Cowboy Sing Me Home (26 page)

            “Just a few weeks.  I’ve learned to spot
the signs early on.”

            “How far along were you when you lost the
others?”

            “Six weeks with the first two.  Nine weeks
the last time.”

            Dusty hardly knew the woman, she reminded
herself.  There was no logical reason she should feel hot tears building behind
her eyes.  She’d made it through her visit with Luke without crying, but she’d
been on her guard, then.  She was unprepared, and had to bite her tongue hard
to keep the tears back.

            She’d thought she’d cried all it was
possible to cry.  She’d seen other parents – different news stories, interview
shows – of people talking about children they had lost, and they seemed to
reach a point when they could talk about it without crying.  She’d come to
accept that she was never going to reach that same point.  Where Anne-Marie was
concerned, there was a never-ending reservoir of tears.

            “I’m so sorry,” she said, because she was,
suddenly.

            “How about you?” Becca asked softly.

            She started to brush the question aside. 
She didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to have a heart-to-heart moment
with a practical stranger in the aisle of the Aloma Grocerette.  But it was too
late, she realized.  She was right in the middle of it and powerless to stop
herself from answering, “She was three months old.  SIDS.”

            Becca placed her hand on Dusty’s arm. 
“I’m so sorry.”

            Dusty shifted her weight and cleared her
throat.  “Yeah, me too.  For, you know.”  She tilted her head toward Becca’s
stomach.

            “How long ago was it?”

            A lifetime ago. “Nine years in March. 
Aren’t your scared?” 

            “Of course.  I get more scared every time,
in fact.  I know how much I have to lose.”

            “Then why…” But even for her, that
question was over the line.

            “Why put myself through it again?  Believe
me, I’ve asked myself that a lot, Colt and I both have.  We thought long and
hard before getting pregnant the last time, and we had already decided that,
three strikes and we were out.  We would look into adoption, or become foster
parents.  We couldn’t do it again.  But… I don’t know.”  She took a deep breath
and looked off, as if she was trying to find the right words.  “When Colt and I
were… well, let’s be polite and call it ‘dating.’  When we were dating, I made
the conscious decision that I would never make a decision based solely on
whether or not I was afraid of the consequences.  Afraid of failure.  If I
really wanted to do something, and the only reason
not
to was because I
was afraid…well, then, that wasn’t enough of a reason.  Because I learned a
long time ago that all of life is a risk, and if all we’re living for is to
protect ourselves from the risk… well…that’s not really living.”             She
cocked her head and curled her lip.  “Isn’t that just a ridiculous platitude?”

            “Actually…” Dusty said.

            “I know.  It is.  But platitudes get to be
platitude because they’re true.  Each person has to decide for herself which
risks are worth taking.”  She placed her hand on her stomach, then looked up at
Dusty.  “And you can’t tell me that, as terrifying as it is, this isn’t worth
it.”

            The words she’d just spoken to Luke echoed
in her mind, and Dusty shook her head.  “No. 

            The tightness in Dusty’s throat had almost
eased by the time she’d made her purchases and was loading them into the back
of her pickup.  She heard tires on the gravel parking lot, and turned to see a
large brown sedan heading for her.  She gasped, spun and plastered herself to
the pickup bed, and Louise stopped her car inches from her.

            “This is a sign!” Louise proclaimed as she
opened the car door – knocking it into Dusty’s pickup – and jumped out.  “I was
headed out to Trailertopia to talk to you, and here you are.”

            “Were you planning on running me down?”

            “No, I was going to give you the wonderful
news.  Look what I found.”  She leaned back into the car and brought out an
instrument that Dusty had never seen before.  “I knew I had this somewhere
around the house, and I finally found it just while ago.”

            “That is good news.”  Dusty eyed the
contraption, roughly the size of a small handbag, with a tiny mouthpiece at the
top and keys down each side.  “What the – what is it?”             

            “I think it’s called a recorder, but I
could be wrong.  I lost the box it came in, of course.”  She put it to her
mouth and blew, tapping her fingers along the keys.  Her cheeks puffed out and
her eyes bulged, until the gadget finally emitted a strangled, high-pitched squeal.

She put it down and gasped for air.  “Whew!  I’m going
to have to practice a lot before this evening.”

            “What’s this evening?”

            Louise cocked her head.  “You’ve been out
in the sun too long, Sweetie.  The Jubilee, of course.”

            “You’re playing that thing at the
Jubilee?”

            “That’s the good news.  All us girls were
talking this morning, and we feel just awful about the way we’ve acted with the
Jubilee choir.  Especially with Luke getting shot and all, it just made
everyone realize how stupid we all were to argue over silly things that don’t
matter anyway.  We’re focusing on what’s important, you know.  Getting our
priorities straight.”  She slapped her hand against the fender of her car. 
“Figuring out what really matters in life—“

            “So anyway…” Dusty said.

            “So anyway – and this was my idea – we
decided to put together a band instead.  Isn’t that exciting?”

            “A band.”

            “Yep.”

            “For the Jubilee.  Tonight.”

            “Yes, and we only have a few hours. 
That’s why we need your help.”

            If the rest of ‘the girls’ sounded
anything like Louise and her… whatever it was, they were going to need more
help than she’d ever be able to give them.  “I don’t think I’m going to be able
to help you with that.”

            “Oh.”  Louise’s mouth turned down at the
corners and her head drooped.  “I was afraid of that.  You want to just play
the Jubilee by yourself?”

            “What?  No.”  She hadn’t given the Jubilee
much thought, except to decided she definitely was not going to get up in front
of all those people to play by herself.  She wasn’t sure what Brother Mark was
going to do, but with a whole town full of people who actually belonged there,
she felt like it was someone else’s problem to deal with.

            “So, does that mean you’re going to
abandon us in our hour of need?”  Louise narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips.

            Not in the mood to be manipulated, Dusty
cocked her head and raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

            Louise shrugged. “That’s okay.  Like I
said, we’ve got it all worked out.  I have this thing, Becky Ann Tillman has
her daughter’s saxophone, Regina Wingtry has a tambourine and a triangle she
bought at a garage sale and has been dying to use somewhere.  Georgette
Buchanan is the band director’s wife and she said she’d be happy to play the
bass drum.  Plus Yvonne’s son is a disk jockey and she’s going to use his stuff
to make us sound good.  She’s even going to bring his record player and make
those scratchy sounds with the needle.  You know.”  She held her hand out, palm
down, and shot it in and out.  “Scritcha scritcha scritcha.”

            “Yes, I know scritcha scritcha scritcha. 
You ladies are going to get this band together before 5 o’clock this
afternoon?”

            “I know, it sounds impossible.  But the
Lord will work miracles when the heart is in the right place.  And our hearts
are all on bringing this town back together.”

            Dusty pictured ‘the girls’ lined up in
front of the gazebo, scaring the very devil out of any Alomite still stubborn
enough to be holding out.  It would be a living nightmare.

            Then she thought about Luke, hearing about
the catastrophe from his hospital bed.  He’d worked so hard on this Rain Fest,
and he would be disappointed that his absence had led to this.  And, she
thought tiredly, he would wonder why she’d refused to help.  It wouldn’t matter
to him that it wasn’t her problem.  It wouldn’t matter to him that she didn’t
belong here.

            Just as it didn’t matter to her, she
thought as she sighed and said words she could scarcely believe she was
saying.  “Get the girls together at the Baptist Church choir room in half an
hour.  And tell them to bring their… instruments.”  Maybe she could start a
small fire and get rid of them all.

            Louise watched Dusty drive away, then
reached into her car for her cell phone.  She punched a button and Helen
Tanner’s number went through.

            “She’s in,” Louise said with triumph.

            “Seriously?  I didn’t think she’d do it in
a million years.”

            “My kids don’t call me the Master
Manipulator for nothing.  Now help me get everybody rounded up and in the choir
room in half and hour.  Bring something horrible to play.”

            “Something horrible?  Like what?”

            “Something that will convince Dusty we
can’t possibly live without her help.”

            Helen laughed.  “I have Luke’s old David
Cassidy guitar in the hall closet.  It probably has three or four strings on
it.”

            “That’s perfect.  I’ll see you in a few
minutes.”

Luke stared out the window, the ache in
his heart for Dusty rivaling the pain in his leg.  Everything – Wayne, Melinda,
their baby, everything – seemed minor in comparison to what she had gone
through. 

            He should have gone after her.  To hell
with the bum leg, and Melinda, and everyone else.  He should just get up and go
to her, do whatever he could to take that hurt from her eyes.

            He strained to sit, his leg and head both
protesting.  He made it to a sitting position, but no further, before weakness
had him slumping back down.  The door squeaked open, and Geralyn Thompson came
through carrying a tray of little paper cups.

            “If it’s not the town hero.  The doctor
said you could have another pain med if you want it.”

            Luke shook his head and pulled the blanket
back up, attempting a smile.  He and Geralyn had gone to high school together. 
In fact, he had a distinct memory of dancing with Geralyn in eighth grade, and
he’d fantasized for weeks afterward about what was underneath the black and
blue sweater she wore.

            “Just buzz me if you change your mind.” 
She busied herself marking his chart, then came over and took his wrist in her
hand, checking his pulse against the watch on her wrist.  “Boy, you’ve got a
story to tell at our high school reunion, don’t you?  The class clown gets shot
by the class nerd.  My trip to Dollywood is going to sound pretty lame next to
that.”  She dropped his wrist and wrote something else on his chart.  “Who am I
kidding?  It was going to sound lame anyway.  Okay, I’m going to pull down the
blanket so I can check the wound.  Are you ready?”

            “No problem.”  He didn’t bother correcting
Geralyn about the shooter’s identity.   That, and having her see his upper
thigh weren’t exactly points of concern for him at the moment.  He couldn’t
stop thinking of Dusty, young and full of hope for her new family.  Then
heartbroken. 

            He had promised her he would treasure his
child, and he already did.  He thought again about Melinda saying she’d
fainted, and fear clutched his stomach that already something was wrong.

            “Geralyn, weren’t you working in Dr.
Buchanan’s office when I was there with Melinda the other day?”

            She nodded.  “That’s my full-time job.  I
picked up some extra hours here in the hospital because they’re shorthanded. 
My son goes through high top sneakers about every three weeks.”

            Her son.  Dusty had had a daughter, she
said.  A girl, that’s what she said.  A baby girl. 

He didn’t know if it was the painkillers,
the trauma of being shot, or the emotions on the surface after talking to
Dusty.  But he couldn’t quit thinking of mothers and babies and loss.  He was
surprised at how much he wanted this baby.  He didn’t want to be married to
Melinda.  He didn’t know how on earth he was ever going to come to terms with
that, but he would find a way.  He wasn’t going to let his kid grow up
wondering why his mom and dad didn’t live together.  And he wasn’t going to let
his kid grow up wondering why his parents hated each other.  Surely, after
time, he would quit thinking about Dusty and wondering about what could have
been.  After enough time.

The idea of his own flesh and blood both
fascinated him and terrified him, especially after his recent lesson in how
quickly and easily life could be taken away.