linked fingers with hers. “Because you want to be different.”

  “Shane …”

  “No, it’s true.” Again his tone was kind, but his eyes told her he was serious. “One of the guys pulled me aside in the kitchen after dinner.” Shane sighed, and the sound seemed to come from deep in his heart. “He said you were very interesting, intelligent, but he wondered how we’d ever work out together.” Shane’s tone grew resigned. “He was worried for me, Lauren.”

  “So …” Her heart pounded. She hated when their conversations went this way — which they did more and more often. “I love you.” She took a step closer and brought her lips to his. “Did you tell him that?”

  “He knows.” Shane looked like he wanted to kiss her longer, but he resisted. “I told him the whole story a few weeks ago. About our early years and how we just found each other again.”

  “Exactly. And that’s enough, Shane. We found each other again for a reason. We both believe that. We don’t need to agree about everything.” She looped her arms up around his neck. “Every couple has differences.”

  “But ours define us. Not just our politics, but our faith.”

  Lauren stiffened. He was more than a little troubled if he was bringing up faith again. “I said I’m trying.” Her words were small and quiet, but they were the truth. Their daughter Emily was doing everything she could to help Lauren understand the faith she and her father shared. But something deep inside held Lauren back. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I think like everyone else? Why do I have to make everything so hard?

  She turned and walked out into the yard, her back to Shane. He didn’t follow.

  Lauren sank into a lawn chair. She and Emily talked at least twice a week. At nineteen, with her second year of college on the horizon, there was so much for Emily to talk about. Still, the conversation always turned to faith. Lauren agreed with everything her daughter said — in theory anyway. Since reconnecting with Shane and with her family, it only felt right to reconnect with the beliefs she’d held as a child.

  But believing in God and having a relationship with Him were two different things. When her thoughts turned to her Creator, she couldn’t bring herself to ask the questions Emily wanted her to ask. What is my purpose, God, what are the plans You have for me? What do You want from me? No, instead she found herself asking more practical questions. Why do You allow wars? And how could so many Christians support the U.S. involvement in the Middle East? Didn’t fighting go against the very principles of the Christian faith? And why did so many soldiers have to die?

  So far she wasn’t hearing much response from God, but that was understandable. The questions were hard, and Emily had said that some things won’t make sense this side of heaven. Period. No, what Lauren really hated was when anyone questioned her faith. When they wanted some kind of simplistic capitulation from her, as though the entire issue weren’t painfully complicated. She sighed. Like everything else about her new life.

  Footsteps sounded from behind her, and Shane came up by her side. “I’m sorry.” He leaned close and kissed her cheek. “I love you, Lauren.”

  Her anger dissipated. She stood and turned into his arms, exhaling long and slow. “I spent all my growing up years looking for you, Shane.” Her voice was a desperate whisper. “You’re the only one I’ve ever loved.”

  “So — ” he brushed aside a stray lock of her hair — “why does it seem so hard, right?”

  “Right.” They held each other for a long time, swaying as the high desert breeze whistled through the nearby canyons. The temperature had dropped into the fifties, and Lauren would’ve been cold if not for Shane’s arms. She eased back and kissed him. “I have to go.”

  “I know.” He took her hand and led her inside, his steps slow and measured. “We don’t need all the answers today.”

  She hugged him once more before she left, but the moment she climbed into her car and started the engine, fury assaulted her. Not at Shane, but at herself. She was the one making their relationship so difficult. Why couldn’t she look the other way or just put her questions aside? Did every discussion have to be a platform for her politics? And what was the point, anyway? She wasn’t going to change anything with her attitude.

  She kept the radio off, rolled down the window, and let the cool air wash across her face. Her thoughts blew around the car in the breeze. She tried to picture Him — the God Emily talked about, the One who wanted a friendship with her. But all she could sense as she turned onto the main highway was His enormity. God the Creator. Too big to be involved in the trivialities of her life. God … are You there? She waited. Emily talked about hearing from God, sensing His voice and His response deep within her. Lauren stared straight out the windshield and tried again. God, I need to know … are You there? She hesitated, but again, nothing. No, as she set out toward her apartment, she couldn’t tell whether God was with her or not. But that only figured.

  Just one more question He wasn’t answering.

  TWO

  Shane listened as Lauren’s car drove away, but he didn’t go back inside.

  Watching her leave stirred a memory. Once, when he was twelve years old, he and a friend were playing catch in the house. His mother was at the store, and the last thing she’d told him was to keep the baseball outside. “Too many things to break indoors,” she’d said.

  But it was hot and humid outside that day, so Shane chose to do things his way. He was a good catcher, and so was his friend. They spread out on opposite sides of the living room and tossed the ball carefully. At first. But after a few minutes, they were whizzing it at each other. He was just about to tell his friend to cool it, slow it down, when the ball came firing at him and tipped his glove.

  Shane willed it to hit the wall, but instead it smacked with a thud against a decorative vase, something his mother had gotten from one of her trips to Europe. Both boys fell silent, and Shane took slow steps toward the three-foot-high vase. It still looked intact, still stood right where it had always stood.

  But as he went to take hold of it, the glass container fell apart in his hands. He remembered trying to hold it in place, to keep the pieces together as if he could somehow will it whole again.

  He squinted at the night sky.

  That’s how it feels now, Lord. About Lauren. Things looked whole and good. They were together, after all. Engaged to be married on Christmas Eve. But he had the feeling, if he didn’t hold onto her just right, everything would fall apart. He gripped the railing and tried to remember when he’d first noticed the cracks.

  That was obvious, wasn’t it? From the beginning.

  Emily worked so hard to bring them together last winter, but it had only taken him and Lauren one evening to figure out that they stood on opposite sides of a political chasm. Only God could bridge such an abyss.

  They began by talking about the article she’d written for Time, the one slamming fighter pilots. He could still hear her voice that night in her parents’ house, after everyone was asleep. Snow fell outside and bright flames crackled in the fireplace.

  She’d let her head fall back against the sofa. “Shane … how did you wind up on the wrong side of this war?”

  He took her hand, worked his fingers between hers. “The question is …” his voice held no accusation, “how did you?”

  Talk of the war seemed to place a wall between them, one they volleyed over the rest of the night. She asked him to consider the fact that Jesus came to bring peace, and that no one could call himself a Christian without also wanting peace.

  “I want peace, Lauren. We all do. The question is how we find it.” Passion filled Shane’s words. Passion and an anger that she hadn’t seen in him before.“And just so you know, Jesus didn’t come to bring peace, He came to bring us life. Life to the fullest measure.”

  “Okay, good.” She kept her intensity. “If He came to bring us life, then how can you be part of a war that kills people?”


  The debate raged the rest of the evening. She used arguments in favor of pacifism, and he tried to explain peace through strength. But at the end of the night, they were no closer to bridging the distance between them. They might never even have tried, except that week, they watched her father die.

  After his death, Shane asked Lauren not to leave, not to return to her post as a war correspondent in Afghanistan. Their differences could be worked out, especially if she could find the faith she’d been raised with. When her father died, his loss struck a nerve deep inside her. She’d missed her father’s last two decades because of her anger and stubborn pride. The thought of leaving Shane, of missing a life with him, was enough to shake her convictions.

  Even so, it wasn’t until she was on the plane, flying away from him, that Lauren finally changed her mind. At her connecting destination, she called her editor, asked for a stateside job in Fallon, and flew to meet Shane. He smiled at the memory. No matter how long he lived, he would always see her the way she looked that day. As she walked up, he lost his breath and his heart all in the same instant. She’d come back to him! She cared enough to come! And for a while, everything was sunshine and laughter. She rented an apartment and they spent hours together every available evening.

  The first cracks came about eight weeks later, in early spring.

  Lauren attended a series of parties on the base with Shane, and each time she seemed to slip a notch backward, back to the person she’d been when they talked near the fireplace that first night. Instead of being patient and understanding toward the military and its efforts, she was uptight and sarcastic, her thoughts running in direct contrast to his.

  Several times he’d reminded her that he too had studied the topic of peace, that he’d researched past civilizations and wars in order to form his conclusion. And what he’d learned was that peace could only come through strength. They talked again about September 11, and the plans the terrorists had, to make the events of that day seem minimal in contrast.

  “Yes, we’re at war,” Shane said one night, “but terrorists haven’t taken the life of one single U.S. citizen on American soil since we began fighting back.”

  Sometimes Lauren listened more intently, as if maybe she was finally seeing his way of thinking. But always she came back to one of her own sticking points. How could the U.S. send young men — boys, really — into battle? Did they understand what was at stake, and the risk they were taking? Wasn’t there another way to protect the United States through diplomacy and international peace treaties — without sacrificing lives?

  Lauren’s ideas sounded so wonderful, so idealistic. Peace conferences, discussions with leaders of terrorist groups, diversity and tolerance training for children, an antihate program designed to help cultures learn to accept and respect each other.

  “Educating the next generation has to be better than putting their lives in danger.” Every time she said this, she searched his eyes, desperate for him to understand.

  Those were the most frustrating moments of all. Times when he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her. Education? Tolerance training? Anyone who understood the terrorist mindset knew such an approach was utterly ludicrous.

  They’d gotten into it again a week ago, and finally he’d had enough. “Terrorists have one goal, Lauren. One goal. To kill people who don’t agree with them. And more often than not, that means people who live in or agree with the thinking of Western civilization. Terrorists are honored to die for the cause, so there’s no reasoning with them, no educating them.” He gathered his emotions and found a level of control. “The only option is to protect ourselves by weeding them out, arresting them or eliminating them.”

  “And now that we’re fighting back, the attacks have stopped, right?” She could be so cutting at times, so sarcastic.

  He fixed her with a hard stare. “On American soil, yes.”

  She turned away. “It’s just a matter of time, and you know it. We’re more vulnerable than anyone likes to think. And we just keep getting in deeper over there.”

  “Lauren, everyone wants a quick and easy war, but passing the reigns of freedom on to a region formerly run by dictators and terrorists is not a quick and easy job.”

  Shane rubbed his hand over his face, as though to erase the memories of their struggles. The entire topic made him feel sick and tired. His shoulders slumped a little and he turned back toward the house. Normally he’d put on some music, something to keep him company while he cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. But this time he worked in silence. Even his thoughts weren’t allowed to make noise. Not now. He’d done all the thinking he could for the moment.

  Even though the thoughts didn’t surface then, he wrestled with them all night and went to work the next day feeling unsettled and anxious. Dan Barber, one of the guys who’d been over for dinner, spotted him in the lunch room and moved to his table.

  Dan was always laughing, and today was no exception. He plopped his burger down and rested his forearms on the table. “I was sitting across the room, and I see my best buddy over here eating a spinach salad by himself and looking like he maybe has a few days left to live, and I ask myself, ‘Self, what could be eating my buddy that way?’ ” He rapped his knuckles a few times on the table. “So I told myself it could only be one thing.” His smile faded. “Lauren Gibbs.”

  Shane sighed. He dragged his fork through his salad and tried to sort through the feelings pounding his heart. Anger and sorrow, and frustration and defeat. “What am I going to do with her?”

  Dan crossed his arms and looked down at the table for a moment. “Girl’s more liberal than Ted Kennedy. Thank goodness she’s a lot better looking.” When he looked up, all traces of the teasing were gone. “You love her, don’t you?”

  Shane pushed his salad plate back and stared at his friend. “Since I was a boy.”

  “Man.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure you’ll ever see eye-to-eye with her.”

  “Me either.” The words jabbed at Shane’s heart. But the truth remained. “And maybe we don’t have to. Maybe we can at least learn to respect each other. Couples don’t have to have the same political views, right?”

  “Right.” He didn’t sound convinced. “But most couples don’t make a living defending their politics.” Dan straightened and found his familiar chuckle. “Or maybe one of those surgeries, a partial lobotomy. Remove that part of her brain that’s been so conditioned it can’t think for itself.”

  “Hey — ” Shane could hear a mix of anger and hurt in his voice. Dan didn’t mean harm, but his flip comment hurt. “Lauren’s entitled to her way of thinking. She cares deeply for people.” He pushed back from the table. “Maybe I need to work harder to see her point of view.” The idea felt freeing. After all, he couldn’t change Lauren’s opinions, but he could certainly work on his own so that she would feel more of his support. He felt his anger fade. “You’re a praying man.”

  “I am.” Again the laughter was missing from Dan’s voice. “You don’t have to ask, buddy. Becky and I are praying for the two of you every night. Even got the little ones in on the action.” He paused and looked as if he might wrap up his bit of dialogue there. But instead, he pushed on, his tone more tentative. “Ever thought that maybe, just maybe, the two of you aren’t right for each other? That maybe you’ll never find happily ever after?”

  Shane shifted his gaze toward the wall of windows overlooking the airfield. He breathed in sharply through his nose and steeled himself. For a long while he said nothing, memories of another day, another decade playing again in his mind. “Life’s been hard on her, Dan.” He looked at his friend, but his mind was filled with images of Lauren. He loved her so much, but was love enough? He sighed. “Life changed us both.”

  “Then maybe it’s time to let go.”

  His frustration crowded his throat, coming out in a choked growl. “I keep thinking that if life could change her once, it could change her again, expand her views so she could see more
than her own. The same way maybe I need to broaden mine.” His eyes found the window once more. “And then we’d be okay again, the way we were back when we were kids.”

  “Maybe that’s all you were meant to be together. Just kids. Finding out about love. Maybe you were never meant to be together as adults.” Dan shrugged. “Just a thought.”

  They fell silent, and though Dan didn’t say anything else, his concern was clear. Shane’s mouth felt dry. Could Dan be right? Were his and Lauren’s good days behind them? If they hadn’t been separated, they might have had a chance. Might have grown up seeing things the same way. But now …

  Shane looked at his food, dragged his napkin across his mouth, and tossed it on the plate.

  Dan dug into his burger and motioned to Shane’s spinach salad. “Better hurry and eat before it wilts.”

  “That’s okay — ” he picked up his plate and threw it into a trash can a few feet away — “I’m not hungry.” He saluted his friend. “Catch you later.”

  As he walked out of the cafeteria, he passed a table of young pilots. All of them nodded toward him, but he was almost certain he heard one of them say something about Lauren. Shane picked up his pace. Of course they were talking about Lauren. She was one of the most well-known war correspondents, and while her reporting was intelligent and deep, it was also overtly critical of the war. Of course everyone was talking about them. They probably thought Shane had experienced one too many g-forces.

  Outside, he slowed his pace and, as he’d done every day since finding Lauren, he lifted his eyes to the endless Nevada sky and wondered what she was doing, what she was thinking. Lord, is everyone else right? Are we too different to share love and a life together? His questions lined up like so many sections of a barbed wire fence, separating him and the woman he loved.

  At that moment, in the distance, a fighter plane roared down the runway and lifted off the ground. In seconds it was rushing toward the heavens, blazing fast and unstoppable.