Sadie's Mountain (42 page)

I move his hand down to my tummy just now starting to pooch out in a small mound. “We say yes,” I say, through the lump in my throat, and he leans forward, kisses me where our baby grows and stands up, effortlessly, and takes me in his arms for a kiss. 

Out of the pocket of his jeans that hang on his hips just so, he finds a brown wooden case and pops it open to reveal a silver antique band with a single square diamond. I put my head down to hide the ugly cry face. “It’s perfect,” I say, as he slides the band up my finger where it will stay until the end of time.

“It’s an Asscher cut,” he says. I know it. He’s going to teach me about it. As he holds my hand I listen to him explain the cut and the antique band, “It was hand etched, the diamond comes from Canada,” he says, and I smile wider than my face.

I’m thinking about the week that I came back home, how he brought me back to life, forced me with his love to divulge my secret, and in return we are now free to live the life that we deserve. We’ve come so far, in so little time.

“It’s a conflict free diamond,” he says, leaning against the rock, holding my hand. We’re gazing at the diamond. Watching it catch fire in the sunlight streaming in through the gaps in the leafless trees. “Most diamonds are mined using slave labor, so I had to search for a company that mines ethically,” he says.

I mean, who knows this kind of stuff?
I think. He always amazes me with his smarts.

I almost lost him that day up on Gauley Mountain. The doctors said Donnie must have been aiming for his heart, but since he was so far away he missed and hit Dillon in the lung instead.

They’d pushed tubes into his throat while we rode together into the air and I sang him our song. They had to inflate the part of his lung that collapsed from the impact of the bullet. The hours I spent in Plateau Medical Center after the helicopter delivered him were the worst—not knowing if I’d lost everything. If I would ever hear his voice again, or feel his touch, or get to tell him how he changed my life. I shook like a mini-earthquake until the doctor sauntered out and declared victory over the bullet.

“Diamonds are pushed up from the earth,” he explains.  “The rocks that carry them are raised from the mantle to the Earth’s surface by these deep volcanic eruptions,” he says, demonstrating the movement with his hands.

I had to wait for him to get out of surgery all alone. Missy couldn’t come because Dale was gone. The boys were busy trying to get the horses off the mountain. Seems they’d run off because of the gun battle and the noise of the helicopter.

I called Dot and Renae, but I found out later, Donnie had tied up Renae and Dot and their eight-old, Conner. He’d locked them in the basement and put the baby in his crib before he left that day to confront Dillon and me up on Gauley Mountain. He hadn’t planned on coming back.

He’s pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. He’s not contesting that he was going to rape me again, do it in front of Dillon if he’d lived through the gunshot wound. Kill me, and then kill himself.

He’s actually admitting to it, using that to show that he can’t help himself. That he knew it was wrong but because of his illness, he wasn’t able to control himself. I know it’s going to be a taxing trial. But for now, I just try to heal from this. Dillon had to heal physically. We both have a long way to go to heal emotionally.

The whole thing was on the news—although I’ll never watch it. The very thought makes me want to rip my hair out. The secret was out—in a very public way. This was sort of good for me because the ugliness was not mine to hide away, but also horrifying because now everyone knows what’s under the façade. I can’t pretend I’m normal anymore. I’m still getting used to that—when they look at me now, they know—everything.

After our last press release that afternoon, a reporter had found his way up there and recorded almost the whole incident. They went to breaking news with a live feed, and the authorities were alerted.

When I didn’t answer Dillon’s phone, Jenny saw the hit on my name online. She posted the blog and millions of people listened to him admit to raping me, heard him threaten to kill me and Dillon at the same time they watched him try to make good on his promises. It was a national story, but I do my best to avoid it.

Luckily, that day Officer Howard was nearby. He’d been following Donnie covertly, he said. He told me the whole story next to Dillon’s hospital bed. He had heard the first shot, when Donnie shot Dillon, and was running toward us when I shot Donnie. I guess when Donnie’s plan went awry, he thought I was going to kill him. But I know it, deep in the understanding of myself. If I’d shot him that day, I mean, shot to kill, the link between us would have stayed thick as steel.

What I did, letting him live, was like ripping a long-standing burden from my back. Taking control and making sure justice is done is going to allow me to move on with my life.

Renae, she’s moving on, too. It’s been three months and she’s already signed up for nursing school. She starts in January, right after the New Year.

What I’ve learned since that day is, I have to forgive Donnie—not for him. I have to forgive him for me. Like Buddha says, holding onto all of that anger, it’s like squeezing a hot coal and wishing he’s getting burned, while the only person burning is me. So, I’m working on letting go of that hot coal. It’s taking time.

I’ve started to bring my life here to Ansted. I’ve had most of my antiques sent here, and we’ve even started the design for the new kitchen. Our life is on track. Me and him together is perfect—that’s the honest truth.

“It’s so interesting,” he says, “The magma for a volcano has to start way down at a depth where diamonds are created for them to make it all the way up to the earth’s surface,” Dillon says.

“Do you mean that all this beauty comes up from the pits of hell?” I say, and giggle.

“In a way, Sadie,” he admits with a chuckle. “But I wanted you to have it because even though this diamond had such a traumatic journey getting to you, and even though it’s not perfect, you know, all diamonds have flaws, it represents us and the life that I want to give you, to share with you.”

“You mean that the best things in life come through persistence?”

“It reminds me that true beauty, inside and out, comes out of great struggles, and from being able to wait for the right moment to surface—just like you did,” he says, taking me in his arms.

We didn’t stop the mountaintop coal mining that day alone. Our group has had to stage more rallies and make more signs, and generally make a lot of noise about this. Dillon and I haven’t been able to help as much because he was recovering—and that’s taken a while—but we’re committed to this—and to each other.

“Diamonds at a molecular level share a covalent bond,” he says.

“What’s that?” I ask, although I already know he’s going to explain it to me.

“It’s the chemical bond that involves the stable balance of positively charged and negatively charged forces between atoms when they share electrons,” he says. 

“What the heck does that mean?” I ask, as I wrap my arms around his waist and stare up into his Tahoe blues.

“It means that we’re meant to be and I want to kiss you, my soon-to-be wife and mother of my child.”

“Then you should,” I tease.

He takes me in his arms, pulling me into his chest so close that I can almost feel his heart beating like the sound of the railway. We fit together, always have, like we were made by the Creator just for one another.

As he tilts my chin up, he says, softly but resolute, “Close your eyes,” and I do. He takes my lips between his until I am lost in him. As he eases away from me, just inches from my face he says, “I love you, Sadie.”

“And I love you,” I say.

“The sun’s about to set,” he says, and I turn around to rest my back on his chest, his arms wrap around me and rest on my tummy. I’m stunned when I see the mountain from this perspective. The same one that my momma saw and captured in her Sadie’s Mountain painting that now sits in a place of honor just above the fireplace mantel in our master bedroom.

The colors in real life are just like her painting: vibrant, only softly muted by the cold—greens and reds, yellows too. It makes me feel connected to her—to be here standing where she stood when she was carrying me while I’m carrying a child now, too. I smile and run the tips of my fingers along Dillon’s hand.

As the dimming evening sun shines in my moss green eyes, and the wind blows on the strands of the tall wispy grass, it awakens another memory in my brain. A happy memory of a girl and a boy who used to play hide and seek in that grass, who will soon chase their child through that grass, and who will stay here and protect the heritage and the land that was given to them by the grace of God.

As I stand here, I know. There’s no place I’d rather be, and there’s no one else I’d rather share this with. This is a return to a time when life has grace and dignity, when life has meaning.  And we are really free.

ABOUT SHELBY REBECCA

Originally from Wasilla, Alaska, I now live in Northern California in my first real house with my husband, John, daughter, Elise, our two mutts, and our fish, Alex. I was Healthy Child Healthy World’s first ever Mom on a Mission in late 2009. My story was featured in People Magazine, Lifetime’s Remarkable Women series, The Sacramento News and Review, and is a highlighted story on the advocacy website Care2. My first romance novel is Sadie’s Mountain. I plan to write a follow-up novel to Sadie and Dillon’s story. It will be out in the summer of 2014.

Keep in touch with me at
www.shelbyrebecca.com
or:

Shelby Rebecca’s Facebook Page

Sadie’s Mountain Facebook Page

Twitter Page

Goodreads Page

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Elise Adrianna. Thank you for putting up with Momma having her face in the computer screen too much. I’m sorry I’ve been so busy typing away this past year, but you always know how to make me laugh (no feet tickles, ‘kay) and keep me humble. I love you more than a fish loves water. You are the reason I am the person I am today. You make me want to be better, to do more with my life—to make you proud. You teach me that life is about the journey, not the destination. You always help me take time to smell the flowers, listen to a story, giggle, sing songs, and have a picnic or drink some tea on the back patio. You’re the fastest eight-year-old reader I know, the most creative writer, the cutest piano player, and the best little actor in the school play. Momma loves you, baby goose.

To my husband, John. Thank you for having my back, for loving me even when I’m grumpy and thinking about characters instead of listening to you. I know I don’t say enough about all that you do for us. But I notice it and I’m thankful for everything. You’re my rock. I’m glad I said, “Don’t you even wanna kiss me?” all those years ago. I love you, Pook.

To my momma, Sherrie Brown. You’ve always supported me no matter what, but I share this book with you because you have been with me throughout the whole process. I’m sure many of the Biblical allusions come from the values you’ve instilled in me. I’ll never forget when you came last Christmas and I tried out Chapter Twenty-Six on you. I watched you reading from the living room. Your eyes grew wide and you said “That was racy!” But then you were hitting the arrow button trying to read more, only I hadn’t written any more yet. “I can’t wait to read the rest, little girl,” you said. Thank you, Momma. I know I can always talk to you about anything, and that keeps me sane.

Kimball Brown, thank you so much for your help in finding just the right scriptures for Sadie’s momma’s funeral. I’m glad that you’ve found a church, even though it’s too far away.

To my brothers, Wayne Norton, Chris Davis, and Joe Davis, I love you guys, even though you’ve picked on me my whole life (and still do) you guys are still cool and always, always have my back. You are my home base, and I hope I’ve made you even a little bit proud. Pam, Nathan, and Coty Norton, Shaun and Tyler Davis, Tina Laboa, Alix Davis and Mae Mae, Craig and Kendall French, I can’t ask for better a family. My only regret is that my dad and Mitch aren’t here to see my dream come to fruition. Thanks for reminding me they’d be proud.