This Time Forever

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  Tanner shrugged, but his shy glance at Rebekka spoke volumes.

  Damon seemed to know when to back off. “Have you seen Belle?”

  “She’s hiding,” Tanner said in a loud whisper. “She says she’s not going to Utah.”

  “I am not hiding,” proclaimed a small voice from nearby. Rebekka looked around but couldn’t find the speaker.

  “She’s mad,” Tanner added.

  “Am not!”

  Damon put a quieting hand on his son’s shoulder. “I guess Belle isn’t here. I think we’d better eat without her. But that’s okay, because she doesn’t like McDonald’s that much.”

  “It’s really her favorite,” Tanner whispered to Rebekka.

  To Rebekka’s right, a box rose partially and two little feet appeared. Damon helped lift the box off his daughter. She looked up at them through brown eyes tinted with amber like her father’s, her tiny hands clutching a stuffed brown bear that was half as tall as she was. She lifted her chin. “I wanna go, too.”

  “Okay, but first I want you to meet Rebekka.”

  “I thought her name was Bekka.”

  “That’s for short—like Belle, for Isabelle.”

  Belle’s eyebrows drew tightly together. “I like Rebekka better.”

  Rebekka bent down to face the little girl. “You can call me Rebekka.”

  Belle regarded her quietly for a moment. “You talk kind of funny.”

  “Belle,” Tanner groaned.

  “She’s from France, remember?” Damon said.

  “Oh, yeah. Then you know what my nickname means.”

  “Yes, it means beauty.” Rebekka touched the bear. “And who’s this?”

  Belle held him tight. “Bear.”

  “Just Bear?”

  She nodded solemnly.

  “Is Bear going to eat with us?”

  Belle nodded.

  “Well, I hope he doesn’t eat too much.” Rebekka was gratified to see a brief smile. She straightened and looked at Damon in triumph.

  But Belle wasn’t finished. “I don’t like you, and I want you to go back to France!”

  Having made her announcement, Belle turned and disappeared into the maze of boxes. Damon started after her. “Don’t worry,” he called over his shoulder to Rebekka. “She likes to shake people up.”

  Tanner looked at her sympathetically. “She’ll come around.”

  Rebekka realized her mouth was hanging open in shock. She smiled at Tanner and was gratified to see him flush. At least one of the children had taken to her. Still, maybe this job wouldn’t be as easy as she’d expected.

  Before long, Damon had rounded up Belle and they were on their way to McDonald’s. Once there, he took care of everything, including making a trip to the rest room with Belle. Rebekka was amazed at the wealth of kindness and patience in the man.

  It was then she realized that since Damon had walked into Brionney’s kitchen, she hadn’t once thought of Marc.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tuesday dawned—the morning of Riley’s funeral. Mickelle was so numb and exhausted that she didn’t think she could cry any more tears. But when she saw Riley’s bulk in the casket, his bruised and battered face forever molded into an expression of peace that he had rarely displayed in life, she began to sob again.

  It’s not my fault, she told herself.

  Except she felt that it was. She kissed his cold, tranquil face before allowing them to close the casket one final time. Her heart ached.

  The service was beautiful and comforting to Mickelle. As she listened to her father talk about Riley’s good qualities and the challenges he had faced because of his seizures, she began to forgive him for leaving her.

  I can’t condemn him for this, she thought. The Lord will be the judge. Only He knows what desperation Riley experienced to be driven to such an act.

  If only she could forgive herself so easily.

  Another thought, less charitable than the first, came as she glanced around at those who’d come to the funeral. Riley would love all this attention. He’d be satisfied to see my tears.

  Brionney and Jesse had flown in from Anchorage the day before, and Mickelle was glad she’d delayed Riley’s funeral so they could be present. However, she wished the reunion with her little sister could have taken place under better circumstances. With everything going on, they had only moments to exchange a few words.

  Brionney’s three daughters were cute and well-behaved, and the twins noisy—at least one of them—though they were so cute that no one seemed to mind. As the youngest children in the family, with the exception of Zack’s children in France, they had no end of older cousins who were wannabe baby-sitters.

  After the burial at the cemetery and a luncheon at the church, Mickelle went home. Her parents and sisters stayed until the evening meal was cleared away and the dishes washed. Then they went home to their waiting families. Irene and Terrell were the last to leave.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay a few more nights?” Irene asked. “I really don’t mind. Or if you’d like, you can all come home with us.”

  “No, thank you, Mom. You’ve done enough.” Mickelle and the boys hadn’t been alone in the house since Riley had died. And she wanted to be. She wasn’t worried about being alone. In fact, she couldn’t feel much of anything, except the guilt, and she would have to live with that.

  Her parents left, carrying the few remaining boxes of Riley’s things that she was sending to Deseret Industries. How thankful she was that her mother had helped her pack; going through his clothing was something she hadn’t been able to face alone.

  Mickelle snuggled into her bed with the boys. In the past week, neither of them had wanted to be far from her at bedtime, so she had let them fall asleep with her. She always had to move Jeremy back to his own room before too long, because he invariably wet the bed. His problem had grown worse since the accident, but Mickelle understood why and tried not to be angry.

  She stayed with her sons until she heard their regular breathing. Then she arose and walked through the house, which had seemed small before, but now felt large without Riley. Her steps took her to the living room, where the only signs of the violence that had occurred there were the scars on the curio cabinet and its missing glass. The remaining roses from her collection had been placed carefully inside the cabinet, despite its damage, and even the television had been replaced with an old one belonging to her parents. At a casual glance, the room appeared unchanged.

  She sat on the couch in the dark, staring at nothing.

  Why did you do it, Riley? She wished she could talk to him. Do you regret it? What’s it like being dead? Do you miss me?

  Suddenly she wanted his arms around her, craved desperately to smell him and run her hands through his thick hair, to feel his warm body pressed against hers. But all that was denied her now . . . perhaps denied her forever.

  Devastation struck deeply through the protective veil of numbness that had been her constant friend and companion since the police had arrived on her doorstep. Mickelle fell face-downward onto the couch, pounding it with her fists and wailing out her frustration in sobs muted against the cushions. I hate you! she screamed silently. But she didn’t. She loved him, and she wanted him back.

  When she was too weak to cry more tears, she lay on the couch, letting the desolation and misery continue silently in her mind. Eventually she felt sleep tug on her consciousness, and her eyelids drooped.

  Then she saw it—a warm and full vision of hope that pierced her black despair. A little girl sat on a mother’s lap, her eyes full of laughter and mischief. The mother gently brushed the girl’s brown, loosely-curled hair. The two shared a hug, so full of love that it brought a sweet ache to Mickelle’s broken heart. Glancing up, she looked into the mother’s face, startled to see that it was her. She glanced back down at the little girl, but the scene faded before she could see the child again clearly.

  Abruptly, Mickelle was wide awake. Her hand went to her stomac
h, which was even more bloated than before. She had lost so much this past week, but inside she had something that was hers alone. Riley couldn’t take it away or mar it with his bitterness—or even his death.

  My daughter, she thought with the first smile she could remember in days. Where the Lord takes away, He also gives.

  Slowly, she stood and made her way back to her room and the sleeping boys. She carried Jeremy to his bed and then snuggled next to Bryan and let herself drift off to sleep.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  On a Saturday two weeks after Riley’s death, Mickelle was cleaning out the small shed in the backyard. Sasha watched her eagerly from a corner, wagging her tail each time Mickelle looked her way.

  She hadn’t planned on cleaning the shed but had come looking for a screwdriver to fix the loose toilet paper holder in the bathroom. She’d begun to clean because she couldn’t find anything in the cluttered mess. More than a month earlier she’d asked Riley to take care of the holder, but he’d never gotten around to it. Now he never would.

  At last, Mickelle spied a screwdriver small enough for the job. She picked it out of the cardboard box where it lay amid a jumble of screws, bolts, and other tools.

  “There you are,” Brionney greeted her as she emerged from the shed.

  “Hi, Brionney.”

  Brionney’s eyes took in her sister’s old black jeans and black T-shirt. “I dropped the kids off at Talia’s to play and escaped. Since we don’t close on our new house until next Friday, I really had nothing to do. You know, it’s weird staying with Mom; she’s got everything so organized. I never thought I’d miss grocery shopping or sweeping the floor. Anyway, I thought I’d come see how you’re doing. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Not at all.” Mickelle accepted the explanation at face value, though she thought it might be an excuse. At least one of her sisters or her parents stopped by each day. Mostly, she was grateful for the company.

  She grimaced and held up the screwdriver. “I’m going to take a shot at fixing something. Want to watch?”

  Brionney must have thought the idea amusing, because she burst into a grin. “Sure.”

  Mickelle led the way into the house. Brionney stopped for a minute to talk to the boys, who were on their way out to play soccer in the backyard. Mickelle took advantage of the moment to wet a piece of tissue and wipe off the dirty fingerprints on the bathroom wall. Once she would have been appalled at that type of cleaning but now it was necessary for her survival.

  Mickelle attempted to tighten the screw, but despite her efforts, it remained loose. Now what? Impotent fury rose in her chest, and she had to fight the urge to throw the screwdriver into the toilet. What was the use? She’d only have to fish it out.

  “It’s stripped, huh?” Brionney had come into the small bathroom, and now watched her with interest.

  “Yeah.” Mickelle felt miserable. For one moment she had felt power and confidence, but in an instant it had been transformed into frustration and anger.

  “Is it going into the two-by-four behind the plasterboard, or just the plasterboard?” Brionney asked.

  “The two-by-four. But the hole is too big.” Her frustration must have shown in her face, because Brionney gently removed the screwdriver from her grasp. “Good—that it’s got the wood behind it, I mean. If you’ll just show me where your Elmer’s Glue is, and find me a few matches, we can fix it in a jiffy.”

  Mickelle found the items and watched as Brionney broke off the red match tips and discarded them. Then she squeezed glue inside the hole and inserted the matchsticks, using the handle of the screwdriver as a hammer to push them firmly in. “There,” she said, returning the screwdriver. “Now wait until it dries and then put the screw back in.”

  Mickelle shook her head in wonder. “Where’d you learn that trick?”

  “I just sort of made it up once in Anchorage when I needed to hang something—I don’t even remember what. Jesse was gone a lot, and he’s not that handy at fixing things around the house anyway. I mean, give him a computer and a problem and he’s a genius, and he’s great playing with the kids and helping them with their homework, but he’s not real hip on screwdrivers and baby diapers. So I made do with what I had.” Brionney laughed. “It’s amazing what you can do when you have to.”

  Mickelle was quickly finding that out. She’d thought Riley contributed little to the household, but she discovered there were things he’d done that she’d never really noticed. Like filling the cars with gas, calling when there was a mistake on a bill, and fixing holes in the walls.

  They went into the kitchen and sat at the counter. “I can’t stay long,” Brionney said. “The twins are a handful, even for Talia.”

  “Are they still nursing?”

  “Yes, but they’ll take bottles, too. They just don’t like it as well.” Brionney leaned forward suddenly, her blue eyes earnest, searching. “Mickelle, how are you doing, really?”

  Mickelle met her gaze. “It’s hard, but it’s okay. The boys are sleeping in their own beds now, and I’m getting by.”

  “I can’t understand.” Brionney shook her head. “Why do you think Riley did it?”

  The boys had asked her the same question many times in the past weeks, and Mickelle had developed an answer that satisfied them. “I think life just fell in on him all at once. He didn’t get his promotion, I wanted to go back to school, he was released from his church job, and he had another seizure.” She looked down at the yellow-patterned counter, tracing a scratch in the Formica with her finger. Her voice lowered as she added something she had not shared with the boys. “I—I told him I wanted a divorce if he didn’t start treating me better.” Mickelle began to cry, and at once Brionney left her stool and put her arms around her.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Mickelle clung to her sister. “I know that in my mind, but my heart doesn’t feel the same.”

  “It will someday.” Brionney tightened her hug. “I’m so very sorry this happened.”

  “I know. Everyone has been so good to us. In fact, Dad’s been spending so much time with the boys, talking and doing things, that they seem to be adjusting to Riley’s absence better than I am. I mean, Jeremy’s cried a few times, and he’s wetting the bed every night, but the plain truth is—no matter how I don’t want to admit it—they weren’t that close to Riley.”

  “It’s natural you’d miss him more. You loved him.”

  Mickelle detected a slight question in the statement. “I did love him. Enough to want him to change. I wanted to be with him forever.” Her tears began to fall again. “During the good times, it was really, really good. But I guess there were too many problems for him to face.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  Mickelle straightened, trying to find her courage.“It’s not all bad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean Riley’s dead, but there’s a part of him that lives on.”

  “In the boys,” supplied Brionney. “And you’ll see him again in heaven.”

  “No, not just that.” Mickelle smiled through her tears, glad to have something to share that wouldn’t bring sorrow. “I’m pregnant. I mean, I haven’t taken a test yet, but I’m almost three weeks late. I know I’m pregnant. I must be.” She hesitated before adding, “It’s the silver lining in this cloud, don’t you see?”

  Brionney’s smile lit up her face. “That’s wonderful! I know how much this means to you after so many years of not being able to get pregnant. Have you told the boys? Mom? Dad?”

  “No one—except you.” Mickelle felt the sadness drain from her heart and the hope return. It was the next high on the roller coaster of her emotions. “I wanted to be sure. And I wanted to keep it to myself for a time.”

  “I understand.” Brionney hugged her again, this time in joy. “I won’t tell anyone until you’re ready. Not even Jesse, in case he might let it slip. But you need to take a test.”

  “I’ve scheduled an appointment on Monday w
ith one of the nurse midwives at Mount Timpanogos Women’s Health Care.”

  “I heard they were really good—and sympathetic.”

  Mickelle smiled. “That’s why I’m going to them. I’m older this time, and I know it’s going to be harder, but with a little female support I’m ready for it.” She lifted her shoulders and let them drop again. “I’ll probably complain the whole nine months.”

  “Complain as much as you want. We’ll all be here for you.”

  Their conversation was cut short when the boys ran into the kitchen, their cheeks bright with exertion from their game. “Grandma’s here!” Bryan yelled. “And Grandpa and Uncle Jesse, too! They’ve got a surprise!”

  “Come see!” Jeremy danced from foot to foot, tugging at her hand.

  “What?” Mickelle glanced at Brionney, who only smiled enigmatically.

  The boys practically dragged Mickelle from the house. Her eyes widened when she saw her dad’s truck in her driveway, loaded with her mother’s piano. Jesse and Terrell were removing protective cording and blankets.

  “You knew about this!” Mickelle accused her sister.

  Brionney laughed. “I was sent ahead to make sure you were home and that you didn’t leave.”

  Mickelle hugged her mother. “But it’s your piano, Mom. Or Zack’s. He’s the one who can really play.”

  Irene smiled warmly. “Zack isn’t moving back to America any time soon. I think we all know that. And your father and I don’t play. What do we need a piano for? I meant to give it to you a long time ago.” Her face clouded, and the wrinkles under her eyes became more pronounced. “Actually, two years ago I did mention it to Riley, but he refused. Said he’d get you one himself, if you wanted it. He said you weren’t interested in playing.”

  Mickelle’s breath caught in her throat. “He—he never told me.”

  “I thought as much.” Irene shook her head sadly. “I should have seen through him. I should have talked to you.”

  Mickelle recognized that denying her the piano had been one more way for Riley to control her. Why had he felt such a need?