Firestorm (19 page)

“I’ll call her right away,” Reyne managed, but her words fell on deaf ears. Beth was already fast asleep.

They began the following morning. After helping Beth bathe, Rachel and Reyne combed out her hair and dried it into soft waves. The bath seemed to sap Beth’s energy though, so they had to wait for an hour while she napped. But when she awoke, she was a woman on a mission. There was a sparkle in her eyes and more energy in her movements than her friends had seen in weeks.

They helped her put on some makeup, especially blush to give her some color and concealer to hide the shadows under her eyes. Then they brushed out her hair again. Beth picked out a light-colored, classy dress, and then they helped her down the stairs and settled her into a large, comfy living-room chair.

Matt came in with Hope and smiled as he saw his wife. “You look so pretty, honey,” he said, bending down to kiss her and then hand Hope over. The little girl gave her mother a fierce hug.

“Are you going to town with us, Mommy?” she asked, touching Beth’s hair as if it were her Barbie’s.

“No, sweetie. Aunt Rachel and Reyne are going to help me with some special movies.” She looked down to watch Hope tentatively nod. “Remember what we talked about last night? That I have to go away soon and live with Jesus?”

Little Hope nodded again, this time more slowly. Reyne had to turn away to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes.

“Well, I’m making some movies for you to watch on special occasions, so you can feel like I’m part of those special times.” She pulled the little girl to her and stroked her hair. Her voice was choked with emotion. “Because I don’t want to miss those times, baby.” Tears came and flowed down her cheeks. She sniffled, obviously trying to regain her composure and be strong in front of her daughter.

Reyne moved in to help. “Would you look at that?” she asked Hope brightly. “Your mommy is the star of our movie, and she’s ruining her makeup! Do you think we should fire her?”

“No!” Hope said gleefully, jumping at the chance to escape the heavy moment.

“Are you sure? Maybe we should make Aunt Rachel the star.” Reyne stood back and looked Rachel over as if she were truly considering it. Rachel played along, striking a glamorous pose.

“NO!” Hope shouted and giggled. “Mommy’s best!” Beth smiled through her tears, wiping her nose with a tissue and giving Hope another quick hug.

Matt moved closer. “Time to go, pumpkin. Let’s go see Mr. Laramie at the hardware store. Maybe he has that Big Wheel out you like to ride.”

“Yeah!” Hope scooted off her mother’s lap and ran to the door. “C’mon, Daddy!” she yelled, her mind already occupied with a new adventure.

“Bye, honey,” Matt said, bending low to kiss his wife tenderly. “Make us some movies so we can always remember how wonderful and beautiful you are.”

Reyne glanced at Rachel, wondering if she had heard his heart-wrenching words, too. Apparently she had, because she swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes shut.

Finally the three friends were alone.

Reyne steeled herself for the hard moments ahead and then looked through the lens of the camera, set up on a tripod. “Perfect,” she announced. She looked over the tiny Sony to grin at Beth. “You look mahvelous, dahling.”

Beth merely smiled and nodded, as if she were saving every ounce of energy for what was ahead. Then she looked down for a moment, thinking. “Will you guys pray with me?” she asked.

“Of course,” Rachel said.

“What are we praying for?” Reyne asked, coming to kneel beside Beth.

“For the right words,” she said. “For my final words.”

Somehow they got through the next few days, taping for several hours at a time and then getting Beth upstairs to rest. Often Rachel or Reyne would have to leave the room. At times they left Beth alone with the remote control to tape herself. It was easier if one of them was there, however, because Beth was so weak that she often dozed off in midsentence.

By the third day Beth had made many tapes for Hope and had hand-lettered each of the labels. Reyne read through them: “Your First Day of School: Kindergarten, First Grade, Junior High, High School, and College; Your Grade School, Junior High, High School, College, and Grad School Graduations—”

“No low expectations from this mother,” Beth quipped as Reyne read them.

“On Your Baptism Day & Questions About God; Your First Job and Your First REAL Job; A Word About Sex, Your First Date, Broken Hearts, and So You’ve Met Mr. Right; Your Wedding Day & a Word to the Groom; When Life Gets You Down & You Miss Your Mom; You’re Going to Have a Baby!; and birthday messages for every year through age thirty.”

On the birthday tapes Beth often talked about what she herself had gone through or experienced that year, thus leaving a legacy of memories as well as advice and warm wishes for her daughter. Beth included favorite Bible verses or quotations as well. One afternoon, Reyne watched through the camera lens as Beth taped Hope’s final birthday message.

“So, sweetheart,” Beth said into the camera, “you’re thirty years old. Hard to imagine for your mom, who at the time of this taping is only thirty-two. I think that turning thirty made me think I was really an adult. Responsibility hit me like a ton of bricks,” she said with a smile, her eyes alight. “You were a year old. I was cooking for the ranch hands—twelve of them—and raising you. It was only when I got sick and had my mastectomy that we hired a cook.

“Thirty was an age of discovery for me too. In fact, I’ve always been thankful for my cancer. If that sounds strange, think of it this way. If you were to find that a life-threatening disease was living in you, would you not cherish each day? So many times we plan on our future—‘If I can just earn this amount of money I can get this’ or ‘If I can just accomplish this, I can do that’—you get the picture.” Beth paused, looked down at her hands, then back at the camera. She leaned forward to emphasize her next words.

“Don’t wait, Hope. Make the most of every single moment God has given you. Life is precious. Celebrate it. I’ve loved this life. You’ve
made it all the more rich for me, as has your father, my friends. That’s what Christ calls us to do. Don’t sit back and accept what comes. Go out there and
take
it. Life really is what you make of it. Don’t you want yours to be an incredible adventure? That doesn’t mean you have to trek through the Himalayas. You can be a housewife on a remote Montana ranch, raising a daughter alongside your husband, and still be incredibly satisfied. I have been.”

She paused, emphasizing again each of her next words. “You deserve the best, my daughter. I’m sure you would have been my friend. Make the most of your years, Hope. And know that through all of your happy and sad moments I’ll be right beside you. I love you.”

Reyne willed her fingers to find the stop button. She struggled to find the right words, but failing, remained silent.

Beth was nodding off again anyway, exhausted from the emotion of her taped messages. Rachel moved from her perch in the corner and brought over an afghan to cover Beth. Then she and Reyne went into the kitchen to force themselves to eat some lunch.

As they made sandwiches, Rachel looked at Reyne. “Have you noticed something?” she asked.

“What?” Reyne asked, scooping some mayonnaise out of the jar.

“These last few weeks—ever since Beth was diagnosed really. And since you came into our lives and we started our Saturday morning coffee klatches.”

“Yes …”

“Our conversations. I’ve never really had friendships like this. I mean, Beth and I were as close as sisters before, but the cancer … It’s like we talk differently because we know we don’t have forever, you know? I wish we had talked this way before, that we hadn’t let life
itself impede us. It’s as if the threat of death has made us all live life more fully.”

Reyne nodded, understanding. “Yeah, I know. I noticed it right away. I thought it was just you two—like you were special or something and just waiting for me to join you. But as I think back, it probably had more to do with the fact that Beth had been diagnosed beforehand. She led the way, set the pace. I was just fortunate that you two included me in your friendship.” She reached out to give Rachel a tender hug. “I wouldn’t have missed this time for the world.”

“Me neither,” Rachel said, her eyes dry for once. She was excited from translating her vague feelings into clear thought. “We’ve talked about things we’ve always talked about before,” she said. “It’s just that we’ve gone deeper; we’re more honest. And more intimate, unafraid to share, you know?”

Reyne nodded. “It’s the kind of friendship women prize. The kind we always search for.”

Rachel studied her for a moment. “I’m glad you moved here, Reyne. I’m glad I’m not alone in this. I need you.” She choked up and once again moved to hug Reyne.

Reyne smiled through her own tears. “No kidding. This is grueling. I couldn’t do it without you either. She gazed solemnly at her friend. “Of course, you know, chocolate helps too.”

Then suddenly they were giggling. Relieved by the levity, Rachel moved away and finished making her sandwich. “You do know we’re using humor to mitigate the pain.”

“Hey, nothing wrong with that,” Reyne said, smiling. “Beth does it too. Like when she put that P
ATIENT
: C
ANCER
C
ARE
C
ENTER
sign in her car while she was going through chemotherapy?”

“Yeah,” Rachel giggled. “So she could park for free.”

Reyne laughed louder, remembering. “And she said that if a cop pulled her over and saw it, he’d feel too sorry for her to ticket her.”

Rachel shook her head and laughed.

Beth shouted feebly from the other room. “Hey, you guys! No having fun without me!”

“Well, look who decided to wake up and join the party!” Reyne said, wiping her eyes quickly and pushing open the kitchen door. “Want something to eat?”

“Maybe a little. Can you bring it out here?”

“Coming right up,” Rachel called.

W
ith the videos completed, Reyne and Rachel resumed their previous routine at the Morgans’, taking care of Beth and trying to make it possible for her to spend every waking moment with her husband and daughter. The cook took care of meals, but they often cleaned or did wash, not wanting Matt to waste precious time on the mundane.

Gradually, Beth got out of bed less and less. When she did, her gait became unsteady and slower by the day. She spent hours reading to Hope or sitting on the porch swing, watching her daughter play with Rachel and Reyne. She also spent a lot of time talking with Matt about the future—possible problems, situations, “girl things” he would need to know about.

Matt took it all in gravely, finally shushing her with tender kisses and cuddling with her on the couch. Those were the times that Reyne would have to look away. She could not bear the thought of Matt without Beth or vice versa. And seeing them together made her ache for Logan’s arms.

Logan had been called out to Wyoming the previous week and hadn’t been back since. He tried to call as often as possible, eager for word of Beth, and Reyne was quick to recognize that he was checking on her, too. He was as worried about her as he was about Beth.

“I’m sorry I’m not there,” he told her over the phone that
evening. The call had come just as she walked in her door and kicked off her shoes.

Reyne leaned her forehead against the living-room window, watching her breath fog it up as she listened to him breathe on the other end of the line. “I need you, Logan. This … this is becoming unbearable.”

She listened, waiting for him to respond. Part of her worried that he thought her weak for asking.

“I think I can get home in about six hours. By tomorrow afternoon definitely. Would that be okay, love?”

“Yes,” she said softly. Not the “Well, don’t come if it’s a problem to get out of work” that sprang to her mind like a reflexive thought. Not “If you want to.” Simply yes. It felt like a concession from Reyne, but she could not help herself. She needed him with her. She needed his arms around her, his comforting voice in her ear. And in the back of her mind, she admitted to herself that this would get him off the front line of fire.

“I have a surprise for you, Reyne,” he said gently.

“Oh?” Reyne’s voice was trailing in exhaustion.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow, love. Get some sleep.”

“Okay. I love you.”

“I love you too. Tomorrow then. I can’t wait.”

“Me neither,” she said. “And Logan?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

The old BLM bus was feeling its age. As it chugged asthmatically along the highway that climbed toward the mountain pass, Logan
found himself chanting “come on,” under his breath, as if he could will the ancient vehicle to go faster.

Every minute of the trip from Wyoming seemed like hours to Logan. Reyne’s voice, and the uncharacteristic naked need within, had seemed to wrap tendrils around his heart and give it a big tug. Everything in him wanted to be near her, comforting her, encouraging her, loving her.

And he was almost there—arriving home, just as he had promised. After telling the command center he needed to leave because of a “family emergency,” he had organized the next mission for his crew, briefed the next person in line, and boarded a plane that was taking BLM troops home to Missoula. From there he had taken the bus hauling other personnel home to Elk Horn. At the time it had seemed the fastest way. Now Logan wasn’t so sure.

The old bus finally made its way through the mountain pass and started its descent into the pristine valley. Logan was waiting by the door when it finally pulled into the airstrip, and he stepped off the minute the doors folded open, calling a quick
thanks
to the driver.

He took a deep breath. It seemed it had been ages since he had been able to do so. The air was fresh and clean, despite the heat, with not a trace of smoke. Logan sheltered his eyes with his hand and peered upward. The sky was light blue, draped here and there with thin, wispy cirrus clouds. Briefly he wondered how long Elk Horn could escape the choking smoke that was steadily spreading in so many Western forests.