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Ro
“Then how did it start?”
Blaze leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, her forearms stretched out as if in supplication. “We were out partying on the beach-Marcus, Teddy, Lance, and me. A little later, Scott showed up, just down the beach from us. We pretended to ignore each other, but we could see Scott lighting up bottle rockets. Will was still down the beach and Scott sort of aimed one in his direction, but the wind caught it and it flew toward the church. Will started freaking out and came ru
“You’re saying Marcus did it?” Ro
She nodded. “He set other fires, too. At least I’m pretty sure he did-he always loved fire. I guess I always knew he was crazy, but I…” She stopped herself, realizing she’d been down that road too many times already. She sat up straight. “Anyway, I’ve agreed to testify against him.”
Ro
She felt almost ill as Blaze went on. “I’m really sorry for everything,” she said. “And as crazy as it sounds, I did consider you my friend until I was an idiot and ruined it.” For the first time, Blaze’s voice cracked. “But you’re a great person, Ro
Blaze paused, visibly struggling to pull herself together. When she had blinked back her tears, she took a deep breath and fixed Ro
“So if you ever need anything-and I mean anything-let me know. I’ll drop everything, okay? I know I can’t ever make up for what I did to you, but in a way, I feel like you saved me. What’s happened to your dad is just so unfair… and I would do anything to help you.”
Ro
“And one last thing,” Blaze added. “We don’t have to be friends, but if you ever see me again, will you please call me Galadriel? I can’t stand the name Blaze.”
Ro
As Blaze had promised, her lawyer called that afternoon, informing her that the charges in her shoplifting case had been dropped.
That night, as her dad lay sleeping in his bedroom, Ro
She thought of Will and what he had done to protect Scott, for a crime that it turned out he hadn’t even committed. Was it really so terrible, she wondered, that loyalty to his friend had skewed his judgment? Especially in light of the way things had turned out? Ro
She shook her head as she moved around the house, turning out the lights one by one. That life-a parade of parties and high school gossip and squabbles with her mom-felt like another world, an existence she had only dreamed. Today, there was only this: her walk on the beach with her dad, the ceaseless sound of the ocean waves, the smell of winter approaching.
And the fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Halloween came and went, and her dad grew weaker with every passing day.
They gave up their walks on the beach when the effort became too great, and in the mornings, when she made his bed, she saw dozens of strands of hair on his pillow. Knowing that the disease was accelerating, she moved her mattress into his bedroom in case he needed her help, and also to remain close to him for as long as she could.
He was on the highest dosages of pain medicine that his body could handle, but it never seemed enough. At night, as she slept on the floor beside him, he uttered whimpering cries that nearly broke her heart. She kept his medication right beside his bed, and they were the first things he reached for when he woke up. She would sit beside him in the mornings, holding him, his limbs trembling, until the medicine took effect.
But the side effects took their toll as well. He was unstable on his feet, and Ro
He now slept an average of seventeen hours a day, and Ro
She called home more frequently, timing her calls for when Jonah got home from school or after they had finished di
“What’s your favorite color?” she asked.
They were seated at the kitchen table, and Ro
Steve gave her a quizzical smile. “That’s what you wanted to ask me?”
“This is just the first question. I’ve got a lot more.”
He reached for the can of Ensure she’d placed before him. He was no longer eating much solid food, and she watched as he took a sip, knowing he was doing it to please her, not because he was hungry.
“Green,” he said.
She wrote down the answer and read the next question. “How old were you when you first kissed a girl?”
“Are you serious?” He made a face.
“Please, Dad,” she said. “It’s important.”
He answered again, and she wrote it down. They got through a quarter of the questions she’d jotted down, and over the next week, he eventually answered them all. She wrote down the answers carefully, not necessarily verbatim, but she hoped with enough detail to reconstruct the answers in the future. It was an engaging and sometimes surprising exercise, but by the end, she concluded that her dad was mostly the same man she’d come to know over the summer.
Which was good and bad, of course. Good because she’d suspected he would be, and bad because it left her no closer to the answer she’d been seeking all along.