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“No, you’re right. You won’t. You’ll be confused and scared and not know where you are.”
“And I won’t know those things even if I were here at home. When my time comes and God calls me home, your father will make sure that I understand that you did everything that I asked, and he’ll remind me that I gave you permission to do that. I love you, Maggie, and I do not want you to hold back on life because of me. Jump and grab life with both hands and hold on. That’s want I want you to do. Will you promise me that?”
I hesitated, but I told her yes, I would do that.
Now six years later, I was seriously contemplating that promise. Could I do that? Could I turn my back on my mother for my own personal agenda? Oh, I wanted to, but when push came to shove, could I be that selfish? I wasn’t sure.
If Mom didn’t have as many good days—well, more like hours—as she did, it might have been an easy decision, but she was still alright—sometimes—once in a while. Would Jake keep the option open for me for a little while?
Something told me that if I didn’t take him up on this offer now, he’d find someone else to do it. Jake didn’t strike me as the type of guy to be patient; he was crazy intense, and his mind was lightning fast.
I was going to have to see how this trip went. I’d already reached out to the head of the nursing home where my mother went for day-care programs. This wasn’t the first time that I had put her into a facility for a short period. A couple of years ago, I’d gone on vacation with friends, and Mom had gone in for a week. Now I was working on scheduling her for up to two weeks. Maybe I could consider this a trial of sorts. See how she did, and how guilty I felt.
“Mags, you there?” Greg’s deep voice broke through as he spoke my name.
“What?” I glanced at him quickly as we started to bank a turn, and Trevor dropped back behind us.
Greg chuckled. “I asked you how you were doing.”
“Oh.” I smiled at him. “I’m fine. I told you, I usually try to run eight to ten miles a day.”
“That’s good, shows you have stamina.”
“Yeah, I do. You know, if you guys want to up the pace a bit, I’m good with that.”
Greg held his hand out. “The pace is all yours. You set it, and we’ll keep up with you.”
“Great,” I told him and quickened my speed a little bit. Neither of the two men had trouble keeping up, and before I knew it, we were back in the parking lot of the training facility for Safety Zone Security.
Trevor let us in, and Greg retrieved water. We took a few minutes to cool down, but before I had even stopped sweating, Greg and Trevor were setting up the obstacle course in the middle of the warehouse. It took them a while, and I took advantage of the time to stretch my muscles, breathe deeply, and tell myself I got this.
“You’re going to run this a few times, and we are going to time you. We expect people to do it in under two minutes.”
I scanned the warehouse floor. “That’s easy.”
Trevor snickered. “Yeah, maybe if you aren’t wearing an extra fifty pounds.”
“What?”
Greg reached into a closet and pulled out a military vest that had bulging pockets. “We’ll be nice and take off ten pounds for you.”
Well, damn. I wanted to tell Greg to leave it, but I wasn’t sure I would even be able to complete the obstacle course with the forty pounds. I glared at the offending vest. “Let’s give it a try.”
Greg brought the vest to me and helped me get it situated over my shoulders. After a five-mile run, that I had kind of pushed to prove to them that I could do it, the extra forty pounds almost made my knees shake. Ugh, maybe I shouldn’t have pushed it so hard. They could have said something about wearing a forty-pound vest!
Greg secured it around my torso, tightening the straps, and then he yanked on it to see if it was tight. I lost my footing and started to fall toward him, but I shot my hands out before I could come in contact with his body. My palms planted firmly on his very defined and sweaty chest.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to do that quite so hard,” he said huskily as we stared at each other for a moment, and then a smile exploded over his lips.
Yeah, he totally meant to do that. Didn’t they say they were going to put me through the paces? If I knew Greg, he was going to make sure I failed so I couldn’t go with him. He’d find some reason to show that I wasn’t strong enough, fast enough, or fit enough to do it.
I was going to prove him wrong. I patted him condescendingly on the chest as I turned away. “Yeah, sure.”
I shifted the vest around a little bit, rolled my shoulders, and walked in a circle, getting the feel of the substantial addition to my body weight.
Trevor approached. “We’re going to put a helmet on you too. We don’t need you bonking your pretty little head on something.”
“Aw, thanks for thinking of my head as pretty, but I know you’re lying your ass off, especially right now.”
