Living With No Regrets

by Jayton Young

  It just seemed to reflect who she was as a person, though. Steady. Go with the flow. Accepting her lot in life. She was the person who would deprive herself of any and everything to be able to do what she could for others. Now though, Russ was determined to be the one doing any and everything for her instead. He would love, spoil, and pamper her until death and beyond into the next life if there was reincarnation of the soul. If not, he would do it in Heaven when he followed her.

  Reminiscing as he stood there about a conversation they’d had after high school graduation, Russ remembered that they’d talked about it in a way. They’d celebrated on their own, and even though she’d been willing to go to the after party the seniors had put together so Russ could be with his friends, he’d just wanted to be with her, and she told him about something she’d been close to doing because her father had wanted her to.

  ~~~~~~

  They were reclining in the back of the ranch truck on top of several blankets – Leigh positioned between his legs, facing out - and were talking and planning for the future as they watched a meteor shower in the night sky.

  “I’d want it out by the big swimming pond behind my house,” Leigh was telling Russ about her dream wedding after he’d asked about it. She had a twinkle in her eyes that he wondered about until he listened to the rest of her explanation. “It’d be at night, and we’d string up star lights to give everything a soft romantic glow to see by. Have a DJ and set up a large dais so the guests could either dance or swim in the moonlight. We would build an arbor over the dock just to make it beautiful, and that’s where we’d say our vows. It would be a completely casual affair.”

  Russ was laughing by the time she done, and she knew why. She tilted her head back and turned it so she could see his face. “Hey mister! Don’t laugh,” she scolded even as she herself giggled. “A girl dreams of her wedding from the moment she takes an interest in boys.”

  He squeezed her tight and shook his head as he made an attempt to stop. “Hey! I didn’t say a word.”

  “You didn’t have to. Mama always says that you say more using no words than if you talked nine miles a minute.”

  “I wish Dad could be there,” she’d said softly after they’d calmed down a bit. “I know he’s watching over out me, I just wish I could share everything with him in the flesh. He missed out on graduation today; he’ll miss out on walking me down the aisle…”

  “You always were a Daddy’s girl weren’t you?” There was no hint of derision in his voice. “It’s always been obvious in the way you talk about him.”

  “Yeah, I was. I would’ve done anything for him.” She looked back over her shoulder at him again. “I almost did. You’d better be thankful to Mamma for changing his mind about his future plans for me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Leigh left his arms just long enough to turn around completely, straddle his legs, and talk to him face to face. “He’d always raised me to be a good Christian woman. Mom and I thought it was just because of his strong faith and beliefs – and it was to a certain point – but when I was almost thirteen, and he was getting weaker and sicker, I would spend all of my time with him. One day, some kids at school planned on going to a theater for the new release of ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’, and they invited me to go along. I really wanted to go, but Dad wouldn’t let me since boys would be there too. He let it slip that I needed to learn that there were certain things that weren’t appropriate for ladies being groomed as a pastor’s wife. I was too much in shock to say anything – not that I would’ve since you don’t talk back to your elders – but Mom had caught what he’d said too and called him out on it. It came out that he’d planned to arrange a marriage for me to a pastor so that I could (and would) live a nice ‘proper’ life. That caused one of their rare arguments. Mom sent me on to the movies so they could discuss it without me having to hear them. When I got back, Dad took me in his arms and apologized. I forgave him of course since he only had my best interest at heart.”

  Leigh turned and scooted back into her previous position, wrapping his arms back around herself as he took time to wrap his mind around the thought of her not having been available when they’d first started talking. Russ couldn’t imagine his life without her in it anymore, and to know that her father had been planning to marry her off to a preacher…

  “What?” he asked when he heard her mumble something.

  “I would have done it.” she said a little louder. “I really wouldn’t have wanted to, but I would have done it for him if he’d asked me to.”

  ~~~~~~

  Russ was thankful that things had worked out to his favor back then. If only he hadn’t been so stupid and screwed things up so badly.

  Just then, as if sensing his self-loathing, Leigh looked over at him through the glass and donned look of concern when her gaze met his. She’d always seemed to know when he was feeling bad about anything and somehow would make it better. Since she’d discovered that he was there, he decided to join them.

  The smile that spread across Leigh’s face as he came through the door seemed to brighten the whole room.

  “Y’all seem to be getting an early start.” he said as he walked to the recliner beside the bed.

  “I wanted to catch her fresh.” The therapist held out the hand that was not holding the block she’d just dislodged from the stack out to shake his. “Hi! My name is Trudy. I’m helping Leigh work on her hand eye coordination this morning; though she’s beating me pretty badly, so I don’t think we’ll be needing to work anymore on that after this match.”

  He didn’t have time to introduce himself before Leigh spoke up. “J-just…s-s-sore…l-loser.” The words sounded alright as she spoke them, but they came a little slow which seemed to cause her to stutter them out. She gestured between him and Trudy as she did introductions herself. “T-T-Trudy…Russell; R-Russell…T-Trudy.”

  Turning back to the game, Trudy placed her piece on top, and the stack started to sway. Russ held his breath as Leigh used her index finger to take out a side piece third from the bottom row. To his amazement, the unstable tower barely moved as she successfully removed it and placed it on top; her movements very slow.

  She let out a ‘hmph’ sound when she was done and stuck her tongue out at him.

  “What was that for?” he let his breath out as he asked, feigning offence. “I didn’t say or do anything!”

  She just gave him a stern look, crossing her arms across her chest.

  “I just didn’t want to breathe too hard and have them topple over.” he said smiling; still teasingly maintaining his innocence.

  Trudy laughed and shook her head. After she went, then Leigh again, the stack finally fell as Trudy tried to remove her piece. “I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.” She kept repeating as she used the insert to stack the back up and then put them in the box.

  When she was finished, Trudy looked at Russ. “Would you like to learn some of the exercises that Leigh will have to work on as much as she can to improve her motor and speech skills?”

  “Yeah. That would be great.”

  They spent the next half hour doing some speech exercises, and Russ could already tell a difference in the way she spoke. It was still slow, but not as much stuttering.

  Trudy started packing away the games and flashcards and got out a couple of printouts and brochures that detailed the exercises and their goals and purposes. She would meet with Leigh every morning for an hour for the first week, and then she would cut back to three times a week, but they would still have to be done daily.

  When she finally left, they spent a couple of minutes with Russ just holding her hand trying to gather his thoughts, and her just patiently waiting.

  “Well…I guess we always wanted more than one kid, didn’t we?” He finally looked from her hand that he was holding, to her bewitching hazel eyes that had green than brown or blue at the moment and were glistening with unshed tears.

  “A y-you u-u-upset?”


  “No. Not at you.”

  Russ didn’t have to hear her ask to know what question was in her eyes. Drawing a deep breath and releasing it, he steeled himself to be completely honest and to hide nothing from her. She needed to know all of the effects of her decision. “From everything you, Mike, and Mary Leigh have told me, it’s like history is repeating itself,” he started and was surprised at the sting he felt in his eyes. “Except this time I’m here to watch you suffer. The thing is…I think I should have a say, Leigh. I’m a part of this, shouldn’t I get a vote?”

  Russell’s face was so devastated that Leigh knew that nothing she said would make it better. She understood where he was coming from, but how could he expect her to be so selfish and so ungrateful for God’s gift, that she would end it’s life to save her own. Obviously He had a plan for her, the baby, and even Russell. Who was she to question or change it?

  Leigh had to think really hard about how to answer him. In a huge way, he was right. Being the father would normally give him a say in the decisions, but not when it came to ending their child’s life. She was happy that Russell still loved her that much, but abortion to save her own life was too selfish in her eyes.

  “N-not in this,” she answered. It frustrated her to no end that she couldn’t talk right; even if it was already better after one session with Trudy. Her thought processes were not slow, so she couldn’t figure out why her speech was. Dr. Hickmon had said something about it being different parts of the brain, but she didn’t know anything about that. “I would n-n-never be able to l-live with mys-self if I d-d-did that. I don’t t-think you w-would either.”

  Russell held her hand, bending down to kiss her knuckles and then rest his forehead against the back of it. She just watched as he tried to pull himself together; the contact allowing her to feel his tremble of emotion. After a few minutes of them sitting like that in silence, Russell gathered himself enough to sit up to face her again.

  “So…what are the options we have?”

  “W-w-wait ‘til baby’s b-born, do r-radiation then.”

  “That’s it? There’s nothing they can do throughout the pregnancy? No backup plan?”

  Leigh just shook her head slowly in answer. Though she had just gotten up a little over an hour before, she suddenly felt exhausted. She slid over to opposite side of her mattress and patted it to get Russell to lay down beside her which he did.

  Ignoring the pain in her head, she cuddled into Russell, resting her head on his chest. “L-l-love you…” she whispered as she drifted off.

  She felt the light touch of his lips on top of her head, and the last thing she heard was his whisper, “You will always be my first and only love.”

  Chapter 17

  It had been six weeks since Leigh’s surgery, and she was due to get released the following day. It was just Randy and her in her room since everyone was giving her a chance to have a talk with him and explain what she could in a way he would understand before she left the hospital.

  “Really?” she laughed at Randy as they worked on the bucket list they had started. “Every Disney Park in the world?”

  “Yep. Dad said there were some in other countries, aaannnddd……They even have an island of their own. You have to take a big boat that they have to get there.” He tilted his head to the side as he thought about something. Leigh was so happy that the speech therapy that he’d been attending with her had helped rid him of his lisp. She was even able to speak without stuttering most of the time, though it still come out some; thanks to Trudy’s sessions. “He told me what countries, but I can’t think of ‘em right now.”

  “So…we have written down: visiting M&M’s world in Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the Coca-Cola store in Vegas, the Nascar Speedpark, and all of the D-disney Parks. Is that everything?”

  “I think so.”

  “Okay,” Leigh hated disappointing Randy, but that was a lot of traveling and she didn’t think she had enough time left to visit all of those places with him. “We’ll start things off with Disney World in Florida, since we’ve already paid for that, and then we’ll start visiting the other places. If we can, after that, we’ll go to as many of the Disney Parks as we can.”

  Knowing that she’d reached the point of explaining, she took a deep breath and started. “Do you know what a bucket list truly is?”

  “Stuff you want to do?”

  “Yeah it is, but there’s more to it. A bucket list is a l-l-list of things people want to do, see, or get before they die.”

  “Oh,” he replied and looked down at the bed. She could tell by his despondency that understanding had immediately clicked in his head. Randy was so smart for his age.

  “Sweetie…though I’m feeling and doing better since the surgery, I’m still sick. And right now they can’t do what they need to do to make me all the way better. That means that I will get worse again.”

  “Why can’t they make you better?”

  That was one of the two main things that she had been dreading in this talk. She was afraid that he would hate the baby if he felt like it was the cause of her passing. “You know that your Dad and I are giving you a little brother or sister, right?” After his nod she continued. “Well I decided to wait until after the baby is born to have the treatment.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to make him or her sick, and to make me better, while they’re inside my tummy, would do just that; if not make the baby die. I don’t want that, do you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re baby brother or sister is going to be so tiny and helpless that they,” she used the term ‘they’ loosely, not knowing the gender yet. “will need you to help care for and protect them. Can you do that? Will you promise me that you’ll love them and help Dad, Mark, and Mimi take care of them?”

  “I promise, Momma.” he answered forlornly, but immediately perked back up a little with his next thought. “Can I help name it?”

  “Of course, Sweetie.”

  They talked more about the baby and then discussed which order they wanted to visit the places on the list in until the others finally arrived. Leigh knew that Randy hadn’t forgotten the back message of the talk they had, but he was doing very well with distracting himself. She would have to talk to everyone else and have them to try and get Randy to open up and release all he would be trying to hold back for her sake. God had really blessed her with such a loving and intelligent child.

  ***

  After Leigh’s release from the hospital, Russ helped to shut down the house in Charlotte and headed home to Pine Grove. They would all spend the following two weeks there helping him, James, and Maggie get the ranch ready for their extended absence. There were people there that could take over the management, but appointments and meetings had to be rescheduled and stock auctions had to be arranged and the dates cemented. It was an overall busy time of year, but no one wanted to delay the trip in fear that Leigh would never be able to make it if they waited too long.

  Russ was getting irritated to see the way people were still treating Leigh. If it kept on much longer, he was going to go off on someone. Luckily, Randy wasn’t receiving any of that. He figured people knew that he was his son, so they wouldn’t risk it.

  He was so proud of her, though. She held her head up high and never responded negatively to the snide comments, but after having sat through church that first Sunday they were back, Russell couldn’t take anymore. He knew he shocked them by walking up to the podium after his dad had read from the bible and his mother had led the hymns since Pastor Daniel had packed up and moved unexpectedly, and his pop was head Deacon; his ma head of the women’s group and choir. No one had thought that he had heard them talking, but he was about to set some things straight.

  There was actual fear on some of the faces as he looked out and studied the congregation. He’d been known for his formidable temper for the past few years.

  “Right at this moment, I’m having to pray real hard for help in rema
ining calm, but you know what? I will receive that help. We are in the house of our Lord and Savior and I can feel His presence and His sadness at how one of His daughters is being treated.”

  He felt satisfied when he noted all of the guilty ones shifting in their seats and glancing over to where Leigh, Randy, Mary Leigh, and Mark were seated with his parents.

  “I know that I am not without blame myself,” he continued. “I incited all of you by bringing our personal life out in the open, but I was wrong. Yes, there are aspects that I still battle myself over, but it’s not about Leigh being unfaithful to me. She never was; not willingly.”

  There were gasps heard at that revelation – though he hadn’t meant to say it – and many shocked and sympathetic looks.

  “Now I deserve to be conked upside the head for saying that, but everyone who knows Leigh, knows that she won’t do it. She has too much going on in her life to have to deal with the way y’all’ve been treating her. We are all, in this town, decent and Christian people. We just need to remember what that means.”

  Russ calmly walked down from the pulpit, his attention solely on his family. They understood his expression and stood up to exit the church and leave the other parishioners to their own thoughts. He was proud of himself for having kept calm and not yelling at and shaking them as he’d wanted to.

  The rest of their time in town, he saw – and Mark told him – how people had changed. Though they held looks that showed they were ashamed, the majority went out of their way to speak to Leigh, but he hadn’t heard of anyone actually apologizing to her.