Dawn was certain that they loved each other. They just didn’t know how to talk to each other. There was a lot of unfinished business between them. And she was a big part of it.
She hadn’t realized how stressful it would be having Mom and Granny together for four days. Not that anything untoward had been said. Jason had to get up early, and he found it hard to keep his eyes open after nine o’clock. Mitch would suggest it was time to head back to the Ramada Inn. Mom would then ask Granny if she was ready to go. It became a ritual, leaving it up to Granny to decide.
If there had been an extra bed in the second room instead of the new crib, Dawn would have asked Mom to spend the night. With Granny, Mitch, and Christopher back at the Ramada Inn, maybe she and Mom could’ve talked more.
Her mother never said much, but what she said counted.
* * *
Over the next few days, Dawn couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. Granny called to thank her for the wonderful time. Now that Granny had been on an airplane, she might make the next trip on her own. “Your mom can drive me to the airport.”
Mom called, but didn’t talk long. Christopher talked for half an hour. He hadn’t cared all that much about the bright lights and entertainment in Branson, but he’d loved hanging out with Jason and hiking with Dad. They’d explored the bluffs above the Big Piney.
Dawn went to bed shortly after dinner. Jason followed. “Are you okay, honey?”
“Just tired.” Lying on her side, she went over her prayer list. She didn’t make it halfway through before sleep pulled her down.
She stood knee-deep in murky swamp water, surrounded by cypress trees with low-hanging Spanish moss. Something moved close by, rippling the water and making her heart quicken with fear. She moved carefully forward toward a savanna with solid ground and grassland undulating like a golden sea. The thick mud pulled at her feet. She managed another step. Gasping, she went deeper, the dark water around her rib cage. Her body felt like a heavy weight. Something slick slithered between her legs. Grasping hold of a cypress root, she kicked free. A broad, diamond-shaped head appeared, black eyes staring at her. The huge snake coiled around her middle. She groaned as the pain grew worse. She couldn’t get her breath.
A hand moved across her face. “Dawn.” Jason caressed her cheek. “Wake up, honey. You’re having a bad dream.”
She stared into the darkness; her heart still pounded. “Hold me, Jason.”
Jason tucked her into him. Wide-awake now, she felt it again. No dream this time. Her abdomen cramped. Searing pain spread downward. “Jason . . .”
Jason turned on the light. When she pushed the covers off, he sucked in his breath. “Don’t move! I’m calling 911.”
* * *
Dawn awakened in a hospital room, white ceiling overhead, white curtain blocking her view, an IV drip hanging beside the bed. A monitor beeped. Somewhere close by, Jason talked in a low voice, tone questioning. A stranger answered. “. . . lost a lot of blood. . . . couple more hours in recovery. . . . taking precautions. . . . Try not to worry. . . .”
Jason stepped around the curtain. He looked haggard and pale, but his expression filled with relief when he met her eyes. “You’re awake. Are you in pain?”
“No.” But she felt so tired she didn’t think she could move.
He took her hand and kissed it. “You’re going to be all right.”
She knew what that meant. She couldn’t see him through her tears. “Our baby, Jason,” she sobbed. “I lost our baby.”
Jason slipped his arms around her, and he held her close, his voice raspy. “I almost lost you.”
The nurse came in and added something to the IV. “She’ll sleep now.”
Dawn fought to keep her eyes open. “You should go home, Jason.”
“I’m staying.”
She awakened on the gurney as they moved through the hospital corridor to another room. Two orderlies lifted her gently onto a bed. Jason stepped around one of them and took her hand again. A nurse tucked warm covers around her, checked her vitals and the IV.
Rousing again later, she saw Jason in a chair beside her bed. He slept with his head on his crossed arms. Running her hand over the short-cropped hair, she thanked God she had a husband who loved her enough to stay so long at her side. He woke and leaned over her. “Do you need anything?”
“No.” Just him.
He sat down again and took her hand, rubbing it against his cheek. He needed a shave.
“You must be AWOL.”
“I called Cap.” Jason put his hand on her forehead. “Good. No fever.” He let out a deep breath. He looked older than his twenty-six years. “Try to go back to sleep. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Okay? Without their baby?
Once, at fifteen, she had feared she might be pregnant. Now, Dawn wondered if she and Jason would ever have children. God willing, someday. She would hold on to that hope.
* * *
Alicia came over to visit. Watching Lalo play made Dawn feel her loss more acutely. She grieved even more when she went to the commissary and saw young mothers with babies. Unwilling to burden Jason with her emotional state, she called Granny, who told her it wasn’t unusual to have a miscarriage and not to let it get her down. Then she talked about how wonderful it would be when Dawn had babies, how she’d forget all about the pain of losing this one.
On the phone, Mom listened while Dawn talked. Dawn had to ask her to say something. “I turned away from the Lord, Dawn, and I learned my lesson. I turned back because He was the only One who understood. He became my comfort.”
Dawn hadn’t opened her Bible in a week. “Why did you turn away?”
“I was afraid of Him.”
Dawn had learned to wait until Mom was ready to speak. Mom wasn’t uncomfortable with silence the way Granny was.
“I didn’t think God loved me. I thought everything that happened to me was punishment because I couldn’t measure up.”
“But now you know that’s not true. Don’t you?”
“Do you?”
Dawn cried then. She’d been asking herself for weeks what she had done wrong. “Oh, Mom . . .” Shoulders heaving, she sobbed into the telephone.
“I learned God loves me. Even when I felt down for the count, May Flower Dawn. He loves you that way, too. He’ll lift you up. Just hold out your hands and give your sorrow to Him.”
48
1996
Jason got orders for Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Dawn admonished herself for being surprised. After three years at Fort Leonard Wood, she forgot Jason could be transferred anytime and anywhere the Army wanted. She’d just put in roses. She wouldn’t be around when they bloomed.
The inspecting officer came through. All the walls would have to be repainted white. She had known the rules, but the thought of her hard work being undone depressed her.
Jason hired two privates to paint the interior walls on their off-duty hours. They needed the extra money. Dawn needed their help. The Army movers arrived. Dawn supervised. She had all the boxes labeled and kept an inventory list in her purse. As soon as the moving van left, Jason and Dawn threw two suitcases into the trunk of the Sable and headed out.
Jason had leave before reporting in at Fort Bragg. So they took the scenic route, wanting to see more of the country on the way. They spent nights in St. Louis, Nashville, and Chattanooga. After the flatlands and wind of Fort Sill and the low hills and bluffs of Fort Leonard Wood, Dawn drank in the beauty of the Great Smoky Mountains. They took their time driving the Blue Ridge Parkway, stopping at overlooks, snapping pictures of one another, and staying two nights in a bed-and-breakfast. Fall had come with a burst of reds, oranges, and yellows among the myriad evergreens.
* * *
Fort Bragg wasn’t like little Fort Lost in the Woods. It had over 170,000 inhabitants, schools, churches, hospitals, golf courses, bowling alleys, and theaters. It even had a mall! While Jason worked, Dawn drove around, getting acclimated to her new su
rroundings. When the Sable broke down, Jason decided it was time to sell it and buy another car. Dawn spotted a van and said it would come in handy when she started going to garage and estate sales. Jason took it for a test drive, had a mechanic look it over, and made an offer. After a few months, with things so spread out, Jason decided they both needed transportation and bought a used GMC Jimmy. Dawn teased him about his “cheap jeep.”
Their new house was twice the size of the last.
Uninspired, she made a replica of their last master bedroom, turned another into an office, and left the door of the last bedroom closed. The living room looked bare and uninteresting. She needed to find one piece of something to inspire her, so she drove eighty miles up to Raleigh to see an art sale. Within the first hour, she found what she needed to fire her imagination: an oil-painted reproduction of John William Waterhouse’s Knight. The handsome young man in full armor sat on a stone wall, his sword set aside, a beautiful red-haired lady kneeling at his feet with her hand over his and an expression of adoration.
“You like that, huh?” The vendor, an old man with thinning gray hair and one arm missing, said he had worked twenty years for a museum in New York, painting reproductions of various masters.
“It’s gorgeous.” She could see the whole living room coming together around it.
He wanted three hundred dollars for the painting. Dawn’s heart sank. He might as well have asked for a million. Dawn smiled with regret, told him it was worth that and more. Unfortunately a knight’s wife couldn’t afford it.
She searched for two more hours and came up empty-handed. She had to get home so she’d be in time to fix dinner.
“Milady,” the old vendor called to her as she came abreast of his booth. “I still have it.”
Surprised, she walked over. “No offers at all?”
“Oh, I had offers, but none that made me want to hand it over. I took a lot of time on this one. It’s special.” The old man propped it up so she had to look at it again. “Is your husband as handsome as the knight?”
Dawn studied the painting and smiled. “As handsome as that knight is, mine is more so. Thanks for letting me look at it again. I know you’ll find the right buyer.” She started to walk away.
He called after her. “Where would you hang it if you could afford it?”
She turned and looked at him. “In the living room, of course, where everyone would see it first thing when they walked in. And I’d tell everyone who did the reproduction, if he gave me his card.”
“Well, that’s a whole lot better than having it hang in a guest room.” He wagged his fingers at her. “Give me whatever you’ve got before I change my mind. Okay, okay. Calm down. You’re welcome. I’ll even wrap it for you.”
Dawn drove home, singing praise songs. She couldn’t wait to get started!
Jason noticed the painting when he walked in the door. He stood in the living room staring at it. Dawn slipped her arm through his. “Romantic, isn’t it?”
He grinned at her. “I can hardly wait to see what you do with the rest of the place.”
A laugh bubbled out of her. “A man’s home should be his castle. Don’t you think?”
He pulled her close. “It’s good to hear you laugh again, Dawn.”
They both knew why she hadn’t.
* * *
1997
They’d been stationed at Fort Bragg six months when Dawn took a home pregnancy test. She hadn’t mentioned the morning sickness. She didn’t want to get Jason’s hopes up or worry him. When she checked the test results, joy flooded her. Fear quickly followed. She saw it in Jason’s eyes, too, when she told him the news.
He pulled her close. “If you are pregnant, you’re quitting work. We’re not taking any chances.”
She’d already decided that. Two ladies from her Wednesday Bible study had offered to pay her to help decorate their houses, so they could easily do without her part-time nursing income.
Jason held her hand tightly in the examining room as the nurse practitioner moved the monitor over Dawn’s abdomen. They both heard the baby’s heartbeat at the same time. Jason frowned. “It’s so fast.” The nurse and Dawn smiled and assured him it should be.
Jason wanted to call their families that night, but Dawn asked him to wait. He asked why. “I don’t know, Jason. I just . . . I don’t know.” She couldn’t dispel the feeling something might go wrong.
At five months, Jason insisted. “You’re fine. You haven’t been sick for two months. The baby is growing. So are you!”
Dawn gave in.
Georgia and Granny were ecstatic. So were Christopher and Mitch. When Mom came on the phone, Dawn poured out her fears. Mom didn’t dismiss them. “I’ll pray for you, May Flower Dawn.” Dawn knew it wasn’t a platitude.
Granny called every few days to check on her. Dawn called Mom and did most of the talking.
At six months, Dawn sensed something wrong. The flutters had stopped. Rather than wait for her scheduled checkup, she called the doctor. Jason went with her. The stethoscope felt ice-cold on her abdomen. The doctor moved it several times, listening intently. His expression became increasingly grim. Jason stroked her shoulders. “It’s going to be okay,” he said again and again, like a litany of prayer.
When the doctor straightened, Dawn held her breath. “I’m sorry.” He looked at Jason first, then Dawn. “There’s no heartbeat.”
Jason stood silent, his hands gripping her shoulders. He looked down at her, love and tears spilling from his eyes. “It’s going to be okay, Dawn.”
She sobbed. They both knew nothing was okay.
The doctor admitted Dawn to the hospital and induced labor. Dawn gave birth to a perfectly formed little boy who weighed just under two pounds.
It would take longer to get over the loss this time.
* * *
Jason took Dawn home to California for Christmas. They spent the first few nights with Georgia, Christmas Eve and Day with Mom, Mitch, and Christopher, home on break from his first year at Stanford.
Granny came in from Jenner, but kept pressing them to come out and stay with her on the coast. Approaching her eighty-first birthday, she had aged. Her hair was almost completely gray now, and she bore signs of osteoporosis. Mom, who had turned fifty last spring, still wore long, colorful tiered skirts and tunics with leather belts. Her hair had streaks of silver. Mom still didn’t ask for Granny’s help, and Granny no longer offered. Dawn could see the rift had widened. Granny talked to Dawn and spared some attention for Jason, Mitch, and Christopher. Mom listened from the kitchen.
No one talked about the baby, though Dawn knew her stillborn son was on everyone’s mind. Christopher sat beside her on the couch and took her hand. He had grown six inches since she last saw him. He called her his little-big sister now. He had Mitch’s dark red hair and their mother’s blue eyes. “You’re turning into a hunk, Chris.”
Mitch laughed. “He’s got girls calling him all the time. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since he got home last week.”
Christopher blushed to the roots of his hair.
“Good for you. You’ve always been good at making friends.” Dawn tried to keep things light. It was Christmas, after all. Had all gone well, she would have had a newborn in her arms.
And a child shall be born to you . . .
Jason agreed to go to Jenner. They spent the last four days with Granny. Dawn and Jason walked on the beach every afternoon. They sat on the sand and watched the waves. On the last night, he went to bed before she did. Granny broached the subject everyone else had avoided. “You’ll have a baby, Dawn. I know it. I feel it!”
Dawn cried and blew her nose. She felt like Hannah in the Old Testament, begging God for a child. “It’s up to God, Granny. I have to accept that it may not be His will for me.”
“Nonsense. You have time, honey. You’re young. Keep trying.”
Dawn knew trying wasn’t the answer. God was. And she was going to trust Him with her future, no matter ho
w difficult it might be right now.
On the long flight home, Dawn dreamed she sat on the beach north of Goat Rock. The wind blew warmer than usual, sun sparkling off turquoise and green waves. Dawn felt the wind in her hair, the sun on her face. Granny and Mom sat nearby, talking together as they never had before. A little girl with long blonde hair pranced along the edge of the waves. Water splashed up like white flashing lights around the child’s knees. She flapped her arms like a bird learning to fly. Now and then, she stooped and picked up a sea-washed rock, a bit of driftwood, a seagull feather, then raced up the beach to show off her treasures. Dawn got up and went down to join the child. She danced with her in the frothy, foaming waves. She felt happy. She felt free.
Dawn awakened in the darkness, the hum of jet engines soothing. Jason slept, his knees wedged against the seat in front of him. She saw the moon outside the airplane window and city lights below. She felt at peace for the first time since losing the baby, hope rising inside her like a sunrise.
Jason awakened and took her hand. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” More than okay. “I had a wonderful dream, Jason.” She told him all about it.
“Sounds like a promise.”
“It was.”
* * *
1998
Dawn painted the spare bedroom a pale pink. She added furnishings: a crib; a white dresser; a gliding rocker; a plush, pale blue area rug. She hung an embroidered alphabet sampler she found at a garage sale.
As each month passed, Jason seemed less certain. He brought up adoption. She said, yes, that was something they might consider. Eventually. His suggestion didn’t diminish her faith. The dream would come to pass. In God’s perfect timing—not hers, not Jason’s.
“You know I can get transferred at any time, Dawn.”
“I know.”
“You’re putting a lot of time in that bedroom.” The house didn’t belong to them. “We may have to move. What then?”