Shades of Blue (20 page)

“Hey Riley … here, boy.” She watched him thud down the hall, the cats in tow like always. “Want a snack, buddy?” She patted his head and scratched behind his ears and did the same to her cats. Then she led them into the kitchen, Pied Piper of her solitary household. A dog treat for Riley and a pouch of kibble for the cats to share, but still Emma didn’t feel like herself. Her mom had been her best friend in those final years after Brad left. An afternoon like this, she wanted just one more day with her. One more hour.

Emma leaned against the kitchen counter, her back to the window. She could take the missing her out to the beach, pound it out of her system with a long run. But she had a feeling running wouldn’t touch the ache inside her. Not today. She poured a glass of water and made up her mind while she drank it. The cemetery. That’s where she needed to go. Her mom was buried at an old tree-lined cemetery just off the interstate, this side of Wilmington. The drive would take forty minutes, and maybe it would help clear her head.

She waited until Riley finished his bone, then she hooked a leash on him. “Come on, boy … let’s take a ride.” She led him out to the car and he leaped onto the front passenger seat. She looped his leash around a hook on the inside of the car door and they set out. Usually Emma would talk to Riley as they drove, but not today. She was lost in a place and time where her mother was alive and Brad was still a possibility.

Halfway there she stopped and bought red roses from a roadside stand. They reached the cemetery and Emma found her familiar parking place, just a fifteen-yard walk from her mother’s grave. On this side of the quiet cemetery, no one would mind if she had Riley with her. Besides, dogs were allowed as long as they were on a leash. A cement bench sat close to her mom’s tombstone — a gift from Emma’s grandmother. Engraved on a metal nameplate were the words, “Jean Catherine Landon — loving daughter, devoted mother.” Beneath that were her mother’s birth and death dates. Emma sat Riley by the bench, then she walked the few steps to the marker. The wording etched into the light gray marble was the same as on the bench.

Emma didn’t come here often. With her mother’s deep faith, certainly she wasn’t relegated to some underground grave. She was alive in heaven — that much Emma was sure of. But being here sometimes helped the memories come a little easier. Emma stooped down and brushed a few stray grass clippings and a layer of dusty dirt off the stone.

Carefully she laid the roses on the grave. Her mom had loved flowers … red roses especially. “Mom … you should be here.”

The memories called to her, surrounding her and comforting her with the peace of the familiar. As they did, everything about those years came to life again. Her mother’s pale face and cheerful voice, the way the house smelled faintly of her lavender lotion when she was alive.

Emma sat cross-legged on the grass, her hand on the stone. After graduation, she attended Cape Fear Community College so she could live at home and help her mother. The cancer diagnosis had come midway through Emma’s sophomore year in high school. Sometimes Emma wondered if she would’ve been so quick to cross lines with Brad if she hadn’t been scared to death about losing her mom. At first the cancer was in her lymph nodes, but a year later it was in her colon. After that she could take swings at the disease but she was honest with Emma.

She wouldn’t beat it.

Emma had no relationship with her father — a surfer her mom had met at the beach and who had left their lives forever when Emma was one. When Brad left, Emma felt the way her mother must have felt when her dad walked out. Except for one glaring difference — her mother was brave. She’d kept her baby and raised Emma on her own. The irony, of course, was that Emma had chosen the abortion — at least in part — so that every thing would go back to the way it was before she got pregnant. So Brad wouldn’t leave.

But he left anyway, and nothing was ever the same.

Her mom got sicker, but because of the abortion, Emma walked around in a fog, numb to the pain that consumed her. The pain of missing Brad and knowing that her baby would be one and then two. The pain of knowing she could have turned around. She could have run out of that Wilmington clinic and everything would be different.

Emma pulled her knees up to her chest. Riley was sleeping a few feet away, a low rumble of a snore coming from him. She lifted her eyes to the sky. The air was still, not even the slightest breeze to ease the humidity. In the distance, the constant hum of the interstate was the only sound. Emma stared at the grave again and sighed. The spring of Emma’s college sophomore year, her mother’s breathing slowed and she could no longer get out of bed without a great deal of help. Emma was at her side, hiding her tears and doing her best to stay upbeat.

“We can get you through this, Mom. Keep believing, okay?” Emma would tell her. By then she no longer talked in terms of prayer or faith. “This is a setback, that’s all.”

But by then, the doctor had taken her off everything except her pain medicine and sent her home. No matter how positive Jean Landon remained, no matter how great her faith, the end was near.

Emma’s heart warmed as she pictured her mother in those final days. Her beautiful, strong mother. She’d never been down or afraid, never been anything but concerned about Emma. The cancer could have its way, but her mom’s faith was never stronger than in her final hours. Emma could still feel the wicker chair beneath her as she sat at her mother’s bedside, still smell the dank scent of death in the room and feel the shadows casting a late afternoon darkness over her mother’s bed.

“Mama …” There had never been a great opportunity to say this, but now Emma was almost out of time. “I want to tell you something.”

Her mom was deathly thin, her gray complexion drawn and pinched by the disease. Even still, she found the strength to reach out and take hold of Emma’s hand. “What, honey?”

Tears choked Emma’s words, but she pressed through. “Thank you … for having me. You gave me your whole life, Mama.” A sob caught in her throat and she hung her head, hung it so far down that her forehead touched the place where their hands held tight. “I know … how much it cost you.”

“Baby …” her mom squeezed her hand in a show of love that screamed for more time. “You made it all … worth it. You were the best daughter.”

Emma lifted her head, looking long into her mother’s eyes, wanting the moment to last a lifetime. But all she could see was how hard it had been for her. The long double shifts, the countless nights when she must’ve known how Emma sat home alone longing for companionship, the way her mother’s back ached at the end of the week. All of it came rushing into that single moment, and her mom’s struggle was overwhelming. “Every sacrifice, Mama. You did it all for me.”

“It wasn’t a sacrifice.” She eased Emma’s hand to her dry lips and kissed it. “I never wanted to be anything but your mother.”

“I love you, Mama. You’ve been the very best.”

“Sweet girl … I would do it all again. You made every day worthwhile.” Her mother’s voice was scratchy, but her smile was young and full and unaffected by the disease. A smile that defied her pain and weakness, and even her imminent death. The same smile she’d had on Emma’s first day of kindergarten and when Emma learned to ride a bike and when she brought Brad Cutler home for dinner the first time.

But then her smile faded and she squeezed Emma’s hand again. “I know … it’s been hard. Losing Brad … Hang onto Jesus, baby.”

Tears streamed down Emma’s face, and she gulped back a couple of strong sobs. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Can you see it, Emma?” Joy painted an unearthly expression on her face. She turned her eyes toward her bedroom window. “A place with no more death or crying. No more pain. Where every day is bright with the light from the Son?” She seemed to linger on the picture, then she turned back to Emma. “When you get there … I’ll be the first to greet you. Look for me, okay, baby?”

The sobs broke free and Emma buried her head once more against her mother’s shoulder. “Oh, Mama. Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave.”
No, God … don’t take her. She’s all I have. Please, God …
But even as she prayed, she knew God wasn’t listening. He’d already made up His mind about her mother.

“I can see it, Emma.” Her words slowed along with her breathing. “I’ll … be okay. I love you, baby. Always.”

“Mama, don’t go …” Emma sat up, terrified, but there was nothing she could do, no one to call. Cancer had gotten the final word. “Mama!”

Her chest rose two more times and then it stopped, still for all time. Emma wasn’t sure how she’d handle the moment, whether she’d faint or scream or run from the room. Instead she sat unmoving, her mother’s hand still in hers, and she let her mother’s voice linger in her mind again.

I’ll be okay … I love you, baby … always … I’ll be okay.

Her mother wasn’t gone for good. She was with Jesus. She had to be, because in her final minute she could see heaven. Actually see it. Her burial and memorial Service were two days later, attended by a few neighbors and friends and a couple dozen people from the church she’d been attending. The church Brad’s family attended. His parents and sister were there, and at the last minute, Brad also showed up.

When they had a few minutes alone, he touched her face, his expression thick with regret. “I’m sorry. She was a wonderful woman.”

Emma nodded, angry with herself for missing him so much, for being attracted to him. She wanted to ask why he’d left and why they didn’t try again. Why they’d let their love die right alongside their unborn baby. But with the wind in the trees and a cool shadow hanging over the cemetery and Brad ready to head back to Chapel Hill, she could only guard her heart. “Thanks.” She pulled her long dark hair back so she could see him better.
I miss you, Brad
, she thought.
You don’t know how much
. But her words came out differently. “It’s been awhile.”

“It has.” He glanced over his shoulder, clearly anxious to leave. But then he looked straight into her soul. “I think about you. About us.” He pursed his lips, as if he was frustrated because there was nothing left to say. “I’m sorry, Emma. About your mom.” One more quick hug and he turned and walked away.

And that was it, the last time they’d seen each other.

The losses stacked up one on top of the other. Her childhood dreams … her baby … Brad … and now her mother. It was inevitable, really, but God was the next and last loss. The only thing she had left to lose. The disconnect with the Lord was twofold. First, she was convinced He no longer loved her, no longer wanted the likes of her to go around calling herself a Christian. She was a horrific excuse for a woman, her baby’s blood on her hands. She could have walked out of the clinic.

The truth screamed at her as often as she’d listen.

In time it wasn’t only that God wouldn’t want her. She didn’t want Him either. He had taken everything from her, after all. What reason was there to feign an interest in faith or prayer or Bible reading when she had nothing left to pray for?

Cloaked with pain and sorrow, Emma had done the only thing she knew to do: She poured herself into her studies. Every day was the same, and Emma learned to live and work and breathe alone. She finished at Cape Fear with her associate degree and transferred to N.C. State — thirty-five minutes away, but it might as well have been a million miles away from UNC.

With every day of learning and taking tests and writing papers, Emma knew there was only one job that would help bring life back to her soul. The job of teaching. She earned her bachelor’s in education, and after a year of intense studies, she was awarded her teaching credential. At the same time, she got word from her grandmother that the beach house was hers. A block away from Holden Beach, of all places.

She interviewed for the first-grade position at Jefferson Elementary and she’d been there ever since. Survival took over as the years passed. Yes, she marked every May 15th, remembering when their baby would have been five and then six, and then seven. But gradually she did her best to rewrite the past. The abortion hadn’t really been her fault. The nurse had made the appointment, and Brad hadn’t been supportive. She’d had no one to turn to. Besides, abortion was legal — the decision really had been hers, right?

Whatever it took to justify the past, because justifying it was better than blaming herself. Justifying the abortion meant Emma had permission to live. The alternative meant a lifelong debt Emma could never pay — even if no one but Brad knew what she’d done.

The air was cooling, and Emma stood. For a long time she stared at the gravestone, then she took a few steps back to the place where Riley was still sleeping. But before she might sit down, she remembered another gravesite a little ways from where her mother was buried. She took one of the red roses from the ground and walked slowly across the freshly mowed grass. Riley lifted his head, but she gave him a look that told him everything was okay and he returned to sleep.

The spot was closer than Emma remembered, the marker simpler, smaller. She stood at the foot of it and crossed her arms tight around herself. Even in the heat of the late afternoon a chill passed over her as she read the name on the stone. Cassandra Rae Armijo.

The name took her back, and Emma remembered the connection the way she hadn’t in years. Her first fall as a student teacher, she worked alongside another Wilmington student — Elisabeth Armijo. Though Elisabeth was married and a few years older than Emma, the two became friends. Early in the school year, Elisabeth was thrilled to find out she was pregnant. Only one problem clouded the picture. Elisabeth’s husband was in the army, serving in Afghanistan.

“Maybe you could go with me to my appointments,” Elisabeth suggested. She knew Emma had no family and therefore maybe more time to help out.

From the beginning, Emma struggled with the idea — walking with Elisabeth through the stages of her pregnancy. But she agreed — both to be a friend to Elisabeth and because in some way she had always wondered what she’d cheated herself of. Emma was there through the first appointment when the doctor used a sonogram to hear the baby’s heartbeat, and the sonogram when the doctor pointed out the baby’s arms and legs. “It’s a girl,” he beamed. “Congratulations.”