A Life Without Water

by Marci Bolden

  “Spoon?” She creased her brow.

  He shrugged.

  She took the top off the urn and peered in, then frowned at him. “John. You used my silverware to scoop Katie’s ashes. We eat off those.”

  His cheek twitched. “Maybe not this one anymore.”

  She didn’t want to laugh, but a chuckle left her. “You are such a handful.” Bracing herself, she reached in for the spoon.

  “Slow and steady,” he advised.

  She met his gaze, holding his stare, before finding the courage to lift the spoon from the urn.

  Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

  And there. She was done. Ashes in the container. Top on the container. Top on the urn. Done.

  “Okay. That happened,” she muttered.

  “Good job. Are you ready?”

  She answered by pushing herself up and taking his chair outside, readying it for him. He met her at the stairs and eased down. He could walk, but his steps were labored and slow, even more so than the day before. For the first time, Carol was beginning to worry he wouldn’t make it back to Ohio.

  She didn’t tell him that. They had one more stop on the list after Mount Rushmore. One that she actually wasn’t dreading.

  The Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

  She hadn’t been back since they’d had a small family gathering to lay Tobias’s headstone. His mother had wanted him buried in the family plot, and Carol had no reason to disagree. That was six months ago. She missed her family.

  They didn’t know she was coming, though. She was going to have to make that call soon, and what a call it would be. Mary, her mother-in-law, would be supportive of what Carol was doing; she didn’t doubt that. She was still going to have to explain herself.

  “You’re smiling,” John said.

  She released the brake and looked up at him. “I need to call Tobias’s mother to let her know we’ll be in St. Louis in a few days.”

  “Am I going to meet her?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you will.”

  “Do they hate me?”

  “No. Nobody hates you.”

  “You hated me.”

  She shrugged. “Well, I was married to you.”

  Though he was growing weaker by the day, he still managed to laugh as she pushed him toward the monument entrance. She was happy for that. Too many times, people spent the last days of their lives sulking. While John had plenty to be bitter about, she was glad he was finding moments of light in the darkness.

  They took their time moving along the Avenue of Flags to the Grand View Terrace. This visit was bittersweet to Carol; she didn’t want to rush their time here. John seemed to have the same sense. Of all the places Katie had wanted to visit, this was the one that seemed most important to her. She’d stared at the pictures of this monument many times, mesmerized by how the faces had been carved in stone. She said she thought they must be bigger than anything else in the whole world. Carol hadn’t pointed out that wasn’t possible. She’d soaked in Katie’s wonderment and still carried it in her heart.

  When they made it to view the mountain face, her breath rushed from her chest. “There it is. Mount Hushmore.”

  “She never could get that right.” He held his hand out until Carol took it. When she did, he clasped her fingers tight. “This was it. This was the big one. The one she couldn’t wait to see.”

  Damn it. Carol didn’t want to cry. She’d spent so much time the last few weeks crying, but she had to blink away her tears anyway. “I think…I think she would have grown up to be a photographer. She would have traveled the world. We would have seen her pictures in magazines, and she would have called us to check in from places we’d never heard of. I’d have a shelf full of knickknacks from all her travels.”

  John sniffed and wiped at his face with his free hand. “That would have been something, huh?”

  “Yeah, it would have been.”

  “I think she would have been a nurse. Like her mom. Remember how she’d put bandages on all her toys and tell them how they were going to be okay.”

  Carol ground her teeth together in an attempt to control her emotions. “She was a great nurse.”

  She moved her eyes over every inch of the view before her, committing it to memory. She’d been there before, but this was different. This was special. This was for Katie, and she didn’t want to forget a thing. Before long, though, a crowd gathered and Carol pulled John’s chair from the railing.

  As she had at Devil’s Tower, she pushed him down one of the trails far enough away from the visitor’s center that sprinkling Katie’s ashes wouldn’t interfere with anyone’s happy vacation.

  “There.” John pointed to a spot off the trail where the sun was shining through the trees. “In the sun. Put her in the sun.”

  She parked his chair and squatted beside him as he rambled off the information he’d memorized for the moment—from Doane Robinson’s conception of Mount Rushmore to the time it took nearly four hundred workers to finish the sculpture with dynamite and a drilling technique called honeycombing. When he was done, Carol took a few steps off the trail to tap the contents of the container into the sunlight.

  “You made it, kitty cat,” she whispered. “Mount Hushmore.”

  Putting the bottle in her pocket, she joined John back on the path.

  He sat staring at the spot for a long time before looking up to Carol. “The Arch is the last stop. One more to go.”

  The finality of reaching the bottom of the list suddenly seemed too much to bear. When the list was done, the only place to go was Dayton. The only thing left to accomplish was helping John pass as peacefully as possible. “You ready to get back on the road?”

  Sighing, he returned his attention to the particles dancing in the sunlight. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do this and go home.”

  Home. Carol couldn’t believe she and Tobias had moved into their first home together. Standing in the empty living room of the second-floor apartment, staring out the large window, she smiled as he slipped his arms around her waist and rested his cheek against her temple.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “How lucky I am to have snared you in my trap.”

  He rocked her for a moment before holding out his hand. “Are you sure I’m the one who got trapped?”

  She inhaled at the shock of seeing a diamond ring sitting in his palm. Lightly touching the band, she assured that she wasn’t imagining the moment. She wasn’t. The ring was real. The apartment was real. Tobias was real. Despite everything she’d been through, she was standing in the arms of a man she loved more than life, looking at the future she’d always wanted.

  Her heart skipped a few beats, though. Because this moment, as wonderful as it was, had a shadow looming over it. Turning, she simply stared and the excitement in his eyes faded.

  “I know we’ve only been together a year—”

  “No,” she cut him off. “It’s not that. Tobias,” she started, and then stopped. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

  A hint of suspicion found his eyes. “Girl, if you’re about to tell me you’re already married—”

  “Divorced. It was final before we started dating.”

  His excitement returned. “Okay. That’s all right. We all make mistakes, Carol.”

  “We had a daughter.”

  That gave him pause.

  “Her name…was Katie.” Carol’s voice cracked. She hadn’t said her baby’s name out loud in so long. She blinked rapidly, but a tear still seared down her cheek. “She was six years old. I left him because…it’s his fault she died. He was a drunk. Still is, I’m sure.” She had to swallow hard. “I worked the night shift and one morning, when I got home…” A sob ripped from deep in her chest as she flashed back to what she’d seen. How she’d found her daughter.

  “Okay,” he soothed. Pulling her to him, he cradled her against his chest and dug his fingers into her hair. “Okay.” He exhaled slowly. “You
don’t have to tell me this right now.”

  Though they didn’t have a single chair in the apartment yet, Tobias scooped her up like she weighed nothing and dropped down. Sitting with his legs crossed, he snuggled her into his lap and held her until she stopped crying enough to breathe.

  When she leaned back, her eyes burned and her nose felt like it’d been filled with wet sand. “I wanted to tell you sooner. I couldn’t. I can’t…I can’t talk about it.”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay. I understand.”

  “She was just a baby,” she choked out.

  He pulled her back into his embrace and kissed her head. Stroking her back, he soothed her, told her how sorry he was, and assured her he loved her even more than before.

  Carol and Tobias had a huge wedding, mostly because his mother wouldn’t have it any other way. Mary was crazy about her son and was incredibly proud of the man he’d become. She accepted Carol into his life and his family without a moment of hesitation.

  When they were planning the wedding, Mary had made it a point to suggest ideas to include Katie. One pink rose had been added to Carol’s bouquet and the others were wrapped with one pink ribbon. The night before the wedding, at the rehearsal dinner, Mary gave her a necklace with a little pink heart pendant to symbolize the girl who was missing from the wedding party.

  Letting Tobias and his family in on her pain had been the first step to healing. Katie was never forgotten in their family. Every prayer included her name. Every Christmas a donation was made to honor her memory. Someone in her new family always remembered her even though they’d never known her. The sense of unity they’d brought to Carol’s life was like nothing she’d ever felt.

  She had always tried to hide things from her parents, from John, and even from Frannie and Mark. She was always lying and making excuses so they didn’t know how bad things were. She never had to do that with the Denmans. They had loved her and the daughter she lost long before meeting them.

  As she walked down the aisle to where Tobias stood waiting for her, she knew in her heart that Katie was there and was happy for all the little touches that brought her into this new family.

  Marrying Tobias truly was second only to the day Katie had been born. Carol couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day. She was so caught up in her own happiness, she was even able to forget that her parents sat rigid, looking completely miserable as their daughter married yet another man they didn’t approve of.

  At least they took the time to show up to this wedding. Then again, Carol realized during the reception, she would have been happier if they hadn’t. Not only had her mother treated her new brother-in-law like a waiter, but her father had refused to partake in the traditional father-daughter dance, reminding her that he didn’t dance…even for special occasions.

  Someone must have forgotten to tell the DJ that, because he announced it was time and Carol actually felt her father start fuming. She told him it was a mistake, but he glowered at her like she’d done it on purpose. No matter, though. Mary grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet and out to the dance floor. Everyone laughed—everyone except her parents. Halfway through the song, Carol was passed off to her husband.

  He kissed her head, hugged her tight, and gently rocked her. “I love you. You know that, right?”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Good. Can we agree that we never have to visit your parents? Like ever?”

  “I wasn’t planning on it. Ever.”

  He was too tall for her to rest her forehead to his, but she could put it to his lips, and he always kissed her when she did.

  “I’m sorry for them,” she said.

  “Don’t apologize.”

  “No, I mean, I feel sorry for them. Can you imagine being that cold all the time?”

  “Are they always this cold?”

  Peering back at them, she nodded. “Always.”

  “Well, it’s a damn good thing you found me, then.”

  “You have no idea.” Leaning into him, she nearly melted, as she tended to do.

  “Save it for the honeymoon,” someone called.

  Carol didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help glancing at her mother. The reaction—pure horror—was priceless. She giggled and burrowed back into the safety of Tobias’s embrace, knowing that he really didn’t have any idea how lucky she was. She knew, and she wouldn’t blow her second chance. She was older and wiser now. She knew what being a wife meant, how amazing it could be to be the second half of something. She was ready now. She was ready for this new life.

  His family truly had become hers. She would cherish them, and her husband, forever.

  Carol stepped out of the RV and under the bright stars. They were leaving from Rapid City in the morning and headed to more populated areas. An overnight stay in Sioux City, Iowa, would be the last before they made it to St. Louis.

  This was the last bit of real quiet Carol expected to have on this journey. John was sleeping soundly, finally. He’d been struggling quite a bit with twitching in his legs, which made it hard for him to rest. After she’d given him a higher dose of one of his meds, he’d eventually drifted off.

  The end was near. If the tumor didn’t take him soon, she figured he’d take her suggestion of swallowing pills. His depression was deepening. The long stretches of silence were filled with obvious contemplation on his part. He’d been staring down death for some time, and seemed to be coming to terms with it.

  He’d barely spoken during the day. When he did, he’d say something like, “remember when,” or “promise me that,” followed by something that never failed to surprise her.

  “Remember when Katie made pancakes for Mother’s Day?”

  “Promise me that you’ll have cake on my birthday, too.”

  Little things that he seemed fixated on throughout the day would pop from his mouth and she’d nod in agreement before he started thinking of something else.

  She was glad he was sleeping. She needed a break from him as much as she did from driving. Pulling out her phone, she checked the signal. God bless technology. Finding her mother-in-law’s name in her contacts, she connected the call.

  “Child, where have you been?” was the hello she received. “I’ve been worried sick about you. You aren’t answering your phone.”

  “Sorry, Mary. I’ve been out of range for most of the last week. I’m in Rapid City, South Dakota, at the moment, but I’m headed your way in the morning. Are you up for a quick visit?”

  “Quick? I haven’t seen you for months.”

  “I know.” She eased onto the seat of the provided picnic table. “I’m sorry about that. I was burying my head in work.”

  Mary’s voice softened. “I know. I know how you are. You work too hard. Always have.”

  “Listen, I’m not alone. Katie’s dad is with me. He found me in Houston.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “He’s dying, Mary. His last wish was to spread Katie’s ashes like we had planned all those years ago. That’s where I’ve been. Letting her go.” She blinked, surprised at the way her voice cracked. She didn’t think the reality could still hit her so hard after living it for the last twelve days.

  “Oh, baby,” she said, the sympathy in her voice causing Carol’s tears to fall. “Haven’t you been through enough this year?”

  She sniffed, wiped her cheek, then dried her hand on her shorts. “I’ve been through more than enough, but he’s sick. He’s incredibly sick. I needed this, too, though. I needed to face this. You were right. Tobias was right. I never processed my grief.”

  “But right now, Carol? You just lost your husband.”

  “I know.” She swallowed hard. “Oh, boy do I know. John doesn’t have time, though. He really doesn’t. He has a terminal brain tumor, and he’s starting to lose control of his body. It won’t be long now.”

  “That man put you through enough, baby. Your precious little girl…”

  She exhaled heavily. “You know, seeing him again after
all this time and looking back made it clear that he wasn’t the only one to blame. I wasn’t the best wife to him. I could have been a better mother to Katie.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Well, I do. I made mistakes, too, and I’ve got to let them go. She had a list of all the places she wanted to visit. We’ve been going through it. The last stop is the Arch. We’ll be there in two days, and we are two serious hot messes, Mary. Are you up for it?”

  “I’m here for you. Always and forever. You know that.”

  “Good. Because I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself together without a little help.”

  Thirteen

  Peace washed over Carol’s soul as she pulled into Mary’s driveway. Not only was she home, but there was a welcoming committee waiting for her. She’d recognized the cars parked along the street. They belonged to Tobias’s brother, his wife, and their uncle, Jerry. This scene had played out before when she and Tobias had stopped on their trips.

  Elijah, Tobias’s baby brother, jumped over the railing on the porch to guide Carol into the yard and under the trees where they always parked the RV. He waved her back, back, back, then put his hand up to stop her. She barely had the ignition turned off before he was opening the door. She unbuckled and hopped down into his arms. Like Tobias, Elijah was at least six inches taller than Carol, so her feet didn’t hit the ground until he eased her down.

  He muttered something about it being good to see her before pulling back and looking at John in the passenger seat. “Where’d you find that white guy?”

  “Be good,” she warned with a playful swat to his arm.

  He laughed before moving around the RV. Carol heard him introducing himself to John about the time Mary wrapped her arms around her shoulders. Tears came too easily to Carol these days, and sinking into the comforting embrace brought another round. She pulled back and wiped her face, mumbling an apology.

  “This is my thing now,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “It’s all I do.”

  “Because you’re putting yourself through hell,” Mary chastised.