by Carol Devine
Fortunately, Kellen was a golden child, oblivious to danger and addicted to speed, with superior reflexes that kept him remarkably safe from his daredevil antics. He also loved to hunt, fish and backpack in the wilderness. His mother taught him to shoot at the age of ten. He bagged his first buck elk on his own at fifteen, after her first round of chemo. He brought the 8-point antler rack home as a gift. But it was Shane who appropriated the antlers and mounted them in his office to Mariah's applause.
She didn't achieve remission until completing two rounds of chemo and radiation treatments, which served to eradicate the cancer which had spread from her lungs to her breasts. To save her life, her breasts and half a lung had to be surgically removed.
She never admitted to anyone, even Shane, but she believed her cancer was Bird's last and final gift to her, having raised her in the confined space of a camper constantly roiling with clouds of cigarette smoke.
But she could also honestly admit Bird's inability to overcome his many demons did not affect the other parts of her psyche the way it once did. She no longer felt it necessary to prove herself deserving of good fortune or worthy of respect over and over again because of her shame regarding him.
If Bird had been different, she would have ended up being different, too, and her life would very probably not include Shane and their children, resulting in the loss of the greatest joys she could possibly experience in life. It made her believe that God really did have a plan, that she must have proven herself worthy in some way. He'd blessed her with so many people to love and who loved her. Maybe, in spite of the cancer diagnosis, she was even loved by Him. At least she was willing to believe it instead of being plagued by constant doubts.
She felt fortunate at the miraculous experiences that had occurred in her life, especially since, many times, she tried to prevent them from happening, from working their magic. God must have a special place in his heart for motherless children, because He certainly provided her with some fantastic substitutes. Ana and her family, the grandmotherly librarian Violet Penrose, and many of her teachers over the years, some of whom she'd gotten reacquainted with since her move back home, reminding Mariah that love existed not only in families but in friends, mentors and colleagues as well.
She still worked for McBride Investigations on a contract basis, enough to make her feel like her education and experience continued to provide unique insights into the human condition. Even her bitterness at being forced to resign from the FBI no longer stung because without it, she never would have come back to Grizzly Springs, never would have met Shane or started her own firm, never would have reunited with Ana and the Garcias or been married to the love of her life.
Even holding him off for so long turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It made their coming together all the sweeter, resulting in Cassie and Kellen and the treasures of family life. Who would have thought the town drunk would raise a daughter who would grow up to live happily? It was like some fantastical fairytale. Sure, it had taken her awhile to get with the program but, looking back, she wouldn't have it any other way.
The Sunday after she was first diagnosed, she was still able to walk through the cemetery with Shane to lay flowers on her parents' graves. Holding Shane's hand, she hoped in her heart that both her mother and father were truly together in heaven.
Brushes with imminent death changed people. Mariah was no exception. Other than the short period in her childhood between the ages of nine and ten when she briefly dreamed of having her own horse, Mariah had held off on Shane's offer to help her train a horse of her very own.
Needing an absorbing activity to distract herself from the debilitating effects of her cancer treatment, Mariah gave Shane the okay to start looking for another, less disabling, challenge in life. As long as the horse was an Arabian, she promised to give the training her all. Soon after, he trailered in a three-year-old chestnut colt with a sheen of gold strands in his long and growing mane. She fell in love, and devoted herself to learn what Shane could teach her during, what turned out to be, the seven years of lifetime she had left.
She named him 'King' and trained him for halter classes, showing him herself. Once Cassie left for college and Kellen went off for longer intervals to play for his various sports teams, she accompanied Shane on his road trips to high-profile horse events, showing her stallion while he bought and sold in the auctions. She won enough blue ribbons to eventually collect enough stud fees to pay for her latest hobby.
But after six years of remission, the cancer came back and spread despite another two rounds of treatments. When she got home from helping Shane with one of his hugely popular horsemanship clinics at Denver's National Western Stock Show and Rodeo at the end of January of that year, she knew it would also be her last year, a year she intended to enjoy without debilitating drugs and painful radiation treatments that would result in more scarring in her lungs, lungs that often felt empty of oxygen even when she was breathing from a tank.
Unfortunately, Shane didn't agree with her decision. Her last fight in life was to convince him the time had come to let her go.
* * * * *
"I'm sorry, love," Mariah whispered. "I don't know if I have the strength to do it again."
"It's worth it, darlin'. Even if it's only one day longer on this earth, it's worth it to me. Think about your grandbaby and Cassie. She needs your motherly advice. And Kellen needs it, too. He might be old enough to graduate from college and join the Army, but he still needs you to touch base with, to talk weapons and tactics and get insight about why his girlfriend gets upset with him. We all need you, Mariah."
"Why can't I feel good these last months rather than trying to stretch it out a few weeks?"
"They have better drugs, better therapies. It won't be as hard this time, I promise."
"How can you promise? No offense, but you're a Horse Whisperer not a miracle worker."
He waved his fingers, pretending to hypnotize her. "Don't underestimate my powers. There are things I can do that no doctor can. I mean it, Mariah. You have to listen to me."
Mariah couldn't help but smile. If he pulled out king to her slave, he wasn't going to get the usual result. "Really?"
"Yes, really. And I don't have to be the most powerful man in the world to do it. Are you curious yet?"
"You do have my ear, my lord. But whatever it is, maybe you should have pulled it out during the last round of chemo rather than now."
"I was saving it for when you needed something really special."
"You better have something spectacular up your sleeve, Mr. Youngblood. I love my babies with everything in my heart, and I would do anything for them. But I won't lie to you. I can't sit here and tell you six months of chemical misery is worth three months of having energy enough to play with my grandbaby and be the kind of wife and mother who spent the remainder of her life cramming in good memories rather than lying in bed, unable to eat much or stay awake because I've lost the strength to live life on my own terms."
He kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear. "I'll let you in on a little secret. It's going to be a surprise."
It arrived two days later. He'd bought a matching Arabian mare to pair with her Arabian stallion. The gift came out of the blue, and even with the warning, was a total surprise, because it was so unexpected. For Mariah, it turned out to be the best surprise of her life. Seeing the two horses together, Mariah jumped up and down, applauding, and hugged Shane with all her might.
But watching her commune with the pair, he realized she was right. She deserved the pleasure of enjoying life the way she wanted to live it. With a heavy heart, he realized she was unlikely to survive long enough to witness the birth of any foal.
Once Shane accepted what was coming, Mariah told him of her last wishes. She wanted to die in their bed, in their own room, surrounded by the family she loved.
She hoped he would understand. She hoped the room would not become contaminated for him, forever be known as the place where she had left
him. But there was comfort in knowing she'd face what was coming in a place where she'd felt loved from the very beginning, from the first night they slept together.
She sought a quiet death, a peaceful death, and it was. Shane woke up at dawn one morning, spooned against her body to keep her warm because Mariah rarely felt warm anymore, especially at night.
But he knew as soon as he woke up that her lack of warmth was different, that something had changed in the night, and her body had grown cold.
He was ashamed to admit it, but he shrank away and sat up on his side of the bed, facing away, afraid to look at her. To think he had spooned with his dead wife made him feel awful inside.
He picked up his phone from the night table. There was a sequence of events to put in motion: the coroner, the lawyer, the family and friends and neighbors and firstly, Cassie and Kellen. Facing his children and telling them this piece of news, although expected, was the last thing he wanted to do.
His children. He was already thinking of them as his, as being separate from Mariah. She'd always be their mother. She'd always be looking down from heaven at them, with love.
The prospect of turning around and viewing her body disturbed him. He rose from the bed to fetch an extra blanket with which to cover her. The folded blanket became his shield as he approached the bed. She lay curled on her side, a position he'd seen her in a thousand times before and for a second or two he convinced himself he'd made the worst mistake possible. She was there, simply sleeping.
He sat beside her and willed her lungs to breathe to reassure himself. He willed her hands to stir a little, to tuck her loose fist under her chin as she sometimes did when waking up, a vestige leftover from girlhood, he surmised, since Cassie, ever since she was a baby, assumed the exact same pose when she awoke.
But it wasn't to be. Her hands lay in front of her, frozen against the blanket, like a statue's pose, the skin waxen in color and texture, unreal in every way.
He touched one of her fingers, needing to feel her skin one last time. He was able to look at her face then, profiled against the cornflower blue of her pillow. Death didn't take away the love he felt when he looked at that face. His Mariah rested there, like a bookend to the thousands of portraits he had collected in his mind over her sixty some years of lifetime.
Shane touched her hair, smoothing it away from her face, seeing it at peace. He wondered where she was, whether she was looking down at him from heaven, hopefully smiling, or whether she was already busy, seeing things, God's beauty he was sure, departed friends, maybe Bird, but mostly, he hoped, she was busy getting to know her mother, the one woman who meant so much and she knew so little.
Shane unfolded the blanket and arranged it over her body, covering her head and draping it exactly the way that seemed most right. But in the end, the right way to him was with the blanket folded down to reveal the profile of her face. That's when he went downstairs to inform their children.
CHAPTER Ten
Epilogue
"Grandpa!"
Shane turned his head just in time to face the onslaught of little Mariah's headlong rush into his lap. Even with his old leg injury acting up, he was able to balance her pudgy behind on his knees, supported by his electric wheelchair.
Little Mariah was jiggling the controls on the armrest, trying to get it to go on her own, seeking the highest speed, the whirling tornado of energy that she was.
He guided her hand on the lever, making the wheelchair roll down the concrete path between the house and the barn. Giggling, she pushed the lever for maximum speed and the top of her hand warmed his palm, easing the pain of arthritis. Or maybe the pain was eased by the thrill of the ride. Most likely, though, it was the spirit of five-year-old Mariah, the youngest of his six grandchildren and the only girl.
Cassie came out of the barn, running. "Oh, Lord, Mariah, not again. Leave your poor Grandpa alone."
Rather than plow into his forty year-old daughter, Shane skidded the wheelchair to a stop. Little Mariah wrapped her arms around his neck, knowing what was going to happen next. Her mother was coming to take her away.
"I want to stay with Grandpa! I want to stay with Grandpa!"
"I'm sorry, Dad. She won't sit still or stay with me most of the time."
"Leave her be," he said. "We're having fun, ain't we, Mariah?"
She talked a mile a minute. "I want to play bucking bronco."
He laughed at her enthusiasm and the hope in her wide hazel eyes, swirling with an intense mix of greens, browns and blues. "How about race horse instead? This old cowboy's bronco is a bit busted today."
"Race horse!" She assumed the position, seated on his lap, knees nearly to her ears like a true jockey, his strong arm wrapped securely across her body. From the lowest corner of his eye, he saw her stick her chin out as she concentrated on the straight path ahead. The concrete walk ran the length between the corral and the barn, allowing the wheelchair access to the business of breeding and training horses.
"Ready?"
"Set!"
"Go!" They shouted in unison.
Cassie applauded, running along the path, cheering them on. Little Mariah screamed in excitement and Shane screamed, too, his falsetto a little rusty from disuse.
"And the winner is..." yelled Cassie as the wheelchair crossed the pretend finish line.
"Genuine Hero!" Shane yelled. He eased to a stop and Mariah jumped off, whooping and hollering.
"I won, I won!"
Cassandra scooped her up and twirled her around. Almost immediately, little Mariah squirmed to be let down, and galloped around Shane's wheelchair, snorting and whinnying like a pony. She stopped on a dime and put her elbows on Shane's knees, staring up at him with serious inquiry.
"Was Genu'nine Hero your favorite horse, Grandpa?"
"They were all my favorites. Every single one including the newest foal in the barn. Have you seen him yet?"
"A new baby horse? Can I, Mommy?"
"If you hold my hand and let Grandpa steer by himself for awhile."
"Cassie, will you take her to see him? I have some phone calls to make before sundown."
"You work too hard," she said and kissed his seamed cheek while taking Mariah's hand.
"Only when daylight's burning. Give me an hour's peace, will you?"
"Locking your door is the only thing that will keep her out of your office, but I'll do my best."
Mariah ran ahead, leaping in increments of joy until she abruptly remembered that around the barn, corral and horses, she was supposed to walk. Waiting for her mother, she circled in place on one leg, other leg stuck out in the air, undoubtedly imagining she was dancing on a stage. Aside from being an energizer bunny, she was the ham of the family as well.
Shaking his head in amusement, Shane steered his wheelchair up the ramp and into the house, heading for the special addition which had been built for him when the wheelchair became a permanent fixture in his life.
His office was the first room, the second his bedroom, with a big bathroom and tiny kitchenette in between in case he got hungry in the middle of the night. He shut the door behind him and thought about locking it, but truth be told, a visit from little Mariah or his grandsons was always welcomed by him.
He pulled out his phone and laid it on his desk, an ancient metal desk that looked like it was manufactured in the previous century. Consulting his to-do list, he decided he needed some herbal tea to soothe his tired throat. Falsettos were hard on vocal cords that had lasted eighty some years.
The refrigerator was covered in magnets. One in particular caught his eye, one of those advertising local businesses, given out like candy.
McBride Investigations.
His thumb rubbed the vinyl, making the lettering disappear and reappear, like his memories of Mariah Cassandra McBride Youngblood. Outside with his horses, he freed himself from her, knowing she would want it that way. But inside his home, in his own rooms, she stayed alive, present in her possessions he'd kept and the family
photographs that hung on every wall.
He smelled her sometimes, on his pillow at night or more often every Sunday when he visited her grave. The lilies he brought to her smelled like her, along with the breeze that was constant on the graveyard's windswept hills.
Sometimes he saw the color of her hair in the turning of the aspens in autumn, the color of her eyes in the reflection on ponds and lakes and rivers. He saw God there, as she once did, and he felt comforted in his loneliness.
He coughed to clear his throat, then smiled, remembering her, choking as tears fell from his eyes. He elbowed the armrest and rested his head, letting it fall forward, feeling tired suddenly, as he wept.
Shane squeezed his eyes shut, seeing her lying on a quilt spread under a tree, alive and well, looking at him with such love, he could scarcely breathe. Sunlight streamed down, growing brighter and brighter in his mind's eye. A feeling of such peace came over him. He straightened and opened his eyes.
Haloed in bright dawn light, she glided toward him, surrounded by shimmers of silvers and golds, beckoning him to join her. His heart leaped and so did his legs, running freely as though he were young again, as young and magnificent as she was.
She gripped his hands in both of hers. She looked at him, her smile teasing and warm, the gleam of it like a slash of brilliant white against her perfect skin. He heard her voice saying his name, saying vows, marriage vows, never to be forgotten. He heard his voice saying the same words with utter conviction that theirs would be a love that lasted forever.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together to witness this man and this woman come together in Holy Matrimony. From this day forward, we promise to have and to hold, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, forever and ever."