Raining On Heaven

by Amanda Foote

  She patted the red skin underneath my eyes gently, her fingers coming up wet with tears. “Mama?” she said.

  I tried not to cry, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. “No, baby. Mama isn’t here. Mama had to go away for a long time. Maybe forever.”

  I knew she couldn’t possibly understand, but something in her eyes, the ones unlike her mother’s, told me that somehow she knew. Her face scrunched up, but she didn’t cry. “Mama,” she repeated. “Mama, mama,” she kept saying, softer and softer, until her voice faded out and she had fallen asleep on my chest. I patted her back gently.

  “I love you so much,” I said to the air. But the air didn’t care.

  So I stood up gently and carried Bliss back inside. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been outside, but when I came back in, Dillard and Bobby had left. Liberty Bell still sat on the couch, watching the news intently. She glanced up at me as the glass patio door slid open.

  I sat down next to her, resting Bliss gently on the couch. Her eyes were closed and she dozed lightly, barely even stirring as I rested her between Liberty Bell and I. Liberty Bell patted her hair gently for a moment before resting her hand neatly on top of mine.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know that’s not much, but it’s all I can offer.”

  I nodded. “Can you watch her for a minute?” I gestured to Bliss. Liberty Bell nodded, so I stood up and made my way into Cadence’s room. It was how she left it, purely untouched, perfectly messy. Her clothes were strung across the floor, her lamp was still on, her bed unmade. On the bedside table, I saw the book. It was the one she had been reading just a few days before, the one she had made me tell her the plot to.

  It was open and pages down with a piece of paper lodged into its crease. I picked it up, holding the pages in place. She was only two pages from the end.

  I guess she had been right. She had tried to tell me there was a chance she would never finish the book. And she didn’t.

  ✽✽✽

  A knock on the door a few hours later woke me from a doze on the couch. Liberty Bell had left, but not before throwing a blanket over Bliss and I, who was snuggled up to my side, completely asleep. I stood up gently and tried not to wake her, but it didn’t work. She opened her eyes and saw me stand up, and whimpered, holding out her hands for me to pick her up, so I did.

  It was Rosebud at the door. Her fiery hair was pulled back into a tight French braid, but so many little wispies were escaping from it she looked like a small lion. “Hey,” she said. “I brought some more of your books back.”

  I nodded. “Thank you. Wanna come in and set them down for me?”

  She nodded carefully, studying my face as she walked in. She left the books on the table. “What happened?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can tell you’ve been crying. Nobody else is home. Did something happen to Cadence again?” Damn this kid was smart. I made a mental note to suggest a future in private investigation to her someday.

  I sighed and cleared my throat, pushed the words out best I could. “My sister passed away last night.”

  She bit her lip. I could tell she was trying not to cry. I pulled her to the couch and had her sit down next to me, Bliss snuggled under one of my arms, Rosebud under the other. I wasn’t sure if she could really comprehend what had happened. She was so quiet.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s nobody’s fault. It’s life.”

  “No. It isn’t.” she said adamantly. “Life isn’t supposed to be like this.” She was crying now, tears streaming past her freckles. “I mean, I’ve read so many books, so many, and they’re happy or they’re sad, and they make you cry. But this is different. This is real. Isn’t life supposed to be like in the books?” She clenched her fists.

  “No, Rosebud. That’s part of what makes books so special. They’re a reflection of life, but they are not true. They’re fiction. They let us feel for a little while, but we get to set the book down and come back to reality. Life isn’t like that.” I was realizing this all myself. “You don’t get to just step away from the pain, from the truth. It’s always there, and it always will be.”

  “Cadence didn’t deserve this, did she?” She looked up at me.

  “Of course not. Of course she didn’t. But that doesn’t change that it happened.”

  She nodded. “I know.” She studied my face. “I’m sorry this happened to you. I know how much you loved her.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Because I know how much I love my baby sister, who can’t even talk yet. So you must have loved Cadence a lot.”

  I nodded. “I did. I loved her, I love her very much.”

  She patted my hand. “You’ll be okay. Someday.” She was comforting me now. “It won’t feel like it for a long time. I know what it felt like to lose my daddy, and he’s not really gone. He’s just… hard to reach. So I know it’s really sad about Cadence, because she didn’t choose to leave.”

  In a way though, she did. And I’d never forget that.

  “But,” Rosebud continued, “someday you’ll see. Someday you’ll be okay. And it won’t feel right. But you’ll have to be okay with that too.”

  “Thanks, Rosebud.”

  “You’re welcome.” Lucius ambled up to us from out of the kitchen and rubbed up against Rosebud’s legs. “Hey Luce,” she said, scratching him behind the ears. He purred loudly.

  “You guys good friends?” I asked, smirking.

  She nodded. “Yeah. When Marlene lets him outside he comes and visits me. I feed him.”

  My eyes widened. “You wouldn’t happen to feed him… pickles, would you?”

  She grinned. “Yeah, they’re his favorite!”

  I actually laughed, despite everything. “Rosebud. Oh, Rosebud. Would you like some more books?”

  She smiled half-heartedly. “Yes, please.”

  ✽✽✽

  The room filled with people quickly, far more quickly than I had expected. People had come from all over to say goodbye to her. People I knew, people I didn’t know. There weren’t enough seats in the church for everyone to be able to sit. I tried to count them, made it up to 37, but then I lost count.

  We had reserved the front row for her family, and I made sure that included Liberty Bell, Bobby, Dillard, and Rosebud. We were her family.

  Most of the ceremony was a blur. I don’t remember what people said about her, just that they loved her so, so much. She was so respected and loved. I had no idea she had made such an impact on people. Even her lawyer was there, the young man I had met in the kitchen. Marlene was stoic, trying to be strong. Liberty Bell, Bobby and Dillard all had tired, bloodshot eyes. Rosebud sniffled into a handkerchief, her mom’s arm wrapped around her and her little sister cradled in Denise’s arms. Bliss sat in Marlene’s lap, staring mesmerized at the giant photo at the front of the room.

  We’d had Liberty Bell pick the photo to display, since she’d been the one who had taken it. She chose one of the three of us, me and Cadence and Bliss, with Bliss propped up between us, mouth wide open with a laugh. I was looking at Cadence. Cadence was looking at the camera. And we looked so happy.

  Mostly I remember when I stood up to talk. My hands were shaking. How was I supposed to talk about this woman I had barely known? What could I tell these people to make them feel better after losing such a beautiful soul?

  I cleared my throat and gazed at the audience in wonder. Who were all these people? How did they know Cadence, and how did they get here? I only recognized about half of them, and of those half I wondered what they were doing here as well. They didn’t really know Cadence.

  I glanced down at the index cards in my hands. They felt fuzzy, and heavy.

  I sighed. I opened my mouth to speak.

  “Cadence Highwater was my sister. I didn’t always know she was my sister. Once, she was a stranger, and I yelled at her. Then suddenly, she was my sister, and just as suddenly, I love
d her.” I looked up. Marlene was crying now. “I don’t know how to explain her,” I said. “I wish I knew her better. She was my sister for all of two months. But she warmed her way into all of our hearts in no time at all. She came to us with no family but her daughter, and she left this world with more family than she had probably bargained for.” I stared down at her family, my family, in the front row below me. I set the cards down. I wasn’t reading them anyway.

  “She once told me that cancer is kind of like love, but… I think love is kind of like cancer. It doesn’t stop spreading just because you want it to. That’s what love is like: a disease that starts growing inside of you until you can’t control it or even begin to understand it. And there’s no magical cure. No elixir to take. There’s not even chemotherapy for love. We suffer, we take it, we live through it. Because we have to.”

  I bit my lip. “Cadence couldn’t stay. She couldn’t live through it. As badly as I wanted her to, I know she was in pain. I know how badly she wanted to be here. You see, I didn’t understand Cadence at first. I didn’t understand what it was like to have a sister. For those of you who don’t know, well, having a sister is kind of like having a clock. Inside this clock, there are gears that must mesh in order for the clock to produce any kind of time worthy of telling. Cadence and I had the same gears, and the time we would have had together might have been amazing. But her gears were rusty, and broken. And a broken clock can’t tell time, or give it to others. She was a broken clock. But she was a beautiful one.”

  I picked the cards back up. “I’ll never know what my life would have been like without her. But I’m glad. I may not have her anymore or for the rest of my life, but the point is that I did have her. I got the chance to know someone like Cadence. Better yet, I got to be her sister. And no one can take that away from me. Not God, not death, not cancer. Cadence Highwater is my sister. And she always will be.”

  ✽✽✽

  Marlene held me after, and didn’t let go for two whole minutes. “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you too.” I looked around at everyone in the room, all standing up and chatting about Cadence in little groups around the room, now that the service had ended. “I only know about half these people,” I said.

  Marlene looked around too. “She was well-loved,” she replied.

  “But the half I know, some of them don’t even know Cadence. Why are they here?”

  Marlene smiled a little, and cupped my cheek. “Silly Heaven. They’re here for you.” I nodded, but I didn’t really understand.

  After a few minutes of lots of hugs, a young man approached me. “Heaven?” he asked, a sort of question. He was tall with dark, dark hair and hazel eyes.

  “Yes?” I replied.

  He held out his hand for me to shake. “I’m Mark. I’m, well, I’m Cadence’s ex-boyfriend, I guess.”

  I gasped. “Yes. I know who you are.” I shook his hand carefully. “How did you know about this?”

  He shook his head a little, gave a small sigh. “Actually, Cadence called me a few days ago. Told me it was almost time. She wanted to say our goodbyes. I got here not long after that. I was supposed to come see her one afternoon but… I guess that’s when it happened.” He choked up.

  I almost couldn’t contain the frustration myself. “Oh my god,” I said. “I’m so sorry.” I hugged him, long and hard. I pulled away finally. “She really loved you. I know she did.”

  He nodded. “I know. I really loved her too.” He sighed. “Is Bliss here?”

  “Yes, of course!” I said. I approached Bobby who had Bliss in his arms and brought her over to Mark.

  He started crying. “She’s so beautiful. Can I hold her?”

  I nodded and handed her to him, the tears starting to fall from my own eyes.

  He pushed the hair from her sad, sleepy eyes. “I wanted to be her dad, someday. I really did. But Cadence didn’t think it was right, since she wouldn’t be around.”

  “Cadence wants me to be her guardian. She wants me to raise her. But I’m still just a kid myself. I love her so much though.”

  He nodded and laughed at Bliss as a big snot bubble came out of her nose. “How could you not?” He sighed, and gave her back to me. “My name is Mark Boyer. I live in Seattle, Washington. But I would pick up everything to move here and help you raise Bliss.”

  “You would do that?” I asked, appalled. Bewildered. Amazed. Confused.

  “I would.” He pulled a business card out of his pocket. “I won’t, unless you want me to. Especially if you’re her guardian now. It’s up to you. But I love this little girl, and I loved her mom, and it would mean the world to me to get to be a part of her child’s life.”

  I took his card. “I need to think. I’ll call you.”

  He nodded. “Thank you Heaven. That’s all I ask.”

  He left, and Dillard came up. The crowd was starting to get smaller and smaller, people leaving and moving on with their lives, saying their goodbyes to Cadence’s picture and Marlene and I, then going home.

  Dillard wrapped his hand around mine. “Who was that?” he asked.

  “Well, in a way, he’s kinda like her dad,” I gestured at Bliss, chewing on a cookie Bobby had snuck her.

  “Really?” he asked. “Her dad?”

  “Well, no. He was gonna be. He and Cadence were in love, for a while. She broke it off because of the cancer, and moved here. He wants to be a part of Bliss’ life though. Said he’d pick up his whole life to be with her, to help raise her.”

  “Oh my god,” he responded.

  “I know,” I said.

  “That’s heavy,” he said.

  “I know.”

  The room was mostly empty now. It was just her family left. Us, I mean. It was just us. We all hugged and cried, I told them about Mark and what he had said. We all cried some more and then everyone went home. This day was too much.

  I rode with Dillard. We were quiet at first, no words. That’s why it took me by surprise when he said it.

  “I love you.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right, I’d been so lost in my thoughts. I didn’t say anything.

  “Heaven, did you hear me?”

  I looked at him, while he watched the road. “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, I said-”

  “No, I heard what you said. I’m just not sure… how I feel.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  I looked down at my hands, small and delicate and a lot like Cadence’s. “I’m not ready to say that. And I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready.”

  He pulled into the driveway of my house. Marlene’s house. “What do you mean?” he asked, calmly.

  I could hear her laugh again. The laugh right before the car hit us. The laugh I’ll hear every night in my dreams for the rest of my life. A laugh that cut like knives and soothed like medicine.

  I looked at him, and he looked at me. And I was so sad. “I don’t think I can love you. I don’t think there’s anything for you here. And I think you should go back to California.” The words were falling out of my mouth without my consent. Inside my heart was shrieking at me to shut the hell up.

  His eyebrows crinkled up, the scar on his forehead matching them, and he clenched his fists. “What are you saying? Are you breaking up with me?” His voice cracked.

  I tried to stay calm as I told him yes. “Thank you for being there for me when I needed you, but I can’t keep doing this. It’s all too much. I can’t be there for you in return.”

  He shook his head. “Look, Heaven, I know you’re hurting. I don’t need you to be here for me right now. I think we can-”

  “We can’t. I don’t love you. You need to go.” My heart broke some more, though I didn’t think it could. What was I doing? Stop, Heaven, stop! You’re hurting him! You love him, you do! my chest screamed. But my mouth was not obeying. And I crushed him. His face looked as broken as the glass that had crashed on the pavement that very first day.

  I got out of the car and sto
od on the porch, waiting for him to drive away. He stayed for four minutes and twenty-three seconds, staring back at me, waiting for me to change my mind, until his face turned angry and he backed out of the driveway. He hated me now, I know he did. I broke him. But I couldn’t stop. I was hurting, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t think I could ever love him. Not now, not anymore. It was too soon, too much. It was all too much! Love was an inaccessible thing for me, I guess. And Cadence Highwater had stolen from me any love I may have had left to give.

  The Recovery.

  Chapter Ten.

  “I had it laminated,” I told Marlene as I showed her the picture. It was just a 5x7, small enough to carry around but big enough that Bliss could always see her mother’s face next to hers. “That way it won’t get messed up. She can sleep with it.”

  “That’s beautiful, Heaven,” Marlene smiled from the kitchen island, a glass of wine on its way to her lips, the photograph poised neatly between her forefinger and thumb. I’d picked the best one of Liberty Bell’s pictures of Cadence and Bliss. Bliss was mid-laugh and Cadence was looking just slightly off camera, and I remembered that moment. She had been looking at me.

  I took the flash drive Liberty Bell gave me to Walgreens and had them all printed, this one for Bliss to carry around and the rest of them for me. I even had one printed really big, one of all of us. Marlene framed it and hung it over her TV.

  “I don’t want her to forget,” I said. “Maybe this will help her remember.” Marlene looked at me sadly, and in her expression I could read my own thoughts.

  It was wishful thinking, I knew. My own mother had died only five months ago and I had known her for nearly eighteen years, and even I struggled to remember her face sometimes. I tried to picture it now, her darkly curly hair, her bright eyes, her clear but weathered skin. And that smile that warmed my bitter heart. If I concentrated really hard, I could see her.

  I didn’t want it to be like that for Bliss. I would do everything I could to help her remember her mother. Me, I would never be able to forget Cadence and the mark she left inside of me.