Not Afraid of Life Read online

  “I can’t believe this,” I said, looking at the e-mail.

  “Ask them to fax over the contract. Are there any negotiations?”

  Dancing with the Stars is ABC’s ratings juggernaut. In this twelve-week show, “celebrities” are paired with professional dancers who give a crash course in how to do dances like the waltz and the rumba. Let me be the first to say, however, I don’t consider myself a celebrity at all. In fact, as I stood in our office with my phone pressed to my ear, my attorney asked me what I thought about participating.

  “Well, I can’t dance, and I’m not a star . . .”

  But I didn’t have time to really think about it. Soon, the magazine with the story about our engagement would hit the newsstands, and I’d have a lot of explaining to do!

  The magazine with our announcement came out in the lower forty-eight about a week before it came to Alaska. But the magazines didn’t have to be physically on the shelves for all hell to break loose.

  The media had a field day with the newest chapter in the Levi/Bristol saga. Newscasters announced our engagement while playing the “Wedding March” or “Reunited, ’Cause It Feels So Good” as they discussed it. They took cameras to the streets, as normal people expressed disgust or surprise, or gave the occasional thumbs-up. Everyone everywhere was completely shocked.

  Mom hastily released a public statement:

  Bristol, at 19, is now a young adult. As parents, we obviously want what’s best for our children, but Bristol is ultimately in charge of determining what is best for her and her beautiful son. Bristol believes in redemption and forgiveness to a degree most of us struggle to put into practice in our daily lives. We pray that, as a couple, Bristol and Levi’s relationship matures into one that will allow Tripp to grow up graced with two loving parents in his life.

  But privately, she and Dad were furious. They were right in the middle of filming the TLC show Sarah Palin’s Alaska when the news broke.

  I called Track.

  “Listen, don’t come around here,” he warned. “Everyone is so upset about this. Even Grandpa is very disappointed.”

  “Even Grandpa?” I was shocked. I was the firstborn girl in the family, which meant I automatically had a special bond with Grandpa and Grandma. He had always let me drive his four-wheeler, while I’d sit on his lap and he’d shift the gears. He’d also let me borrow his taxidermied tarantula and bat, and even a monkey skull, for show-and-tell every year. As a science teacher, he had accumulated a huge array of neat items like this! The fact that he would let me borrow them was a big deal because it showed how much confidence he had in me. That’s why it hurt when Track followed up by explaining: “They say you can’t be trusted.”

  That evening, after work, I met the only person in the world who understood. Levi stopped by the condo and I was looking forward to running into his arms for comfort.

  But when I saw him, he didn’t look happy to see me.

  “I have to tell you something,” he said.

  His voice sounded more serious than I wanted on that day. Betraying my family had taken a severe emotional toll on me, and I didn’t want to have to deal with another complication.

  “Okay,” I said reluctantly. “Go ahead.”

  “I think . . . I might’ve gotten someone pregnant.”

  I almost vomited. It was a pain worse than childbirth, worse than telling Mom and Dad about my pregnancy. But somehow, as I let the words sink into my mind, an eerie calm settled over me. My mind was spinning, but I had to figure out how deep the knife that had just been plunged into my heart might cut.

  “Okay,” I said. “Who?”

  “Lanesia.” This was the girl who chased me around the parking lot in eighth grade threatening to beat me up, the girl who always hated me, the girl his sister always pushed toward him.

  “When did . . . it happen?”

  “Back when she was house-sitting for . . .”

  I remembered the house-sitting time frame and did the math. If he had been with her during that time, it meant she was pretty close to delivering! That couldn’t be. There’s no way Levi would’ve set me up announcing our engagement in a national magazine for such a humiliating fall.

  “So that would mean she is due . . .”

  “In two weeks.”

  There was no remorse, no comforting apology, no begging to let him stay around. He’d just taken the awful news and laid it at my feet like a heaping bag of trash I needed to take out. I was completely numb.

  “Get out of my house. Don’t call me, don’t text me . . . I don’t want to see you again.”

  When he walked out the door around seven o’clock that evening, I was—for the first real time in my life—utterly alone. Well, that wasn’t quite true. I had Tripp. I looked at him, with his curly blond hair, his pudgy little hands, and his innocent blue eyes, and thought, Well, it’s just you and me now. I put Tripp in the bed with me that night, and I watched him as he slept.

  What have I done to us?

  Dread filled my soul as I lay there in the dark, waiting for a sleep that wouldn’t come.

  Even worse, the “exclusivity” contract I’d signed with the magazine meant I couldn’t tell anyone for another two weeks about the engagement plans . . . and that meant I couldn’t even tell people it was off! Not that I had any shoulders to cry on. . . . I had betrayed my parents, my friends had turned on me. I’d just made a complete fool of myself and given my family the middle finger. Instead of talking to anyone, I wrote in my journal about it:

  Why would I ever think he would change? I had this unrealistic fantasy that Levi wanted to be a family. . . . It made me turn on my own family, and let everyone who loves me down. I shouldn’t have given in to that temptation. I pray for forgiveness for what I have just done and experienced, and pray for more wisdom and strength for my future.

  I went to work the next day in a fog of shame, yet I had to mask it.

  “Congratulations,” a coworker said. “We saw the magazine! When’s the big day?”

  “Um,” I said, plastering on a fake smile. “We haven’t quite set a date yet.”

  “Are you going to have a big wedding?” another asked. “We better be invited!”

  This went on all day, with congratulations, questions about our plans, and excited smiles from patients who’d read the magazine and knew I wasn’t really “Susie.” Dr. Cusack’s daughter, who lived in the lower forty-eight, sent me a huge bouquet of flowers.

  I so wanted to have something legitimate to be excited about. Because of bad decisions, I didn’t get to experience the wonder of my first sexual experience, the fun of telling an excited husband about a pregnancy, the expectation of a baby shower in a musty old church multipurpose room. The best I had was the hoopla over this phony engagement, every mention of which was a reminder that I’d betrayed my family.

  It felt like I was stuck in a bear trap, with my bad decisions clamping down on me, keeping me in a painful condition with no way out. They were the longest and most terrible days. The only person who pursued me, the only person who wasn’t either shocked, perplexed, or opposed to my “reengagement” was Levi. Despite my rejection of him, he texted me with updates, questions, and just conversation.

  In one text he said:

  By the way, I’m not sure I’m really the father of Lanesia’s baby.

  Again, daytime talk shows have nothing on my life. Lanesia denied it, too. But I didn�
�t know what to believe. So I avoided him, ignored his texts, and didn’t return his calls. All the while, I constantly had to answer questions about why Levi and I had gotten back together, about what color the bridesmaids’ dresses were, and—of course—whether I was pregnant again.

  During this time, when I had no one to talk to, my coworkers played such a key role in my life. They weren’t offended by my decision and understood all of the complexities of a young single mom trying to figure out a path. Dr. Cusack, sensing I was emotional, offered me time off.

  “Why don’t you go home early to sort things out?” he said, kindly.

  Oh, but how complicated the very notion of “home” had become. At one time, my home was in Wasilla, near Lake Lucille, tucked amid the birch trees and the moose that would sometimes block the driveway. Now? I had to go to a condo stalked by creepy photographers, a place that reeked of bad decisions.

  I got in the truck, put my hand on the steering wheel, and turned on the ignition, just as my phone buzzed to alert me of a text from an old high school friend.

  Lanesia had her baby.

  I sighed. I didn’t hate Lanesia, I just hated what my life had become.

  I texted back questions about the baby, like the name and gender.

  When my phone buzzed again, I could barely believe my eyes. Because after all the details of the delivery, I got this piece of information:

  She named her boy Bentley.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Home Is Where the U-Haul Is

  A couple of days later, I’d reached my limit.

  I grabbed my diaper bag, packed Tripp into his car seat, and made a decision.

  Like the prodigal son, my bad choices—and sin—had caught up with me. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I know that my desire for a real dad for Tripp—a father he could count on—was a good intention. But now I was in a personal hell.

  And I longed for only one thing. Home.

  We all make mistakes, and while it’s a cliché, it’s also true that our true tests come in our responses to our mistakes. Do we make things worse? Do we stubbornly stick with bad choices even as we spiral deeper and deeper into darkness? That’s what I’d done with Levi, and look where it had gotten me. This time, I was going to do the right thing, the hard thing.

  And going home was the hard thing. After all, I’d seen the anger and hurt in my parents’ eyes—even my grandfather was done with me. I knew that coming home was a way of admitting defeat, and I hate to admit defeat. I have a strong will, and that strong will helps me, but sometimes it hurts. That day it hurt. Part of me said, You can do this. You and Tripp can take on the challenge together. But the deeper part of me, the part that understands God’s plan for my life, knew that sticking it out in Anchorage wasn’t best for either me or Tripp.

  So I got in my truck and drove back to Wasilla, the baby dozing in the backseat.

  My home isn’t perfect. My family isn’t perfect. None are. Even on that day, I realized I’d be returning to people like Willow, who would steal my clothes, and Track, who’s fiercely protective, and Dad, who calls me stubborn, and Mom, who’s sometimes impatient, and Piper, who uses her own saliva as hair gel, and Trig, who is so feisty.

  But they were also the people who would stick with me. Even in the midst of our problems, I knew—deep in my heart—they would answer the call. That’s what we do. That’s who we are.

  Right?

  My heart pounded in my chest and beat faster with every passing mile. The doubts began to creep in. Had they changed the key code on the gate? Would they throw me out when they saw me? Would they yell?

  When I finally got there, the gate was wide open. I knew my mom’s friend Juanita was there, because her vehicle was parked in the driveway under the basketball hoop where I had practiced free throws until I was perfect, or almost perfect. That’s good, I thought. At least I’ll have a witness if Mom kills me.

  I got out of the vehicle, unfastened Tripp’s car seat, and walked to the door to the shop and looked around. There were big double garage doors that allowed clearance for Dad’s Piper Cub airplane. To the right was an entrance to Mom’s top-floor office and to the space they’d built for my apartment.

  I steeled my nerves and walked in.

  Juanita and Mom were standing over near the inside steps, talking. When I opened the door, they looked up at me in surprise.

  I didn’t know where to start. I wanted to go back to the beginning, to explain why I’d done the things I’d done, to be understood, to be comforted. But all I said was, “Levi may have gotten Lanesia pregnant.” They said nothing, but Juanita’s face softened. “We’re not together anymore,” I continued.

  Juanita immediately hugged me, patted my back, and said, “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Why would you think you could change a guy like that?” Mom asked.

  I felt smaller than a person could possibly feel as she lectured me, and I deserved every syllable. But then, after she’d gotten it all out of her system, she tilted her head and said, “Okay, we’re going to get a U-Haul, and you’re coming back home.”

  And that was that. I’m not going to say that all was immediately forgiven, and certainly all was not forgotten. This wasn’t the Bible story of the prodigal son; it was a messy reunion, a tough reunion. But it was a reunion, and we were a family again.

  Early the next morning, Dad showed up on my doorstep. Even though I’d left the comforts of their home and betrayed them, he’d driven a huge U-Haul up from Wasilla and parked right in front of my door. Behind him was every aunt, every uncle, and every cousin, no matter how distant, in my family. Grandpa and Grandma even got out of their vehicle, took one look at me, and said, “Okay, where are your dishes? We’ll pack those.”

  Most people would’ve looked at what I’d done and would’ve changed the locks. But not this family. Not the Palins and the Heath clan. That whole day, we had a family reunion right there on my front lawn. Instead of balloons, we had packing boxes. Instead of cake, we had duct tape. Instead of remembering the past, we looked to the future.

  They worked tirelessly and didn’t care whether photographers were watching from the shadows. They dismantled my bed, brought down my computer desk, packed the glasses, and somehow got all of my jeans into a box. Okay, several boxes.

  When the U-Haul was finally loaded, Dad jumped in it and drove straight to Wasilla.

  I was headed to that imperfect house in that imperfect town. I was headed home.

  Chapter Fourteen

  There’s Plenty of Fish in the Sea

  It’s hard to hide in your shame when there are cameras everywhere.

  When I got home to Wasilla, all I wanted to do was hide in my Nike yoga pants with Tripp and watch television. I didn’t want to be on television.

  But I arrived right in the middle of Mom’s filming of the eight-week series Sarah Palin’s Alaska. I was a little hesitant about the whole idea. Even though they called it a “travelogue” and billed it as educational, I figured it would be “too much Palin” and “not enough Alaska.” Plus, how would it be received in the chattering class? Who would even watch a show like that?

  Of course, I had no idea the first episode would draw about 4.96 million viewers and be the most-watched debut in the channel’s history. I just knew that I showed up in the middle of filming what seemed to be a cool series, that Mom and Dad were having amazing adventures, and that I simply wanted to tag along.

  When Mom and Dad asked me to go to the Grouse Ridge shooting range—the location of Mom’s baby shower when she was pregnant with Piper—I joined them. In a remark in which she spoke directly to the camera, Mom said, “The last couple of years have been hard on Bristol, because so often, what it is that she does ends up in the tabloids because of someone that
she had been associated with. So Todd and I really wanted to get her away from all that and refocus on what truly matters in life. And I hope she gets that.”

  I’m sure that the viewing audience at home couldn’t appreciate how true that statement was, or how raw all of our emotions were while filming. By the time it aired, the Levi engagement stories were old news. But when we were filming, they were current dramas. I wasn’t getting any of my shots, and Mom kept giving me more unwanted advice.

  “We’re not gonna stop until you get one,” she said.

  “Mom, take your prom hair back home,” I said, which cracked Dad up.

  We also went south to Homer, which is the halibut capital of the world (which caused Mom to joke, “We’re heading down there just for the halibut,” before adding, “See, Alaskans know that joke . . . I don’t know if other people will.”)

  Though our family commercially fishes for salmon, we’d never fished for halibut. So we jumped in the RV and headed south for a new adventure.

  “I appreciate it that Bristol was game to go down to Homer with us. . . . I thought it would be good for Bristol to get away from it all, to clear her head and concentrate just on family,” Mom said on the show. “All the things on the periphery that at the end of the day really don’t mean anything—the things in the tabloids or the things that people make up or assume about her or our family . . . I knew it would be good to get away from all that.”

  On the five-hour trip, Willow and I poked fun at each other in the back of the RV. Before Mom could tell us to knock it off, the camera caught us in a typical Bristol/Willow conversation.

  “We don’t look anything alike,” I said, speaking of my sister. “Her teeth are twice the size of mine.”

  “I got buck teeth?” she asked, before returning an insult. “You have no chin.”

  “I have no chin,” I agreed, thinking it might end this line of conversation. But she piled on.