Before I Say Goodbye

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “Or watch cartoons in the room,” Lauren put in. For some reason, that was always her favorite part of going to a hotel.

  Rikki laughed, and Becca joined in. “Okay,” Becca said. “Why not? If you really want to go, Rikki, you’re welcome.” I heard the strain in Becca’s voice even if no one else did, but I felt helpless to step in. Besides, a part of me thought maybe Becca could do something to help both Rikki and Kyle.

  “Yippee!” Lauren shouted.

  James frowned. “But it’s a girls’ night out. I’m not a girl.”

  “You could stay here,” Cory offered.

  “No,” Rikki said. “You’re coming with me. It’s girls’ night out plus kids under eight.”

  “Okay.” James’s smile was back. “Let’s go.”

  Lauren held up her hand. “No, silly. You have to go home and get your clothes. You can’t go without clean underwear. I have my bag ready since I was going to my aunt’s. I’ll get it!” She was off and running.

  Rikki came to her feet, that crazy smile still on her face. “I’ll go home and get ready. Won’t take more than fifteen minutes.”

  “I’m ready now,” James insisted. “I don’t need underwear.”

  A typical boy. Much to their mother’s dismay, my sons would go an entire week on a Scout campout without changing underwear. Partly my fault, she always said, for forgetting to remind them.

  Rikki pulled James toward the door. “We’ll be back.”

  “I’ll come by to get you,” Becca said. “I’ll take the van so we have more room. Dante will need his car, and the one Travis drives probably wouldn’t make the trip.”

  The van ate more gas than Cory ate meat, but I couldn’t care less. Becca was happy.

  After Rikki left, the children scattered, and I downed my food as Becca repacked the cooler. “You’ll have enough leftovers for today and tomorrow,” she said. “But if you’re not home tomorrow afternoon for Cory’s soccer, you’ll have to unground Travis so he can take him.”

  “Probably should unground him anyway, don’t you think? It’s been two weeks.”

  “Probably.”

  “I think he learned his lesson.”

  She gave me a lopsided smile. “What do you bet another one is just around the corner?”

  “Isn’t it always?”

  She scanned the kitchen, hands on her hips, her blue eyes sparkling. “I guess I’m ready, then.”

  I jumped up from the table and wrapped my arms around her. Every time I did this, I had the sense of coming home, that she had been made for me and I for her. I didn’t know if she felt the same. “Are you sure about this? Taking Rikki, I mean. I think you are a good influence on her, but I know how you feel about Kyle and Allia.”

  She tilted her head, studying me. “It’s Rikki I’m mostly worried about. There’s something odd about her.”

  “Odd as in serial killer odd?” I joked. “Or just strange?”

  Becca shook her head. “I’ll let you know.”

  “It’s still not too late to get out of it.”

  “I want to go, Dante, and Rikki is the one who found the show for me. She listened.”

  Her words hit me hard. She listened. Rikki had always been a good listener. What’s more, she was pretty good at talking, too, since she’d succeeded in getting me to listen as well.

  “I love you, you know.”

  “I know.” She relaxed against me, but an odd note in her voice caught me unaware. “I’m not afraid of the past. I know what kind of man you are.”

  “Good.” I kissed her.

  “I love you, too, Dante.”

  I left her then, but my thoughts had difficulty returning to the Flemmings. This trip of Becca’s was either going to be a huge success or a roaring failure.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Becca

  I hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but after James came running inside with his glasses, I’d been curious about why Rikki didn’t show up after him. The back door was ajar, and I’d hesitated as I’d heard Rikki and Dante arguing, sounding much like siblings, though Rikki’s words made it clear she’d expected much more from Dante all those years ago. I’d been proud of my husband for standing up for what he believed, yet with Rikki around to continue muddying the waters, I worried the tension would only get worse.

  So I’d allowed her to come with me to Saint George, not because I wanted her company, but because I wanted to find out why she was really here in Utah. Another part of me also wanted to help Kyle, to encourage her to tell her mother about the dance lessons so we could begin to look for resolution. It wasn’t going to be easy, and I understood why Kyle was afraid to tell Rikki. The lessons were expensive, more than I paid for piano, guitar, gymnastics, and karate for all my children. However, the teacher was the very best, and her students always excelled.

  Despite Brother Flemming’s illness, I felt excitement about my plans for the future, for what I would do when my children were off living their own lives and didn’t need me so intensely. Already the older two were mostly independent, taking care of their schooling, their own schedules, even their own laundry. I’d always wanted to finish my teaching degree, but now other choices stretched before me, as sparkling and full of promise as they’d seemed when I was twenty. I owed some of that to Rikki.

  First she and I needed to talk so we knew exactly where we stood. I hadn’t overheard their entire conversation, but Rikki seemed to still want something of Dante, and if he couldn’t tell me, I’d find out for myself.

  When we pulled up at Rikki’s, she and her children were ready, each with a small backpack or duffel, unlike Allia, who’d somehow needed an entire suitcase for the two days. But they weren’t alone. A broad, blond-haired man about Dante’s height stood in front of the porch talking to them. Nice-looking and, by the way his eyes followed her, obviously fascinated with Rikki. I didn’t blame him. She looked small and frail, like someone who needed looking after.

  James saw us and said something to the man, who gave him a high five before James came tumbling toward the van. Kyle flushed at something the man said and followed her brother almost as quickly.

  “Stay here,” I told my children as I opened my door.

  Rikki and her friend met me on the sidewalk. “Ready?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Rikki said.

  I stared at her friend, and she started visibly. “Oh, right. Becca, this is Quinn Hunter. We work together. Quinn, this is Becca Rushton. She’s a friend in my ward.”

  Of all the things I’d expected her to introduce me as, friend wasn’t at the top of my list. James’s tutor, the wife of her childhood friend, the bishop’s wife, or even a sister in her ward. We weren’t exactly friends.

  Quinn turned his gaze on me, and for the first time I saw what might have attracted Rikki to this man. Not only did he have a nice smile but he had kind emerald eyes that seemed to peer into your heart. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You, too,” I said.

  He thumbed over his shoulder. “I knew Rikki had plans with her kids tonight, but I came to see if I could help her change her oil before they left. Didn’t realize she was heading off to Saint George.”

  Ah, he’d hoped to worm his way into whatever plans she’d made by offering help. Not a bad strategy. I knew changing her oil wasn’t going to be high on Rikki’s list, especially after paying for James’s new glasses.

  “Guess next week will have to do.” He glanced at Rikki, his eyes lingering. What’s more, I could see she wasn’t immune to his charms.

  The tight knot around my heart eased. Rikki has a crush, I thought, grinning to myself. That was good news. “We’d better go. We’re already going to get to the hotel kind of late.”

  “Not if you drive fast,” Rikki retorted.

  She turned to leave, but Quinn g
rabbed her hand. “Can I call you?”

  The Rikki I was coming to know would probably say something like, “It’s a free country, isn’t it?” But she gave a quick nod. “Sure.”

  He winked. “I confess, I was looking forward to seeing you under that truck.”

  Rikki laughed, and I found myself laughing too. “Nice guy,” I said as we drove down the street.

  “Yeah, he is.”

  When nothing more was forthcoming, I asked, “So, are you dating him?”

  “No. I just need him to change my oil.”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror, but the children, involved in their own world, weren’t listening. “You’re kidding, right? He couldn’t take his eyes off you. And you weren’t much better.”

  Rikki sighed. “I know.” She fell silent, almost brooding. I’d never seen this side of her before, and as the miles passed, I kept throwing her sidelong glances.

  “Would you stop that?” she asked after a while, but despite the words, she smiled. “Okay, he’s cute, but there’s no future in it.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because I’m not going to be here much longer.”

  In my view that was also good news. Why, then, did I feel a pang of regret? My next thought was, What about the kids? I didn’t say it aloud, though. Time enough for that later.

  From that moment on, being with Rikki in the car reminded me of trips with my family, particularly my sister. We sang songs with the kids, played the Alphabet Game and I Spy, and later as the children dozed, we told stories of the past. She told about dancing gigs, about the time when she’d met Celine Dion, when James had escaped his preschool teacher and been found in the park feeding the pigeons with a kind homeless man. I talked about growing up as a mission president’s daughter, of serving a mission under him when I was only eighteen, of going to college. The first time I’d set eyes on Dante.

  I still shivered when I thought about that moment. I’d dated several dozen guys by that point, but when his eyes met mine, I couldn’t look away. He was good-looking, and I’d expected him to be full of himself. I’d turned him down for the first date and the second, but when he asked me a third time, I couldn’t find any more excuses.

  “It was his name that finally made me go out with him,” I told Rikki. “Dante. Someone had just brought up the Italian poet Dante and his unrequited love for Beatrice. I was curious about his name.” Dante had later told me that like the Italian Dante had fallen for Beatrice, he’d fallen in love with me the moment he’d seen me. I took more convincing, but I never turned him down for a date again.

  “I told him his mother must have named him after that poet,” Rikki said.

  “You know about the Italian Dante?”

  “Yes, and what’s more, I’m probably one of the eighty-six people on the planet who actually likes reading his poetry. Or any poetry, really. Anyway, back in high school, in one of our classes, maybe American heritage or psychology or something, we had to tell how we got our names. Dante didn’t know. His mother was dead, and his father didn’t talk much. The teacher mentioned the poet Dante, so I did a little research. Dante—the poet—first saw Beatrice when she was eight and he was nine.”

  “Yeah. Pretty odd that he could think himself in love with her as an adult even after not talking to her for nine years.”

  “Maybe he worshipped from afar.”

  The story from there went downhill. Dante and Beatrice both married others, and Beatrice died at twenty-four.

  Rikki must have been thinking along the same lines. “Well, his love inspired all those poems. The teacher called them masterpieces.”

  “The greatest Italian literary work, I think my teacher said.” I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the conversation. Did Rikki see herself as Dante’s Beatrice? Dante was a writer, but not of fiction, and he certainly didn’t write poems about Rikki and his childhood.

  Silently, I scolded myself for what was plainly jealousy. I had everything compared to what Rikki had—Dante, the gospel, a stable life. She wasn’t the sort of person I would normally choose as a friend, but she had helped Dante through a difficult period of his life, and for that I would try to like her.

  Wait. The freeway exit in Saint George was rapidly approaching. How had the time passed so fast? It was already after ten, and I’d been so occupied with Rikki that I hadn’t once worried about the boys.

  “Mom, I’m hungry. Really hungry.” Lauren had slept half the way, and now she looked ready to party. “Starving. My insides feel like they’re sticking together.”

  “Me, too,” James said.

  Allia laughed. “How could you guys eat anything more? We’ve been eating the whole time. I think I’m going to puke.”

  I hated that word. “Allia,” I said.

  “Well, I just want to get to the hotel.”

  “Me, too,” said Kyle.

  “Do they have enough beds?” Lauren asked.

  “I didn’t think about that. Probably not, since just Dad and I were going before.”

  Rikki and I looked at each other and burst into laughter.

  “I’ll see if they have another room,” Rikki said. “I planned on it anyway.”

  “No,” groaned Lauren. “I want to watch TV with James.”

  In the end, our rooms at the Budget Inn were next door to each other. Though they did have a suite with three queen beds which would have accommodated all of us—Lauren and me, Rikki and James, and Allia and Kyle—Rikki paid for her own room. I had a coupon we both used, so it wasn’t overly expensive, but the children were disappointed at the decision that seemed so unlike Rikki’s free-spirit attitude. I was secretly relieved.

  We fed the children snacks from my cooler and from a bag of food Rikki had brought, and when that didn’t have everything they wanted, we visited the hotel’s snack machine. All the while, the TV was blasting. Lauren and James were content, and I didn’t mention the crumbs all over the carpet between the bed and the TV, though I felt a secret delight that I wouldn’t have to clean them up.

  Rikki, sitting on the floor with James in her lap, ate nothing. She smiled and interacted with James, but her usual vivaciousness and energy were absent. Kyle was the one who paid attention to what her brother ate, gave him a drink, threw away his wrappers. Her solicitousness surprised me, though not as much as her skill with him. This was a Kyle I’d never seen, never suspected existed. Every so often, I caught her staring at her mother, a blank expression on her face.

  James and Lauren were nearly asleep when we called it a night. Lauren barely stirred as I changed her into pajamas and put her into bed, and Allia fell asleep not long afterward. Flipping off the TV, I looked up the garden sites on my map, though I’d already done it earlier in the week and I’d borrowed my sister’s GPS so we wouldn’t miss anything. Still not sleepy, I called Dante for the third time on our trip to find out about Joel.

  “He’s finally out of surgery,” Dante reported. “There were complications that deprived him of blood to his brain, and we’re still waiting to see how he is when he awakes—if he awakes.”

  “Okay. Let me know.”

  “I’ll call you in the morning. Love you.”

  Feeling a little guilty for the fun I’d been having, I prayed for Joel and for Kate, too. I knew how I’d feel if it were Dante in that hospital room.

  I’d barely turned out the light when a quick, frantic knock sounded on my door. I jumped to my feet and peered through the peephole before opening the door. “Kyle, what is it?”

  Tears marked her cheeks as she staggered under the weight of her little brother’s sleeping body. “It’s Mom. She’s hurting, and I don’t know how to help her.”

  “Come in here.” I took James from her and laid him on my bed.

  Kyle extended a bottle of pills. “Maybe she
needs these.” She started sobbing.

  Taking the pills, I reached for her, held her shaking body. “It’s going to be okay. Look, you lie down and rest. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll take care of your mom. If you need me, come next door, but don’t open the door for anyone.”

  “Okay.” Her voice was so lost and forlorn that I had to force myself to leave her. Poor child.

  Rikki’s door was open, and she was in bed in the dark, moaning. I turned on a lamp to the lowest setting and shut the door. “Rikki?” She only moaned and grabbed her head. The pillow was wet with her tears. My brother-in-law had migraine headaches, but I’d never seen him like this.

  I looked at the bottle in my hand. “Do you need one of these?”

  “Yes,” Rikki whimpered. Then, “No. It’s too soon. Tomorrow.”

  “Do I need to take you to the hospital?”

  “Nothing they can do.”

  “They could put you out.”

  “I just need to sleep. In the morning, I’ll be fine.”

  There was no emotion in her voice except for the pain, and I realized this was nothing new to her. No wonder she’d insisted on separate rooms.

  I sat on the bed. “Okay, then. Keep your eyes closed and try to relax.” She whimpered, and I pulled her head onto my lap and gently rubbed her temples, rotating my hands in circles. I had no idea if this would help, but when I had been in labor with my children, just having Dante rub my back or hold my hand had been a great comfort.

  As I would with one of my children, I smoothed her hair and whispered comforting words. “Think of your favorite place in the world,” I told her. “Think of being there with those you love. The sun is shining, and everything is warm and full of light. You can hear laughter, the sound of the ocean, or maybe the wind blowing through the mountain trees. You can smell delicious food, or maybe salt, or maybe the rain on the wet pavement.” On I went, not so much caring what I said but keeping the tone steady, something for her to focus on.