My Lucky Stars (26 page)

Thank You for the scriptures and the things I’m learning. Help me to know they are real. Help me to know
You
.

She waited, eyes closed and face pressed to the side of the mattress. A minute or two passed, but Tara didn’t hear any still, small voice. She didn’t quite feel the tenderness inside that she’d experienced lately either.

Probably because I was grumpy this morning.
She added one last supplication to her prayer and knew she’d likely have to repeat the request throughout her day.
Help me be nice
.

She closed her prayer then stood and went to the closet, staring at the paper she’d taped there. In a minute, she’d open the doors and quickly find something to wear. It wasn’t too difficult, as her choices remained limited. These days instead of spending the colossal amount of time she used to in putting the perfect outfit together, she was doing something new. She was working on putting together a better Tara—perfection being completely out of her reach.

Her inspiration for betterment had started with her study of Christ’s life. It seemed impossible to Tara that
anyone
could read about Jesus and not want to be better. One of her favorite hours of the week had become Sunday School and Brother Bartlett’s lessons that clarified what she’d read in the New Testament that week. She looked forward to his lessons, learned from them, and always left the room feeling uplifted.

But inspiring as learning about Jesus was, being like Him also seemed unattainable.
Enter King Benjamin—and his namesake.
Tara’s lips curved in a smile as she thought of Ben. Reading about King Benjamin had changed her life—or rather made her want to change it.
Really change.
No longer was her reform about pleasing Jane, or even Ben, but about being a better person.

For myself—to myself.

Easier said than done.
Tara thought of the way she’d almost snapped at Maddie first thing this morning. She remembered the scripture about the natural man being an enemy to God.

No kidding. My natural woman is positively wicked.
From the moment she woke up each morning, to the minute she fell asleep at night, being a better person was proving incredibly difficult.

Even my dreams are bad sometimes.
Tara sighed. Changing, really changing, was really hard.

She studied the list on the closet door, took a deep breath, and committed to one more day of being obedient to her commandments. She’d made her own list, since most on Moses’s tablets weren’t a problem for her. She might
say
she was going to kill something sometimes.
Like that stupid bird that chirps day and night.
But she knew she’d never actually do it. Stealing wasn’t a problem either. Honoring her mother and father . . . She couldn’t really go there yet. But most of the Big Ten, as she’d come to think of them, weren’t a worry. It was the other stuff she wrestled with. Tara faced her list with courage.

“No drinking.” She took a pencil off the dresser and added another tally mark next to the first item on her list.
I’ve gone thirty-six days. What’s one more?

“No swearing.” No tally marks were next to this item. Tara sighed.
This one may be hopeless.
Though she’d ceased using Deity’s name, she still found too many other words lingering in her vocabulary.

“No cheating.”
Nothing to cheat
at
around here except Candy Land.
And she didn’t count strategically placing certain cards near the top of the pile so the game would be shorter as dishonest.
It’s not like I win
, she thought.
I always make sure Maddie ends up with Queen Frosting, or whatever her name is, at the top of the board.

“No lying.” She checked that one off too. With only Jane to talk to, it was pretty much an impossibility.
Besides, Jane loves me—faults and all.

“No falsifying information.” That one was easy right now, but its challenge loomed large. Tara felt genuine fear about being an honest Realtor in this economy.

“Serve others. Got that one down.” Tara added three tally marks. She did that all day long from Jane to Maddie to Fran the bird. And yesterday she’d even made an amazing Italian dinner—homemade breadsticks, salad dressing, the works—for the missionaries. She added an extra tally and considered the possibility of upgrading to gold stars like Maddie’s kindergarten teacher used.

“Be nice.” Her fist clenched around the pencil, and she fell backward on the bed.
Why is that so hard?
The more she’d tried to change, the more she worked on this one goal in particular, the more it bothered her. She was, apparently, not a nice person at all—as evidenced by her near-caustic remark to Maddie just a few minutes earlier.

Discouraged, Tara read the last item on her list.

“Get to know Him.” The
Him
she referred to was God, her Father in Heaven, the missionaries liked to say. She liked that better too. God seemed like a title, but Father was someone she could relate to—or wanted to, anyway. After the first couple of weeks of messing around, she’d finally taken the missionaries’ challenge seriously. She was going to find out if He was real. Writing
Get to know Him
on her list implied that she already believed He really was out there—somewhere—listening to her, watching over her. And she wanted Him to be real. She wanted it more than she could believe or dared tell anyone.

She wanted it all to be true.

Thirty

Through the open doorway leading to the kindergarten classroom, Tara stared at the rows of tiny chairs crammed into the space. Four rows with ten chairs each.

They expect to fit forty people—in here?
She felt claustrophobic already. With a sigh she stepped through the doorway and took a seat in the middle of the front row. Jane had advised her to come early, to avoid being squished in the back, and Tara was grateful she had taken that advice. As it was she’d be doing good to survive an hour this close to so many—

Kids.

The morning kindergarten filed in, many of them hot and sweaty from recess. Their teacher gathered them around her desk for a minute then sent them all out to the hall to get a drink and use the restroom before the end-of-the-year program began. As Maddie walked by, she stopped in front of Tara then leaned forward and gave her an impulsive hug.

Tara hugged her back while thinking that Maddie was well on her way to being as sweet as her mother.

The seats around Tara began filling, and soon all of those in the front two rows were taken. In addition to the twenty sets of parents being squished in the small space, many had brought younger children with them, and a couple had babies with strollers. Tara was pretty certain they were exceeding fire code with this many people in the classroom, but she decided that in order to keep to her resolution to be nice, it was best she not say anything.

The class returned, this time taking their places on the risers. The teacher spoke for a moment about how much she’d loved her class this year and was going to miss them.

It takes all kinds
, Tara thought, impressed that the woman was able to spend six hours a day, five days a week, nine months of the year,
year after year
, with twenty five-year-olds.

The program began, and the class sang several songs. Tara recorded them all with Jane’s video camera. When it came time for Maddie to walk across the floor to receive her kindergarten diploma, Tara held the camera as still as possible while her other hand flashed a thumbs-up. Maddie returned the gesture, and behind her Tara heard someone murmur, “How cute.”

She does look cute
, Tara thought with a touch of pride. Yesterday she and Maddie had gone shopping and gotten their hair done. Maddie’s was cut in a cute bob—at Jane’s request, so she wouldn’t have to worry about doing too much to it in the coming baby-filled months. Maddie wore a new dress—white with cherries on it and all “twirly,” as she had described it when she’d twirled around and around in front of the dressing room mirror.

“She’s adorable,” the woman beside Tara whispered. “But she must have your husband’s hair. Not a strand of red on her.”

Two months ago—one month ago, even—Tara knew she would have been quick to clarify that Maddie was not hers.
No way. Not mine. Never.
But now . . .

Maybe one child, a nice one like Maddie, would be okay someday.

Tara acknowledged the woman’s comment with a half nod and continued filming while Maddie marched toward her seat. Jane would want to see every minute. Tara knew how much she’d wanted to come. During her last two doctor’s visits she’d been contracting a little—in spite of her medication—and was under strict orders to stay completely down or report to the hospital.

Consequently, Tara found herself doing more and more around the house and with Maddie.

Surprisingly, she was enjoying it.

Diplomas in hand, the kindergartners all sang one last song, and then the program was over. Maddie came down from her spot on the risers.

“You’re a big first-grader now,” Tara said, giving her another hug. Absently, she wondered if she would ever attend another kindergarten graduation, would ever set foot inside an elementary school again—with her own child.

“Want some cookies and punch?” Maddie asked, pointing to the mob of school children and their younger siblings attacking the refreshment table.

Tara eyed the cluster of sticky fingers waving in the air. One cookie went flying, and someone had already spilled a cup of red punch. The baby who had been sleeping in a stroller a few feet away began to wail.

“I have a better idea.” She unfolded herself from the tiny chair and turned toward the door as her sudden need for air became urgent.
What was I thinking a minute ago? I don’t want kids!

“What?” Maddie asked, taking her hand. “What’s your better idea?”

“Ice cream,” Tara said. “Any flavor you want. My treat, and we’ll bring some home for your mom too.”

“Two scoops?” Maddie asked, looking wistfully at the refreshment table.

Even she knows how to work things.
“Well, you are only going into
first
grade.” Tara pretended to be considering. “But I guess two scoops would be all right today.”

“Yeah.” Maddie skipped ahead, out the door to the playground, also overrun with little kids.

Tara resisted the urge to run too—far, far away. Instead, she said a silent prayer, an earnest plea that she might hold it together and not freak out around all of these short people.

She made it halfway across the blacktop without any of them touching her, though one came very close when his ball bounced past. The noise on the playground was deafening, and Tara wondered how the teachers could stand it.
Why do they send them all outside at the same time?
Hundreds of little bodies swarmed over every surface, all of them with high-pitched voices at full volume.

Somehow she made it to her car without breaking into a sweat.

“How about we ride with the top down today?” she asked Maddie as she helped her buckle her seat belt.

“Yes. Yes.” Maddie bounced up and down in her booster. “But won’t it mess up our hair? Yesterday you said that good hair is really important.”

“It is,” Tara said. “But some things are even more important than that.”

“Like what?” Maddie asked.

Tara closed the back door and looked up at the clear, blue sky. She climbed in, started the ignition, and hit the switch for the roof to retract. “Fresh air.”

* * *

It was close to one o’clock by the time Tara and Maddie returned home. Maddie’s face had telltale evidence of the chocolate chip mint ice cream she’d eaten, but her dress remained clean. She ran ahead, eager to tell her mom all about the program.

Tara carried five different pints into the house and put them in the freezer, hopeful that at least one of the flavors would cheer Jane up. During the past few days she’d seemed particularly melancholy. Tara knew the increased dosage of terbutaline wasn’t making her feel great, but she’d tried to encourage Jane, reminding her that there were only two more weeks until Peter came home and less than a month until she could deliver their babies.

Less than a month for me to find a place of my own
. On one hand, it was strange to think of moving out, but on the other . . . She was ready. To move on with her life, to take the next step. Scary though that might be.

Tara closed the freezer door and opened the fridge, examining the choices for dinner. One thing for sure, after the enormous two-scoop, oversized waffle cone Maddie had just consumed, she wasn’t going to want to eat anytime soon.

Tara was feeling an avocado to see if it was ripe yet when a scream echoed down the hallway from the bedroom.

“Maddie!” Tara dropped the avocado and raced to Maddie’s room, but she wasn’t there.

She wasn’t in Jane’s room either, but a second scream came from the master bathroom.

Tara ran to the doorway and looked in. Maddie stood next to Jane, who was lying on the floor, her eyes closed, spots of blood on the bath mat by her legs.

Thirty-One

“Mommy,” Maddie wailed.

Tara dropped to her knees beside Jane. “Get the phone.” She reached across Jane, grabbed Maddie’s arm, and pulled her toward the doorway. “Hurry!”

Still sobbing, Maddie ran from the room. Tara leaned over Jane and almost cried herself when she felt the faint breath escaping between her lips.

“Wake up, Jane,” Tara ordered and shook her gently. Her gaze left Jane’s overly pale face and traveled to her stomach, which suddenly didn’t seem as large as it had this morning.
She didn’t—
Tara glanced around the room, half afraid she’d see a baby somewhere, though that was impossible.
Wasn’t it?

“I got the phone.” Maddie thrust it at her, and Tara punched in 911. Before anyone picked up, she ordered Maddie from the room again, telling her to get her mom a blanket and pillow.