The afternoon air carried the distinct smell of brine, which seemed to calm my nausea rather than add to it. Forecasters had predicted a 90 percent chance of rain, which explained why the boardwalk stood deserted except for a few joggers. The seagulls seemed to know something the forecasters didn’t. Instead of moving inland as they normally did before a storm, they spread wide white wings, circling the tumultuous sky and cackling. The ocean answered with an indifferent roar.
As I neared the steps leading from boardwalk to sand, what little strength I had left me. I bent and lowered my daughter to the ground. Her eyes fluttered open and confusion colored her expression. I took her hand in mine and guided her down the plank stairs.
As our steps became weighted from the sand, Isabella rubbed slumber from her face and looked down. After a moment, her gaze drifted up toward the surf. Her eyes turned into saucers as she breathed her thoughts rather than spoke them. “So much water.”
It was a reaction I not only expected, but had looked forward to. My daughter had never seen the ocean before.
“It sure is,” I said.
“I’m not going swimming in there.”
“No, sweetness. We’re not.”
Waves dove at the shoreline. Circles of foam glided toward us, then retreated, sweeping shells back into the tide. The water’s ripples reflected the gray of the sky, as did the glistening sand at the water’s edge. Isabella turned toward me, mouth still open.
Though weariness tugged at me, I couldn’t help but smile. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
She turned to face it again and whispered, “The water sounds like thunder.”
I took my sandals off and helped her do the same. She slid her hand into mine and the two of us ventured to the surf. We inched forward until the foamy water crept over our ankles.
“It tickles!” she squealed.
I laughed as I bent and picked up a scallop shell. Salt water and time had worn its ridges smooth. I brushed off a piece of seaweed and handed it to her. She turned the shell over in her hand, examining it.
“Look around,” I said. “They’re everywhere.”
Scanning the shell-strewn beach, she asked, “Can I have some?”
“Of course.”
My daughter and I spent hours identifying what creatures came from what seashells, writing in the sand, letting the water break on our feet, and talking about everything and nothing. The sky never delivered on its threat to drench us. Eventually, Isabella’s yawn told me it was time to go. I hated that our perfect day was about to be over and hated even more how it would end.
“Bells, it’s time.”
She frowned and picked up a broken mussel shell. “I don’t wanna leave.”
“We’re going to have a grown-up talk now.”
The black shell tumbled from her hand. “Really?”
I nodded.
“Wait.” She poked a chubby finger into the wet sand, drew a stick figure, then looked up with a shy smile. “That’s you, Mommy.”
I studied her crude artwork. “You forgot my earrings. You know I look naked without them.”
She twisted her mouth at me, then jabbed a thumb into each of my sand ears. Next to her picture of me, she drew a small circle, which I knew was to be her head. I’d never seen her draw me without including herself. Before she could finish, the advancing water wiped me out.
I stared at the sand canvas where my portrait had been and thought,
That’s just how it will be.
In a few months, I’d be erased from this earth as if I’d never existed at all. Just another empty shell.
Undaunted, Isabella took two steps back and drew me again. After she finished, I laid my hand on her head. “C’mon, sweetness.” I grabbed our sandals, walked to the edge of a sand dune, and sat.
I wrapped my arms around my bent knees and watched my daughter do the same, aware for the first time just how often she mimicked my actions. It was through me that she was learning to become a young lady, but it would be Lindsey, not I, who would usher her into womanhood. A debilitating mix of sadness and jealousy seized me.
I should be the one to help her choose a prom dress, to whistle obnoxiously as she walked across the stage to collect her diploma, and to tuck baby’s breath into her curls before she lowered her wedding veil. Longing struck me with such force that I felt it physically. My stomach ached as though I’d been punched. That, of course, would have hurt less.
My daughter watched me intently, so I kept my expression as neutral as I could manage. If there was ever a time to keep it together, now was that time. Drowning her in my tears would only frighten and confuse her.
This moment was one that Isabella would remember for the rest of her life, playing it over and over again, whether she wanted to or not. It was my job to make the memory as tolerable as possible.
She scooted closer and I took her hand in mine. It felt smaller than it ever had before, but then so did mine. The clouds shrouding the sun all afternoon began to dissipate, causing the ashen hues that had streaked the water’s ripples to be replaced with shades of pink and violet. Isabella and I sat, watching the changing colors reflected on the water. “Where does the sun go at night?” she asked.
For a moment, I considered using the sun setting as the metaphor to describe my dying, but my gaze fell again to the ocean horizon with no end in sight.
“It goes to sleep, just like you.”
She laid her head against my arm. “I’m getting cold.”
I crossed my legs and pulled her into my lap. I engulfed her in my arms, loving the warm feel of her against me. Though the ocean air chilled me, my palms still managed to grow damp.
Isabella snuggled her shoulder blades tighter against my chest.
“Bella, you know I love you?”
“I know. I love you too.”
I tightened my hold on her, feeling her small arms pinned against her delicate frame. She wiggled for breathing room. Wanting her as close as possible, I loosened my embrace as little as she’d let me get away with. “I need you to listen to me.”
She pulled from my lap as though she were going to run away, but instead she knelt before me just as I’d done to her so many times. Tears fought hard to fill my eyes, and I fought harder to hold them back. My word, I loved this child.
Take this cup from me, Jesus. Take this cup.
“Look at the ocean.”
She hesitated, her eyes lingering on me as though I might disappear if she were to turn away.
“Can you see the other side?”
She shook her head, making her curls, wild from the breeze and salt water, flounce.
“You can’t see the other side, but there is one. Do you believe me?”
She nodded.
“Mommy is going to heaven soon. Heaven is like the other side of this ocean. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
She frowned. “Today?”
“No,” I said, “but very soon.”
“On a boat?”
I shook my head. “Jesus is going to take me.”
She stared at me a moment. “I’ll go too.”
I ran my fingers over her cool cheek. “You’ll cross that ocean someday, but not with me.”
Her frown deepened. “I want to go with you.”
I took her hand and kissed it. “Your daddy needs you to stay with him. You’re going to live with him and Lindsey until we can be together again. They’ll take good care of you.”
“No!” She ripped her hand out of mine. “I want to go with you.”
“God says I have to go without you.”
She scowled. “Then God’s bad.”
“No, sweetness. He’s very, very good.”
Her face contorted and her lower lip quivered. “I hate God.”
I laid my hands on her shoulders and squeezed. “Please don’t say that. Remember this, Bella—we don’t understand what He’s doing a lot of times, but
He
does. We just have to trust Him.”
In a stoic move, she tucked in her lips and stared at the sand. I gave it a minute to sink in, letting the crashing waves serenade us.
Finally she looked up. “When will you come back?”
“When someone dies, they don’t come back.”
Tears spilled down her round cheeks. “I don’t want you to die.”
I leaned in and kissed them away. “I’m going to heaven. Be happy for me. It’s a beautiful place and nobody ever cries there.”
Her shoulders heaved. “I want to come with you.”
I held her for a long time, her body trembling with the force of her sobs, until at last she grew still. I pulled back and wiped her tear-streaked face. “We’ll just be apart for a little while. Then it will be your turn to cross the ocean and we’ll be together again. This time forever and ever and ever.”
She stared into my eyes with an intensity I’d never seen, then threw her arms around me and hugged me harder than she ever had before. “Don’t go, Mommy. Please don’t leave me.”
I pulled back to meet her gaze. “I’ll never leave you. I’ll always be right in here.” I laid my hand over her heart and felt its soft thump against my palm. “I’ll be waiting for you on the other side, watching you grow . . . and loving you.”
Isabella said little as we walked to the car. Now, belted in her car seat, the silence carried over as she stared out the window. Her vacant expression reminded me of a soldier’s after a tour of combat duty. As much as I wanted to tell her that everything would be fine, I couldn’t change reality.
After some time of staring at the broken white line as it parted the road before me, I looked in the rearview mirror to find Isabella’s head lying against glass, her mouth open and eyes closed. Just like that, all her worries melted with unconsciousness.
I’d spent the entire day holding it together for her sake. Now, at last, I felt safe to release all that I’d held back. As I cried, I heard her stir in the backseat. I quickly stifled my tears and glanced back, afraid I had woken her. Her eyes fluttered and then she grew still again. Seeing her so at peace made me long for the same.
Someday soon,
I thought,
I’ll have that.
Part of me wished that day were now, but the worst of my journey was still ahead of me. I’d have given anything to not have to climb this mountain to my grim summit. I didn’t see how I could make it without Isabella by my side, but for her sake, I knew I would. For her sake, there was nothing I wouldn’t do.
Isabella’s last day slipped like sand through my fingers. A cloud hovered over the house as bedtime drew near. Craig spent the evening in the saddle barn, giving us time alone as a family. Mama Peg, my father, and I wore strained smiles as we lingered about my daughter, playing board games, faking laughter over her silly jokes . . . missing her even before she left us.
Mama Peg tried to make our last night together as special as possible, positioning several vases of her prized roses around the living room. She had my father light a row of candles, which now flickered down the length of the fireplace mantel, casting the room in a soft glow. The atmosphere seemed better suited to a romantic evening for two than a somber farewell.
As Isabella knelt before the coffee table with her face resting in her hands, her glistening lips reflected the candlelight. Chestnut curls framed her face. She was beautiful.
You’re doing the right thing,
I told myself as I studied her profile. I could still see her anytime I wanted, and when she missed me, I was just a phone call away. As wrong and unnatural as it felt to say good-bye, it was for the best. Or, more accurately, for
her
best. With the proverbial knife piercing my heart, it certainly wasn’t for mine.
I consoled myself with the reminder that David and Lindsey had promised to do anything they could to ease Isabella’s transition into their care—open-door policy was the way David put it. Of course, I trusted his word about as much as an infomercial promise, but Lindsey was another story. As much as I disliked her, I believed she would use her influence with David to keep him honest.
I tapped my plastic gingerbread man along the Candy Land board while my conscience pointed its accusing finger at me.
How could you, her own mother, abandon this helpless child?
I took a deep breath, trying to clear my mind. The smell of pipe smoke clung to my father and the surrounding air. I looked at him, hoping to find a glimmer of empathy and strength in my daddy’s eyes, but he wouldn’t look at me. I wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t said a word to me since the car ride home from the lawyer’s office.
The only thing worse than his silence was the accusation in his gaze when, on the rare occasion, our eyes did meet. He acted as if I were throwing my daughter to the wolves. He had to know I’d rather be skinned alive than leave her, but death was going to steal me regardless of what any of us wanted. Wasn’t it better to say good-bye now before I became a gruesome shadow of the woman I wanted her to remember? It was the right decision despite what he thought. It was.
And anyway, I doubted his motivation was concern for Isabella as much as it was competition with the Prestons. Nothing more than a sick little game of selfishness and pride. Isabella was just a trophy he was about to lose. God forbid that Jack Lucas shelve his narcissistic motives for a moment and support his only child on the worst day of her life. God forbid that he act like a father.
Neither Mama Peg nor Craig initially agreed with my decision either, but they at least made an attempt to understand where I was coming from. My grandmother must have asked me a dozen times since yesterday if I was sure about it. It took an explicit reminder of Mom’s anguished final moments to convince her that my plan was sound.
Isabella drew a card from the pile on the center of the board and moved her piece to the next yellow square. To help ease her fears about David, I’d spent much of the evening recounting every cute story I could think of about him, which wasn’t many.
My father’s first words to me in two days were “Listening to you, you’d swear that twerp was some kind of hero.”
Isabella slapped her spent card onto the table. “He’s not a twerp!”
Mama Peg tried to answer, but a coughing spell rendered her incoherent.
I gave my father a look that told him he’d gone too far. “No, Bella, your daddy’s not a twerp. He’s a very smart man.”