Heaven’s Gate
64 Celebration
I got a nasty shock in the mail. It was one of the Christmas cards I sent out. It had been forwarded twice and then marked ‘Return to Sender. Unknown.’ It looked like it had been through hell and back. I got worried. Renee hadn’t contacted anyone lately and this wasn’t good. I tried the last phone number I had for her and it was disconnected.
I went to see Lamar and Sarah and took them the card. Lamar sadly shook his head. He went into his study and returned with the birth announcement of Evelyn Renee they’d sent to her. It had also been returned to sender.
“I talked to her mother,” Lamar said. “She said she’s hiding and not to look for her.”
“Hiding? Hiding from what?”
“Who. Tom Reynolds. The guy she moved to Columbus with. He turned out to not be a good guy. I should have tried to stop her, damn it!” Lamar burst out. “I knew he was no good. It was all an act. What could I say? Sarah and I had just gotten married. I knew she wanted a nice domestic life, too. She was obviously fond of him.”
“Fond. She never did love him, did she?” I said. “I wish I’d been more alert to how she was feeling. Sarah warned me.”
“Brian, you can’t take the blame for this. Renee put on her big girl panties and made her own decision,” Sarah said. “Neither you nor she is to blame because it didn’t work out.”
“But how do we find her and bring her home?” I asked. “She needs to come home.”
“To what? Where?” Lamar asked. “Do you think she’d be happy living with Sarah and me? Are you going to take her as one of your women? There was a time she’d have been happy with that, but I don’t know now. Do you think she’d be happy living alone? Maybe in one of the apartments? Brian, you’ve got to think about all these things before you jump on your horse and ride off in all directions.”
“What! We’re supposed to let one of our clanmates suffer because she made a bad decision? Are you just going to sit around and do nothing? I know things didn’t work out between the two of you, but she cared for you!” I shouted. Damn it! Sarah was looking at me sternly. “She cared for me, too.”
“I hired a PI,” Lamar said. Sarah looked quickly at him. I wondered if she knew. “He’s keeping an eye on Tom to make sure he abides by the restraining order. He thinks she’s in a shelter for abused women.”
“Surely coming back here would be better than that. Surely,” I mumbled. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Lamar. I’m sorry, Sarah. I treated both of you rudely. If you find out anything… If there’s any way I can help, please let me know.” I left the Christmas card with the returned birth announcement and walked to the door. Lamar just sat and stared at them. Sarah walked me to the door.
“Brian, don’t take this on yourself,” she said. “Yes, it’s loyal. It’s loving. You are the Patrón. Let Lamar handle it. I trust him. You can, too.”
“Thank you, Sarah. You got a treasure of a man when you married him. I’m sorry I got so upset.” She laughed at me.
“No matter what, I still love you,” she whispered. She kissed me on the cheek and I returned home.
C-Rae turned five on April eighteenth, the sixth anniversary of Lexi’s death. It was Sunday morning and I decided to visit the River before I made a birthday cake.
It was a typical April morning, meaning it was cold and foggy. The mist hung in the air and turned the shapes of the horses into vague presences identified more by the sound of their breathing than their bulk. This was the kind of eerie time, just at the breaking of day, that made you think about that musical I’d seen Elaine in called Brigadoon. You just knew that when the fog cleared, you’d be in some different world, maybe five hundred years in the past, and there would be an enchanted village just over the next rise.
Even with these thoughts in my head, I was taken aback when I saw a figure moving quietly across the stones of the river. My first thought was that Lexi had risen to meet me when I came to visit. Of course, I know how stupid that sounds. That didn’t stop the chill from running down my spine or the hairs from raising on the back of my neck.
I could hear the gentle swishing of a rake through the gravel and picked up one of the wooden tined implements as I kicked out of my shoes and stepped into the River stones. Damn! They’re cold! I raked my way toward the figure in the fog and he gradually took shape. He paused his raking and raised a hand to me.
“Didn’t expect to see you out here, Doug,” I said softly. “You okay?”
“Better than I should be, I guess,” Doug answered. “I just came out to spend some time with Lexi. I want to be on good terms with her when I move in.”
“Doug?”
“It’s back. I had an appointment Friday and my tests came back with the lymphoma active and even more aggressive than before. I’m gonna die, Brian.”
“Doug, don’t talk like that. You fought it off once. You can do it again. We’re all going to be right there with you. Don’t give up on me, brother.”
“I’m not giving up. I’m going to fight it with everything I’ve got. I just… I somehow know I was given these past few months to put my house in order and show my cónyuge how much I love them. Don’t ever let an opportunity pass to tell your women you love them, Brian.”
How could I even respond to that? We just raked the gravel aimlessly, side by side. I was sure he had it licked. He’d gotten stronger, even went back to work a few days a week. Not quite full time. Ron wouldn’t let him run a crew, but he worked on Carl’s crew two or three days a week.
Damn it! How can life be so damned unfair?
Doug sat down next to the stone that bore Lexi’s name.
“I don’t want to die, Brian. I don’t want to miss seeing our kids grow up. I don’t want to miss Matthew’s first basketball game, or C-Rae’s next birthday. I want to read stories to James and the twins. I want to hold Raven’s children. I want so fucking much. I want to hold Rhiannon and Doreen and Sandy in my arms and show them how much I love them. I want to kiss Liz and TK. You should know, I’m going to do as much of that in the time I’ve got left as I can. But you’ve got to promise me something, Brian. You’ve got to promise to take care of our kids and wives. Take care of them and don’t… don’t let them forget me.”
“Doug, we’re going to fight through this. But no matter what happens, you have my word that our children will grow up knowing what a brave and loving man their father is. You have my word on that.” He nodded his head as we sat on the cold stones together.
“I always thought you’d be the next one we’d scatter in the River,” Doug laughed. “Seemed like you kept getting in the way of bad people and your luck would run out. Instead… You know, I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but I’m glad Lexi is here to meet me. I always kind of had a thing for her. And she never had a problem teasing me. Or anyone else. I think she’ll like having the company.”
I had to laugh at that. Of course, Lexi would welcome Doug with open arms. Their ashes would mingle together.
“We’d better get back and get a celebration ready for our birthday girl,” I said. “The kids are probably all up looking for us and the moms will be grumpy that they were woke up.”
“Yeah.” We propped the rakes next to the River and got our shoes on. We both shivered. “Celebration. That’s what I want, Brian. We need to celebrate every day of this life we have left, and when I leave this one and move to whatever comes next, I want everyone to come out here and dance in the River. Cook up some special meal for everyone and name it after me. Break out a few bottles of Bart’s Triple Crown. I want a celebration.”
We had a celebration back at the house as C-Rae turned five years old. I got a cake baked and we let all our worries and cares take a back seat to all the happy kids in the family who knew how to celebrate.
The next week, I had two more happy celebrations, though we actually celebrated them at the same time. Ruth’s birthday was on Tuesday and Robert’s was on Saturday. We chose Friday night for a little family celebration at the Clintons’. I spent the night with Cassie, Mary, and Josh. Saturday, we repeated the party with all the neighborhood kids. There were so many of us in the clan and the tribe now that we could about celebrate a birthday or two every week if we wanted to. Well, we did celebrate them all. But we didn’t make as big a deal out of the adult birthdays as we did of the kids’. It was impossible to be worried or concerned about anything when you had babies loving on you and little kids running around wild.
The second week of May, Whitney came home for a long weekend. She had two weeks of vacation at the end of June and the first week of July. But we wanted something special this week. She took off after her shift Wednesday night and pulled in a little before midnight. I took her directly to the master suite. We intended to just tease each other, but we jumped the gun and were making love before the clock finished its twelfth strike.
“We don’t make a big deal about most occasions,” I said as we all settled for dinner Thursday evening. Lee was taking at least one show a week for me now and this week he’d have both Thursday and Friday shows. The audience loved him and Frankie and Chuck could write funny material that he could deliver and have it come out funny. Unlike me. I was not missing a second of Whitney’s leave. “But this is an occasion that we didn’t know how to celebrate when we started. As a result, Whitney has never had a red thread to represent her handfasting. We never had a ceremony and circumstances even caused what celebrating we did to be muted. So tonight, on our tenth anniversary, I’m asking Whitney formally to be my cónyuge and to accept the binding of our hands.”
“I accept!” Whitney shouted. She jumped up and kissed me. While we were standing, Rose came to us with her spool of red thread. We held out our hands and she wrapped them together.
“After ten years, I don’t think anyone can doubt that these two are indeed handfasted together,” Rose said. “While the physical symbol hasn’t been there, and even though Whitney can’t wear it on a regular basis with her uniform, there has been a virtual binding of these two that we have always been able to see. May you always be blessed.”
Whitney and I kissed again and broke the thread.
“Since I can’t wear the thread with my uniform, I’m going to use it in a slightly different way,” Whitney said. “I have a whole little sheaf of fairy loops and I’ll tie them together with this thread. When I took that first fairy loop in fifth grade, I knew we would always be together—even when we are apart.”
I didn’t try to match her words. I just sat down and pulled her into my lap. I held her as we fed each other cake. Whitney had a lot of rituals and ceremonies in the Marines. There was a lot of ritual in our sparring and forms. I was happy that now we had a ritual of commitment to each other. She would always be my first lover and I would be hers.
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