Oceans Apart (6 page)

– Oceans Apart –

because they spilled out from his eyes without stopping. For Ramey, too. And he couldn’t understand that, because it was
his
mom who died, that’s why. After a long time, Ramey told him,

“Let’s pray.”

Pray wasn’t something Ramey did, but he and Mommy did it all the time. Ramey prayed before they ate sometimes, but that was all. She didn’t know the other things about God, like that He lived in heaven, Max was pretty sure about that. But now God wasn’t the only one there, because his mommy had joined Him. Max wiped his hands across his cheeks.

All he needed was a map and he could go there, too. Maybe Ramey could look it up on the Internet. But until then, God would have to tell his mommy how he was feeling. He knew about praying, but he wasn’t sure about messages. “Could God give Mommy a message for me?”

“Yes, Max.” Ramey bit her lip and her chin got jiggly. “If there’s a God, somehow He’ll tell your mom.”

“Is there a God?” Max wanted to be sure. He always thought so; Mommy always told him so. But he didn’t want to give Him a message if He wasn’t real.

“God . . .” Ramey’s eyes were closed again. Her voice was extra quiet. “Where are you?” Ramey’s head bent down. Crying came over her for a minute and then she looked up and did a couple nods. “Yes, Max. There is a God. Even on a day like this.”

“Okay, then.” Max folded his hands together the way he and his mommy always did. But sad filled his mouth and he couldn’t talk.

Mommy . . . Mommy, where are you? Come back to me, please . . .
The words stayed in his mouth. A missing feeling came all through him.

He didn’t just miss her in his heart and in his head, but his arms missed her and his hands and his feet. Because after today he wouldn’t hug her or swing hands with her or walk beside her. Not ever again.

44

– Karen Kingsbury –

“Max?” Ramey put her hand over his two smaller ones. “Want me to say it?”

“No, thank you.” He wanted God to hear the message straight from him. He did a little sniff. “God, hi, it’s Max.” He moved a little in his seat because he had never asked God to give a message before. “Ramey says my mommy’s with You now, so can You tell her something for me?” He waited, in case God wanted to say something back. When he heard no words, he started again. “Tell her I’m sorry I wasn’t there when her plane landed in the water, because I would’ve helped her out. Me and her coulda swimmed to the island, and she wouldn’t have to live in heaven.” The missing feeling got worse, and he remembered his mom’s face.

Be brave, Max . . . be brave.

Max sat a little straighter. “But I guess now it’s too late, so will You tell her something else, God, please? Tell her I’m being good for Ramey and that Buddy says hi.” Buddy made a little whiny sound. “And tell her to sing me our special song, ‘I Love You, Max, the Most,’ tonight before she goes to bed.” He wasn’t sure how to finish. “Thank You, God. I’ll think of more stuff later.” It wasn’t until that night when he and Buddy were in bed that Max realized something. If the plane would’ve landed on the ground like it was supposed to, his mom would’ve been home by now. She’d be in his room, sitting on his bed and singing him his song.

But if God gave her the message, then maybe she was singing it right now. He thought about that for a minute. Maybe she was waiting for him to sing it with her. His throat felt like a frog was in it, so he did a loud cough.

Buddy looked up, and his ears got pointy.

“It’s okay, boy.” Max patted Buddy’s head and gave it a light push back down toward the bed. “Go to sleep.” 45

– Oceans Apart –

Buddy made a soft breath on Max’s arm, and a tired sound rattled in his neck. Then he dropped down his head like a good dog. That’s when Max began to hum just a little. Finally the words came, too. The words to their special song. He circled his arm around Buddy’s neck and sang them soft as a buzzing fly.

“I love you, Max, the most, I love to make you toast. When oceans we’re apart . . . you’re always in my heart.” The humming part didn’t sound the same without his mom, but it made the hole in Max’s heart feel smaller. Even if his hum was in a whisper voice. Because if his mom was singing their song somewhere in heaven, then they were together sort of. The song had hand motions, which meant he could sing it with his voice and his words and his hands, the way he and Mommy always sang it.

First his hands over his heart, then one hand open like a pretend bread, and one hand brushing back and forth like a pretend butter knife, the way his mom made him toast each morning. Then big arms for the ocean, and last, hands back over his heart.

He started again, but his eyes felt watery, so he didn’t do the hand motions. They were only fun when he and his mommy were in the same room. It wasn’t the same if she was in heaven.

“I love you, Max, the most . . . I love to make you toast. When oceans we’re apart—”

Just then he stopped because he remembered a P.S. for God.

Mommy told him about P.S. It’s when you write a note and add something at the very end, something ’portant you forgot.

“God?” He whispered. His throat was sticky, and the hole in his heart was big again. Bigger than before. “God, if You’re there, it’s me, Max.”

Buddy stretched out against him and did a huffy sound. His nose was cold and wet against Max’s arm.

“God, I forgot a P.S.” Max blinked in the dark room and ran his fingers into Buddy’s warm fur. Buddy had been next to him all day 46

– Karen Kingsbury –

because Buddy missed Mommy, too, that’s why. Ramey was nice, but Buddy was all the family Max had left now. He heard Ramey say that to someone on the phone during lunch. “Please, God, tell my mom I’m going to talk to Ramey tomorrow about heaven.

Because I’m not sure how to get there, God. But if Mommy’s going to live there, I want to live there, too. Really soon, okay?” When Max finally fell asleep with his arm around Buddy, he dreamed about airplanes landing in water and a place called heaven where they could all be together. Him and Mommy and Buddy.

The way a family should be.

Forever and ever and ever.

47

FOUR

Ramey couldn’t stop the flow of memories. They came to her constantly, bits and pieces of Kiahna’s life, information that Ramey had to rely on now that Kiahna was gone.

Just weeks before Max was born, Kiahna sat Ramey down and told her what to do if one day she didn’t come home.

“Let’s talk about death.” Kiahna rested her hands on her extended abdomen and leveled her gaze at Ramey.

“Stop.” Ramey had brushed her off, not sure Kiahna was serious. “This is your season of life. Don’t talk like that; you scare me.” But Kiahna didn’t let up. “Ramey, I mean it. If anything ever happens to me, you need to know what to do.” Ramey looked at the young woman for a moment and finally nodded. “Okay. Tell me.”

The plan was simple. Kiahna had written a brief will and a note for her unborn son. The two documents were being kept by an attorney on the island, someone Kiahna had paid to handle things in an emergency.

“What about the boy’s father?”

Kiahna’s expression shut down like a bank at closing time. “No.

You must not ask about him.”

Ramey never asked again. Whoever the man was, he’d hurt Kiahna deeply. The girl was beautiful inside and out, half Irish, half Hawaiian, leggy with tan skin, pale green eyes, and a heart deeper than the waters off Honolulu. But the only men allowed access to that heart were God and Max. Always Max.

Ramey used to dream about finding Max’s father and shaking him, asking him if he knew what he was missing by leaving Kiahna 48

– Karen Kingsbury –

pregnant and alone. Max was an amazing boy, a child filled with awe and wonder, very much in need of a father.

At first, when Max was a baby, Ramey would ask Kiahna whether she was meeting anyone worth dating. “Every time I think of that boy I see a father in his future,” Ramey would say. “With all those businessmen and pilots you work with, one of them must be worth smiling at.”

Kiahna’s features would take on a faraway look. She would give a few subtle shakes of her head, and that was as far as the conversation went. By the time Max was three, Kiahna told her it wasn’t a daddy the boy needed. It was a Father. A heavenly Father. Kiahna grew up in a church, but that year her faith became doubly important because of Max. She wanted him to know everything about living a life for God.

But when Kiahna tried to share her faith, Ramey bristled. “It’s all a fantasy, Kiahna. It’s okay for you, but keep it to yourself.”

“I won’t ask you about God, if you don’t ask me about men.” Ramey planted her hands on her hips. “Deal.” Every now and then, though, Ramey found a way to bring the forbidden subject up to Kiahna.

“Look, I have God and Max.” She’d give Ramey a shrug and a sweet smile. “That’s enough for now.”

Ramey got the point, but that didn’t stop her from mentioning a single man down at the grocery store, or another one out by the pool. Kiahna’s response was always the same. There would be no men in her life except for her son.

A handful of years passed, and Ramey’s own two children moved to the mainland and rarely made it back for visits. Ramey still had a heart full of love, so she opened a day care in her home. Six children came every day after school, but Max was the only one who sometimes spent the night. When he turned five, Ramey was too 49

– Oceans Apart –

ill and too tired to care for so many children. She kept only Max, and she realized something about the boy.

He felt like her own.

Now she was sixty-eight with heart disease, diabetes, poor cir-culation, and failing eyesight. With Kiahna gone, whatever Max’s future held Ramey wanted very much to be part of it. But she couldn’t be the only part. Max was an active child, a boy who learned from Kiahna on the sidewalk outside their apartment how to throw a spiral pass, one who raced his mother down the beach and took bike rides with her on lesser-known island trails.

Ramey’s body simply didn’t have that much left to give.

So it was, first thing Monday morning, three days after the tragedy, Ramey was on the phone with Kiahna’s attorney, hoping against hope that whatever financial plan the documents held for Max, they also contained some type of physical plan.

Ramey wasn’t sure what she was hoping for. That Kiahna had a long-lost sister maybe, or an aunt or uncle. Someone who cared enough to step in and be a family for Max. The receptionist at the attorney’s office had her on hold, but that didn’t bother Ramey.

She would’ve waited all day if it meant helping Max. Poor baby.

He and Buddy had been practically attached at the ankle since Saturday morning, and several times she’d found Max sitting at the foot of his bed, knees drawn up, face buried in his arms.

Sobbing and calling in quiet desperation for his mama.

Today was the first morning Ramey woke up dry-eyed, but she had no doubt there’d be more sadness before the day was done.

She held the receiver close to her ear.

“Hello, this is Marv Ogle.”

Ramey steadied herself. Never . . . never had she thought she’d have to make this call. Back when Max was born it had seemed impossible that Kiahna would ever be anything but the boy’s mom, 50

– Karen Kingsbury –

young and alive and driven by faith. “Hello, Mr. Ogle. Kiahna Seifert is a client of yours, I believe.”

“Kiahna?” The man’s voice softened. “Yes . . . she’s a client.”

“Well . . .” Ramey swallowed. She had the feeling Kiahna had been more than a client to this man. Perhaps she had even been a friend. “I have some bad news, Mr. Ogle.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Kiahna was killed in Friday’s plane crash. She . . . she was a flight attendant.”

A moment passed while the man recovered. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

The attorney moaned, and his voice cracked when he spoke again. “I was worried. I heard about the crash and looked for a victim list, but the papers haven’t printed it yet.”

“No.” Ramey blinked back a fresh wetness in her eyes. “They’re still notifying next of kin.”

“You’re absolutely sure?” He sighed long and slow, the way people did in hospitals and funeral parlors. “I thought she flew the Los Angeles route.”

“Before Max was born.” Ramey stared at her hands and saw they were shaking. “It’s been Honolulu to Tokyo ever since.” Another quiet moan. “My dear Kiahna.” The attorney said her name as though by itself it might have contained a thousand memories. “This was her worst fear.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Kiahna was like a second daughter to me.”

“Oh.” Ramey understood. She felt the same way. “I didn’t know.”

The man’s voice drifted. “She and my daughter were best friends through junior high, closer than sisters. Marlee . . . she fell in with a bad crowd and when high school came around, she and Kiahna didn’t spend much time together. Even then Kiahna was a friend.

A sweet girl who lived out her faith every day. She . . . she would 51

– Oceans Apart –

drive to parties and pull my daughter out. Then she’d come by the next morning to talk a little sense into her. She did everything possible to save my daughter from the life she’d fallen into.” The man grunted as though he was trying to gain composure.