his country where I’ll never see her again.’ That’s praying, isn’t it?” She finished with the tombstone, removed the old faded flowers from the vase, and laid them on the ground.
“I guess I’d better back up and tell you what all has happened since the first of the month,” she said as she arranged the new yellow and peach-colored flowers in the vase. “I got these because that’s the colors I chose for my wedding. I’m marrying Pax, and it started out to be something I was doing so Daddy could walk me down the aisle and die in peace. Did I tell you that he’ll be joining you in a few weeks? Well, he will, and I’m not a bit happy about it.” She stopped and ran her forefinger over Matthew Daniel Carey’s engraved name. Tears mixed with her mascara, and black streaks flowed down her cheeks. “He’s goin’ to be with you before the end of summer. The date of his death will be written here, and, Mama, I’m not handling it worth a damn. I’m putting on a pretty good show for him, but I’m mad as hell. God took you from me so many years ago, and now he’s takin’ Daddy, and it’s not fair.”
My child, God did not take either of us. Her mother’s voice was clear in her head. He’s spiritual, not physical. Our bodies produced the cancer, not God. You can’t be mad at Him.
“But, Mama, I’ve been taught all my life that God can do whatever you ask Him to do. I was a little girl, but I prayed that you would get well, and you didn’t. Now I’m praying the same thing for Daddy, and I know it’s not going to be answered,” Alana argued.
He hears your prayers but sometimes the answer is no. He doesn’t always do what folks want Him to do, because He sees the big picture. Joy continued, but what He does give you is the strength to endure the trials that this life brings you.
“Don’t tell God how big your storm is. Tell your storm how big your God is.” She recited what her mother had written in a letter to her the last week that she was alive. Alana had read it often in the past eighteen years, but right then she understood what Joy had been telling her.
He’s sent Pax to help you get through this storm, Joy said.
“I think I might be falling in real love with him, Mama,” she admitted. “It’s complicated. He agreed to marry me, but he’s only committed to this lie until Daddy has passed on. All of these emotions I’m feeling—all the grief—when Daddy is really still alive and the thought that I could possibly love Pax for more than a friend are confusing the hell out of me.”
Evidently her mama had given her all the advice she would get that day. When she heard a truck approaching, she hurriedly cleaned up the area around the grave site and waited for Pax.
He sat down on the bench beside her, put an arm around her shoulders, and drew her close to him. “It never gets any easier, does it? And knowing Matt’s death date will be on there before long, well…” His voice cracked.
“I don’t want my tombstone put up until after I’m gone,” she said. “Mama and Daddy have extra plots over that way.” She pointed toward the pecan tree. “I definitely don’t want my kids to have to look at it until after…” She used the back of her hand to wipe away more tears.
“Your dad didn’t have a choice in the matter. He wanted to put one up for your mama and he wanted them to be together,” Pax said. “It’s not easy lookin’ at Mam’s name on that chunk of granite, either.”
“Or your mother’s?” Alana asked.
“When Mama remarried, she had the original stone removed and one put up with Daddy’s name on it. I have no idea where she’ll be buried. For a few years we saw her at Christmas, but that ended long years ago. She didn’t even come back to Daisy for mine or Maverick’s high school graduation,” Pax told her.
Alana took his hand in hers. “I’m so, so sorry. I barely remember your mother.”
“Me either, and most days I don’t even think about her.” He shrugged. “Mam has always been like a mother to me and Maverick, so we didn’t ever feel like orphans.”
“I never thought of you as an orphan, but