So Much to Live For (10 page)

M
ARLEE was buried on a hot August morning. The cornflower-blue sky was decorated with puffy white clouds that looked like wads of colorless cotton candy. Dawn had cried so much before the funeral that she made it through the service fairly dry-eyed. Rob and Katie went with her, and it helped having them by her side.

Dawn stared at the mantle of pale pink roses draped over Marlee’s coffin. The minister’s words drifted in and out of her consciousness. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” he said. Dawn felt dull and listless, like burnedup ashes.

“He shall wipe away every tear and turn our mourning into joy,” Dawn heard the man say. She wondered if she’d ever feel joyous again. She let her gaze drift away from the coffin to the green, lush lawn of the cemetery, broken by colorful patches of flowers placed in vases beside bronze plaques. Row upon row they stretched, as far as her eye could see.

She felt Rob put his arm around her shoulder. “It’s over,” he told her gently. She nodded. As they started across the emeraldgreen grass, Dawn heard someone call her name and turned to see Grandmother Hodges and her chauffeur coming toward her. Dawn met the woman halfway.

They hugged. Grandmother Hodges was dressed in black, and she felt feather-light in Dawn’s arms. Her voice wavered as she said, “Thank you for coming, my dear. Marlee wanted to make sure I gave you this.”

Leaning on her cane, she turned toward her chauffeur, who handed Dawn a small, but elegant shopping bag. Inside were Mr. Ruggers and a little box wrapped with a red ribbon.

“Thank you,” Dawn said, fingering the floppy-eared bear.

“Marlee loved that bear of yours. Funny— she had a whole room full of beautiful dolls and stuffed animals I’d given her over the years. But none of them meant as much to her as your bear.”

Dawn felt tears mist over her eyes. “He has a way of growing on you.”

“Thank you again for all you did for Marlee. She loved you like a sister.”

Dawn’s chest felt heavy, as if her heart might break. “She was like a sister to me, too.”

“I’m feeling rather poorly,” Grandmother Hodges apologized. “But if you’d ever like to talk, please call me.”

Dawn promised she would. Marlee’s grandmother leaned into her chauffeur, who led her toward the long black limousine waiting at the roadside.

“You okay, Squirt?” Rob asked. His term of endearment sounded out of place to Dawn. She was too old for childish nicknames anymore. “Let’s go home,” he said, gently directing her toward his car.

“In a minute,” she told him. “I’d like to be alone, if that’s okay.”

He took Katie’s hand. “We’ll wait right here. Take all the time you need.”

Clutching the bag, Dawn walked aimlessly amid the plaques and headstones. When she was some distance away, she opened the sack and gazed at the bear. “So, what do you think, Mr. Ruggers? It looks like it’s just me and you again.”

She thought of the time she’d grown tired of fighting for her life and had insisted Rob take the bear. “You’re like a boomerang,” she told the stuffed animal. “You keep coming back. But I’m glad to see you again. And thanks for making Marlee happy. You’re a good ol’ bear.” Her voice caught and tears swam in her eyes.

“Why do you suppose I’m always the one left behind, Mr. Ruggers? Why am I always the one who has to keep saying good-bye to my friends?”

The bear stared at her through his one glassy eye, reminding her for all the world of Marlee and her moment at camp when a hundred glass marbles had bounced on the assembly hall floor. The image made Dawn smile softly. She pulled out the ribbon-wrapped box. A note was attached in Marlee’s handwriting. It read:

The writing squiggled as tears slid down her cheeks. Carefully, Dawn untied the ribbon. Inside the box lay a pile of gray ashes. Gingerly, Dawn sifted them with her thumb and forefinger. The silt settled on her skin, and somehow, also on her heart. All at once, she knew that she had no choice. She’d have to go back to camp. She’d have to return the ashes to the bonfire next summer. For Marlee. For Sandy. They were all sisters. Linked by the bond of cancer, bound by the thread of hope.

Dawn lifted her fingers, staring in fascination at the way the gray ashes clung. Gently, she puffed and watched the fine silt drift skyward.
Dust in the wind
. She saw then that they were all dust in the wind, until they each became jewels in a crown of life.

And she realized that some of them—like herself—were allowed to go on living for all the ones who couldn’t.
Life is a gift
. A tingling feeling stole over her as she understood that she, Dawn Rochelle, had been chosen to continue on. Day by day. Month by month. Year by year.

Dawn kept looking up. She was no longer able to see the tiny particles of ashes. Yet she was certain that they were there, floating off in the summer breeze high above the earth.

Dawn closed the box, hugged her stuffed bear tightly, and, feeling the hot, delicious warmth of the sun soaking through her dress, whispered, “Come on, Mr. Ruggers. It’s time to go home.”

Look for

Lurlene
McDaniel’s

next book about Dawn Rochelle,

No Time To Cry

Dawn has faced more than most kids her
age: chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant,
cancer camp, the death other best
friend. Now, at almost sixteen, she wants
nothing more than to live a normal life and
be an ordinary high school student. But can
she ever really put the past behind her?