24

Pyper kept her eye on the clock and on the doorway to the control booth of the studio where she stood next to Chase. At two o’clock sharp, the door came open. Mark Samuels walked in, and tension snaked across the muscles of her back and shoulders, but she closed her eyes for a moment and prayed. Tightness promptly eased. Pyper saw Chase go still with shock, his eyes full of questions.

He seemed about ready to leave the performance area, as though intent upon confronting Mark and pushing for explanation. Pyper intercepted him by resting a hand against his forearm. “I invited him. Hope that’s OK. “

Chase’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped, but not a word escaped that full and beautiful mouth.

Pyper nodded, doing her best to quell jangling nerves by taking a deep, soothing dive into his eyes. “He’s done so much for you; he deserves a chance to see you record, to see where his help and influence have taken you. And…and I want…I wanted to try singing ‘Forgiveness’ while he was around to hear it.” Now her throat clogged tight, and she wondered, fleetingly, if she’d be able to sing at all. “I thought maybe he’d like the message.”

For a long instant Chase simply stared. Then his eyes filled. “You’re the most remarkable woman in the world. I want you to know that.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just trying is all. Stay with me. Help me, OK?”

He caught her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Always, Pyp.”

“I want perfection today. Your song, this journey, deserves nothing less.”

She gave Mark a nod and a short wave of greeting; Chase smiled at his friend as well, and then addressed the techs through the headset, asking them to cue up for the next take of the song.

Pyper ignored the process, the flow, the trappings. Her eyes drifted closed and she fell into every note of the music, lost completely to words, melody, and a shaky, battered heart reaching out in faith.

At the end of the session, a cloud of recording-induced euphoria covered the whole of Pyper’s world.

“Where exactly has that performance been hiding these last couple weeks?”

“Just needed to grow into it, I guess. It’s good then?” Pyper spoke to the sound tech but exchanged a meaningful glance with Chase while they hunkered into empty space behind the console of the recording booth where producer Tony Edwards sat, a smile filling his face.

“Try platinum good. For real. You and Chase crushed it. Amazing job.”

They listened to the most recent cut all over again, and a spray of goosebumps danced against Pyper’s arms and neck. Mark hung back as techs conducted some final recording speak about layering in instrument levels, tone equalization—all the fine tuning and tweaks that would turn the recording into a post-production masterpiece. Pyper met Mark’s gaze and held it. He nodded; his pride and a disbelieving joy added flavor to the private moment they shared.

After that, there was nothing left for her to do except call it a day and cross the next jittery bridge in this move toward reclamation. Pyper retrieved her purse. New time. New place. New chance. The words crossed her mind, eased her soul. “Thanks again, guys. Y’all are the best.” In a discreet manner, she addressed Chase. “I’m going to have Mark take me home. That OK?”

Chase kissed her softly, rested his forehead against hers. “Completely. See you tonight?”

“Absolutely.” She stayed in his arms, encircled within the safety of his love for a beat or two longer. Kissing him one last time she prepared to leave, but stopped short. “You know? You said it yourself, Chase. Few things speak louder than a well-written song. This was an amazing session. Thanks for that.” The words ran much deeper than surface value, and she hoped he knew it.

“That’s because of the ones who brought it to be. We’re a pretty great team, crash. You. Me. God.”

“I can’t argue with that.” Following a quick caress to Chase’s cheek, Pyper turned to face Mark. Steady, resolute, she lifted her chin. “Ready to head out?”

“Sure. You did a great job.” He shook hands with Chase. “Both of you did. It was a real treat to be able to see this. Thanks.”

The end note he directed toward Pyper. She received the gratitude with a nod, but when she exited Imperion, walking side-by-side with Mark, her nerves came back to life in a fervent dance.



The basketball hoop seemed to call Mark’s focus as soon as they parked in front of Pyper’s home. Aside from the times she’d battle for the ball with Zach when they were kids, she had almost forgotten the thing remained on a cemented pole to the left of the family garage.

Mark, however, homed in on the netted hoop instantly, and grinned. “Do you happen to have a basketball?”

Laughing quietly, Pyper shrugged. “I’d have to check. Might be flat by now.”

“Let’s find out.”

Tyler’s treasured Mustang—a classic 1965 model and ode to his Michigan roots—and a bevy of landscaping tools filled the space inside the garage. Following a brief hunt, they uncovered a serviceable round ball. Mark palmed it like a pro and started to dribble.

“Mind if I shoot a few baskets?”

Activity would probably alleviate some of the nervous energy, so Pyper nodded and followed him outside, away from the inherently dank, dimly-lit space of the garage.

Shading her eyes, she watched Mark shoot, dribble, and unwind. As hoped, the repetitive motions and activity soothed her rough edges, lent enough bravery for her to step slightly forward on an emotional level as she sat on a nearby garden bench. “When we had lunch a while back, at the end of the meal you asked me a question.”

“Yeah?” After a net swish, he looked over his shoulder in question. “Which one?”

“You asked me who had come out on the right end of the deal. When you think about it, I suppose we all did. I ended up with my mom and dad. That was a blessing. You seem to have turned your life around, and now you’re doing good things. You help people who are troubled, who face battles like addiction find their lives and a way to God. Your life ended up on the right end of the deal as well. All of us ended up where we were meant to be. And it occurred to me after our lunch that we all ended up on a blessing path from God. This isn’t going to be easy, and there are probably going to be a lot of fits and starts along the way, but if you mean what you say, I’m willing to give this a try.” By now Mark had stopped shooting and stood stock still, staring.

“Is that why you called? Why you asked me to the studio?” He gestured wide. “To your home?”

“Yeah. It is. It has to start somewhere, right?”

“Not without my story, OK? I want you to understand something that’s probably incomprehensible to you. I want to start over again. Clean slate. In order to do that, I need to explain what I can.”

“I’ll listen this time. I promise I’ll listen.”

Mark propped the ball on his hip and walked slowly to her bench seat. He sat, but didn’t crowd. Pyper appreciated the fact.

“Liquor was an escape. It distorted everything, twisted my life into a cycle of anger, abuse, but that mess wasn’t ever…ever about you. You were a sweet child. I loved you, but I wasn’t ready for you. Not at all. I was eighteen, and in no shape to be a husband or a father. I’d drink every once in a while, but every once in a while turned into a habit. The habit turned into an addiction, and before I even realized it, the addiction overwhelmed my world.”

Pyper remained silent, watching and intent.

“This isn’t the life I would have ever chosen—”

“It’s all my fault.” Pyper folded her arms across her chest; wind tossed the waves of her hair, rippling a few strands against her face. The tears of her youth, of the fear and nightmares that had tracked her for two decades, rose and spilled free.

“What?”

“It’s all my fault.”

“What is?”

Her lips started to tremble. Here she sat, in the front yard of the home she had grown up in, felt safe in, where she had always felt both precious and cherished—reacting to a man she had sworn would never crawl under her skin and hurt her again. But, like Chase had said, she needed to break, to let the pain in, so it could be released forevermore no matter what came next for her and Mark.

“You didn’t want me. I came along and I messed up everything for you. It’s understandable you hated me. Resented me. You raged at me no matter what I did, and I couldn’t find a way to make you love me.”

An anguished, guttural moan rose from Mark’s chest, releasing on a sob that heaved his chest. “Pyper. No. No.”

His pain didn’t hold her back. “It’s true. You didn’t want me, and that killed me inside.”

Mark covered his face with his hands, tipped his head to the sky and sank against the back of the bench. When he dug his fingers through thick, shaggy brown hair, she got a good look at his face. Wetness covered his cheeks. His eyes were bright red, emphasized by a spray of lines that paid testimony to his struggles, and a sadness that ran bone deep. She couldn’t ignore that truth, or the compassion it raised.

“That’s why I need to set the record straight.” He seemed to struggle for steadiness. “It’s not that I didn’t want you or your mom. It’s that I wanted a life I could live on my terms. In my way. Not Godly, by any means, but selfish and free of commitment.”

“Instead, you had to focus on an unwanted obligation. Me.” Emotions built into a roll that pressed against her—inside and out.

“I was too pigheaded and immature to see beyond my own selfishness and ambitions. What I know and understand now is that what I did—the drinking, the yelling, the times I lashed out at you with words and hands, the times I banished you from my sight and ruined anything that brought you joy—was a battle against how angry I was at me. How much I hated me. You were a helpless bystander. So was your mom. You had no fault whatsoever in any of that. If you take nothing else from my presence in your life, from here on out, please, I beg you, let that be it. I’m to blame. Not you.”

Pyper crumpled. “I tried so hard.”

“I know you did. And the loss is mine.”

Mark moved cautiously into her space and drew her toward him with a gentle pull against her hands. Pyper was too weak to resist. She sobbed, overwhelmed by the release of twenty years’ worth of pent up emotion.

“I’ll never have the moments Tyler and your mom have been given. They nurtured you and shared in every milestone of your life. Not me. I’m the one who messed it all up. I was lost, but I’ve worked so hard to get found. I gotta believe God steps in and makes all things good. It’s the only truth that keeps me moving forward.”

Pyper continued to dissolve, falling headlong into a world of forgiveness she never would have dreamed possible.

“You accused me of ruining things, and I can’t deny that fact. I’d never try. I took your things, your mom’s things, and I tossed them into a dumpster. Literally threw away the best part of a life I could have known.”

Pyper didn’t accept or reject his words. Rather, she remained still, rooted to this time, this spot they shared. The child inside her had waited for this moment for so long…

“You endured hell. No question. But please rejoice in what God delivered to your life. Tyler. Amy. Chase. That man adores you. He loves you the way a good man needs to love a woman.”

“I love him so much it scares me sometimes.”

“Love is like that.”

“He holds the power to rip me apart. He could hurt me even worse than…than…” You. The word burned against her skin, and she was pretty sure he knew exactly where she was headed.

“To this very day, have a hole in my heart with your name on it, Mark.” She stalled for one second—then another. “But…I’ll try to forgive you.”

The surrender left her so shaken, she couldn’t say anything else. Fat, rolling tears cascaded down her cheeks, weakening the fortress she had created around her heart.

Silence fell between them. Peace settled. At length, Mark brushed his thumbs against the back of her hands. Only then did she realize, they had remained connected almost the entire time…

“Pyper, I kept something. I kept something that I want to show you now.” Mark moved just far enough away to shift and pull a worn, brown leather wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. He cleared his throat as he extracted something small from the inside. “Here.”

Curious, Pyper took custody of a small photograph that was worn along the edges, a bit faded by time. The picture elicited an instant, stunned gasp. “It’s…it’s me.”

“You were four.” His voice was husky, rough. “It was taken at your preschool the year you and your mom had to leave me.” He jutted his chin, steeled himself, and took ownership of his actions in a visible way Pyper could sense in the air around them. “The year I shoved you out the door.”

Pyper bit her lips together, buffeted now by much more than the wind that whistled through the trees and curved in through the valley. “Why…why on earth…why would you keep it?”

His eyes filled fast; his jaw clenched for a second before he answered. “Because it’s the last picture I have of you when you were still mine.”

Pyper wept openly, breaking and healing, and she found herself wrapped snug in Mark’s arms. He cradled her against his chest and she found she didn’t want to pull away. She rested against him, coming gradually aware of the fact that he gently stroked her hair.

Over and over again he murmured, “I’m sorry, Pyper. I am so, so sorry.”