Chapter Forty-One

Rikki

It seemed silly for me to begin to rethink my entire past because I felt a little heat where there was obviously none. Or because Becca had shown up after I’d said my first prayer in a very long time. Yet telling Kyle and seeing her struggle to be strong for me made me realize that I’d lived a life of selfishness.

Once I’d thought I had no regrets, but suddenly I had plenty. I should have stayed near people who cared about me instead of seeking love in the arms of strangers. I should have developed a relationship with my mother, even it if meant moving out and seeing her only when my father wasn’t around. I should have found a good father for my children, a steady home. I should have thought about the what-ifs and searched out the source of the warmth I’d felt—was still feeling since that morning.

Maybe if I’d stayed I would not only have accomplished all the things I was proud of in my life—having my children, achieving many of my dance goals, visiting numerous cities, reaching out to the people I’d helped over the years—but also much more because I could have avoided more of the heartache and wasted time.

Maybe Dante had been right all along.

But perhaps these regrets weren’t all bad. Regrets might give me the courage to make changes for the future. A future I didn’t have but could try to create for my children.

Kyle had wanted to ask what was to become of her and James, but she hadn’t. Had she held back from fear that I had no plan, or because she didn’t want me to see that already she was accepting the inevitable? She was pragmatic in that regard, the way I’d raised her to be.

I had a plan, and though it hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped, the heat and Charlotte’s words at the hospital made me able to wait. At least a little longer.

It was then that Becca and Dante arrived, Becca strangely lacking her usual confidence and Dante looking at me with more sorrow than the time his dad had let him down about the campout. Underneath it all was the acceptance I’d been waiting for. I wanted to jump up and hug them. Instead, I lay there inside my weakened body and cried.

* * *

“I want to know more about this feeling,” I told Charlotte when she arrived later.

“Shoot. You already know.”

“It’s been so long.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll all come back.” She plumped the pillows she’d brought me, careful not to disturb James, who was sleeping in my bed. “I brought you this book. It gave me a lot of comfort when I didn’t know what the future held. Maybe some of the passages I marked will be useful.”

I knew the blue book. I’d had one once.

I was still reading an hour later when Kyle slipped into my bed. The redness in her face told me she’d been crying again.

“I love you, Mom,” she whispered.

I hugged her tight. “I love you, too. So much.”

Shutting the book, I put my arms around my baby girl, and together we slept.