The old woman smiled wanly. “Marlee and I make an odd couple, don’t we?” she asked. “How I remember that first day she came to live with me. My son and daughter-in-law had been killed in a car crash.” Her eyes grew misty. “You see, there was no one else but me to take little Marlee. She was so scared and confused, and she missed her mama so much at first.”
“It must have been hard for both of you.”
“I gave her everything I could, but I know she didn’t have a normal childhood. How could she? I was sixty-seven years old when she came into my life. With a heart condition.” She shook her head as if confused by life’s events.
“And then when they told me she had cancer—I could hardly believe it. How often I’ve wished it could have been me instead of Marlee. I mean, she has her whole life in front of her. And me? Well, I’m an old woman who has buried a husband and my only child. No one expects to bury her child, much less her grandchild. . . .” She let her sentence trail off. Finally, she added, “I plan to ask the good Lord some things when I see him.”
Dawn felt at a loss for something to say. Inside, her heart was breaking. To her, nothing made any sense. The old lived; the young died. Where did she fit in? Grandmother Hodges’s eyes closed, and Dawn stole from the room, walking quickly toward the room where Marlee lay.
Dawn entered Marlee’s room, stood by her bed, and stared down at her. She watched Marlee’s chest rise and fall. Every breath sounded shallow. Dawn touched Marlee’s hand and had almost decided to return later, when suddenly Marlee’s good eye opened. She whispered, “Hi, Dawn.”
“Hi yourself.”
“I was having a wonderful dream.”
“I’m sorry I woke you.”
“Brent was in it.” Dawn saw slight color spread across Marlee’s cheeks. “Do you ever hear from him?”
“He calls me and he writes. He asks about you.”
“About me?”
“He thought you were a wonderful diver.”
A soft smile played with Marlee’s mouth. “Did he ever kiss you?”
Now it was Dawn’s turn to smile. “Yes, he did.”
“Was it wonderful?”
“Didn’t we have this discussion at camp with the other girls?”
“I just listened that time. I didn’t have any good stories to tell like Cindy did.” Marlee’s eye closed, and for a moment Dawn thought she’d fallen back to sleep. But then she said weakly, “I wished I could have been kissed, just once. For real. Not like in my dream.”
A fist-sized lump stuck in Dawn’s throat. She remembered how, in her diary, Sandy had written, Mike kissed me tonight. . . . I can’t wait until next summer. Then Mike and I can practice some more.
“You don’t mind me dreaming about Brent kissing me, do you?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Will you see him at camp next summer?”
Dawn didn’t have the heart to tell her that she wouldn’t be returning to camp. She couldn’t go back again with both Sandy and Marlee gone. It would hurt too much. “Lots can happen before next summer,” Dawn said.
Marlee tried to twist beneath the covers. “Where’s Mr. Ruggers?”
Dawn fumbled at the head of the bed for the teddy bear. She placed him in Marlee’s arms, and Marlee rubbed his well-worn fur against her cheek.
“You’ll have to give him a bath,” she said. “He smells like the hospital.”
“He wants to stay here with you.”
“I’m tired, Dawn.” Marlee’s voice was so soft. Dawn had to lean down to hear her.
Something cold settled in Dawn’s stomach. She’d said the same thing herself to Rob just before her heart had stopped beating after her transplant procedure. She remembered well that feeling of unbearable weariness. “I know you are.”
“Will you do me a favor?” Marlee asked.
“What can I do?”
“Don’t let Grams know that I’m never going home again. I know she’s going to miss me, and I hate to see her cry.”
Dawn couldn’t speak. It hurt too much. Both Marlee and her grandmother wanted to shield each other from the truth. Dawn managed to say, “Sure. It’ll be our secret.”
“I’m scared, Dawn. What’s waiting for me?” Marlee’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Maybe another dream about Brent,” she offered, trying to quiet Marlee’s fears.
“Where will I be if I don’t wake up here?”
Dawn longed for something to say, something to bring Marlee comfort. Dawn smoothed Marlee’s forehead. Her skin had grown cool and dry. “I had a friend named Sandy, remember?”
“Yes . . . the girl who died.”
“She was Brent’s sister.”
Dawn saw Marlee’s facial muscles work as she tried to process the information. “Is that why you liked each other?”
“Maybe.” Dawn laced Marlee’s fingers through hers as she continued. “Sandy’s in heaven. She left me some of her favorite things. And she let me know that’s where she went. She’s exactly your age, Marlee, and I believe she’ll be waiting for you when you get there.”
The frown lines smoothed out on Marlee’s face. “Do you think she’ll like me? Not many girls like me. You’re the only real friend I’ve ever had.”
Tears had pooled in Dawn’s eyes until Marlee’s face shimmered and squiggled, making it impossible for Dawn to see her clearly. “Sandy will be your friend, too,” she whispered.
“Are you sure?”
“She liked everybody, and they liked her. I know she’ll be your friend, too. You tell her ‘hi’ for me, all right?”
Marlee nodded and pulled Mr. Ruggers into the hollow of her neck. “I’ll tell her,” she promised. “And you tell Brent ‘hi’ from me.”
Dawn watched Marlee’s eyelid close as she drifted off to sleep. Before leaving, Dawn pulled the covers up around Marlee’s thin shoulders and made certain Mr. Ruggers was touching her cheek. She told Katie at the nurses’ station that she’d be back later.
But that morning turned out to be the last time that Dawn ever spoke to Marlee Hodges. That night, Marlee slipped into a coma. Two days later, while her grandmother held her hand, she died.
Katie called Dawn at home to tell her. Dawn called Brent and told him. Then she crawled beneath her covers and sobbed.
Nineteen
MARLEE was buried on a hot August morning. The cornflower-blue sky was decorated with puffy white clouds that looked like wads of colorless cotton candy. Dawn had cried so much before the funeral that she made it through the service fairly dry-eyed. Rob and Katie went with her, and it helped having them by her side.
Dawn stared at the mantle of pale pink roses draped over Marlee’s coffin. The minister’s words drifted in and out of her consciousness. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” he said. Dawn felt dull and listless, like burnedup ashes.
“He shall wipe away every tear and turn our mourning into joy,” Dawn heard the man say. She wondered if she’d ever feel joyous again. She let her gaze drift away from the coffin to the green, lush lawn of the cemetery, broken by colorful patches of flowers placed in vases beside bronze plaques. Row upon row they stretched, as far as her eye could see.
She felt Rob put his arm around her shoulder. “It’s over,” he told her gently. She nodded. As they started across the emeraldgreen grass, Dawn heard someone call her name and turned to see Grandmother Hodges and her chauffeur coming toward her. Dawn met the woman halfway.
They hugged. Grandmother Hodges was dressed in black, and she felt feather-light in Dawn’s arms. Her voice wavered as she said, “Thank you for coming, my dear. Marlee wanted to make sure I gave you this.”
Leaning on her cane, she turned toward her chauffeur, who handed Dawn a small, but elegant shopping bag. Inside were Mr. Ruggers and a little box wrapped with a red ribbon.
“Thank you,” Dawn said, fingering the floppy-eared bear.
“Marlee loved that bear of yours. Funny— she had a whole room full of beautiful dolls and stuffed anim
als I’d given her over the years. But none of them meant as much to her as your bear.”
Dawn felt tears mist over her eyes. “He has a way of growing on you.”
“Thank you again for all you did for Marlee. She loved you like a sister.”
Dawn’s chest felt heavy, as if her heart might break. “She was like a sister to me, too.”
“I’m feeling rather poorly,” Grandmother Hodges apologized. “But if you’d ever like to talk, please call me.”
Dawn promised she would. Marlee’s grandmother leaned into her chauffeur, who led her toward the long black limousine waiting at the roadside.
“You okay, Squirt?” Rob asked. His term of endearment sounded out of place to Dawn. She was too old for childish nicknames anymore. “Let’s go home,” he said, gently directing her toward his car.
“In a minute,” she told him. “I’d like to be alone, if that’s okay.”
He took Katie’s hand. “We’ll wait right here. Take all the time you need.”
Clutching the bag, Dawn walked aimlessly amid the plaques and headstones. When she was some distance away, she opened the sack and gazed at the bear. “So, what do you think, Mr. Ruggers? It looks like it’s just me and you again.”
She thought of the time she’d grown tired of fighting for her life and had insisted Rob take the bear. “You’re like a boomerang,” she told the stuffed animal. “You keep coming back. But I’m glad to see you again. And thanks for making Marlee happy. You’re a good ol’ bear.” Her voice caught and tears swam in her eyes.
“Why do you suppose I’m always the one left behind, Mr. Ruggers? Why am I always the one who has to keep saying good-bye to my friends?”
The bear stared at her through his one glassy eye, reminding her for all the world of Marlee and her moment at camp when a hundred glass marbles had bounced on the assembly hall floor. The image made Dawn smile softly. She pulled out the ribbon-wrapped box. A note was attached in Marlee’s handwriting. It read:
Dawn,
Since I won’t be around next summer, I have to count on my “sister” to carry on for me. Please keep on being nice to us campers, even if some girl acts like a brat. You were right. I was scared. But I’m not scared anymore. I’ll tell Sandy hi when I meet her.
The writing squiggled as tears slid down her cheeks. Carefully, Dawn untied the ribbon. Inside the box lay a pile of gray ashes. Gingerly, Dawn sifted them with her thumb and forefinger. The silt settled on her skin, and somehow, also on her heart. All at once, she knew that she had no choice. She’d have to go back to camp. She’d have to return the ashes to the bonfire next summer. For Marlee. For Sandy. They were all sisters. Linked by the bond of cancer, bound by the thread of hope.
Dawn lifted her fingers, staring in fascination at the way the gray ashes clung. Gently, she puffed and watched the fine silt drift skyward. Dust in the wind. She saw then that they were all dust in the wind, until they each became jewels in a crown of life.
And she realized that some of them—like herself—were allowed to go on living for all the ones who couldn’t. Life is a gift. A tingling feeling stole over her as she understood that she, Dawn Rochelle, had been chosen to continue on. Day by day. Month by month. Year by year.
Dawn kept looking up. She was no longer able to see the tiny particles of ashes. Yet she was certain that they were there, floating off in the summer breeze high above the earth.
Dawn closed the box, hugged her stuffed bear tightly, and, feeling the hot, delicious warmth of the sun soaking through her dress, whispered, “Come on, Mr. Ruggers. It’s time to go home.”
Look for
Lurlene
McDaniel’s
next book about Dawn Rochelle,
No Time To Cry
Dawn has faced more than most kids her age: chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant, cancer camp, the death other best friend. Now, at almost sixteen, she wants nothing more than to live a normal life and be an ordinary high school student. But can she ever really put the past behind her?
Lurlene McDaniel, So Much to Live For
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