*****104:

She just finished nursing Melia and put her back to sleep when the cell phone started its music. She flipped it open and saw a name she didn't expect to see at all.

"Richard?"

"Hello, my friend. I'm at the airport, heading for Australia in exactly one hour. You're my call home today. How about that."

Tracy swallowed hard. "Are you serious?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Richard, I--." But there was an ethereal quality to the run of time in her mind the last few days and it all washed together. "Has it been two weeks already?"

"The MTC was great, Trace, the best place on earth, seriously, there's no place better. You're immersed in it, nothing else at all to think about, just the Savior and the gospel, and the kingdom and His children.... Serving His children...." His voice had melody and Tracy was shocked that she could hear that sweet tinkling crash of awareness that always accompanied her encounters with him.

'I love you, Tracy, hang onto that'..............

She sat on the edge of her bed and held her face in her hands, pressing the connection to him to her with all her might. How she'd really like to climb through the phone right now......... to be held, to be cared about......... to be understood.....

"Trace, you there?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm here." She said and he detected the insincerity, the self-deprecating laugh just under the surface.

"It's been bad, hasn't it?" he said. "What'd you do after you left me?"

"After I left you? I went back to ParkCity and.... I slept and I didn't wake up...."

"You're depressed. I- I shouldn't have left you like that without making provisions. No one saw it, did they? They just left you, the perfect image of a coping mom." She knew he knew. Under all the pain and depression, he sensed what she was going through.

"Oh, they got to see it all." She laughed, realizing at the same time that she didn't need to pretend with Richard, he'd seen the good, the bad and the ugly, and he'd lived through all of it. He wasn't about to leave her as a friend, or turn her in, or take her kids away.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Oh, when I say I slept, I really slept, I don't remember any of it, really, a big blur of nursing the babies and Danny sleeping under the kitchen table that he'd made into a fort and him changing the diapers, and the place a wreck of cold cereal and toys, and... yeah, we trashed the place, and Austin and Lisa came in and freaked out and called Michael, and he got me out of there. It's only been a couple of days Richard. But I've got my own place and I'm lucid, at least."

"Did they insist on you seeing a shrink?"

"Michael brought my shrink from Idaho."

"And they got you a bunch of caretakers?"

"They got me a prison warden but I fired her, and I told Michael not to ever do that again. And.... I got my mom here. She's actually living next door and she can watch the kids while I...."

"While you what?"

"Sleep?"

"I know you better. You're awake now, aren't you? You're living the image now. I bet...wouldn't be a bit surprised if you're back to work, and the house is spotless, and the kids are all well taken care of, and you haven't slept in days."

Tracy felt a huge weight rising off her shoulders. "So, you're on your way to preach the word in Australia."

"Will you write to me?" he asked softly.

"Do you want me to?"

"Yeah, tell me your concerns, tell me what's going on in that pretty little head of yours."

"That's not how you're supposed to write to missionaries. You're supposed to send them inspirational cards, and little sayings they can put up in their rooms."

"Okay, then I'll call you."

"You know you can't call me. It's against mission rules. You can only call your mom on Christmas and Mother's Day. I know the rules, Richard."

"Trace.... Am I your friend?"

She blew out her breath. "There's no denying it, Richard. We've been through enough to consider ourselves friends."

"All right, then I want to tell you something. I've never considered you just my friend. I've never for one day even treated you as just my friend. You know it, and I know it. There's always been a connection between us, a really strong bond. I don't think a mission and a couple of years apart is going to change that, because we both know...."

"No, I don't know anything Richard. I barely know who I am right now! I can't start.... Not right after my whole life has gone up in smoke.... Not right on the heels of losing Raine and... and Steven...." She was crying again. "Don't do this to me... Richard... I know you think you can force issues with me, because... because we have this bond, and we do, God knows why, but we do.... And I'm thankful and also fearful of this bond we have. I don't know why it's there, or where it's going, but I'm going to spend the next couple of years figuring out who I am and what I need to be doing. And you're out of it! I have to do this by myself!"

"Hang onto that baby." He whispered.

"I'm not going to be the same person when you come back and neither... neither will you, I think."

"We'll see about that."

"I told you before that it will be good for me to have to rely on myself, and it'll be good for me not to be able to call you every five minutes."

"You also told me you'd write to me. I'm holding you to that."

Tracy felt her knuckles turning white, her pinky finger going to sleep from no circulation she was holding the phone so hard. Richard.... Her heart screamed his name over and over... the words that would bind him even stronger to her were there....but she couldn't.... wouldn't say them, not now, not at all.

"Don't be thinking things." She whispered.

"I know God lives, Trace, and that his plan is perfect, and it's a plan of happiness. You taught me that. You made it real for me, real enough that I had the strength to get off drugs! Real enough that I changed my whole entire life!"

"Richard...."

"Hang onto that, baby, hang onto that."

*****