Remembering You Read online

  A NOVEL

  Remembering

  You

  TRICIA GOYER

  Guideposts

  Remembering You

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8249-4812-2

  Published by Guideposts

  16 East 34th Street

  New York, New York 10016

  Guideposts.org

  Copyright © 2011 by Tricia Goyer. All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  Distributed by Ideals Publications, a Guideposts company

  2630 Elm Hill Pike, Suite 100

  Nashville, TN 37214

  Guideposts and Ideals are registered trademarks of Guideposts.

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  Scripture references are from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa / Georgia Morrissey

  Cover photo of woman by Getty Images

  Cover photo of landscape by iStock

  Interior design by Müllerhaus Publishing Group | www.mullerhaus.net

  Author photo of Tricia Goyer © 2010 by Jessica McCollam, Jessica’s Visions Photography

  Printed and bound in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  PRAISE FOR TRICIA GOYER’S REMEMBERING YOU

  “Remembering You takes you on a scenic tour of Europe with secrets, history, romance, and tension around every bend. History lovers will appreciate Tricia Goyer’s research and detail, and story lovers will delight in four fascinating characters with clashing goals. I highly recommend this novel.”

  —Sarah Sundin, author of A Distant Melody, A Memory Between Us, and Blue Skies Tomorrow

  “I’m a huge fan of Tricia Goyer’s WWII novels. Her unique blend of historical detail, sensitive, likeable characters, and well-crafted plots make all her books a must-buy for me. Tricia’s latest, Remembering You, is no exception. Readers are in for a treat!”

  —Shelley Shepard Gray, New York Times best-selling author

  “Remembering You transported me to Europe with Ava Ellington, her grandfather, and other veterans of World War II. While Ava thought she was there to create a series of stories about what these veterans had done, she instead embarked on a journey of discovery. A journey filled with mystery, history, forgiveness, and love. A journey that resonated deeply. Tricia uses stories gleaned from years of interviews with members of the Eleventh Armored Division to give the breath of truth and hope to this book. This book is going on my keeper shelf to enjoy again.”

  —Cara C. Putman, award-winning author

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  Praise for Tricia Goyer's Remembering You

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Author's Notes

  Questions for Discussion

  About the Author

  Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?

  AMOS 3:3

  Chapter One

  Ava Ellington pulled the lid off the red Sharpie with her teeth and drew a thick line from one corner of the clipboard page to the other.

  As head producer of Mornings with Laurie and Clark, Seattle’s top morning news show, she had booked best-selling author Dean Trust to talk about his dad, a fisherman who’d died in 1981 while rescuing a drowning teenager—a heroic father who was said to have inspired Trust’s latest novel. Instead, as the cameras rolled, Trust had blabbered about the Seattle rain and an idea for a script that he was hoping to sell. Rubbish!

  Ava bit her bottom lip as she strode down the television studio hall and pushed open the door to her office, resisting the urge to slam it behind her. She scanned her stacks of files and notes and wondered if she should pack her things now. Returning the lid to the pen, she tossed it on her desk. It rolled off and onto the floor. With a swift motion, she kicked the pen under the bookshelf filled with travel guides of places she hoped to visit someday. Places rimmed with stories she would never hear. Heart-tugging segments she’d never produce.

  If Ava prided herself on anything, it was that she knew how to turn seemingly small ideas into breakfast-time entertainment that refreshed people’s hearts. But all it took was one logjam to cause everything else to pile up—one babbling, unfocused guest—or at least that was her excuse today. But what about the last few weeks? Few months? It was hard to want to entertain and inspire people when her own heart was breaking.

  Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket, and Ava hit IGNORE. Yet another task-reminder. She bent down to retrieve the pen, and her fingers brushed something else under the bookcase. A business card maybe? Pulling it out, her throat tightened. It was one of the photos of her and Jay that she used to have pinned on her bulletin board. She brushed the dust from his face with her thumb, and her heart clenched at his smile. She blinked the tears from her eyes and, before she could talk herself out of it, dropped the photo into the trash. It was the never-ending lists of tasks and calls that, perhaps, had cost her what she wanted most—a man who claimed to love her with all his heart.

  Jay had seemed like the perfect guy. He was easy to talk to. He laughed at her jokes and e-mailed her funny YouTube videos. He encouraged her to find tales that would inspire people. He believed in her. Or at least she had thought he believed in her.

  Ava refused to think about that now. Or about him. Right now she had to think about keeping her job. She’d moved to downtown Seattle to be close to Jay and had bought a condo she couldn’t afford, believing it would be their home together. If she lost her job too, everything would be gone. Then where would she go? More than that—who would she be?

  A soft knock sounded, and Ava glanced up to see her boss, Todd, standing in the doorway. He didn’t say a word, but she noticed his tight-lipped grin and furrowed brow.

  “I talked to Dean Trust last night,” she tried to explain. “He told me he was happy to talk about his dad and the inspiration for this novel… . I—I don’t know what happened.”

  Todd raised his hands. “Listen, I don’t want to burst your bubble, Ava, but even if he had talked about his novel, the critics are giving it a C-minus just to be kind.” He lifted his chin, which always seemed to have a five o’clock shadow. “You know what we need and what our viewers expect.”

  Ava slumped into her leather chair. The pressure weighed on her shoulders. “Obviously I don’t. Everything I’ve put together lately has be
en a fumble.” She glanced up at him under her eyelashes. “I have a worse record than the Seahawks this season.”

  Todd nodded and ran his hand through his dark hair. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. From the pity in his gaze she expected the worst.

  “Listen, even though we never want our personal life to affect our work, it always does. I tried to explain that to my boss—”

  She stood, as if pushed from her seat by a spring. “I’m working on something. Something that’ll knock your socks off. Something viewers will love.”

  Todd cocked an eyebrow. Then he crossed his arms over his chest. “You want to tell me about it?” Even if he knew she was fibbing, he didn’t let on.

  “Tomorrow.” She brushed her long blond hair off her shoulder. “I have a few details I need to work out.” Ten minutes before, she’d assumed this would be her last day, but now she planned to stick around if she could come up with something good.

  She glanced at the photo in the trash. You can’t take my work from me too. You’ve already crushed my self-confidence, not to mention my heart. You can’t have this too.

  Chapter Two

  Ava pulled the container of leftover Chinese out of the fridge and sniffed it, trying to remember how many days it had been since she’d gone out to dinner with her best friend, Jill. Realizing it had been over a week, she tossed it in the trash and then poked her head back into the refrigerator. Her stomach churned, partly because she was hungry and partly because she had no idea what magical story could save her job. Like the takeout Chinese, every idea she’d generated so far had been far from fresh. Some ideas were just plain rotten.

  She finally decided on a grilled cheese sandwich and apple slices for dessert. Setting a place at the table, she stood to flip on the light and then changed her mind. Her electric bill had been steeper than she wanted last month. Instead, she opened the kitchen cupboard closest to the dining room and held her breath as she stared at the fifty white candles she’d purchased for her wedding. In her mind’s eye, she imagined the church altar twinkling with lights, but she quickly pushed those thoughts away. I have the candles; I might as well use them. With a quivering hand, she pulled two out and placed them in the candleholders on the table. Then she retrieved her notebook from her purse.

  She sat at the candlelit table, took a bite from her sandwich, and opened the notebook. She wrote Ideas at the top and then stared at the blank page.

  Her cell phone buzzed again from her purse, but she ignored it. It was most likely Jill calling to tell her about Rick again. Jill called every evening, and the topic of late had been the show’s cameraman Rick. Jill was a great associate producer, but she was a poor judge of character. Ava shook her head. How many times do I have to tell her that Rick is only interested in getting better assignments?

  The buzzing of her cell phone stopped, but a few seconds later the ringing of her home phone split the air. Only a few people knew her home number. Only one person had called it regularly. Jay. They hadn’t talked since the breakup. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder. What if it is him calling after all these months?

  She swallowed the last bite of apple slice, feeling it cut like razor blades down her throat, and her hands quivered. She’d asked herself what she’d do if he ever called. Her stomach tumbled just thinking of his voice.

  Ava dropped her pen to the table and hurried to the phone. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when she recognized her mother’s number on caller ID.

  “Hey, Mom. Is everything okay? Are you okay? Or…” Her voice halted when a new worry filled her mind. Ava pictured her grandfather’s thin frame. His white shock of hair. His easy smile. Well, the last time she had seen him, he hadn’t been smiling, but she didn’t want to think about that now.

  “Ava, thank goodness you answered—”

  “Is it Grandpa?” Her voice wobbled, and an ache as big as the Space Needle pressed on her chest. She knew she should have cleared the air with him. Life was so short—

  “Grandpa’s fine, but I wanted to tell you I had a little accident.”

  “Accident?” Ava pressed against the chair back.

  “I was cleaning the winter debris out of the gutters, and the ladder wasn’t as steady as I thought. The doctor said I was lucky that my leg was the only thing I broke.”

  “You broke your leg?” Ava pictured her mother—small, wiry, athletic, always on the go. She hadn’t seen her mom with even a sprained finger before.

  “Do you have a cast? What about work? Do you need me to come down to Bend this weekend to help you out?”

  “Actually…” Her mom’s voice trailed off.

  Ava heard muffled voices in the background and the sounds of a doctor being paged over a loudspeaker.

  “I need you to do something for me, sweetheart, but it’s bigger than just making a few casseroles and taking my dogs for a walk. Grandpa has that reunion coming up in Europe. He said this morning he’d be fine traveling alone—that he’d meet up with a group when he got overseas—but that’s not possible. He’s been shaky on his feet, and last week he fell in the garden. The doc says there’s nothing specifically wrong; he’s just unsteady. He can’t travel alone. I thought about asking your uncle, but—”

  “Mom, hold up. The reunion’s in Europe? I thought it was in Kalamazoo or Buffalo again.”

  For as long as Ava could remember, her grandfather took a trip every August to the reunion of the Eleventh Armored Division, his unit during World War II. The reunion was organized by division members who’d trained together, fought together, and met together over the years to remind themselves that what they’d done had made a difference, even if the world didn’t often know them or remember.

  For three years her grandpa was one of fifteen thousand men who had soldiered on through Louisiana, Texas, California, and Europe. He’d seen frontline action in Belgium, Germany, and Austria, if she remembered correctly. Grandpa Jack had retold many of the same stories over the years, but Ava still had a hard time getting the dates and events straight.

  “The division’s doing their typical reunion in August, but the battlefield tour is next week. They’ll meet up in Europe, travel to all the sites, and end with a large remembrance ceremony at Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. According to your grandfather, it’s their last overseas hurrah. Their bus tour starts in Paris and goes through Germany and—”

  “Paris? Grandpa’s going to Paris?” Ava cut in. The image of the Eiffel Tower at night, covered by a million twinkling lights, came to mind. Tana, her college roommate, had lived in Paris for the last few years, and she and Jay had talked about visiting.

  “Yes, dear.” Then her mom started reading the tour brochure as if she were trying to sell it on QVC.

  Ava knew what her mom was going to ask: if she’d go. She rubbed her temple, feeling an ache coming on. She couldn’t imagine traveling with a group of men in their eighties and nineties. Every tour would be done at half-speed. And if her grandpa was unsteady on his feet, she imagined the other guys would be too. She pictured one of them falling, followed by a visit to the emergency room in a foreign country. What if someone had a heart attack? Or got lost? How would they even communicate?

  Then again, the stories could be interesting. There had to have been some close calls in battle. And then there were their experiences when they liberated the concentration camps. What did they think now, knowing their actions had saved the lives of thousands? Did they live each day knowing their actions continued to affect generations?

  As her mother talked on, Ava sat up straighter, another image filling her mind. She saw herself in Paris, in Germany, at the concentration camp with her grandpa, recording his stories. She could be a younger, hipper, female Steven Spielberg, bringing World War II to life through the memories of those who’d been there. Goose bumps traveled up her arms and she rubbed them. Her heart did a double beat, and she looked at the blank notebook, now knowing what to write under the word Ideas. Her pen m
oved across the page: Veterans. Battlefields. Sacrifice. Friends reunited—Grandpa’s and mine. Europe. Paris. Concentration camp. Remembrance.

  “‘The reunion concludes with a memorial service at Mauthausen concentration camp, where the veterans will be honored by the camp survivors,’” her mother continued to read. “‘Thousands return to Mauthausen every year to remember, to mourn, and to celebrate their freedom.’” Her mom cleared her throat. “So what do you think, Ava? Does it interest you? Have you ever thought you’d experience a piece of history like this?”

  “It sounds like an honor. I want to go, Mom.” She drew a heart around the word Paris as the words spilled from her lips. Anticipation bubbled up in her chest—the same feeling she’d had the night before Christmas or the morning of her birthday as a little girl.

  “Okay, I understand. I could ask Uncle Mike. I figured with your schedule—”

  Ava chuckled. “Mom, I said I want to go. I mean since you can’t. I’m sorry you have to miss it.” Ava rose and paced to the kitchen window with the view of the Seattle skyline, to her couch, and back to the dining room table again.

  This could be the story. This could save her job and restore her bosses’ confidence in her once again. Not to mention it would be something to get her mind off of Jay and their derailed wedding.

  “Well, I’ve already left a message on my brother’s cell asking him if he wanted to go. I assumed you couldn’t get off work. Or that you wouldn’t want to. I mean, it’s a group of old men.”

  “I think I can, if Grandpa doesn’t mind. Especially after our last confrontation…”

  “He forgives easier than you think, Ava. And knowing he’d have you there to travel with him would ease his mind. Grandpa’s concerned about my leg, but I can tell he’s even more worried about not getting to Europe. This is really important to him, and having anxiety at his age can’t be a good thing.”