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.
&nbs
p; 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.”
Elisabeth contacted her husband overseas and they named their daughter Cassandra Rae. She was an active baby, and Elisabeth called Emma often to talk about the amazing feeling of having a life growing inside her. There were times when Emma felt like her friendship with Elisabeth was a cruel trick, a way for God to rub in her face what she’d done. But then she’d remind herself that she’d had a choice. She hadn’t done anything illegal, only what any teenage girl in her situation would have done.
But sometime around Elisabeth’s fifth month, she began having sharp cramps. She called Emma in a complete panic. “Please … come get me. I need to get to the hospital! Please, Emma!”
She arrived at her friend’s house as quickly as she could, and they were at the emergency room in no time. “Stay with me,” Elisabeth’s eyes pleaded with her. “I don’t want to be alone!”
The doctors did what they could to stop her labor, but in the end their efforts didn’t matter. With Emma holding tight to Elisabeth’s hand, the tiny baby girl was delivered later that night, stillborn.
“Can … can I hold her?” Elisabeth was weeping, exhausted from the delivery and the loss of her baby.
Emma wanted to run, wanted to scream for someone to pause the picture while she removed herself as far from the hospital room as possible. But she was mesmerized by the beautiful dead baby girl. The nurse wrapped her in a pink blanket and handed her carefully to Elisabeth.
As the doctor and nurse discretely left them alone, Elisabeth cradled the infant to her face and let her tears fall on the baby’s blanket. “Little Cassandra … Mommy loves you. Someday we’ll be together again in heaven. I promise you.”
No matter how much she wanted to leave, or how certain she was that she shouldn’t have been a part of such an intensely painful, deeply private moment, Emma stayed. Rooted to the floor and drawn by a scene that was strangely familiar.
“Here,” Elisabeth extended the lifeless bundle to Emma. “Hold her … So I won’t be the only one who remembers her.”
Again Emma wanted to be anywhere but there, but as if her body was running on autopilot, she reached out and took little Cassandra in her arms. She stared down at the baby’s tiny, perfectly formed nose and hands, at the precise detail of Cassandra’s cheeks and her beautiful long eyelashes.
And right there, in a way that was impossible to deny, Emma knew the truth. She could say what she wanted to about abortion. She could repeat the rhetoric about a woman’s choice and the legalities of terminating a pregnancy. But a baby was a baby, no matter what stage of development. A precious life. Holding Cassandra, Emma knew she could never again justify her actions. She had killed her baby, and she would pay for her decision the rest of her life. Abortion was not a choice or a procedure or a woman’s right.
The truth was cradled lifeless in her arms.
Emma bent down and placed the rose adjacent to Cassandra’s name. Emma and Elisabeth still exchanged Christmas cards, but her friend was living overseas with her husband and two boys now. Emma lightly touched her fingers to Cassandra’s name. Elisabeth would be glad she’d stopped by the grave. Glad that someone remembered Cassandra.
She stood and brushed off her shorts. The trip had been good for her, the reflection a way to reconnect with her mom even for a little while. She still missed her, but not with the ache she’d felt earlier. She went back to Riley. “Come on, boy. Time to go.”
He stood and stretched and she picked up his leash. On the way home she wondered again what would’ve happened if her mom hadn’t gotten sick, if Emma had found the confidence to tell her about the baby. The answer was suddenly an easy one. With her mom’s help, she would’ve had the baby and everything … everything would’ve been different.
The baby would’ve been more than a life saved. If Emma had given birth, the baby would’ve been a bridge between her and Brad. Their nine-year-old would’ve been in the car with them right now, and later tonight their child would’ve been running and playing in the sand with Riley. They would’ve talked about the school year coming to a close and the adventures they would take over summer break.
If she would’ve had someone to confide in, someone to help her raise her baby, Emma and Riley wouldn’t be driving home alone. Instead she would be holding the small hand of their son or daughter, the two of them headed home to a world that could’ve been — to a family and a future and a life with the only guy she’d ever loved.
If only her mother had lived.
Sixteen
LAURA TOLD NO ONE ABOUT BRAD’S confession. Two days had passed and she hadn’t once even considered telling her p
arents. Brad was headed back to North Carolina to meet with an old girlfriend about an abortion they’d shared in? Now … with the wedding weeks away? Her mom and dad would come unglued, for sure. This was the wedding they’d been dreaming about since Laura and Brad started dating.
Her parents wouldn’t be so concerned with the financial aspect of canceling the wedding — if that’s what happened. But the situation was so much worse than that. Laura worried that her father might never think the same of Brad again, which would absolutely affect his future at the firm. If they broke up altogether, Brad would have to find a position somewhere else. It would be too awkward to stay. That and the fact that all three hundred and twenty guests would need to be notified, which meant everyone in the family and her parents’ entire social and business circle would know about the breakup. Laura would be pitied by all of them, and by association her parents would be pitied too.
The whole thing would be an embarrassment to the family and even the firm. So, instead of sharing the truth about what she’d learned from Brad, Laura had laid low, telling her mom she wasn’t up for shopping or heading into the city to check on any of the wedding details.
“I need a few days to reflect,” she said at dinner last night. Both her parents had noticed her drop in enthusiasm toward the wedding, and both had asked if she and Brad were okay. “We’re fine,” she had said more than once. What else could she say?
But today was Wednesday and maybe it was time to talk about what happened. She had to tell someone. The shock was wearing off, and in its wake were emotions Laura had never dealt with at this level — anger and betrayal, hurt and fear. Just last week she’d thought how hurt she would be if she — like her friend, Nelly — was ever betrayed.
And now — here — that betrayal had happened.
Laura drifted through her parents’ house and out onto the front porch. The manicured grass stretched out an acre on either side of the driveway, and beyond that was part of the fairway from the country club. But that wasn’t where they would hold their wedding. No, the ceremony and reception for the only daughter of Randy James would be at the world-renowned Liberty House, nothing less. The Liberty House had walls of glass three stories high. It was billed as “the view with a room,” because every window provided a surreal vantage of the lower Manhattan skyline, the Hudson River, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty.