Because by then everything would be fine.
* * *
THE DOCTOR WAS an internist. A specialist in internal medicine. Tommy read that on the man’s door as they entered his office. Annalee checked in and sat beside him in the waiting area. Tommy took her hand. “You worried?”
“Not at all.” A few swipes and she opened her texts. “Look.” She smiled and held the phone up so he could see it. “My mom asked the same thing.”
Tommy studied her. She didn’t look as tired today. Her cheeks were pink, her green eyes bright with life. He watched her texting her mom back. “What’re you telling her?”
“Same thing.” She slipped her phone in her purse and leaned back. “I’m sure it’s mono, Tommy. Plus, doctors like to rule out things. That’s all.”
That sounded right. Of course her primary doctor had suggested this specialist. Annalee had been tired since the trip to Thailand two months ago. And she had a cough she couldn’t shake. Sometimes—if Tommy was honest—Annalee seemed out of breath from nothing more than crossing the street. He tapped his foot and looked around the office.
Framed beach art hung on every wall. One painting looked like Phuket. He gave her hand a soft squeeze. “Seems like yesterday, walking Karon Beach.”
“Mmm. Yes.” She breathed deep. “I feel better today. So, that’s good.”
“It is.” Tommy gripped the arms of his chair. Why was he so anxious? “Open gym went well.”
“I can’t believe it’s your last season.” She didn’t look away, didn’t blink. “I’m glad I get to watch you play. One more year.”
Something inside him relaxed. They had so much ahead. The rest of the fall semester and then Christmas break and the games would start. Tommy loved having Annalee in the stands. She and her parents sitting next to his family.
“Annalee Miller?” A heavyset nurse stood at the doorway. She had kind eyes.
Annalee stood and gave him one last glance. “I’ll be right back.”
This is routine, he told himself. His eyes landed on the beach painting again. Otherwise her parents would be here. His phone buzzed and he checked it. His cousin Cole Baxter Blake texted him a few times a week. This time about a girl he was seeing at school. The conversation helped Tommy pass the time.
Seven minutes later, Annalee walked through the door holding a piece of paper. Tommy stood to meet her and immediately two things troubled him. First, the appointment hadn’t taken nearly long enough. Even the most basic exam should at least take twenty minutes. The other thing was more obvious.
Annalee looked scared to death.
When they were out in the hall, she stopped and faced him. “I need a scan. It’s two floors down in the hospital wing.” She held up the piece of paper. “They want me to do it now.”
Tommy’s mind began to spin. “A… a scan?” He shook his head. “For what?”
“My lungs and chest.” Annalee looked up. “The doctor drew blood to check for mono. But he heard something, when he listened to me breathe.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s probably all part of the virus.”
The floor didn’t feel solid anymore, and Tommy couldn’t find his voice. As they entered the elevator, he focused on the place where Annalee held tight to his elbow. Standing next to him. Where she’d been as far back as freshman year.
At the imaging department, he held the door for her. They were barely inside when a tech stepped into the waiting area. “Annalee? We’re ready for you.”
She turned a weak smile toward Tommy and waved.
“It could take an hour,” the woman told him. “If you’d like to have a seat.”
Annalee moved through the door with the tech and Tommy was alone in the room. This one had nothing on the walls.
He sat down and clasped his hands. Why was it going to take an hour? He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think about it. But the questions came anyway. How far away had they taken her? And what about her parents? Should he call them and tell them or had the doctor done that already?
It’s just routine, he told himself. She’s probably had mono for months. Which can’t be good. But her grades were still amazing and she still laughed at his jokes. So she wasn’t that tired. Not too sick, like something more serious.
But what if…?
No way he could finish the question, so he let it dangle against the backdrop of his pounding heart. And in the sterile cold of the waiting area, Tommy Baxter did the only thing he could think to do.
He dropped to his knees.
4
The trip to New York City was in twenty-four hours and Reagan Baxter could think of little else. She parked her Acura at the lot near Indianapolis’s Downtown Canal Walk and looked up. The leaves were starting to turn. Weather reports said it was going to be a beautiful autumn.
But first they would take their New York trip.
She spotted her sister-in-law’s SUV. They had arranged this walk a week ago, a chance to talk about the visit to Ground Zero. For the first time, both families would return to Lower Manhattan for the anniversary of 9/11.
The lives they’d lived back then, the losses they’d faced were topics Reagan and Ashley Baxter Blake rarely talked about. All of them had lived in Bloomington, Indiana, when the terrorist attacks happened. But at the time, Reagan’s parents lived in Manhattan. Her dad had worked in the North Tower, on one of the top floors.
He had died there.
Eventually, Reagan had married Ashley’s brother, Luke, and the two of them had moved to Indianapolis and raised a family. Tommy, Malin, and Johnny, who was a second grader. Their story was heartbreaking and hope-filled, a marriage that had survived great losses. But it stood as a beacon for all their family.
Beauty from ashes.
For Ashley, it was her husband, Landon, who had painful memories from his time in lower Manhattan. In 2001, he had been hired by the Fire Department of New York and would have been there that September 11, but a work injury in Bloomington had set him months behind. He was well enough when the attacks happened that he dropped everything and took a bus to New York that terrible day to look for one particular missing firefighter.
His best friend, Jalen.
Landon had worked at Ground Zero until he and a team of firefighters found Jalen’s body in the mountains of debris. Landon returned home and in time he and Ashley married and had a family. Ashley’s life had been equally full. She and Landon had Cole, nineteen; Amy, fourteen; Devin, twelve; and Janessa, eight. They had lost one baby just after birth. But what they had was rich and true and beautiful.
And all of it born from the ruins of 9/11.
Now this year they had finally all gotten vacation days around September 11. Nineteen years had come and gone since their lives were changed that Tuesday morning, and now the trip was tomorrow.
Reagan had looked forward to this walk with Ashley so they could talk about the past before flying to LaGuardia. Reagan met up with her sister-in-law in the parking lot and the two hugged. Ashley blew at a wisp of her hair. “You packed?”
“Hardly.” Reagan laughed. “You know me. Last minute.”
“Me, too. Landon keeps me in line.” Ashley unzipped her windbreaker.