She paused, gathering herself. “And you know what? I do need Hayden.” Her voice trembled, and she looked up at them with tears in her eyes. “We were making a life together and now part of me is gone, and I miss him.” Her face crumpled and tears spilled over. No one moved. She looked at Jude and said through her tears, “You know why he left? It wasn’t about having a baby at all. He said he was leaving because I was becoming just like you.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “But I’m not going to become like you. I’m not going to try to cheat Hayden out of the house for the money.”
Jude said in a very controlled voice, “You won’t have to. I made a new will and I’m leaving you mine. You can evict William.”
Rain blanched. “Mom, no!”
“It’s already done. One of the partners came to the house and it’s in their hands now. Do with it what you like before I change my mind and leave it all to some charity.”
Rain turned abruptly and stumbled in her haste to leave. She went down the hall and they heard her door quietly close.
Bebe gave Rain an hour alone and then gently knocked on her door. Rain reluctantly let her in and told her to shut the door. When she asked Rain how she was feeling, she just curled into her afghan like a little child.
“Rain,” Bebe began, not knowing exactly what to say, “I’m sorry you thought I had an abortion. I wish you had told me.”
“What good would it have done?”
Bebe rubbed her temple. “I don’t know. Maybe none. But who knows?”
Rain spoke into her pillow with her face turned away from Bebe. “They tell you that it’s not a baby, it’s just a procedure. They expect you to get over it and move on, and you believe it because you want to, but . . . later it comes back to you. What you did.”
Bebe smoothed Rain’s dark hair away from her face. “I know. That’s the reason I kept the miscarriage from your mom. I just wanted to forget about it and pretend it never happened. But I never could. The choices I made had the same result as if I had gone through with it.” Feelings of loss sprang to her, sharp and lucid. “I’ll never really know if I would have gone through with it or not.”
Bebe felt that her past was a ribbon of old highway, broken and rutted by the heavy load she carried, slowing her progress, the journey shaking her to her very core.
Rain lay very still. “Bebe?”
“Yes?”
“Is this God’s way of punishing me? Maybe I don’t deserve to have a baby.”
Bebe’s throat ached. “He doesn’t do that, Rain. He cries with us. Did you know that?” She swallowed hard and rushed ahead before she had a chance to think. “I felt the same way when I had those miscarriages. I worried if they happened because of the things I had done. But the truth is, I think I’m the only one who hasn’t forgiven me yet.”
Silence fell between them, and Rain reached over and took Bebe’s hand. “I shouldn’t have told Mom what Hayden said. I shouldn’t have said half the things I did.”
Bebe sighed. “Maybe it needed to be said, Rain. It might help you both find some closure before . . . while she’s still able. Maybe you can even find a way to forgive her.”
Rain turned her head away and let go of Bebe’s hand without responding. Finally, she said, “Somebody needs to check on her. It’s been three days. She might need a new patch.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of it.” Bebe moved to the door and paused. “We’ll leave as soon as we can get everyone moving in the morning.”
Rain didn’t answer, and Bebe shut the door behind her. She stood in the hallway down from Jude’s room, debating with herself. It was no use. Toni wasn’t the nursing type, and Mare would get eaten alive. Bebe knew she would have to be the one to help Jude.
She knocked briefly and went inside, closing the door behind her. Jude lay on her side looking frail and haggard, and with her face drawn in pain. Bebe wasn’t even sure if she was awake, until she spoke.
“So she sent in the reinforcements.”
“She’s gone to bed. I came to see if you needed anything.”
Jude closed her eyes and sighed. “I need help changing my patch. There’s one in my case in the bathroom.”
Bebe retrieved the patch among the medication bottles and followed Jude’s directions, flushing the old one when she was done. She washed her hands and came out, drying them on a hand towel.
Jude breathed deeply, relaxing with the medication. Bebe was just slipping out, and she paused when Jude spoke.
“You could have kept the baby, if you’d wanted to. I kept Rain, and we survived.”
Bebe looked at Jude, lying with her eyes closed and her head on the pillow.
“I know. It wasn’t your choice. It was all mine.”
The mood was somber as they packed up the cars the next morning, keenly aware of the fact that they had made no plans.
Bebe found Jude gazing out the sunroom windows at the horizon and the ocean below, and came to stand beside her.
“When we get back, I’m making arrangements for a cremation. When the time comes, I want you all to scatter my ashes.”
Bebe watched a gull dive out of sight below and rise again. “If that’s what you want. Any preference where?”
“San Francisco Bay. It just seems like a natural thing to do.”
Bebe felt sadness at the thought of Jude’s death. What must it feel like to be at the end of one’s life, and be confronted with so many mistakes and bad choices? Would they overshadow the good? Would Jude remember the single moms for whom she helped to find housing or jobs, or to escape from domestic violence, or would she dwell on her past mistakes?
“We’re all packed,” Toni called from the kitchen. “I left a nice tip on the counter for the cleaning service people.”
They loaded up the cars and headed out, locking the gate behind them. Before they left town, Bebe pulled over for gas and they waved as Mare and Jude passed them by.
Once on the freeway, Bebe found a radio station to fill the quiet. Toni sat in the front passenger seat, and Bebe resisted the urge to glance back at Rain in the passenger seat behind her. They dropped Toni off at her house and continued on in silence.
Bebe and Rain stopped in Stockton for lunch and got home in the early afternoon. She didn’t ask about Jude or comment on anything that took place over the weekend. Bebe hated to leave her alone at her house without giving her a chance to debrief.
When she got home, Bebe called Neil at the clinic and told him she’d gotten back safely. He asked how the weekend went, and she said it went about as expected.
Neil was late getting home again. They had advertised for another large animal veterinarian to share the load but the field wasn’t quite as lucrative as it was for small animal vets, and they’d had no response.
They caught up over Chinese takeout that evening, and Neil’s only comment was that he was glad he hadn’t been invited. He told her that he’d been able to meet with Hayden for coffee while they were gone, and he agreed that Hayden’s reasons for leaving were complicated. His decision to move out hadn’t been an easy one, and Neil felt it would take divine intervention to change Hayden’s mind. One ray of hope, however, was that Hayden mentioned that he’d started occasionally attending his brother’s church.
He also said that he’d spoken to Scott about the graduation on Friday.
“We’ll just fly down and back the same day. Apparently the ceremony is not quite the production as the first one. I don’t know if he’ll be able to catch the same flight back with us or not.”
“Did he have anything else to say?” she asked.
“He’s ready to come home. It doesn’t seem like the Christmas season to him.”
“He didn’t mention the clipping?”
“Nope. Honey, I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Bebe unpacked and climbed into bed with a book to unwind, but found it impossible to focus on the story. The weekend had been mentally and emotionally exhausting, and portions of it played over and over in her
mind, refusing to let her go.
The worst of it had been in finding that Rain had had an abortion because of her example. Bebe’s silence had done that. All those years she’d prided herself on being a better mother to Rain than Jude had been, but that lie, that omission, that untruth had caused Rain to make a choice that led to guilt and pain. Bebe had ultimately failed her.
In some ways, the weekend had been doomed from the start. At the best of times, the dynamics between the roommates had been unpredictable—a tangle of personalities and problems, expectations and disappointments—with Jude at the core.
Bebe wondered if Jude was truly unaware of the stress she’d caused Bebe and Neil over the years as they walked a tightrope strung across Rain’s childhood and adolescence, trying to plant themselves firmly in Rain’s life while avoiding anything that would offend Jude and cause her to deny them contact. It was tricky, sometimes boggy ground to cross, and Bebe sensed that Jude enjoyed watching them try to navigate it. Bebe felt that, to a lesser degree, the same went for Mare and Toni. If it hadn’t been for Rain, they all might have given up contact with Jude years before.
When Bebe reflected on the weekend, she wondered if Jude had been fully aware of the potential for turmoil and had set herself up. Perhaps she wanted to feel something—anything—at the end of her life.
The things Jude had said about Bobby, were they true? Bebe couldn’t deny that she had depended on him growing up, even deferred to him at times. And then, suddenly, he wasn’t there anymore. Did she move away, or did he?
On impulse, Rain pulled back the covers and went to the jewelry box on her dresser. She dug around amid her earrings and bracelets until she found her silver chain with the cross that Neil had given to her when Scotty was born. She dug further beneath her grandmother’s pearl necklace and found the small ring with the amethyst stone. It caught the light and splintered into shades of purple. Sometimes it was the color of table grapes—sometimes the color of the sun through a bottle of merlot.
She had removed it from her finger on the day that her brother Rudy called to tell her that Bobby had come home to the Oakland Terminal to a crowd of bloodthirsty protestors and that he didn’t want to see her. But she was his sister, and Rudy thought she deserved to know that Bobby had gotten home safely, and was being discharged from the army.
She unfastened the clasp on the necklace and threaded the chain through the ring. Then she slipped the chain over her head and tucked the cross and ring into the front of her nightgown. She crawled into bed and fell into an exhausted sleep.
Dylan had to work over the weekend, and would drive home for Christmas break on Monday. She had time to throw together some of their favorite Christmas goodies before then.
On Friday, she and Neil flew down early to San Diego and rented a car to drive to Camp Pendleton. She was torn between wanting to see Scotty so badly, and fearing that he might act differently toward her. The ceremony was inspiring, but more abbreviated than the one in October with fewer attendees, and they were only able to speak briefly with him before he had to rejoin his platoon. He looked so handsome in his service bravos. He hugged her tightly and on the surface seemed to be his old self, except that he hesitated to meet her eyes. He said his flight wasn’t leaving until early evening and would get in about ten o’clock. They took down his flight information and said they would meet him in Sacramento.
They flew home, did some Christmas shopping, and had dinner before going back to the airport to wait for his flight. He arrived hungry, so they picked up his gear and ran through a fast-food restaurant on the way home.
He said the house and the Christmas tree looked great, and dropped off his bag in his room. He came out to the living room and slouched in the recliner as though he’d only been gone for an afternoon, slipping off his shoes and grabbing the remote. Bebe felt like she was walking on eggshells, but she decided to give him some time to come around on his own.
They went to church together on Sunday. Bebe was hoping that Rain would go along, but she declined. Bebe invited her to come with them to her parents’ house as usual for Christmas dinner, but Rain surprised her by saying that William had invited her over for dinner, and she thought she should go.
“Does he know how the weekend went?” Bebe asked her.
“As much as Mom would tell him. He wants me to fill him in sometime.”
“Have you spoken to her yet?”
“No, and I have no doubt that it will be awkward.” She hesitated. “I don’t think he knows about the house, either. She’s probably leaving it up to me to tell him.”
The sadness and hurt in Rain’s voice was palpable. “Are you doing okay?” Bebe asked.
“It’s the holidays and Hayden’s gone and I’m not pregnant and my mother is dying. I don’t think I’m okay.”
Bebe felt stung, and realized how insensitive her question had been. “I’m sorry, Rain. I just don’t know what else to say, except that I love you and I want you to be happy again.”
She was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry. None of it’s your fault.”
Bebe was about to say good-bye, when Rain asked, “Did I tell you I was offered a job promotion?”
“That’s good news,” Bebe said.
“It was offered to me because I’m passive-aggressive, but in a good way. They want me to bully people to do what they want, because I’m good at it.”
“That’s not true, Rain. Surely they didn’t mean it that way.”
“That’s my paraphrase, but that was the feeling I got.”
“Are you going to take it?”
“I don’t know yet. It involves longer hours and travel twice a month. That doesn’t exactly work in with my plans—if my plans even have a chance.” She cleared her throat and rushed ahead. “I have to go. I promised Lisa I’d go Christmas shopping with her. She thinks I need some cheering up.”
“How much does she know?”
“She knows Hayden’s gone, and she knows about Mom. That’s all.”
They both signed off and Bebe went back to her holiday preparations. She couldn’t shake off the feeling of disappointment about the past weekend, and the fact that it was a failure, as far as Jude was concerned. She called Toni and expressed her concerns.
“I think we did what she asked,” Toni said, raising her voice to be heard over background noise. “We tried to agree on something, but it just didn’t work.”
“I wish we could leave it at that, Toni, but you know we can’t. For Rain’s sake. And the truth is that I don’t want Jude to leave this world feeling unloved and unappreciated.”
The noise level on Toni’s end droned on, but she didn’t respond.
“Where are you?” Bebe shouted.
“Tahoe. Right now, I’m in the lounge waiting for Lawrence. I promised to let him play in the casino for a while after we shopped.”
“So, what can we do?”
“I’m really drawing a blank, Bebe, but maybe something will come to me.”
Bebe frowned. “Call me after Christmas. I don’t think we have much time left.”
Next she called Mare, who was taking care of her grandchildren.
“I know, the weekend was a total fiasco,” Mare said. “Jude was a bear on the way back.”
“I felt bad that you got stuck taking her home. But I didn’t feel like the weekend was a total waste.”
Bebe could hear the smile in Mare’s voice. “No, it was fun. At least the parts when Jude stayed in her room.”
“We have to do something, and I feel like time is running out. Will you promise to think about it?”
“Sure. I’ll call you after Christmas when Autumn’s kids have a week with their dad.”
Bebe prayed about what to do for Jude, but her own problems kept interfering. She ruminated on them when she wrapped gifts, and when she shopped for her Christmas dinner contributions, and when she wrote Christmas cards.
She resolved to let it go until after the holidays, and they all sat down one night t
o watch a Christmas movie together. In the middle of the movie, she heard a beep, and Scott checked his cell phone.
“Who is it?” Dylan asked.
“Uncle Bobby. He’s coming Thursday.” He texted back. “He’s bringing Angie.”
“From San Diego?” Dylan asked, with his mouth full of popcorn.
“Yeah,” Scotty answered, slipping his phone back into his pocket.
She stole glances at Scotty during the movie. He looked so grown up with his face etched and his hair in its military high and tight buzz. She yearned to know what his response was to her letter, but loathed ruining Christmas if his answer was not what she wanted to hear. Now, she had the additional worry about Bobby showing up at her mom’s on Christmas Day.
She had taken the week off from the clinic to bake and shop and relax, which was impossible, and before she knew it, Christmas Eve had arrived. She had tried to meet Rain for coffee, but she begged off, which wasn’t like her. She left a message for her to come over on Christmas Eve, but got no response. Bebe wondered if Rain had done some thinking about the weekend and was disappointed in them all.
On Christmas morning, they finally had to force the boys out of bed at nine to open gifts and get going for the day. What a change from the 4:00 a.m. wake-up calls the boys used to give them when they were little, Bebe thought.
Neil read the nativity story from the Bible and they opened their gifts. It was a pleasant morning, and it seemed almost normal to Bebe. They got ready and packed up the dessert and squash casserole she’d made, and headed out.
Raising Rain Page 28
