To Be a Mother

by Rebecca Winters

  Waves of heat suffused her face at the memory. She quickly turned her head away, but feared Nick had read her mind.

  “Oh my gosh!” their daughter exclaimed again.

  “Oh my gosh” pretty well described Samantha’s emotions right this minute, but Jessica was referring to the large, heavy hutch, which came in two pieces. Samantha told the movers to set it up in the dining room. The bottom half was a bombé style with drawers. The top had been styled in an eighteenth century Flemish motif with glass doors and shelves. The painted exterior was an off white with tiny blue flowers.

  “It looks just like my wallpaper!”

  “Genes don’t lie,” Nick whispered from somewhere behind Samantha.

  “No,” she said, slipping a trembling arm around Jessica’s shoulders. “Blue and white has always been my favorite color combination. When I saw this in a furniture shop in Amsterdam years ago, I had to have one just like it. Wait till you see the blue-and-white Delft plates that go inside it.”

  Jessica literally squealed in delight.

  Next came the hand-carved, oval oak table and matching dining room chairs, then the living room furniture—two matching love seats, a coffee table, two easy chairs, end tables and lamps, all of light wood and white fabric in a contemporary design.

  The driver approached her. “We’re all through except for this last box, which isn’t marked.”

  “Those are some personal things that belong in my bedroom.”

  “I’ll take it.” Nick reached for it and disappeared, leaving Samantha with nothing more to do than sign the form.

  “Thank you for everything.”

  “You’re welcome, ma’am. It’s a beautiful house. What I’d give to live at the foot of these mountains.”

  She smiled. “That’s why I’m here,” she said before closing the door.

  Cory came running. “Mom said for you to come in the kitchen. She’s made a picnic.”

  “You’ve got the greatest mother in the world. Come on, Jessica. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving!”

  THE MASTER BEDROOM on the main floor featured a superb view of the Tetons. Nick’s gaze took in the Italian provincial decor. For a moment he focused on the queen-size bed Samantha had brought from Idaho, the bed she’d slept in alone all these years.

  His heart hammered in his throat. As if it were yesterday, memories of nights they’d spent in the bedroom of her father’s cruiser flooded through his mind.

  When he heard Leslie calling him to lunch, he turned his eyes away and pulled the last item from the box. Out came a black, leather-bound book. Curiosity took hold of him and he opened the cover.

  Sam had kept a journal. He knew he shouldn’t be looking at it, but he couldn’t help it. Sinking down on the bed, he opened it to the first page.

  Coeur D’Alene, Idaho

  February 7

  Today I found out I have cancer.

  Nick felt the statement slice through him like a knife.

  My doctor advised me to keep a journal to record my feelings. He said the process of writing them down would help to keep me sane.

  Sane? What’s that? I went to him for a pain in my ribs and was tested for a kidney infection. But some lab work revealed that my protein level was elevated. The doctor told me it could be related to a cancer called multiple myeloma, a disease I’ve never heard of.

  But he didn’t believe I had it because I’m only twenty-nine. The patients he has seen with this disease are normally in their fifties or older. I have to see an oncologist tomorrow for more tests.

  Like a person at the scene of a fire, horrified yet mesmerized, Nick turned to the next page.

  February 9

  I learned the horrible truth today. I have MM, a cancer of the body’s plasma cells. After reading about it, I looked at myself in the mirror a few minutes ago and can’t believe what’s going on inside of me.

  Plasma cells are present in the bone marrow and make up five percent of it. They are responsible for the production of antibodies when the body is dealing with infection.

  Cancerous plasma cells build up in the marrow, interfering with normal immune response. They invade and damage the bone, causing tumors to form. Myeloma cells travel to other parts of the body, causing further tumors.

  My mind keeps flashing back to a movie Nick and I once saw on video called Fantastic Voyage. A team of scientists in a miniature submarine were injected into the bloodstream of a human body through a hypodermic needle.

  I remember the frightening moment when the body’s alarm system summoned the antibodies.

  Nick was remembering that moment, too, but at the time he’d laughed.

  They began attacking the sub, sending it flying through the aorta away from the heart with the speed of an F-5 tornado.

  Right now I can visualize the insides of my own body turning traitor, releasing those dreaded myeloma cells. They’re going to fill me with tumors. It’s hideous, but the doctor says I’m not ready for therapy because they haven’t invaded my bones yet.

  He says I have to have a transplant sometime within the next six months to a year. For now I have to watch and wait for the disease to progress.

  All I want to do is cry. I can’t believe this is happening to me. I want normal back. I want everything back I’ve ever taken for granted. I want Nick. I want our baby.

  Dear God. Nick’s eyes closed tightly for a moment before he could bring himself to read on.

  February 11

  Today I’m trying to learn everything I can do to fight it. I’ve been reading about other victims who’ve pursued a number of alternative remedies—the most important being training in meditation and the martial arts. Imagine me learning martial arts!

  June 15

  The training has stopped me from going insane. For the first time in five months I’m feeling much stronger mentally and physically than I did before my diagnosis. I believe it’s keeping me from needing active therapy. The doctor thought I would need a transplant by now.

  Nick shook his head, marveling over her indomitable will. Riveted to every word of pain pouring from her soul, he digested the next few entries.

  August 20

  Today I learned my IGG protein is on the rise. I’ve been taking a conservative approach to the disease, deciding I would smolder as long as possible. But the time has come to start the treatment. I have no other option.

  Sam’s pain and fear drove Nick to his feet while he continued to read.

  August 23

  I’ve begun treatment using VAD and Decadron with Aredia.

  September 29

  I’ve had five ports installed into my superior vena cava. But they have no blood return and are infected. I feel like I’ve got the flu. I get a raging fever every time they give me another dose of Aredia.

  October 30

  The Decadron made me go into a dive after the last dose of the cycle. My hair is falling out. I’m so horribly fatigued and nauseated by the chemo. Thank God Nick can’t see me now. Thank God he was spared this.

  Great heaving sobs came out of Nick.

  December 3

  The doctor says I have a staph infection. He removed the Hickman port and put in a femoral line to collect my stem cells.

  January 10

  I’m so physically sick. But it doesn’t compare to the pain I suffered when I lost Nick and the baby in a matter of seconds. Those papers from Judge Sarkins stating that I’d given up all rights to Jessica brought me such exquisite pain, I’m surprised I’ve lived long enough to undergo this ordeal.

  Sam, sweetheart…

  February 4

  I’ve had my transplant. My doctor won’t tell me if the torture I’ve gone through has been for nothing because my protein level is still high and my IGG level is at 2750.

  April 21

  Because of possible exposure to infected people and germs, I’m still being forced to take a leave of absence from my job. I’ve been staying at Mom and Dad’s house while I get over this emotiona
lly and physically draining experience. They are saints.

  July 10

  My goal is to continue injections of Interferon and increase my physical therapy so I’ll feel stronger again. As soon as I can manage it, I’m going back to Coeur D’Alene.

  August 16

  I’m back at work. Marilyn May, a recovering breast cancer patient who’s been attending qigong with me, has talked me into joining the rowing club with her, through Northern Idaho College. It will provide me another outlet requiring a mental and physical discipline that I hope will help me think with more clarity on the job.

  September 18

  Everyone in the rowing class is great and tells me I look wonderful, but I see myself in the mirror. This thirty-one-year-old face and body have been through hell. Marilyn says I’m beautiful. She’s another saint. I love her better than a sister.

  My hair has grown back, a little thinner than before. I’m keeping it shorter to hide the white hairs creeping in among the red. At some point I’ll need to start using a rinse.

  October 16

  I’ve been back on the job for two months, working a law case for the Idaho Conservation League to ensure that the state and the Environmental Protection Agency enforce the Clean Water Act. There’s a specific drive to recover salmon and steelhead to the rivers polluted by the mines and other factors.

  This case reminds me of the many long talks Nick and I used to have about saving and preserving the wilds. His ideas have always had a great influence on me.

  Moisture bathed Nick’s cheeks. He came to the entry marked October 29. The date held particular significance for him, since it had been written two days before her phone call to him.

  By some miracle I’m still here. It appears my cancer has gone into remission. I just learned the news this afternoon.

  Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe it isn’t, but tonight the pastor of my church came to see me….

  His eyes could barely read the rest for the blur.

  Nick will either tear up my letter or hang up on me. No matter. I have to try, otherwise this life has made no sense at all….

  He wiped away the tears with the back of his arm. His biggest problem now was to face Sam and pretend he hadn’t trespassed on the secret part of her soul.

  Hurriedly he placed the journal in the bottom of the box before putting back the jewelry case and bedside radio she’d packed on top of it. After leaving it on the floor by the other boxes the movers had brought in, he left the bedroom.

  Before he joined the others, he needed to get his emotions under control. Using the entrance to the office down the hall, he let himself outside and breathed in the frigid air.

  Before, whenever he’d looked up at the Tetons, he’d always felt an accompanying loneliness that was at once awesome and inexplicable. It took Sam’s heart-wrenching outpourings for him to understand why.

  The realization that he hadn’t been the only traveller along the seemingly endless, solitary path of suffering brought healing to his wounds. Now his whole soul yearned to heal hers.

  He would wait until the next time they were alone. That wouldn’t be until her job interview was over, and her parents had gone back to Denver.

  Only a few more days, Kincaid.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A RECEPTIONIST CAME OUT of the attorney general’s office. “They’re ready for you now, Ms. Bretton.”

  “See you in a little while, Dad.” Samantha’s father had flown to Cheyenne with her to keep her company. She kissed his cheek before entering the conference room full of men.

  The attorney general invited her to sit down before he introduced himself and his two assistants, then the governor of Wyoming who was sitting in on the board in an advisory capacity, and the superintendent of Yellowstone and Teton Parks.

  “I understand you already know Pierce Gallagher, the chief ranger of Teton Park.”

  “Yes. It’s a pleasure to meet all of you.”

  “Everyone here has looked over your impressive résumé, Ms. Bretton. Before you came in, it was the consensus of the group that we find out why you would want to fill the new position being created as a special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General’s office in Teton Park. With your sterling credentials, you could go into private practice and name your price.

  “As you’re probably well aware, we’ve stipulated this is a lifetime career position. You’re thirty-one years old, which means you could give thirty-four years to this office. That’s a definite plus, since many of the programs in the park are ongoing and need continuity under one guiding hand.

  “On the other side of the coin, you’re young, attractive, single. Naturally we’re concerned that your plans could change. Can you give us any reason to help us not be concerned that unexpected circumstances might cause you to leave prematurely?”

  Samantha nodded. “That’s a very fair, understandable question. In the first place, I have a thirteen-year-old daughter who lives with her father, Nick Kincaid, the chief ranger for biological wildlife in Teton Park. I’ve bought a home in Jackson Hole to be near her, and plan to live there and work out of my office for the duration of my life. The only thing that would change my ability to keep working would be if my cancer comes back. I’m in remission and pray that I remain healthy.

  “As for my reason for wanting to serve the park, it was Jessica’s father who taught me about the sacredness of wildlife. His ideas influenced me to study the kind of law that would help to protect it.

  “Nick used to talk about the impact of machines in nature—aircraft overflights, for example—and how they endanger so many species of animals. Working for the Idaho Wildlife Federation, I’ve come to appreciate what he meant.

  “When you’re out in the woods, it’s the sound of silence that makes the forest such a desirable, even spiritual, place to be. Lovers of the outdoors expect to find that silence in our national parks. It’s my opinion the animals and the plants are God’s gift to man. It’s man’s obligation to take care of them. That means we protect them by removing any menace to them in the air, in the water, in the land.

  “Gentlemen, I would deem it an honor and a privilege to fight for their right to exist as creation intended, whether it be in Teton Park or elsewhere.”

  After she’d finished, there was such a long silence she worried that her admission about being a cancer survivor must have spooked them. But it didn’t matter. If she didn’t get the job, she was glad the money would be there for someone else to fight for the park.

  She would always be able to run her own law practice and continue the struggle for the preservation of the environment by representing private citizens and groups.

  To her surprise, the superintendent started clapping. Soon everyone joined in. The attorney general got to his feet. He looked around, then smiled at her. “It appears the vote is unanimous. Welcome aboard, Ms. Bretton.”

  Thank you, her heart cried. She was one step closer to Nick.

  “Thank you. I’m thrilled.”

  Samantha stood up and shook hands with each of them. When she came to Pierce, he squeezed her palm extra hard. “I’ll hug you later,” he whispered.

  “MARILYN? How are you feeling today?”

  “Better and better. At this rate I’ll be looking for a job in another few weeks.”

  Samantha moved the receiver to her other ear. “That’s wonderful! When you’re well enough for that, you’ll come stay with me to celebrate.”

  “I’m counting the hours!”

  “Do you think you can stand a little more good news?”

  “I already know you got the job.”

  “How could you have heard that? I just returned from Cheyenne with Dad a few minutes ago and haven’t told anybody but Mom.”

  “Hey—it’s me you’re talking to. Of course you got it, you silly goose! It was a foregone conclusion. What I’m waiting for is the big news.”

  “The kind you’re talking about may never come.” Samantha’s voice trembled.

&nb
sp; “Want to bet? If Nick didn’t want you around all the time, you’d be commuting to Tennessee on a limited basis instead of living in Jackson.”

  “That still doesn’t mean he—”

  “Oh, for heaven sake,” Marilyn interrupted. “You didn’t survive for nothing. Right?”

  There was no one in the world like Marilyn. “Right. Thank you for being the greatest friend on earth.”