Raining On Heaven

by Amanda Foote

  “Huh?” I asked.

  “I mean, I’m not trying to be dramatic but he looks like a pedophile.”

  “Liberty Bell!!” we heard Bobby yell from a few yards away. “Not cool!”

  She shrugged, half laughing. “What? That’s a weird fucking mustache, okay? Where’s his beard? Doesn’t he know that mustaches go with beards or you look like a pedophile?”

  Bobby came back and tossed the firewood on the fire, then turned to flick her on the ear, but I was laughing. “No, he’s a pretty nice guy. I mean, I just met him so I guess… and I’m only half-Mexican, half-Asian, but I think that may be a Mexican thing. Big furry mustaches.”

  “That’s a southern thing too,” Bobby added, plopping into his chair, and we all laughed.

  Melonie added, “I think men just like hair, doesn’t matter where you’re from,” and we all burst into heavy laughter, waking Bliss up. She patted my hair and laid her head back down on my shoulder. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the moment, but things weren’t so bad right then. It was the first time I’d feel it, actually. Sitting around that bonfire was the first time I didn’t ache with the thought of Cadence, even, no, especially, with her daughter snoring in my arms.

  About an hour later we all were back inside the living room joking and laughing together as a family about what kind of kid Bobby and Melonie might have. Bobby pulled me aside to his bedroom looking very sullen while everyone else laughed.

  “Heaven, I know about your counting.”

  “What?” I asked.

  He took a seat on the edge of his bed and patted it, I sat down too. “Your counting,” he said. “The first time I saw it was under the bleachers. I watched you mouth the numbers. You counted the number of bleachers, you counted the number of bugs crawling around us, you even counted the number of chips I ate.”

  “I- I don’t know what you mean, Bobby.”

  He sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t know what it is, a nervous tick, a weird habit, a disorder,” he glanced carefully toward me at this, “but I do know that you stopped doing it while Cadence was here. Then she… you know. And Dillard left, and, well, you started doing it again. You counted the camping chairs outside. I’m just… I’m worried about you. I don’t know what it even is. I just know it doesn’t seem healthy and it’s back.”

  “Okay.” I said. I didn't know how else to respond. No one had ever paid close enough attention to me or bothered to mention anything to me about my habit. It’s not like I didn’t know it existed, it just… It had become a part of who I was when I wasn’t okay, and, well, most of the time I really wasn’t okay. At this point I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be “okay” again. Not without Cadence. And if I was being honest with myself, not without Dillard.

  Bobby patted my hand gently. “You’re my friend, Heaven. I know you’re hurting. And people do unusual things when they’re hurting. I just want you to know that I’m here, and I can help you. It’s okay if you need to count things, as long as you’re counting on me too.”

  I burst into tears. It was the first time I had really cried since Cadence died. Or my parents, for that matter. I didn’t mean to unload on him like that, but he took it with grace. He pulled me into his arms and held me as tight as he could manage, and I cried until there was nothing left inside me. And you can’t count something that’s empty. So I didn’t count on me.

  ✽✽✽

  The night outside was eerily quiet as I walked home from work a few nights later. The wind whistled past me into the trees surrounding Marlene’s neighborhood, and I resisted the urge to listen to their call.

  As I unlocked the door to Marlene’s house, I could hear soft sobbing coming from the direction of the kitchen. I rushed quickly inside, terrified of what I would find. So many images were flashing inside my head, Bliss dead, Marlene dead, Fernie dead, anyone else dead. I could not handle anyone else dying. I refused to believe it possible.

  I found Marlene collapsed on the kitchen floor, crying and curled into a ball. A shattered wine bottle and puddles of red wine were scattered around her. She had a small cut on her left hand, blood was spilling into one of the puddles of wine and the deep reds were mixing into one. I ran to her side. “Marlene! Marlene, are you okay? What happened?”

  “I don’t understand, I don’t understand!” She sobbed between words, gasping for breath afterwards. She was drunk.

  “You don’t understand what, Marlene? Talk to me!” I pulled her into a sitting position and grabbed a towel to sop up the wine and the blood.

  “Why, I don’t understand why! Cadence didn’t deserve this,” she cried. “Your mom, your dad. What is happening?” She started to mumble. “Before I know it I’ll lose you too.” She looked up suddenly, her red glasses askew. She clutched my sleeve. “Don’t ever leave me, Heaven. I can’t handle it if you leave me.”

  I sighed and pulled her to her feet, moving her toward her bedroom. “I’m not going anywhere, Marlene. I promise. You and me against all odds, okay? I’m here.”

  She broke into incoherent sobs again and I took her into her bathroom and bandaged up her hand. Then I coaxed her into her bed and pulled the covers over her. She was out within minutes.

  I returned to the kitchen and, after checking on Bliss who was unknowingly sleeping through it all, cleaned up the rest of the wine and glass. I set the dirty towel in the sink, and then I saw it on the counter nearby. A note from Fernie.

  “Had to go.

  Love,

  Fernie.”

  Marlene had never stood a chance. She had lost more than I had ever lost, and I felt so angry that someone could willingly be so cruel.

  I climbed the stairs and headed toward my own bed, but changed my mind at the last minute. I got ready for bed and climbed in next to Marlene. She needed me right now, more than I needed my bed. I could be there for her. I would be there for her, even if it was all I had left to give.

  ✽✽✽

  I had made my decision. It wasn’t an easy one. I was still just a kid myself. But she was my whole world now. There was no point to life anymore without her. So she would be mine.

  “I want her,” I told Marlene. “Bliss. Cadence told me she was mine if I wanted her. Well, I do. I want her.”

  Marlene glanced at me over her red bedazzled glasses and took a sip of her black coffee. “You’re sure?” She asked.

  “More sure than I have been of anything in a long while.”

  She nodded. “Good. I'll call Cadence’s lawyer.”

  He came over the next day with his briefcase and a sad smile. “This is what she wanted,” he offered to me.

  I returned his smile. “I know.”

  He had me sign some papers. I didn’t really know what any of it meant, except that Bliss was now mine. Before he left, he handed me an envelope. “From Cadence,” he said. “For you.” And then he was gone.

  Bliss played with some toys in the living room with Marlene. When I came in, Marlene stood up and nodded at me. “It’s done?” She asked.

  “It’s done,” I said.

  She smiled. “I’ll give you two some space for a little while. I’ll be writing, if you need me.”

  I sat down on the floor with Bliss and pulled her into my lap. Her eyes were tired. I knew she couldn’t understand what happened, but she knew she missed her mama, and she cried every night waiting for her to come. I brushed her dark hair from her face and she stared quietly at me. None of her usual cooing, giggling. “Mama,” she whispered.

  It was a struggle to decide what I should tell her, for the rest of her life. I was her mama now, but at the same time, I would never really be her mother. Should I call her daughter, or “adopted niece?” Should I spend her childhood raising her to yearn for someone she would never see again, or be the mother she needed and let her come to the realization on her own that I was never her real mother? What could I do to show the most respect for Cadence’s memory but still ask for the most love and respect from the child I was choosing to raise for s
ixteen more years?

  I guess these were decisions I would have to come to as Bliss grew up. I decided to take every day as it came and figure it out along the way.

  I opened the letter from Cadence with Bliss still in my lap.

  “I wondered if, I hoped you might change your mind. You’re only reading this if you did, so I must say, I cannot thank you enough for taking care of my precious girl. Bliss needs someone to love and care for her as much as I did, or could in my condition, and you are it. On top of that, you have a circle of people around you, Heaven, even if you can’t see they’re there sometimes, that love you and would do anything for you, including help you raise Bliss. I know it was a lot to ask of you, to raise my baby when you’re still practically a baby yourself, but there is no one else I can trust more to love her like I could than my own flesh-and-blood sister.

  There’s something else I want to thank you for Heaven, and that is giving me family when I had none but Bliss. You did that for me. You welcomed me into your home and your life, somehow convinced your friends to like me, and gave me a home. That’s something I haven’t had in a really long time. You could have turned me and my baby away, told me never to speak to you again, treated me like the banished love child I often felt like, but you didn’t. You and Marlene took me in when I had nothing else. And you gave me everything I needed and more. That was enough for me. I didn’t want to die alone, and because of you, I didn’t. My sister.

  I don’t know where I’m going after this, if I go anywhere at all, but I do know that when I get there I will never forget how you made my last moments so precious.

  I don’t think you even realize what a beautiful, compassionate person you are. You act like you feel nothing, care about nothing. But everyone around you can see you care so much it hurts. That’s why you pretend you don’t care, because when you do care, you think you lose people. I am so sorry for all you’ve lost, Heaven. And before the end, you will lose even more. It’s just a fact of life. It’s how we cope with loss that makes us human. And that’s love, Heaven, plain and simple. Love hurts. It always will.

  That’s why I am so thankful you have chosen to raise Bliss anyway, over your own fear and pain and freedom, and that speaks to me more than any of your other actions have.

  I wish there were more I could say to you, I wish this letter could last forever, I wish I could last forever and see both Bliss and my little sister bloom into beautiful women. Let me just say, someday I hope I see you again... but let’s cross our fingers that it is a long, long time from now.

  Forever your sister,

  Cadence

  Bliss had dozed off in my lap and my arms were aching with the weight of her limp body. I set down the letter and wiped my eyes with my free hand. In the kitchen Marlene poured herself a glass of water. I gave her a curious look.

  “I’m not quitting cold turkey, alright? But I’m trying to cut back,” she said, pushing up her bedazzled red glasses.

  “Cool,” I said.

  I put Bliss to bed and grabbed my keys. “I’ll be back in a bit, okay?”

  Marlene nodded. “Be safe.”

  “I don’t know what that is anymore,” I said.

  The sun had not even started to set yet when I met Liberty Bell at the park. Her client hadn’t shown up yet. A few days ago, she had invited me to watch her work, and I agreed.

  She pushed her purple-streaked brown hair behind her ears and made an adjustment on her camera after glancing at the sun and the green trees around us. She checked her watch.

  “Don’t you miss him?” She asked me, making another adjustment to her camera, and checking the lens.

  We sat on one of those cement picnic tables near the swing set, waiting patiently for her client (a young new family) who was definitely late. “Miss who?” I asked innocently, though I knew who she meant.

  She rolled her eyes at me. “You know full well who I mean. Dillard. Ya know, your boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend anymore. And yeah, I miss him, but…”

  She sighed exasperatingly. “But what? Isn’t that enough?”

  I glanced down at the ground. There were a few dead leaves scattered in the dirt around us. The first signs that summer was drawing to an end. Soon we would start college, our teenage days would end, and, well, to put it the way Liberty Bell would, “shit gets real.” There were six leaves at our feet. One was green with the edges turning brown.

  “No,” I said strongly. “It’s not enough. Just because I miss him and he probably misses me, we can’t build a real relationship on that. It’s not enough.”

  Liberty Bell stood up with ferocity, as she does all things. I thought it was out of anger toward my statement, but then I saw a young couple with a new baby at the edge of the park heading our direction. The girl was waving excitedly.

  She began a slow march toward them as she said to me, “I think you love him, Heaven. And you’re not accustomed to that, because you think that love can’t grow that quickly. But I watched it happen. I watched it happen to you!” She stopped suddenly and put her hand on my arm. “With Cadence and Bliss,” she said carefully. “You loved them more than life itself before you even knew what hit you. Why can’t it be the same with Dillard?”

  I sighed, not wanting to look into her eyes. “It just can't.”

  She huffed through her nose. “Well, Heaven, as your self-proclaimed best friend who loves you very dearly, I must tell you that you are being absolutely stupid about this.” The family was getting a lot closer so she turned toward them now. “You can adopt your sister’s two-year-old daughter and vow to take care of her for the next sixteen years, but you can’t tell your boyfriend that you’re in love with him? I mean, that’s real actual stupidity right there.”

  I didn’t know how to respond, but I didn’t really have time because suddenly the young couple and baby were upon us.

  “Hi!” Liberty Bell greeted them with a huge smile. “The light is absolutely perfect right now, so let’s get started!”

  They both nervously nodded, clearly new to this and unsure of what to do. I knew that with Liberty Bell, they were in for a ride.

  ✽✽✽

  School was set to start the next day and Liberty Bell and I were all moved into our new dorm room. It was mostly for appearances because I would be spending all my free time not in class or studying with Bliss, and technically she wasn’t allowed in the dorms. So Marlene and I agreed she would spend three nights with her and I would use those to study while I stayed in the dorms, and the other four nights of the week I would stay at Marlene’s to give Marlene a break. We both agreed that it was important for me to go to college as well as raise Bliss, and this was the best way to ensure that I got valuable time with her but still put effort into my education. I already knew though that those three nights a week away from her would be the hardest test I would take my entire college career.

  I picked English for my major and Liberty Bell picked photography. Melonie chose Marine Biology and Bobby picked History. I had a feeling a few of those majors would change before our four years together at OU were up, but I was impressed with us, nonetheless.

  The last thing to do before finishing up the dorm was the thing I’d been dreading all summer: go through my parents’ boxes.

  It was necessary, for both the organizational purposes and the desire to heal. Marlene asked if I wanted her to help, but I told her it was something I needed to do myself.

  The boxes were stacked two deep, and three high, with the fourth stack on the end having only one tall box in the front. Nineteen boxes to go through. Nineteen gut-wrenching, memory filled boxes of hurt. But I had to do it.

  They all contained the normal things that two adults collect over a lifetime together. Clothes, pictures, keepsakes. I set aside all of their clothes, including a yellow blouse sporting a ketchup stain, to donate to someone who might actually need them. I kept a few of my favorites of mom’s shirts, like the one she wore to my fifth grade play perform
ance, a sheer black blouse with giant roses on it. I kept her perfume and her hairbrush. I kept dad’s baseball cards and his favorite shirt. I kept the books and DVD’s that were their favorites, and all of the scrapbooks, pictures, and letters my mom had collected over the years. The rest of it went into the donate box.

  Finally, the second to last box, the tall one. I chose to end with it. When I opened it, I found my mom’s old paintings. I’d forgotten they were there. I wish I had gotten to show them to Cadence, she would have loved them. But I’d take a guess that she had painted the La Chancla in Marlene’s office, and I knew Cadence had gotten to see that.

  The paintings depicted detailed trees, plants, oceans, the things my mother found beautiful. Then on toward the middle of the stack, a painting of a little girl wearing a red dress. She was seven, maybe. She sat on a swing in the backyard of a gray-roofed house. My mother was no Monet, but the painting was good. We’d had a whole extra room in the house that faced the coast - she’d paint in there. A regular ol’ Van Gogh.

  The girl in the swing was me, for sure. The beauty mark on her neck. The not curly, not straight honey brown hair. I’m pretty sure I even once owned a dress that color, I think I’d caught it on a fence and ripped it, maybe. That seemed right. I turned the thin canvas over, and there was only one word written on the back.

  Cadence?

  Is this what she pictured Cadence looking like? It was me though. But it wasn’t me at all, either. I noticed in the background of the painting behind the house, a lemon tree. We never had a lemon tree. And in the upper right corner of the canvas, a bird. Black and yellow and small. I asked Marlene if she knew what kind of bird it was. A goldfinch, she’d replied. The state bird of Washington. Where mom and Marlene were from. Where she must have given Cadence up. She had this whole other life and set of thoughts that had nothing to do with me, and I was beginning to realize that I would probably spend the rest of my life wondering what they were.