I wanted to ask why they were doing this when it was so obvious that Mom might not survive the month, much less make it until Christmas, but when I saw the contentment on her face as she insisted on sitting on the porch to watch it all, I knew. Because they wanted to show her they cared. They wanted to show us.
Quinn the Couch Man came to help, too, and he brought a dryer, which no one else had thought of, or at least not that I knew. I hugged him and thanked him because I was more than tired of hanging out clothes on the line. He wiped at his eyes and mumbled something about KSL, whatever that was.
When the day of my baptism arrived, Mom was able to attend, though Bishop Rushton—who I was now calling Dante—had to bring a wheelchair to take her into the church. Travis had volunteered to baptize me, but I wanted Dante to do it. I guess I felt it would stick more, or something, since he was the bishop.
After I came out of the water, I felt light and wonderful. For that moment, I was clean. It was as if I’d never said or done anything mean or tried smoking out behind the school. As if I had never shoplifted. Warmth filled my heart, every last inch, until I felt so full I wanted to shout and laugh and sing as loud as I could.
Warmth.
Ah, Mom. Now I understand.
After I changed my clothes, everyone waited to congratulate me. Travis was second in line after Allia. “I want you to know,” he said in a low voice as he hugged me, “that I’ll be here for you, like I am for the other kids. If you ever need me to tell some guy to leave you alone, or want a ride somewhere, or just to talk, you let me know.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I hugged him again.
Behind him I could see other people lining up to greet me, even Monty and his friends from school, Allia’s friends, who were now mine, and the kids from the ward. Not just the kids but also the ladies who’d been coming to stay with Mom and the men who’d helped paint. I’d never had so many people attend something just for me, and seeing them all brought me to tears.
Shyly, I bypassed all of them and ran straight to Mom. She leaned forward and hugged me as I knelt before her chair. “This is why I brought you here,” she whispered. “This is why I should never have left. Kyle, don’t do what I did. Don’t leave them. Even when you go away to New York, find a ward there. We all need a family like this. It’s God’s plan.”
“I will, Mom. I promise.”
“Remember, there’s always a way back. Always. Everything for you begins today, and I know you’re going to do great.”
Her confidence buoyed me.
“Blink hard a few times,” she added. “That’s good. Now go let everyone congratulate you.”
So I did.
Chapter Forty-Three
Rikki
The week after Kyle’s baptism, Becca arrived at my house on a Saturday afternoon as Quinn was leaving. Quinn was a regular visitor, and as he dipped his head toward her in acknowledgment, my heart went out to him. He looked so sad. Though he knew we had no future, he still continued to visit me, and his presence brought me a lot of joy.
“Good day, huh?” Becca said.
I was sitting on the couch, which always signaled a good day. I was sick of my bed by now, and I jumped at any chance to leave my room. Trepidation shivered up my spine, though, because the good days were inevitably followed by the bad.
“No pumpkins yet?” I asked. Dante had taken all the kids to the store to pick out pumpkins to carve for family home evening. Becca had explained that it was still early for pumpkins and they would be rotten and perfectly awful by the end of the month, but that was the way her children liked them—spooky.
“Not yet. They should be here soon. You have a nice chat with Quinn?”
I smiled. “I don’t know why he keeps coming.”
“He loves you.”
“Poor man. At least he gave Charlotte a chance to go home for a bit. That woman is tireless.” I was amazed at her service, a thing I could never repay. “So, anything new?” I asked before I became emotional.
Dying made you emotional about everything.
Becca told me about the upcoming parent-teacher conference, the program the Primary was working on for Christmas, and how next week Travis was going on his first real date. When she started talking about the new trellis she’d found on clearance at Home Depot, I grabbed her hand.
“Finally, you got the trellis! What are you going to do about the gardens? You can’t let this go. It’s a part of you. Please promise me you won’t give up your dreams.” I felt a little guilty saying this, since I’d added to her burden more than any of her children had.
Becca smiled. “For now I’m going to visit gardens, study plants, and help a few of the sisters with their landscapes. Maybe I’ll take a few classes when the kids are older.”
“That’s all?”
She laughed. “Rikki, I’m grateful to you for encouraging me to go after my dream. I’m going to do it. I promise. I’m going to take care of me. But you being sick, seeing how much your children crave to be with you, how much you want to stay with them, that’s taught me what’s really important.”
I didn’t get it. “So basically you’re going to continue like always, taking all the responsibility for the children, doing everything for everyone else?” I didn’t bother to hide the annoyance in my voice.
Becca shook her head. “Don’t you understand, Rikki? My children are the flowers in my eternal garden, and I only get one chance with them. I want to do it right. They aren’t going to be small forever. They’re already all in school. Going through this with you—suddenly all my so-called unfulfilled dreams aren’t as important. My children are. My family is. And you know what? I wouldn’t trade my job as a wife and mother for all the exotic flower beds in the world. My children are the flowers I’m helping to grow. Your children are those flowers. Think of it. If you could do anything with the rest of the time you had left, would it be dancing on Broadway or being with Kyle and James?”
I stared at her. She was right. I didn’t want dancing. No matter how much I loved it, I loved my kids more. Dancing meant nothing next to them, and I’d give all my years of dancing for even one more day with Kyle and James. I imagined Becca felt the same about her children.
“I’m going to have the rest of my life and eternity to create gardens,” Becca said. “But only this little time with my kids. You taught me that, Rikki. You.”
I hadn’t meant to. I’d meant to teach her to go for her dreams, to put herself first for a change, but I’d forgotten that her first dream was an eternity with Dante and the children.
“It’s silly to keep yearning for second best,” Becca added. “Which is what my gardening dreams are when I really think about it. I’ve realized that I’m so grateful for what I have now.”
I hugged her. “Well, good,” I said, blinking back the tears. “Just so you don’t give it up altogether. And keep making Dante pull his share.”
“So far, so good. He seems changed. Like he’s realized now is every bit as important as someday. He’s spending more time with the kids, and he’s been making dinner every Saturday, if you can believe that.” She laughed. “He and Kyle are developing quite a relationship since he started picking her up from dance.”
That hit me so hard it was all I could do not to fall onto the floor in a weepy heap. Dante was going to take care of Kyle. She’d never had a father figure before, and the fact that she wouldn’t have to deal with a man like my father made everything worth it.
Thankfully, Dante arrived with Lauren and James before I gave in to my emotion. The kids carried their pumpkins. If I felt up to it, we’d carve them at their house on Monday, or they’d carve here if I had to stay in bed.
“Look, Mom!” James’s face was shining as he showed me a tall, narrow pumpkin that had a twisted look in the middle. “My pumpkin’s going to be the scariest
. Cory helped me pick it out.”
“That is scary,” I said.
Lauren showed me the perfect round one she’d picked out. “Mine’s going to be the prettiest. I don’t want it scary.”
“Come on,” James, said. “Let’s go put them in the tree house.”
“We can pretend they’re our kids.”
I stopped myself from grabbing James and hugging him tight. All I ever wanted to do these days was to hold or touch my children, to have them always close by. But sitting at my side waiting for me to die was no way for a child to live.
“I dropped the others off at our house,” Dante was saying to Becca.
“What about Kyle?” she asked.
“She’s finishing up a bit of math with Allia. Apparently she took it with her.”
That was my fault. On my bad days, Kyle refused to go to school and had to make up her homework. Becca had talked to all the teachers, though, and they were going out of their way to help Kyle keep up.
“I’m going to get you something to eat,” Becca said to me. “I brought some fruit. Is there anything else in particular you feel like?” I noticed she didn’t ask me if I wanted to eat in the first place. Probably I was still alive because of all the food she forced down me.
“No,” I said. “The fruit sounds good.”
Dante settled on the chair as Becca left, his eyes on my face. “So.”
I rolled my eyes. “You look like a nervous ten-year-old.”
“I feel like a nervous ten-year-old.”
“Look,” I said. “I want to thank you for what you and Becca are doing.”
He shook his head. “You would do the same for me.”
“You’re right. I would, though I would never do it as well as Becca. She’s going to work hard. She’s going to work even harder on my kids than on yours, to try to make it all up to them.”
“Probably.”
“Don’t let her give up on her gardens, okay? Take her for shows, for nights away. Promise, Dante. Even just a little bit will help her stay strong.”
“I promise.”
“And when she experiments at your house, tell her how beautiful it all is, even if you hate it.”
He laughed. “You want me to lie?”
“No. It will be beautiful. You’ll be the only one who can’t see it. Sorry, Dante, but your artistic ability never did extend to the visual. I bet she even picks out your clothes.”
“Okay, okay. You don’t have to worry. I love Becca. She’s everything to me.”
I smiled. “Besides God, you mean.”
He nodded.
My heart was feeling that now-familiar warmth, and we sat there in comfortable silence, the way we had once sat under my tree in the summer.
“You were right, Dante. All along, you were right.” I understood so much more now. Why he’d left me for a mission. Why he’d stayed here and how he’d become the man he was, the man who was there for me and my children.
His emotion showed in his eyes. “God’s always been there, Rikki. You only had to reach out.”
I knew that, too. God had been there, ready to cradle me in his arms, if only I’d let Him. But I hadn’t understood that until I came home, felt the mountains around me, and saw how content Dante was with his life. Until I felt the love of my ward family.
With that knowledge came the understanding that Dante was my hero, and Becca, too, but not my last and greatest hero. My last and greatest hero had held my hand in the night all these years when no one else was around. He’d given me two wonderful children and friends to point the way when I’d been lost and hadn’t even realized it. He’d been there during my treatments and when I finally realized there would be no cure. He’d given His life for me and had been waiting, ready to wash away all my terrible choices and the years of pain and hiding. Trusting Him now was the only reason it was remotely bearable to leave my babies behind.
I would see Him soon, and I was no longer afraid.
Chapter Forty-Four
Becca
Ten Months Later
Wow, she was fabulous,” Allia said as the applause at Kyle’s dance recital finally subsided. “Makes me wish I’d stayed in dance class.”
“No way,” Cory scoffed. “You’d never want to practice so many hours every day.”
She sighed. “You got that right. Kyle’s a little crazy. In a good way, I mean.” She turned to me. “Mom, I want to go backstage and tell Kyle how well she did, okay?”
“Guess that means you’re not mad at her anymore for losing your mascara,” Travis said.
Allia flipped her dark hair. “Of course I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to tell her how great she was and how Tom couldn’t keep his eyes off her.”
Tom, that was a name I hadn’t heard before, but I wasn’t worried. At the moment, Kyle was still so involved in dance that no boy stood much of a chance. Good thing, since she still had two more years before she could even begin to group date.
“Go ahead,” I said.
Allia took James’s hand. “I’ll take the little kids with me.”
“I guess I’ll go, too.” Cory shot out of his seat.
“I’m going to talk with Claire.” Travis waved and headed over to talk to BG’s sister, whom he’d gone out with twice already, which was pretty much as long as he’d dated any girl. As long as they were double-dating or in a group, that was okay with me.
The auditorium at the junior high was quickly clearing. Dante put his arm around me. “So, are we going to have to build on to the house to keep those girls from tearing each other apart?” There was a hint of real concern behind the casual tone.
“It was just a spat. I’m making Kyle buy Allia a new mascara.”
“Would it help if I talked to Kyle?”
“Probably.” Kyle listened to Dante like no one else. I didn’t know if it was because he picked her up each day from dance and they’d developed a rapport or because he treated her with all the childhood love he’d had for her mother. Regardless, she responded better to him than to anyone. Maybe she simply craved the love of a father. I raised a finger. “But keep in mind, it was just a spat. Not a war.”
We’d had wars. Oh, not for the first eight months as a family, though they had been challenging enough. Rikki’s death had been followed closely by a successful surgery to align the muscles in James’s eyes and Kyle’s constant tiptoeing around the house with the frightened look that told us she was worried about being sent away. There had been a sort of stilted politeness in her interactions with all of us.
These past two months, however, challenging had given way to wars, as if we’d finally meshed as a family. The children fought hard, played harder, and loved more. Perhaps they’d all realized we were in it for the long haul. That meant Kyle had begun to demand more, to test the limits—thus the wars. It was a good change emotionally for her, despite bringing substantially more fireworks. They never lasted long, and they were occurring less often now, another good sign.
“Look what I have.” Dante pulled a paper from his pocket. “Tickets.”
“Oh?” I took the paper and studied it. “The garden show in Saint George?” The memory brought a rush of emotions—and with it the sound of Rikki’s laughter.
“You can print them right off the Internet.”
“I can’t go. The boys have soccer. I have to make sure Travis studies for the ACT.”
“Come on,” he coaxed. “There are no refunds. It’s just one night. I mean, we could go for more, but we’d only have to go for one, if you’d prefer.”
I met his eyes, saw the love there.
“Come on,” he said again. “I miss you.”
I’d been busy melding two families. Too busy. Interestingly enough, these days it was me who was more occupied than even
my bishop husband. “Are you sure this isn’t because you hate my trellis?”
He laughed and pulled me closer. “I love the trellis. It’s beautiful. All the neighbors say so.” His lips touched my cheek, making me shiver with the unexpectedness. “Almost as beautiful as you.”
Mentally I began rearranging things. The children could stay with my sister, Allia would look over James’s and Lauren’s math and help my sister keep an eye on them, Charlotte Gillman and Travis would take turns getting Kyle to dance. Travis would take the boys to soccer.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll go. Two nights. If we leave early enough, we could see a play the first night.” That was my attempt at returning his gift with something I knew he’d enjoy. Give and take—I’d learned these past months that everything good always boiled down to those two things. Neither of us had to give it all, nor did we have to be equal in everything we gave every time. It was enough that we each took a step toward the other, that we tried to make the differences between us smaller.
Dante smiled and kissed me right there in the auditorium. I knew he loved me. He’d shown me every day for the past months as he’d kept his promise to be there for me with Rikki’s children—and our own. As for me, James and Kyle had filled a part of me that I hadn’t even known was missing. Things weren’t perfect, but we would never stop trying to make them better. One step, one compromise at a time.
Kyle called out to us then, waving from the corner of the stage. We jumped to our feet and hurried over. “Well?” she asked, her eyes fixed on us, ignoring the throng of friends around her.
“It was perfect,” I said. “All the girls were wonderful, but you were absolutely amazing.”
She looked toward Dante. To my surprise he had tears in his eyes. “You remind me of your mother. She would be so proud.”
It was the right thing to say. Kyle launched herself into Dante’s arms and hugged him. “Thank you,” she murmured. Then she hugged me just as tightly and whispered in my ear. “I’m sorry about the mascara. I told Allia, too.”
My eyes rose to the ceiling overhead, only dimly lit by the lights along the wall. I could almost hear Rikki saying, “See? You’re doing it. She’ll be okay. Now go to Saint George and kick up your heels.”
Before I Say Goodbye Page 31
