Redemption (33 page)

He met her eyes and silently begged her to believe the thing he was about to say. “I’m really sorry, Kari. So sorry.” He moved his fingertips to the side of her face to convince himself she was really there, sitting beside him after all he’d done to her.

She opened her mouth, but no words would come. She simply nodded, her face red and tearstained. Then, as if she couldn’t hold herself up any longer, she fell slowly against him. Tentatively and with fear in his heart, he brought his hand to the small of her back and held her while she sobbed.

Tim had no idea how much time passed, but finally he heard her draw a shaky breath. “I want . . . I want us to be together again. But I don’t know.” She sniffed. “We . . . we need counseling.”

If she expected an argument, he had none to give. Tim nodded quickly as some of the weight eased from his shoulders. “I’ll call Pastor Mark.”

She was still leaning against him, and he felt the tears return. “I’m sorry. I didn’t plan to fall ap—”

“Kari, don’t.” The idea of her apologizing now, in light of all he’d done, was too much for him to bear. He knew better than to breathe, knew that even the slightest movement of air in or out of his body would release a torrent of emotion he was not equipped to handle.

When his lungs were about to burst, he grabbed three quick breaths and gritted his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut as a torrent of sorrow released within him. Then he wept as he’d never wept in his life.

Eventually his other hand came around Kari’s back, and he held her close, the kind of embrace he’d seen once on a news program when a man had wrongly received word of his wife’s death in a plane crash. When the two were reunited at the airport, cameras had been on hand to capture the moment. The depth of feeling in the hug between those people was something Tim remembered to this day.

Now he knew what the man had felt.

Because until Tim woke and found Kari sitting across from him, everything in his life had been doomed. He had no right to what she was offering, no reason to feel worthy. Yet here she was offering him a new chance at life and everything that went along with it.

When he was able to catch his breath, he whispered words that he meant with every fiber of his being.

“Kari, I promise . . . I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

A week had passed since Kari returned to her house, and still Ryan could think of nothing else. It was Monday night, and the coaching staff was meeting after school to discuss playoffs. The Clear Creek Golden Bears had their first chance at a state title in ten years, and the coaches wanted to be unified in their approach.

“You with us, Taylor?” Head coach John Sicora shouted at him from the opposite end of the table. “Which game are you thinking about, anyway—ours or the one on TV tonight?”

The others in the room laughed, and Ryan forced a chuckle. “Sorry. Got a lot on my mind.”

“Well, disengage it, will you?” It was Tommy Schroeder, another assistant. “You’re too quiet. Any playoff plan we make won’t be worth the dirt we play on if you’re not part of it.”

Ryan sat up straighter in his seat and diverted his gaze for a moment, embarrassed by the compliment. Yes, he had a talent for coaching, but he was nothing without the rest of the staff. He smiled at the group of men seated around him at the table. He had no idea what they’d been talking about, but he trusted their decisions completely.

“What about the corner blitz?” Sicora leaned back in his chair. “Do we use it against these quicker teams or not?”

The meeting lasted an hour longer than necessary, with talk of getting together afterward for pizza and Monday Night Football. Ryan quietly left during the conversation and slipped out of the building before anyone could razz him about being antisocial.

The night air hit him like a slap in the face, and he gazed up at the sky. The ceiling of snow clouds was so low he could almost touch it. Normally Ryan loved the first snow of the season. Any other time, the gathering of coaches would have been at his house, anchored near his big-screen TV, warmed by a roaring blaze in the fireplace.

But since he and Kari had parted, nothing felt right. Worse, the hurt that racked his heart showed no signs of lessening as time passed. Just the opposite.

Now, as he made his way to the car, he remembered a conversation he’d had with his mother two weeks after his football injury, the one that had nearly paralyzed him.

He’d been lying on the hospital bed, staring out the window, trying to imagine why he hadn’t heard from Kari, when his mother entered the room.

There was silence between them for a long time before his mother finally spoke. “I think it might be broken, son.”

Ryan remembered the confusion he’d felt at her statement. He turned slowly so he could see her. His neck was healing well by then, but it was still difficult to turn. “What?”

“Your heart.” She leveled her gaze at him. “There’s a big hole there where a girl named Kari used to be.”

He had sighed and let his focus settle on the ceiling. “Where is she? Why hasn’t she called?”

His mother waited before answering him. “I don’t have the answers, but I know this: You’ll recover from your back injury.” Her voice grew soft. “But if you let Kari Baxter get away, you might never be the same again.”

Ryan climbed into his truck as the memory faded. All these years later he was still right where he’d been that afternoon in the hospital bed. Not sure how he was going to survive without her.

Especially after finding her again.

There was one difference this time. He hadn’t let Kari get away; he’d consciously helped her go. She wanted to make her marriage work, and Ryan believed deep in his soul she was making the right decision. A God-centered decision.

He remembered some of what Kari told him about Tim Jacobs, the man she’d married. The man who didn’t love her enough to be faithful. Ryan was simply amazed by her desire to stand by the man even after his affair. If she had been timid and dependent on Tim, the type of woman who never spoke up for herself, Ryan might have understood.

But Kari Baxter?

He chuckled out loud as he started the truck and pulled out of the school parking lot.

The high school stories about Kari were legendary. Although everyone wanted to be her friend or prom date, no one at school had to wonder about her thoughts on the typical teenage vices—drinking, drugs, sex, and even breaking curfew. Not that she was perfect. She got in trouble for talking during class or passing notes. But the really bad temptations were never a problem for Kari.

The moment she’d walk into a party, beer cans would begin to disappear. She’d look around, eyes sparkling with a joy that couldn’t be bought in a bottle or bag. “I hope you guys aren’t drinking, because that is
so
not cool.”

In her presence her peers wanted to be clean. If it was good enough for Kari Baxter, it was good enough for them.

In fact, the more Ryan thought about it, the more he admired what Kari had done in going back to Tim. It hadn’t been because she was weak-willed or lacking a backbone. No, she could have gone back only by God’s grace, by asking him to honor her decision to love and help her stay strong in it.

Ryan remembered something she had told him about her motivation, and now he replayed it in his mind.
“I really believe that love is a decision. I decided to love Tim Jacobs for better or worse.”

“What if Tim doesn’t feel the same way?” Ryan had asked. He hadn’t been checking his chances. Rather, he had been amazed at the possibility. He had wanted to know how far she’d carry her commitment, how long she’d wait if her husband no longer loved her and refused to change.

Sorrow had filled Kari’s eyes as she answered him, and he was immediately pierced with regret for asking. “I won’t give him a divorce, Ryan. I can’t.”

I can’t.

Those two words grieved him most now as he turned left onto the highway and headed home. Their time on the beach together the other night had showed Ryan how she still felt about him. It wasn’t that Kari didn’t want the life she might have shared with him had they stayed together.

She simply couldn’t. Her word, her honor, her relationship to God, her decision to love—all that meant too much to her to risk throwing away. That was just the kind of person she was.

Suddenly Ryan realized where he needed to be that cold Monday night. He turned his truck around and headed for church. Bible studies met there during the week. The sanctuary would be open for at least another three hours.

Five minutes later he slipped into a back pew and let his eyes adjust to the partial light. In the distance he could hear the muffled sounds of people talking and occasionally laughing. He leaned his forearms on the back of the bench in front of him, hung his head, and tried to understand how he’d made such a mess of things with Kari back when he was playing football.

What’s wrong with me, God? I loved her. Why didn’t it work out?

In response, Kari’s words filled his heart once more.
“Love is a decision . . . a decision . . . a decision.”

If that was true, he should have decided to call Kari every day after his accident, even if he was distracted and worried about his injury. He should have decided to pursue her until his intentions were clear. He should have decided to give his love for her as much priority as he gave his football career.

He thought about the way Kari demonstrated her love to Tim, the way she was willing to stand by him even when a part of her hated the man for what he’d done to her.

Ryan fidgeted, lifted his head, looked around. Maybe God was trying to teach him something about love. Something Kari had already figured out, but Ryan never quite had.

He thought of his life, the coaching, and time he spent with his family and friends. He was pretty sure those things were spurred by love. But only love as he knew it.

Kari’s love—the kind of love that could go back to a man like Tim Jacobs and pray that God heal their marriage—that love was something altogether different.

He reached for a Bible from the back of the pew in front of him. If love truly was a decision, then right here, right now Ryan wanted to get a better understanding of how that could work. Most people Ryan knew were better versed in Scripture than he was, but even he knew where to find the love chapter. He flipped pages to the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians and began to read.

The first three verses could mean only one thing. Whatever else a person did, whatever other sacrifices or acts of kindness or talents that person demonstrated, the entire sum of them meant nothing if he or she wasn’t motivated by love.

That made sense. Ryan kept reading.

Verse four was where it started getting good, giving specific definitions of what love was and what it wasn’t. The checklist—love is patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast—shed little new insight at first. But then his eyes ran past something that seemed newly written there that afternoon, as if it were intended for his eyes alone.

Love is not self-seeking.

He leaned back hard against the pew, thrust back to those days when he and Kari were not exactly together, the early days of his football career. She had spent that time waiting for him with a selfless patience. Much as she was now waiting for Tim to come to his senses.

“Wait for me, Kari. When I’m not so busy, I want to be with you. Really.”

Ryan felt a leaden anchor settle in his stomach. Had he actually said that to her? The memory of his words tasted bitter, as if they’d never fully digested. He looked at the verse and read once more the part that said love is not self-seeking. That was it, wasn’t it? His love toward Kari had been genuine by worldly standards, but it had been completely self-seeking by God’s.

When
I’m
not busy, I’ll call you, and
I’ll
decide when the time is right?
That’s really what he had been saying. But why hadn’t he realized it before?

Ryan read a few more verses. In his mind, he started ticking off all the things, according to the Scripture, that love did. It always protected . . . hoped . . . trusted . . . persevered.
Persevered.
That last word hit him square in the face. If he had persevered in his love for Kari, he would have asked her why she backed off, why she seemed uninterested in him after his accident.

Perseverance?

Ryan stifled a sad chuckle. He hadn’t come anywhere close. Sure, Kari could have asked him about the woman in his hospital room. But she had persevered for years before the accident and finally walked away only when it appeared Ryan had given his heart to someone else.

His spirit heavy within him, Ryan read the rest of the chapter and slowed down around verse eleven. A growing sense of hope began to fill his heart as the words soothed away his sorrow and frustration:
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

That’s the difference,
he thought. He had been nothing but a child back in his football days—at least in thought and understanding. Now, though, he had a chance to do something he’d never done before.

To love Kari the way God wanted him to love her. To honor her without any thought for himself.

Tears stung at his eyes as the realization took root, because to love her now after losing all hope of being with her would be more painful than anything Ryan had ever done before. But it would be love. Real love. Grown-up love. After all the years of desiring Kari, of wanting her and believing she’d be his wife one day, Ryan knew there was no time like the present to truly love her.

The way he should have loved her back then.

He didn’t have to ask God what loving Kari would mean now that she had gone back to Tim. The Lord had already whispered the answer to him as clearly as if he were sitting beside Ryan in the cool, empty church.

Without hesitation Ryan eased himself onto his knees, wincing slightly as his left kneecap absorbed his weight.
Football
, he thought wryly. It had taken the best years of his life, ruined his chances with Kari Baxter, and in return left him with a permanently damaged body.