“This is another chance for you to talk about your son.” Mandy smiled. “Maybe . . . do it for him?”

  Roman looked at Velvet and she could tell that Mandy had hit his soft spot. And maybe, somehow, it would be good for him. Maybe—by some miracle—the press would be understanding and kind and—

  “What do you think, Velvet?” he asked.

  She could see he wanted her to tell him to do it. “Go on. Do it for Billy.”

  He hesitated. “I’ll go . . . if you’ll go with me.”

  Me and my big mouth.

  | | | | | | | | | | |

  “A few people from the media” turned out to be a roomful. And not just print media but TV, with cameras and lights. Velvet regretted saying yes to accompanying Roman. She was dressed in her work clothes, covered with popcorn butter, pop, and ketchup. Because of this, she quickly relegated herself to supportive bystander, letting Roman take the spotlight alone.

  “Sit by me,” he’d whispered.

  “I’ll be right over here. This is your time. And Billy’s.” She also didn’t want to explain their relationship to the press. It was too complicated. And what if they asked her what she thought about John 3:16? Her ignorance would ruin everything.

  Once the lighting was set and the microphones were in place—all at Mandy’s direction—the interview began.

  “So, Mr. Paulson, the sign. Would you like to explain its meaning?”

  “It was a sign my son created. He’d asked a friend of his to hold it up at a game. But then he . . . he died. The friend was still upset so she asked me to do it for her.”

  “She? Was it a girlfriend?”

  “A friend.”

  Another reporter chimed in. “The sign references the Bible, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does the verse say?”

  Velvet’s stomach clenched. Roman didn’t know his Bible. And even if he’d read the verse, to be able to recite it on cue . . . She didn’t want him to be embarrassed.

  “I don’t know it word for word but it basically says that God sacrificed his Son—for us. If we believe in him, we’ll go to heaven.”

  A woman reporter looked confused. “What does that have to do with a football game?”

  “Nothing. At least not specifically. I suppose you could stretch it and say the words talk about the game of life.”

  “Why this particular verse?”

  “It was Billy’s favorite. Apparently he used to cite it often.”

  “Apparently?”

  Roman fidgeted. “He and I were somewhat estranged when he died.”

  The reporters perked up and Velvet’s stomach wrenched. They’d found the dirt.

  “Why were you estranged?”

  Roman looked at Velvet as if he wanted to be rescued. She couldn’t help him, not without making things worse.

  “My son . . .” He grappled for words. “To put it plainly, he found Jesus. He talked to me about it, about what was going on in his life, but I wanted nothing to do with it.” Roman clasped his hands on the table. “Ever since my wife died I haven’t been too keen on God.” He took a fresh breath and looked at the reporters. “I wouldn’t let Billy talk about his faith. Ever. I cut him off and he pulled away. I was wrong.”

  Velvet was shocked by Roman’s confession. Roman was not the kind of man who admitted he was wrong. Ever.

  He continued. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes and held on to bitterness for a lot of years, wasted years that I could have more fully shared with my son.”

  A reporter who didn’t look old enough to drive stood. “Speaking of your mistakes, you were recently mentioned in the news regarding the firing of one of your employees for unethical behavior. What do you have to say about that?”

  Roman’s jaw tightened. So far he’d been calm and measured with his answers. Velvet hoped he wouldn’t blow it now and give the media an enraged rant. They would eat it up, and all the good Roman had done would be relegated to secondary news.

  Roman’s chest heaved, in and out, as he struggled for control. His head shook back and forth, his eyes on the table in front of him.

  Then, with an expulsion of breath, he looked at his audience. “Our society celebrates success and achievement. What my employee did was wrong. But if we’re honest with ourselves we’ve all pushed too hard, taken shortcuts, and misplaced our common sense in the quest for success. It’s people like my son who remind us that taking is not the answer. Giving is. Sacrificing ourselves for others is the only way to make a positive difference.”

  His shoulders lowered and he seemed calmer. “I am here today to honor my son’s sacrifice. He gave his life to save another life. Today he was recognized as an extraordinary person. The team played for him. They won the game for him. I held up the sign—for him. As far as having faith or expressing faith, I am a student. He was the teacher. If only I had listened to him sooner. Would it have changed the outcome? No. Billy would still have gone to the picnic. He would still have saved that boy. But maybe, if I had been more involved in his life and faith, I might have been there too. Would I have been able to save him? I don’t think that was an option. In some way beyond our understanding, Billy needed to die so that others could be changed by it.”

  His voice cracked and he took a moment to contain himself. Velvet held her breath, hoping no one interrupted.

  The reporters waited. Surprisingly respectful. Expectant.

  Roman wiped a sleeve across his eyes, sniffed, and held his chin high. “The fact is this: if Billy’s friend had held up the sign during a game from within the stands—as Billy had asked her to do, and as some have done before—a few people would have seen it. A good thing. And yet . . . today, because of Billy’s death, because of the inspirational details of his sacrifice, because of this game dedicated in his honor, tens of thousands of people saw Billy’s sign and will hear about him through the stories you write and report out of this interview. I only ask that you don’t back down from the facts of Billy’s death, nor the facts of the sign and its content. I know it’s not politically correct to talk about God, or especially mention Jesus, but I ask you all—I beg you—to take a stand and let the message of Billy’s death be told. John 3:16, ladies and gentlemen. John 3:16.”

  Roman stood and looked to Velvet, and they exited the room out a back way. Once in the hallway, his knees buckled and she caught him on the way to the floor.

  Together they slid to seating. Roman began to sob.

  Velvet joined him. She had never been so proud . . . so proud.

  And humbled. He’d changed so much.

  And she?

  | | | | | | | | | | |

  Velvet stumbled back to the concessions stand where she had left John. Her legs barely moved and felt as though she’d run a marathon.

  She’d been away far longer than she’d intended, and she expected John to be gone.

  But he was there, sitting on the counter, his legs dangling. “I thought you’d run away and joined the cir—” He let his smile go and jumped down. “You look horrible. What happened? Was Roman that upset?”

  She shook her head and pointed to the counter. “Sit. I need to sit.” She put her hands in place, intending to hop up, but couldn’t find the energy.

  Without saying a word, John lifted her into place, then joined her. He took her hand and rested it on his knee. “Talk to me.”

  Velvet ended up telling him everything. John listened well and offered only a few comments that led her deeper into the telling.

  When she was through, she sighed. “All that. I never planned on telling you all that.”

  “All that has obviously affected you deeply.”

  “Roman is so changed. I still see the old Roman in there, the one who needs to be in total control, yet that Roman has been beaten back.”

  “Or maybe he surrendered?”

  Surrendered? Roman? “It’s too much. Billy’s death, then the verse and . . .” She turned to see John’s face. “Roman took a risk holding up that sign. He took a stand.”

  “Indeed he did.”

  Finally, she realized the source of her anguish. “I’ve never done that.” She waited for him to disagree.

  He didn’t.

  Were her shortcomings that obvious? A hint of her old defensive nature started to rise, but she shoved it back. Now was not the time to get testy. She’d come this far; she had to see this thought through—wherever it led. “Roman talked about seeing his wife and son in heaven someday. That seemed to give him a lot of comfort.”

  “As it should.”

  Here was the point—the point she had to get out in the open. “I have a daughter here.” She looked away. “Lianne found me by some miraculous intervention, and I haven’t even acknowledged her. Today you introduced her as your daughter. Just like that. I had the chance to chime in, but I didn’t. Why didn’t I? Why haven’t I claimed her?”

  John remained silent.

  Velvet hopped down, faced him, and repeated the question. “Why haven’t I claimed her as my daughter?”

  “She’s not the stereotypical dream daughter.”

  “Which is . . . ?”

  “Beautiful, smart, poised, classy, and elegant, with an inevitable future full of grand things.”

  Velvet’s laugh was heavy with sarcasm. She looked up and down the corridor, just to make sure Lianne wasn’t still around. “She’s an eccentric, smart-mouthed girl, wearing vintage hand-me-downs as she complicates her life with an unwanted pregnancy and lofty plans to change the world.”

  John gripped the edge of the counter and extended one leg toward her as a pointer. “Sounds like another girl I once knew.”

  Velvet froze.

  “Gotcha.”

  He was right. One hundred percent right. She batted his foot down, then pressed her fingers to her temples. “She’s me. I’m her.”

  “Two of a kind.”

  Velvet stepped away from the counter, turning in a circle, her fingers still pressed to her head, trying to keep the thought from escaping. Once she had done a complete 360, she let her hands fall to her sides. “No wonder I’m not rushing to claim her. She reminds me of myself, at a difficult time in my life.”

  “She’s forcing you to think about it, relive it.”

  Velvet pointed at John. “Your sudden appearance isn’t helping matters.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe it’s time to deal with it, accept who you were.”

  “And what I did.”

  John jumped off the counter and put his hands on her shoulders. “You had a baby, Velvet. You gave her up for adoption. Like the words in John said: God gave his child out of love. So did you.”

  She felt some of a weight being lifted—but not completely. John didn’t know the half of what she’d done. No one did. But maybe . . . was now the time to change that?

  She took his hands and moved them off her shoulders, holding them in the space between them. Looking down at their hands, clasped, gave her strength. “Getting pregnant and giving Lianne away is only the beginning of what I need to deal with and accept.”

  A veil of worry shadowed his face. “What are you talking about?”

  After all the years of not trusting anyone enough, it was time. Yet she couldn’t tell him and be so close, so she moved away, putting the counter between them. “I was so angry and confused after you left, and sad and confused after I gave up Lianne. I was alone. But . . . but not for long.”

  “You had another boyfriend?”

  “I had boys. Men. Football players. And they had me. As many as would take me. I made myself available for their . . . their use.”

  “Oh, Velvet, I’m—”

  She stopped his words. “No. Don’t give me sympathy. I knew what I was doing. I hated myself, I hated you, I hated anything having to do with the football game you played, and so I jumped into a life of self-punishment.”

  John pressed a hand against his chest. “Because I left.”

  She couldn’t let him take the blame. “Don’t give yourself all the credit, John. I did my part messing up my life. And I kept doing my part.” This next would be the hardest to say, but since she’d opened the Pandora’s box of her sins, she had to continue. “I got pregnant. Twice.”

  “You had two more child—?”

  “No. I had no more children. I aborted both of them.” Her throat tightened and she had trouble continuing, for this was the sword that had been permanently held above her head, ready to take its revenge. “I killed my babies.”

  John didn’t move for a moment, and her first thought was as selfish as her entire life had been: I’ve lost you because of this, haven’t I? This is just another punishment being played out in grand style. I fall for you and then God takes you away from—

  But then John took a step around the counter to comfort her. His face was so sympathetic, so kind, it shocked her, and even as she wanted to fall into his arms, she found she couldn’t. She didn’t deserve his kindness. Especially when he still didn’t know the worst of it. She raised her arms, holding him away. “No! Don’t come near me. I’m not through.”

  He froze, his kindness being tainted by apprehension.

  “The last abortion went wrong, and I was injured internally, so much so that I could never get pregnant again. I killed my babies, and God punished me by taking away any chance that I could ever have another one.”

  The apprehension was replaced by compassion. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

  Her voice came out in shattered pieces. “There’s nothing to say,” Velvet said. “That’s why I never got married, nor even got close to marriage. How could I ask a husband to love someone who’d done all that? someone who had ruined her chances to ever be a mother?”

  He hesitated and looked to the floor.

  Indeed. What more could he say. She’d lost him forever now. Her sins had piled, one upon the other, until they’d become an insurmountable barrier between them. His next words would certainly be, “I can’t deal with this now, Velvet. I have to have time to think.” And when he said those words, she would know for certain that it was over, the final punishment of all punishments. For having him back in her life had allowed her to think positively about the future. Now there would be no future. Not with her past piled between them.

  “Say something!” she said. Hate me. Yell at me. Walk away from me.

  John finally looked up from the floor and said, “Did you stay at this job to punish yourself too?”

  A bitter laugh escaped. That was it? That was his worst? It took her a moment to adapt from her imagined scenario of him storming away to the reality of him still standing before her, waiting for an answer.

  “Of course,” she said, and even smiled at the irony of it. “I hate all things football, so working here was a perfect punishment.”

  John looked pensive; then he said, “Is that why you befriended Roman? Because his son was a player? Because football is so important to him?”

  Velvet stopped smiling and nearly stopped breathing. That there was yet another layer to her vendetta against herself . . . “I . . . I didn’t think of that.” She began to pace behind the counter. “I used to go after the players, but when I got too old to be attractive to them . . . did I subconsciously choose Roman because . . . Oh, that’s horrible. That’s sick.” She stopped pacing and faced him. “You need to go home, John, back to San Diego. You need to run away from me as fast as you can. I’m no good for you, no good for anyone.”

  But then, in a scene that had not even registered in her mind as a possibility, he came to her and took her into his arms. At first she fought against him, thinking, No, you can’t do this. You can’t care for me anyway.

  “No one cares about your past, Velvet. Or mine. It is what it is. The big question is who are we now?”

  She pushed away from him. “I’m no better now than I was. Look at what I did to Roman.”

  “You didn’t do anything to Roman except be a friend to him. You didn’t hurt him. You didn’t hurt his son. If anything, you were punishing yourself, but they didn’t suffer from the association.”

  Maybe. Maybe what he said was true.

  John continued. “You need to forgive yourself and ask God to forgive you too.”

  A bitter laugh escaped. “God? Forgive me? And me, go to him? Why should I seek him now? Where was he while I was messing up my life? Why . . . why didn’t he stop me?”

  John’s eyebrows rose. “You can’t blame God for your choices.”

  She felt a pang of uncertainty but continued the argument anyway. “Sure I can. If he’s so all-powerful, then why didn’t he—?”

  “Velvet . . .”

  She let out a sigh. She knew she was being unfair, and childish, and wrong. It’s just that she was so incredibly weary. “Forget I said that. I know he wasn’t to blame. I’m the only one to blame. I made the choices. I wanted to punish myself. I accept responsibility for all of it. And I’m sorry for all of it.”

  “And because of that, God will forgive you.” He clapped his hands once. “There! It’s done. God has forgiven you.”

  John looked so happy it was almost comical. So certain. “Just like that?”

  “No, not just like that. Jesus suffered and died on the cross; he took the punishment we all deserve. That act made forgiveness possible. Peace. Grace. New beginnings.”

  Suddenly, Velvet felt an inner stirring. New beginnings? Is such a thing possible? She placed both hands on her heart, wishing she could capture what was going on in there, draw it out into the open so she could be sure. Certain.

  Yet could it be true? Could she truly let the entirety of her horrible past go?

  John’s voice was soft. “Now is what matters, Velvet. What about now? How can you move on with your life from this moment? How can you show others a bit of the love and forgiveness God just extended to you?”

  Now. The past didn’t matter. Now mattered. And now included . . . “You’re here. Lianne’s here,” she said.

  “Exactly. And trust is here. I appreciate your telling me your story. It means you trust me. I don’t take that lightly, Velvet.”

  Neither did she. But it felt good to have it out, to share the burden. And yet . . . now was still filled with uncertainty. Even if she could let the past go, it didn’t mean she had suddenly morphed into a loving, caring person. A mother. “How . . . how can I love Lianne now? As she is.”