Dust

by Eva Marie Everson

  Westley called for an ambulance from our bedroom, speaking words and phrases that grew faint as the room dimmed. I stood, my breath shallow, grabbed hold of the sink for support. But my legs, streaked with drying blood, had turned to jelly. Westley …

  He stood over me then, holding me up, chastising me for standing, for trying to reach the safety of him. But as he scooped me into his arms, he whispered, “I’ve got you, Ali. I’ve got you.”

  I closed my eyes and allowed the pain to sweep over me until I simply slipped away.

  There would be no babies.

  I woke, blinking into the bright hospital room I’d been in for three days and willed my tears to stay put. At least for as long as my mother and father sat in the hardback chairs against the baby-blue-painted wall.

  Baby blue …

  The irony.

  For days I had slept, especially once the narcotics had been administered—the ones that came after the surgery. The surgery that ended any chance, ever, of me getting pregnant. Ever again.

  I glanced toward the sleeper-chair where Westley sat looking up at the television, then followed his gaze to where Match Game ’82 flickered images into the room. “Match Game,” I whispered. More irony.

  Westley slid to the end of the seat. “Awake again, huh? You okay?”

  I nodded at him. “Yeah.”

  “Pain?”

  “A little.”

  “Thirsty?”

  “Yeah, but not enough to … how ironic that Match Game is on right now.”

  His smile was tender. “How’s that?”

  I gave him a weak smile in return. “The day you proposed to me …” I reached for the bed’s remote to raise the head a tad. “I watched Match Game while you pulled weeds.”

  Westley stood, then took the remote from me. “Not too high.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “I think they are all about three sheets to the wind,” Mama noted.

  “Probably so,” Daddy agreed, which brought a grin to Westley’s lips.

  “No doubt,” he said.

  “This is the last month,” my mother said as she placed the sweater she knitted into the sewing basket at her feet.

  I looked at her as Westley adjusted the sheet around me. “What?”

  “I read it in the TV Guide. This is the last month they’re gonna air the first-run series.”

  “Oh.” More irony …

  “Your mama loves the TV Guide,” Daddy said then. “Reads it cover to cover.”

  “You do the crossword,” she said back to him.

  “Yes, I do.”

  I glanced back at the television. “Who’s that?”

  Mama stood so she could see the screen. “Who?”

  “The man next to Brett Somers.”

  “Skip Stephenson.”

  “I don’t know him.” Then again, lately, if it wasn’t The Muppets …

  “He’s on Real People,” Mama said, returning to her chair and her knitting.

  “Oh.” I looked at Westley. “When will you get Michelle?”

  “After we get you home.” He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “She’s fine, Ali. Velma’s got her and you know how much she loves being with Velma.”

  Yes, I knew. I swallowed. “Did Cindie leave?”

  “On Sunday. I told you this.”

  He had, but I wanted to make sure. And more than anything I wanted to know if he’d told her the truth. About the surgery. About how I was only half a woman now. About how she would have it all, really.

  The education we practically paid for.

  And the little girl with her curls and Westley’s smile.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Daddy left the following day to go back home, but Mama was staying until I got back on my feet, which the doctor said would be within a few weeks. Mama being with me for so long brought both comfort and despair.

  The next day—a Thursday—Westley returned to work after dropping Mama off at the hospital. She entered my room with a vanilla milkshake from the new McDonald’s that had opened up on the outskirts of downtown, her basket of knitting, and a stack of get well cards bundled together in multicolored envelopes. “Which do you want first?” she teased. “The cards or the shake?”

  “Both,” I said, sliding up a little in bed and offering her a smile. The prospects of the milkshake having a cherry on top brightened my somber mood.

  “Have they had you up and walking yet?” She placed the shake and the mail on the rolling bedside table, then slid it over my lap. “Here you go.”

  I reached first for the drink, peering inside to fish out the cherry. “Yes, and it hurt like the dickens. Sometimes I think they took a hacksaw to me on that operating table.”

  “Well, get through it. They’re not letting you leave here until you walk enough and—you know—go to the bathroom.” She dropped into the sleeper-chair; it sighed softly under her light weight.

  “I know,” I said around the straw. Drawing on the shake pulled at my stitches, so I started spooning it with the straw.

  “Look at the top card.”

  “Let me just finish this first …” I said. “It’s too good to let it turn to soup and breakfast was awful.”

  “Soon we’ll have you home and I’ll make you a good breakfast like I used to.”

  Words—and memories—that brought another smile.

  Later, with the entire milkshake in my happy tummy, I slid the first card off the stack, read the return address, then looked at my mother. “Elaine?”

  “She’s gone and done it from what her mama told me. Said she would and she did.”

  I opened the card, my fingers quivering. “She couldn’t have …”

  The last time I’d spoken to my old best friend, she’d mentioned taking her hot-off-the-press diploma and heading west to the reservations to serve as a medical missionary. I’d laughed at her, reminding her that she had planned to bake on the beach for a while first. “No, no,” she’d said to me. “The beach for a few days, but …”

  “Come on, Elaine. You? A missionary?”

  “Yes, me. I’m serious now,” she’d said. “Serious as a heart attack.”

  “You are not …” I just couldn’t imagine Elaine doing anything so far above herself. A great girl and all, but …

  “If I’m lying, I’m dying,” she quipped.

  I opened the card, which included a child’s drawing of flowers growing wild under a golden sun. The words “Get Well Soon” had been scrawled in crayon along the top left corner. I turned it toward Mama who had already gone to work on her knitting. “Look,” I said.

  “Did she include a letter?”

  “She wrote in the card.”

  “Read it to me … if you want to.”

  I did and I didn’t. Elaine, of all people, working with the American Indians. Working, specifically, with American Indian children. Children. Little Miss “Let’s Live Life by the Seat of Our Pants” had actually started living for someone else. For something greater than herself. I almost couldn’t believe it, even with the color-crayoned proof lying in front of me, still half folded.

  “She says: Hey, Sweet One!” I looked over at Mama. “She’s never called me that before.”

  “Sounds just like her mama.” Mama’s needles clinked against each other in the familiar tapping of my childhood. “That’s what happens to daughters when they grow older. They start to sound like their mamas. I know I did.”

  Oh, dear Lord …

  “Bound to happen to you, too,” Mama continued as though she’d read my thoughts, her eyes on her handiwork.

  Maybe so. But who would it happen to after me?

  “She—um—says: Greetings from the Nizhoni Reservation in glorious northern Arizona. Nizhoni is the Navajo word for ‘The Beauty Way.’ Sounds like I’m working at some kind of spa, huh?” I looked at Mama again.

  “It does, I reckon,” she said.

  I took a deep breath. “Okay … some kind of spa, huh? But it’s not. I wish I
had enough room to tell you all about it, but I don’t so I’ll write you a long letter soon. I’ll even tell you how I was persuaded to move here (oh my gosh, you should see Sedona!) to work with these amazing people.” I paused. Swallowed around the words I saw coming. “I love you bunches and wish I were there to help you mend. Sending prayers.” I closed the card. “Elaine.”

  Mama didn’t miss a beat. “I declare I need to talk to Rose. I sure hope Elaine’s not going to take up with some strange religion while she’s out there.”

  I lay back against the cool of the pillow and closed my eyes, trying to picture Elaine holding Native American children. Comforting them when they were sick. Laughing with them when they were not. Reading to them … the way I read to Michelle.

  Michelle. Could I possibly miss a child more? “Mama,” I said, my eyes still closed.

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you know if Westley talked to Michelle?”

  “He called over there last night,” she answered, her needles still working. “I heard him saying prayers with her. Or his side of the prayers, anyway.”

  I smiled. “She’s so precious when she prays.”

  “Are you going to read the rest of your cards?”

  I shook my head. “Not right now,” I said. “I think I’ll nap a little while I can.”

  “You may need to try to get up and walk a little …”

  “I’ll nap, Mama,” I said, a tiny breath escaping my lungs. “Then I’ll get up and walk a little.”

  I woke when the candy striper brought my lunch tray in. Mama took that as her cue to go downstairs to the cafeteria where she’d eat the sandwich and a snack-sized bag of chips she’d brought from the house with her. But she’d order a cup of coffee to make herself look less conspicuous, she told me. Less … thrifty.

  After nibbling at the rubbery Salisbury steak, fairly decent potatoes with gravy, and canned peas, I devoured the chocolate ice cream that came in the little tub like those we’d had in school. The ones served with a stick-spoon. Done, I pushed the tray to the edge of the bedtable and reached for the second card, this one from Julie who had recently moved to Nashville after Dean was offered a new job. The job he’d always wanted, Julie had told me in a previous letter. This one at an impressive publishing house—the kind that puts out Bibles and such—working as an editor. Financially they’d hit pay dirt. In fact, everything for them seemed almost too good to be true. Two children. Another on the way.

  I opened the card, hoping Julie would not have included a new photo of my niece and nephew. As much as I loved them … as much as I loved seeing their cherub faces grinning up at the camera … I didn’t think I could bear their latest moments of life captured on film.

  Patterson

  He didn’t like what he was hearing.

  Not three days ago when he and Cindie had finally been able to meet up for a stolen hour, she had been all over him. Doted on him. Smothered him with kisses and hugs and everything that followed. Afterward, she’d sat in his lap, her head against his shoulder, and told him about her weekend with Michelle. About how she’d been late getting out of town due to the traffic—due to the late start, thanks to him she added with a giggle—but that she and her daughter had more than made up for lost time. She’d told him about her brother’s baby and mentioned, casually, how she wished—just once—she could take him to her family’s house way out in the sticks. He’d get a kick out of it, she’d said. Especially on Sundays.

  “And I’d love it if you could meet Michelle,” she’d added.

  “One day,” he said with a pat to her hip, cuddling her as if she, too, were a child. Knowing that the chances of his ever being in the same room with Cindie and her daughter were slim to nonexistent.

  She’d not once mentioned the father of the child, not even in passing. She rarely did anymore. But she had spoken of someone new to him, although not altogether unfamiliar. He knew Kyle Lewis, of course. He’d had the young man in a few of his classes. He was also aware that Kyle and his sister shared a place with Cindie. But Cindie had never spoken much about the young man. In fact, she’d made a point that the three of them rarely encountered each other.

  “Ships passing in the night,” she’d said, borrowing from the old metaphor.

  And then, today, as they lay burrowed under the bedcovers to ward off a late spring chill that had descended upon Atlanta, she nuzzled her nose into the curve of his neck and said, “Didn’t you tell me once that you like Fleetwood Mac?”

  He had nearly fallen asleep, but at the name of the band, his eyes opened. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

  “Kyle just got their new album. Have you heard it?”

  He prickled. Of course he’d heard it. He’d purchased it the moment it had become available. “Mirage. Yes.”

  “Kyle bought it last night and played it in his room. I couldn’t help but hear it from mine.” She flipped to her side and ran a hand up his stomach to his chest, then slipped her fingers through her tresses. “Do you think I look like Stevie Nicks?”

  His eyes caught hers and narrowed. “There’s a resemblance.”

  Her lips pursed. “Do you think she’s beautiful?”

  Patterson smiled. “Yes, I think she’s beautiful,” he said, which brought a sigh from her. “Why do you ask?”

  “Kyle said I look like her.”

  “Did he now? And when was this?”

  Cindie’s eyes widened. “Last night,” she said. “I just told you. When we were in Kyle’s room listening to the album.”

  “In his room?”

  “I told you.”

  Patterson pushed back enough to let her know of his displeasure. “No. You said that he played the album in his room and that you heard it from yours.”

  “Yeah … and then I went into his room and asked him if it was Fleetwood Mac.” She ran her fingers through her hair again, bringing it to rest along her shoulder until it cascaded over her breast. Blood rushed to his head, pooling there. “I’ve always liked their music and I remembered you saying that you—”

  He captured her then, bringing her close to him, pushing her back against the mattress.

  “Patterson, you’re hurting me—”

  His fingers clamped hold of her chin. “Listen to me, Cindie. I don’t want you in another man’s bedroom, you hear?” The tears that sprang into her eyes did little to soften his mood. The very idea of her … in a bedroom … with another man. A younger man. A single, younger man. “Do you?”

  “Patterson …”

  “I’m asking you a question,” he said, squeezing tighter.

  “Yes,” she whispered, her eyes filled with something he’d never seen before. Something he’d not meant to place there, so, as the blood began to dissipate, he wrapped her in his arms. Buried his face in the hair she had tempted him with a moment before.

  “Cindie, Cindie,” he moaned. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Words he half meant brought a torrent of tears from her. He shushed her, rocking her, kissing her until he thought she understood. “I just cannot bear the thought of you with another man.”

  She slid away from him then, sitting straight up, drawing the sheet to her chin. “That’s not fair, Professor.”

  He sat up, too. “What does that mean?”

  “I mean, it’s not fair. You are in another woman’s bed, every single night. But I’m not supposed to even listen to an album with my roommate?”

  “You knew about Mary Helen when we first—”

  “Yes, but … don’t you see? I was just listening to an album with Kyle. That’s all. But you and Mary Helen—I mean, you do it sometimes, don’t you?”

  Rarely. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time. “Leave my wife out of this.”

  She flung herself out of bed and reached for clothes that lay crumpled on the floor. “I gotta go.”

  Cindie leaving now—like this—frightened him. Tortured him, nearly. He couldn’t stand the thought of it, but at the same time he couldn’t have her stay with an upp
er hand. Nor could he deal with her living with Kyle Lewis another minute. Not after this. One foot in the man’s bedroom was one step closer to his bed.

  “We should think about getting our own place,” he said as she shoved her legs into her jeans and tugged at the zipper.

  She stopped for a moment, then reached for her bra … her sweater. “What are you saying?”

  “I’ll set you up in an apartment. A place just for us.”

  Cindie didn’t speak until after she’d pulled her long hair from the back of the sweater. “You just don’t want me living with Kyle.”

  He leapt from the bed—too quickly. She took frightened steps backward, her eyes darting toward the door as if she were looking for a means of escape. “Cindie,” he said, keeping his voice calm, wanting to regain control now more than he had even a moment before. He reached for his own clothes, draped across a chair. “Just think about it.”

  She found her way to the door. “I gotta go,” she said again, then shot out before he could stop her.

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow he’d send her a dozen roses. Long-stemmed. Pink. He rarely did things like that, and he knew she’d melt at the gesture. Then he’d wait a few days—a week maybe—before bringing up the idea of her own apartment again. Yes, that should solve everything.

  Piece of cake.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The first week of December 1987

  Allison

  “Michelle wants to wear her hair like the girl in Full House,” I informed Westley after the final touches of putting our daughter to bed.

  He raised his eyes from the boating magazine he had engrossed himself in. “What does that mean?”

  I dropped into my favorite chair—one Westley had decided would be just mine after we moved into our new home three years earlier—a comfy armchair, complete with a thick bottom cushion and tufted back. “Like Candace Cameron’s. The oldest daughter on the show.”

  Westley shook his head, his eyes filled with confusion. “I still don’t know what that means.”

  I reached for the library book that rested on an occasional table and raised my brow. “That’s because you don’t watch Full House with Michelle and me. She is absolutely in love with DJ Tanner.” I grinned. “The Candace Cameron character.”