Truly, Madly, Deeply (The Baxters #31) - Karen Kingsbury Page 0,26

other memorial wall, and Reagan, Luke and Tommy made their way to where her father’s name was engraved. It didn’t take long to find it and as they did Reagan was overcome by the truth.

They were in the exact spot where the North Tower once stood.

In the very place where her father had been working high above them that Tuesday morning, the three of them huddled and stared at his name in the stone wall.

THOMAS DOUGLAS DECKER.

Reagan’s eyes blurred with tears and she put her hand on the cold letters. All around her people were doing the same thing. Remembering the ones they lost, finding some sort of solace in touching a piece of the wall.

Tommy pulled a slip of paper and a pencil from his backpack. This part had been his idea. A way to take home the memory from today. Reagan watched their son position the paper over her father’s name. Then with quick gentle strokes, Tommy ran the side of his pencil over the paper so that the name came through.

A permanent keepsake.

There was an open bench nearby, and the three of them sat down. The sun shone through the trees here, which Reagan appreciated. She’d been freezing since they reached the reflecting pool. Here on the bench Luke sat on one side of her, Tommy on the other. Reagan stared up where the tower used to stand. A hundred times she had come here to visit her dad. Her mother would bring her when she was little, and as she got older she would stop by on visits from college.

“You came here to see Grandpa, right, Dad?” Tommy’s voice was soft. Appropriate for the moment. “When you and Mom were dating?”

This was something Reagan and Tommy had talked about last night. Tommy knew he was born before his parents married. And he knew they’d been apart for a year after his birth. But he’d never seemed to want more information than that. Reagan and Luke both wondered if today he might have more questions. If he did, they planned to answer him.

Luke grabbed a quick breath. “Yes. I came here with your mom.” He lifted his eyes to the sky, as if he were looking to the spot where the eighty-ninth floor used to be. “His office was beautiful.”

Reagan’s eyes followed the same path. “He liked you so much, Luke.” She linked arms with her husband. “You told him you could picture having an office down the hall from his. Both of you businessmen at the top of your game.”

“I remember. He had an infectious personality.” Luke turned to Tommy. “You’re a lot like him, Son.”

They were quiet for a moment. Tommy looked up, too, but he couldn’t possibly know what it used to be like here, how it had felt to stand at ground level between two hundred-floor buildings. As impressive as the new World Trade Center was, nothing would replace the way the Twin Towers had looked.

Especially from this close.

“You said you didn’t get to say goodbye to him.” Tommy turned to her. “You mean… you didn’t talk to him? In the days leading up to… that morning?”

Reagan shot a look at Luke.

“Your mother and I”—Luke faced Tommy—“we had every intention of honoring God with our relationship. We had guidelines.”

Tommy didn’t look like he was quite tracking. “You mean you weren’t going to have sex before getting married?”

“Right.” Reagan hesitated. Reliving this part of her life story was always painful. “That was the plan.”

Luke explained how on the night of September 10 they were in Bloomington at school.

“We had a deal. We didn’t hang out in our apartments alone. But that Monday night we broke our own rule.” She looked off. “We wound up watching the New York Giants on the couch at my apartment.”

“Your mom and I… well, we got caught up in the single moment we had tried to avoid. That’s where we were when the phone rang.” Luke sighed. Again his eyes found the invisible spot in the sky.

“It was your grandpa.” Reagan could still hear her dad’s voice as he left a message that night. “He loved the Giants and he had called to celebrate with me.” She looked down. “I didn’t take the call. I… I missed the chance.”

“And the next morning…?” Tommy looked from Reagan to Luke.

“I was in class when I heard about the attacks.” Luke stared off. “I ran to find your mother.”

A sad understanding darkened Tommy’s expression. “So… Mom, you never got to talk to