Cowboy Sing Me Home (34 page)

            “Yes, I’ve noticed that
‘nice’ is the word of the day around town.  Like you said that first night, it
will probably go back to normal before long.  But still, hopefully it will
bring everyone closer together, and get people to think a little bit before
they deal with their problems by lashing out at whoever’s closest to them.”  He
rolled over and draped his arm around her waist, bracing himself on his other
elbow.  “What about you?”  He dropped a kiss on her shoulder.

            She gave him an amused look
of puzzlement over her shoulder.   “What about me?  Are you saying I need to
find some alternate way to deal with my problems?”

            “No, I’m just wondering if
all this talk about forgiveness has you thinking about the forgiveness you need
in your own life.”

            “There’s no one I need to
forgive.  I run my own life and call my own shots.  I don’t give anyone a
chance to do anything I’ll need to forgive them for.”

            He was silent for a long
moment, aware of what he was about to do, and what might happen.

            “I was talking about
forgiving yourself.  For what happened to Anne-Marie.”

            He was lying pressed against
her, so he felt the shock that jerked through her at his words.  She moved to
shift away, but gently and firmly he kept her there, one arm around her waist
and the other hand cupped against her bare shoulder.

            She spoke through clenched
teeth.  “I told you once, Cowboy, that I was only at that stupid Jubilee to
help out Brother Mark.  I don’t go in for all that sanctimonious religion
crap.”

            “And if you would quit
throwing up walls left and right, you’d admit there’s nothing sanctimonious or
offensive or even particularly religious about forgiving yourself for something
you know it wasn’t your fault, that you know you had no power over.  You said
your ex-husband blamed you for what happened, but I’m willing to bet he didn’t
blame you as much as you blame yourself.  How much longer are you going to beat
yourself up, Dusty?  How much longer do you have to pay, before you’ve paid
enough?”

            The force of her jumping up
was strong enough to knock him off her.

            “Never,” she said in a
strangled whisper.  “I will never pay enough!  And don’t you lie there like
some all-knowing sage, when you’ve never even known what it’s like to
have
a child, much less lose one.  I let my own child
die
, Luke.  While I
slept in the next room.  A thousand years will not be enough time to make up
for it.”  She jerked up her shirt and shot her arms through the sleeves, then
reached for her jeans.  “There is no human way to make it right, and no
platitudes to say or write on any piece of paper to make it right.  The entire
notion is not only trite and ridiculous, it is for weak-minded people who can’t
face the facts.  Sometimes there is no way to make everything better. 
Sometimes things have to stay wrong, and that’s just the way it is.”

            She yanked on her jeans then
sat on the bed to pull on her socks and boots, her mouth tight and her hands
shaking.  He reached to put his hand on her arm and she swatted it away with
murder in her eyes.

            She launched herself off the
bed.  “You shouldn’t have brought it up,” she said as she fled the room.

            He climbed into his jeans as
quick as he could and headed down the hall after her.

            She whirled on him just
before she got to the front door.  “You know what the worst part is?  The worst
part wasn’t losing her, or even the remembering.  The
worst
part is the
forgetting.  I actually forget, sometimes.  For three or four days at a time,
sometimes.  I forget that I even had her.  I let my own child die, and I go
about my business and think about calendars and songs and
gas prices
,
for crying out loud, and I forget all about the most wonderful and most
horrible time of my life. 
That
is what a sorry mother I am.” 

            Her eyes were bright with
unshed tears, her nose red and her voice tight.  She put her fisted hands on
her hips and lifted her chin.  “Now, do you think that is the kind of thing
that needs to be laid on some stupid fire?”

            He clenched his own hands to
keep from reaching out to her, because he knew if he did touch her, she would
run.  “Yes,” he said softly.  “I think that’s exactly the kind of thing that
should be laid on the fire.”

            She did turn to run then. 
So he did the only thing he could do.  He stepped in her way and stopped her. 

            “Tell me about her.”

            She glared at him, and he
could see that, whatever else she may feel for him, at that moment she hated
him.  “Move.”

            “Did she look like you?”

            She moved to the side, and
he moved with her.

            “Cut it out.”

            He gripped her arms lightly
and stepped closer.  “You told me it was the best time in your life.  Tell me
why.  Tell me what was so good about it.”

            “Shut up!”  She clapped her
hands to her head as if to block out his words.  “Don’t you get it?  I can’t
remember the good.  Not without remembering the bad.  It’s all wrapped up
together.”

            Her voice broke off
abruptly, and instead of struggling, she threw herself into his arms.  He
hugged her fiercely, desperate to erase the pain in the tight lines of her
body, in the anguish burning in her eyes and the furrows of sorrow on her
forehead.  She clung to him, and he whispered a prayer of gratitude that he was
there for her to cling to, there to hold her as sobs jerked through her.

            “Shhhh,” he whispered
against the top of her head.  Her hair was smooth and slippery against his
cheek.  “It’s okay now.  I’ll share it with you.”

            “It is not okay, and it
hasn’t been for a long time.”  Her voice was strangled by tears.  “You weren’t
there, you can’t –”

            “Take me there.  Tell me
about it, make it real for me, and I can share it with you.  And you won’t have
to carry it by yourself anymore.”

            She swallowed, but remained
silent, breathing hard against his chest.  Her body sagged against his, heavy
and tired.

            “Did she look like you?” he
asked again.  “Did she have your hair?  Your eyes?”

            After a long moment, she
shook her head.  “She had blue eyes.  Most babies do, I think. And she didn’t
have any hair at all, just barely a little bit of fuzz.  But I think it would
have been blonde, like mine.”

            He held her tightly and made
long strokes down the top of her head, down her back, then brought his hand up
to do it over again.  “What was it like, to be pregnant?”

            “What was it like?”  She
rubbed tears from her eyes but stayed against him, their bodies swaying
slightly, both of them too tired to stand but unwilling to change positions. 
“It was wonderful.  Heavy and slow and interminable and over too soon and
frightening and wonderful.”

            He led her back to the
bedroom, and by some miracle she let him.  She didn’t protest when he pulled
off her boots and cradled her on the bed.

            “What was the birth like? 
Did it go okay?”

            “Supposedly.  I thought it
was pain beyond all comprehension, but the doctor seemed to think everything
was right on target.  And she was fine when she… when she was born.  So I guess
it went okay.”

            “Tell me what it was like,
when you saw her for the first time.”

            She was quiet for a long
time, and began to cry again, but silently this time, big tears sliding down
her cheeks.  “I don’t think I can.  I don’t know even know how to describe it. 
The nurse handed her to me, and she looked right at me like she knew exactly
who I was, her eyes were so clear and bright.  Here was this brand new baby,
only in the world for seconds, and yet she looked at me like she was so wise. 
Like she knew so much more than I did.  I felt… like I was looking into another
world.”  She frowned and shook her head.  “No, not another world, really.  This
world, but it was like I was looking through an open window to the deeper level
of it.  The source of everything.  Like we’re all up here on the surface, doing
our things and dealing with our little problems, and underneath there’s the –
the
heart
of everything, busy forces at work, and we’re completely
oblivious to it all, but it’s there.  That’s what it was like, seeing her for
the first time.  Like I was looking into that world, and I really felt like
she’d been sent to teach me.  She was the new life, but I honestly felt like
she knew what was going on, and if I just kept my mouth shut and paid
attention, she’d teach me, too.”

            He didn’t realize he was
crying, too, until he sniffed and felt hot tears in his throat.  He cupped the
back of her head.

            She cleared her throat, and
whispered, “And, I thought, ‘she’s going to break my heart one day’.  And she
did.  She left, and it broke my heart.”

            Dusty dreamed of
Anne-Marie.  The girl in her dreams was about four or five, and that was all
wrong because Anne-Marie was only three months old when she died, and even if
she’d lived she would now be close to ten.  But in the way of dreams, Dusty was
sure it was Anne-Marie.

            She watched with a lump in
her throat and hope in her heart as the little girl with the straight blonde
hair and laughing green eyes ran and played with the other kids in a yard Dusty
didn’t recognize.  Dusty knew there were other kids there; she could hear their
voices.  But she focused on the features of Anne-Marie.  She looked like such a
happy girl, with a giggle that tugged at Dusty, made her want to run and play,
too.

            Dusty turned to the woman
beside her, the woman who sat in the chair and rocked the baby and watched the
other children play. “That’s Anne-Marie,” she said numbly.

            The woman just smiled and
rocked the tiny baby she held to her shoulder.

            “I thought she was…” She
couldn’t bring herself to say the word, didn’t want to say it in case it wasn’t
true, but saying it would make it come true.  “I thought…”

            The little girl ran up to
her, giggling.  Dusty stood frozen, afraid and in awe of this Anne-Marie who
wasn’t gone, who hadn’t gone to sleep and never woken up.  “Anne-Marie?  I
thought you were gone,” she finally said.

            The little girl just grinned
and threw her arms around Dusty’s waist and laughed, a mouth full of perfectly
straight, tiny white teeth flashing up at her.

            She couldn’t move, couldn’t
understand, wanted desperately to understand how this Anne-Marie could be.  How
could
she be here, solid and laughing and warm, when Dusty could see in
her mind the picture of her little baby, her delicate skin pale, her lips blue,
her body perfectly still?  How could this be?

            As soon as she realized it
was a dream, she awoke.

            She told Luke sometimes she
forgot, but that wasn’t exactly true.  The knowledge and memory – and the pain
– were always there, in the back of her mind, sometimes in the front of it, but
always there.  She never thought of herself as a mother, and probably wouldn’t,
but she never for a moment forgot that she’d once had a child.  And had lost
it.

            But seeing Anne-Marie again,
touching her, feeling her thin little arms around her waist, the point of the
girl’s chin against her stomach as she looked up at her and grinned, then
having her again taken away, brought the pain back fresh and sharp and heavy in
the pit of Dusty’s stomach.  It was almost like losing her all over again.  She
knew she was awake now, although she didn’t open her eyes.  She closed them
tighter and rolled over, burrowing her head into the pillow, wanting to dive
headfirst back into the dream, back to where Anne-Marie was.

            She rolled into a warm body
and jerked fully awake, panicked.

            “It’s okay,” Luke mumbled in
his sleep.  His arm, heavy and solid, wrapped around her waist and held her
down.

            Dusty lay stiffly against
him, the strangeness of waking in an unfamiliar place combining with the
emotional upheaval of the dream to leave her disoriented.  She gripped Luke’s
arm until his breathing – and her heart rate – returned to normal.

            The worst aspect of these
dreams – which she’d had countless times in countless cities – was not the pain
they brought with them.  The worst part was that, alone in the dead of night,
she was forced to acknowledge how alone she was.  During the day she could keep
her mind occupied.  But at night, with nothing for company or distraction, she
had to admit to herself that she was alone and always would be. 

            She’d never experienced
waking up next to someone, or accepting the comfort a warm body could give. 
She allowed herself to relax, to yield her body to Luke’s.  His presence could
soothe her, for what came next, after the dream.