Between Heaven and Earth

by Michele Paige Holmes

  The moon reflected off the bay on a rare, cloudless night in San Francisco. Sometime during the night, the fog would roll in, and Cassie anticipated that morning view just as much, when the towers of the Golden Gate would peak through the low clouds. But right now, she wished this view, and this night, would never end.

  Devon stood behind her at the window, his arms wrapped around her waist, hovering over the satin ties of her new robe, his chin resting near her shoulder.

  “Cass, that was—”

  “Don’t,” she stopped him. “Don’t try to put words to it. There aren’t any.”

  “Sacred,” he finished.

  Maybe that word. She hadn’t expected their union to bring her to tears, but when you loved someone so much— She turned in his arms and tilted her face up to his. “I love you, Devon. We’re going to have such a wonderful life together.”

  “I love you, too, Cass. Always. No matter what.”

  “No matter what,” she agreed. “Forever.”

  Nine Years Later

  “Go, Noah, go!” Cassie jogged alongside the soccer field, following her five-year-old’s progress toward the goal line at the end. Finally. The first three games of the season he’d shown little promise of having any of her or Devon’s athletic abilities. Noah had seemed almost afraid of the ball— and especially of the other players. In spite of all the times she’d practiced with him on her mom’s back lawn, Noah hung back when it came to playing with his team, seemingly reluctant to have anything to do with the game. But not now. She could see it in his eyes, had known the instant the thrill of the sport clicked for him.

  “All the way Noah!” she yelled, loving this moment, the way his top teeth were fastened over his lower lip as he concentrated, and the unskilled gait of his short legs.

  Another movement came into her line of vision. A set of hands reaching out, moving closer and closer— not outstretched to break an awkward fall as so often happened with these little kids, but to purposely push. The foreign hands made contact with Noah’s back, and Cassie’s moment of parental joy vanished, replaced by fear as she watched her son vault forward over the ball and land face first on the hard field.

  She raced toward him, blowing her whistle. “Foul. Foul. Foul.” She thought it, but it was the other coach’s voice she heard. She skidded to a halt on the still-dewy Saturday morning grass and dropped to the ground beside Noah.

  “Are you all right?” Gently she reached for him and turned him over, barely holding back a gasp at the sight of his bloody face. He was too shocked to even cry yet, but she could see the tears building, so after a hasty assessment that nothing appeared broken, she gathered him in her arms and carried him off the field.

  “You’re going to be okay, bud,” she spoke in her calm, mothering voice— a tone which most likely assured every kid with half a brain that things were definitely not okay. Her stomach lurched. Had he landed on his forehead? Did he have a concussion? Please, not his brain. She sent the urgent prayer heavenward.

  “Where does it hurt?” Cassie asked as the first tears began spilling over his rosy cheeks.

  “My m-mouth,” he sobbed.

  Cassie sat Noah down on the grass beside her mesh bag of cones and extra balls. She never bothered bringing a chair or a blanket, since she was the coach and never got to sit during the games. “Let me see.”

  She brushed the sweaty hair back from his forehead and was relieved to see only dirt and a few scratches instead of bumps or cuts. His nose appeared to be bleeding, though not badly. But his mouth—

  “Open up, bud.” He complied, and she glanced inside and felt instantly ill. Noah’s top front right tooth hung at an odd angle, and his bottom lip— swelling already— had a tooth-sized cut straight through it. Stitches?

  Noah caught her worried gaze and began crying harder.

  “It’s going to be fine,” she reassured him, knowing that fine would now entail some dental work. “Game’s over for you today, though.” Cassie leaned forward to lift him again. “Let’s go home and get you cleaned up and see what we need to do.”

  “I’m so very sorry. Is he going to be all right?”

  Cassie glanced over her shoulder. A man she didn’t know stood behind her, his hand clamped firmly on the shoulder of a boy wearing one of the other team’s jerseys. Her gaze lowered to the boy, though he wouldn’t look at her and stared at the ground instead. The perpetrator. She hadn’t had a second to think about the kid who’d done this to her son, but now that she did, a surge of anger surfaced. Lifting a still-sobbing Noah, she stood and faced the boy’s father.

  “Does he look okay to you?”

  The man studied Noah’s lip, then quickly looked away. He reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “I really am terribly sorry. I’m not sure what came over Austin.” He took a card from his wallet and held it out to her. “I’ll pay for any medical expenses. Please call me when you know what they are.”

  “Thanks.” Cassie met his sorrowful gaze briefly as she accepted the card. Her initial anger ebbed in the face of his kindness. His kid is only five, too. How malicious could he really be? Maybe she’d seen it wrong. Maybe the boy really had been about to fall. Wanting to believe the best of the child, she attempted to soften her expression as her eyes scanned the card. The Sacramento Kings logo was emblazoned across the top, followed by a phone number, below which were the words:

  Matthew Kramer

  Media Relations

  Noah buried his face in her shoulder and continued to cry. She needed to get him home and cleaned up and call the dentist.

  “Thank you, Mr. Kramer. I appreciate your offer and especially the example of taking responsibility that you’re setting for your son.” Thus far that son had remained silent. Cassie wondered at this, wondered why Mr. Kramer didn’t get his kid to apologize. She supposed she ought to be grateful he’d come over to speak to her at all. Too often these days, people simply didn’t seem to care. She shoved the card in her pocket and bent to retrieve her bag.

  Mr. Kramer beat her to it, quickly gathering her things and handing them to her.

  “Oh, the game,” she said, feeling suddenly foolish as she stared at the empty field. “It’s not even half over.”

  “Our coach called an early half-time,” he said. “I don’t think any of the parents minded.”

  “I’d better talk to him.” Cassie shifted Noah’s weight and tried not to think about the blood and snot mixture he was no doubt leaving on her shirt. What did a shirt matter when he was going to lose a tooth?

  Mr. Kramer looked past her. “Here comes the other coach now.”

  Cassie turned to him.

  He faltered as he took in Noah’s bloody mouth. “Is your boy okay?”

  “He will be,” Cassie said. “I’ve got to go get his lip and tooth looked at, though. Can you finish the game for me? I’m sure one of the other parents can step in and coach our team the last half.”

  “I can do it,” Mr. Kramer volunteered.

  “That’s very kind,” Cassie said, half-wondering why he was still hanging around, “but it’s probably better if I ask one of the parents from our team.”

  “She’s right,” the other coach said. He removed the baseball cap from his head and rubbed his temple as if he had a headache. “In fact, I was coming over to talk to you, Mr. Kramer. Austin’s behavior these past couple of games has forced me to a tough decision. I’m sorry, but for the safety of the other players, I’m going to have to ask him to leave the team.” The coach’s lips pursed in an expression of regret. “Maybe his counseling sessions will help, and he’ll be able to play next year.”

  “I understand.” Mr. Kramer sounded suddenly weary. “Let’s get that jersey off, Austin.”

  Feeling as if she were intruding on private family drama, Cassie turned to go but not before glimpsing the forlorn expression on the boy’s face as he raised his arms and the jersey was removed. He still hadn’t told Noah that he was sorry for hurting him, but Cassie could
see the sorrow in his eyes— the kind of sadness that involved something far deeper than an incident of pushing at Saturday morning soccer.

  Not my business or my problem, she told herself as she left the field. She had enough worries of her own, the most immediate of which was Noah’s mouth.

  “Can I have your frieth?”

  Cassie grinned as she leaned across the kitchen table and passed Noah what was left of her French fries. S sounds were going to be a bit of a problem for him for a while, with a hugely swollen lower lip and his top two teeth missing. An x-ray at the dentist’s office had shown root damage to Noah’s front left tooth as well, so she’d had to make the quick, painful decision to have both teeth pulled. It had not been a fun afternoon. The only consolation was that the pediatrician hadn’t recommended stitches in Noah’s lip, and Noah would have lost those two teeth anyway in a year or so. He’d just be without them a little longer now.

  She watched as he carefully navigated a fry over his swollen lip and between the gap where his teeth had been. She’d tried to talk him into skipping the salty treat and going out for ice cream instead, but Noah had a thing for fries, and she had promised him whatever treat he wanted when they were at the doctor’s facing the possibility of stitches. A mom had to keep her word, no matter how ill-advised this particular choice seemed to her.

  “Do you have thome more ketchup?” he asked.

  That lisp is pretty cute. “Right here.” She handed him her last packet.

  “Thankth.” He brought the packet to his mouth and went to rip it open with teeth that were no longer there. He stopped, frowning at her.

  “Can’t do that anymore, can you?” Cassie stood and began gathering their wrappers. “Guess you’re finally going to have to stop using your teeth to open stuff.” Another positive.

  “How am I going to play Legoth?” Noah whined.

  Cassie shrugged. “You’ll have to find that orange tool that pries them apart. And I suppose to find it, you’ll have to clean your room.”

  Noah leaned his head forward on the table with a sigh of dramatics that Cassie was sure used to be reserved for teenagers.

  She dropped the wrappers in the trash and came back to the table. “Here.” She took the ketchup packet from his fingers and ripped it open. “There’s always Mom if you’re stuck. Life won’t be that bad.” She ruffled the top of his hair.

  Noah dumped her remaining fries onto a napkin and arranged them side-by-side. Then he took the ketchup and slathered it across them in an s pattern. Just like Devon. A queer little pang— part happy, part sad— throbbed in her heart. It seemed to be happening more and more lately, the older Noah grew. When he’d been a baby, the similarities weren’t so noticeable. Sure, he had Devon’s blue eyes and that funny little cow lick on the front of his forehead, but there hadn’t been much else to compare. But now, somehow— even though Noah had never seen his dad eat fries or do any of the dozens of other things that were similarities she’d noticed— Noah was doing them the same as Devon always had.

  And will again someday, she told herself firmly. It was just a matter of time.

  Noah glanced up at her. “Do I thill get my dollar?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Did you score a goal?”

  He shook his head. “But I would have. If that kid hadn’t puthed me.”

  Silently she agreed, but out loud she chose to see what had surely been a bad parenting tactic to begin with through to its conclusion. “Sorry, bud. No goal, no dollar.” Exactly what Devon would have said if he were there. She always tried to think of that. Don’t turn our son into a wuss, she imagined him telling her, but at times like this, she wanted to go easy on Noah. It had been a traumatic day for both of them, and he was only five.

  She eased herself into the chair beside him once more. “You can try again next week. We’ll practice at Grandma’s, and you’ll be ready.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to play thoccer anymore.”

  She’d been afraid of that, had silently predicted it even but hoped she’d been wrong. “Just because you fall down once doesn’t mean you should quit.”

  “I didn’t fall. I was puthed.”

  “Okay. Just because you got pushed once doesn’t mean you should quit.” She reached over and stole back one of the fries. “We aren’t quitters in this family.”

  He looked down. “I don’t want to play.”

  “Well, think about it for a couple of days, and then we’ll talk again. I’m still the coach, so you’ll have to come with me to all the games. And I bet you’d have a lot more fun playing than sitting on the sidelines for an hour.”

  Noah didn’t say anything to this, and Cassie knew enough that it was time for a change of subject.

  “In the meantime, there might be another way to get a dollar or two so you’re that much closer to being able to buy that new Lego set you want.”

  He looked up, the hope in his eyes restored just that fast. “How?”

  Oh, to be five again. “Those teeth you lost today might be worth something.” She mentioned this casually, as if she hadn’t been waiting all day for the subject of the tooth fairy to come up. For the first few weeks of kindergarten, that was practically all she’d heard about from him— who’d lost what tooth in class and got to have a prize at school and put a tooth sticker on the bulletin board, and what the tooth fairy had brought those kids, of course.

  Just now, Cassie felt grateful for those conversations and all the advance notice they’d provided her. She was ready for this and had a stack of crisp new one dollar bills, all painted with a thin coat of fairy dust— glitter— just waiting in the back of her nightstand drawer.

  “The tooth fairy!” Noah jumped up from his chair and practically ran from the room.

  “In here,” Cassie called to him as he raced toward the hall. “Your tooth treasure box is on the counter.”

  He raced back to collect it. At the end of his appointment and extractions, he’d been too groggy to appreciate such an item, but now he clutched the little plastic box in his fist as if it were made of gold. “Do you think the tooth fairy will let me keep thith?”

  “I’m pretty sure,” Cassie said. “But we’ll write her a note just to be safe.”

  “Thanth, Mom.” Noah grinned at her and another one of those part happy, part sad pangs struck her heart. The gap left in the place of his baby teeth made him look somehow older. He was getting older. Sending him to kindergarten had just about killed her, but she had to face it. Noah was growing up.

  And Devon was missing it.

  Cassie put her phone on the counter but continued to stare at it long after she’d ended her regular evening call to the care center. Instead of feeling guilty that she wasn’t with Devon— as she usually felt six nights a week— her mind was wandering. Silently she scolded herself but still couldn’t rein her thoughts onto their usual path. Instead they kept returning to an idea that she couldn’t seem to dismiss. A really crazy, possibly stupid idea that she couldn’t stop thinking about.

  It had come to her while eating ice cream and snuggling on the couch with Noah while they watched the movie her mom had brought over Sunday— Air Bud World Pup. Grandma’s attempt to get Noah excited about soccer again had been a good one, but it wasn’t enough. He was scared to play, scared of getting hurt. It was a pretty normal reaction for a five-year-old and not the end of the world, but lacking the courage to face something after a traumatic experience could have repercussions in the future. Noah had enough things stacked against him already, growing up without a dad as he was. Cassie really didn’t want the soccer/teeth incident to grow into something more and lasting.

  She racked her brain, thought back to the child psychology classes she’d taken in grad school, and mostly put all her mothering instincts and intuition to work. There had to be a way to help Noah get over his fear, to get him back on that field. Though what she’d come up with was an iffy proposition at best, it might work.

  Her phone rang, vibrati
ng against the counter, jarring her from her thoughts. She glanced at the screen and did a double take, then felt her own throb of nerves as she recognized the number— the same one she’d been staring at on the business card for the past several minutes.

  Why would he be calling me?

  She picked up the phone and answered on the fourth ring before it could go to voicemail.

  “Hello.” Her voice sounded strange and wobbly. She grabbed her glass from the counter and took a quick gulp of water.

  “Hello, Mrs. Webb?”

  “Yes. This is Cassie.” Hardly anyone outside of the kids at the school called her Mrs. Webb. That had been her mother-in-law.

  “This is Matt Kramer. My, uh, son hurt yours at the game last Saturday.”

  “Yes. I remember.” She tried not to sound unkind but wasn’t sure she was entirely successful. Remembering the look on his son’s face, she knew Mr. Kramer had his parental hands full, too. It was part of the reason she’d come up with such a scheme. Instead of feeling angry at his son, as motherly instinct deemed she ought to, Cassie couldn’t seem to forget the forlorn expression she’d seen in the boy’s eyes. Maybe this could help him, too.

  “I was wondering how your son is, if you were able to get his mouth all fixed up,” Mr. Kramer asked.

  All fixed up was debatable at this point. Noah would probably always have a scar on his lower lip where his tooth had cut through, and who knew how long it would be before he had front teeth again.

  “He had to get his two front teeth pulled,” Cassie said.

  “I am so sorry.” Mr. Kramer’s voice rang with such sincerity that she rushed to assure him that the teeth would have come out in the next year or so anyway. His relief was a nearly palpable thing through the phone.

  “I meant what I said about paying any medical expenses. Whatever your insurance or your husband’s insurance won’t pay, I’d like to cover.”

  Cassie glanced at her wedding ring. Of course Mr. Kramer would assume that she had a husband— in the normal sense, that is.