If her mother didn’t want her, her father would.
She was a good kid. She could do long division and climb trees all the way to the top. She didn’t eat much and her long hair looked like an Indian princess’s when she braided it. She could make her own bed, fold her own clothes and knew how to make grilled cheese sandwiches and peanut-butter cookies. He’d love having her in that big house, even if he was married to someone else.
She’d taken her time getting there. After all, she needed to study this new world she’d be entering. Cows stood around munching on grass. She didn’t know much about cows, but she could learn. Her real father had lots of cows and lots of oil wells. She didn’t know much about oil, either, except people used it to run their cars and lawn mowers.
By the time she’d reached the gates of Cottonwood, she’d drank all the water she’d put in her water bottle and had to go to the bathroom really bad. When she finally made it up the long drive, she saw a lot of cars in the yard adjacent to the huge white house. Cadillacs, Mercedes and Beemers—all the cars her mother drooled over in the TV ads. Around the back of the house was a white tent with big signs. She’d seen the signs all over town. They were for the governor’s race.
Kate dropped her bike beneath a willow tree and pulled off her backpack. Her back was sweaty and her hair had come out of her braid on one side of her head. Grams had brought home leftover French fries from the diner for lunch and Kate had dropped ketchup on her shirt, but it didn’t look too bad. Plus, her jeans were practically new and her knockoff Keds were clean and bright.
She smoothed her hair behind her ears and walked toward the people talking and holding glasses that sparkled in the light. They wore pretty clothes like the people on soap operas. She didn’t see her father.
She knew what he looked like. He drove through town in his convertible sports car sometimes. He wasn’t young, but he wasn’t too old. He always wore a cowboy hat and his laugh was really loud. Her mother said he was a force to be reckoned with. Kate didn’t know what that meant, but he had to love her. She was his kid.
She wove through the crowd, accidently stepping on one lady’s high-heeled shoes. Some people looked at her funny, probably because there weren’t any other kids here. She ducked under a man’s arm and there he stood. Her father.
He wore dark pants and a light-colored cowboy shirt. A big straw hat perched atop his head. A broad forehead stretched above his brilliant blue eyes. Eyes just like hers. People gathered around him, smiling and nodding as he said something. Probably told a funny story. Kate smiled. He was handsome and rich. And he belonged to her now.
She threw back her shoulders and ran to him.
“Daddy,” she called, her shoes slapping the temporary floor beneath the tent. “Momma’s gone, so I have to live with you now.”
He paused, the drink in his hand halfway to his mouth, and stared at her. His face looked the same way Grams did when a roach crawled across the floor in their cramped kitchen. Like he wanted to squash her.
She stopped about ten feet away from him.
All the people who were talking to him looked at her. It grew very quiet.
Her father set his glass on a nearby table. “Who let you in here?”
Kate could feel the butterflies in her tummy thrash around. Something was wrong. Didn’t he know her? He’d sent her a bunny last Easter. Sent it home with her mom. Momma said he thought she was pretty. That he loved her. He was just too busy and important to mess with her.
“I—I— My mom left and went to California. I have to live with you now since you’re my dad.” Her voice trembled. She didn’t want to cry. She had to go to the bathroom real bad and he was supposed to be happy his little girl had come to live with him.
“Who sent you here?”
“I— No one. I just came.”
Everybody was watching her. One woman giggled behind her hand. Her fingernails were long and painted shimmery pink. Kate looked at all the adults. They seemed confused and embarrassed.
Her daddy looked mad. “Well, you can go back to where you came from. No one asked you to come here, girl.”
Kate grabbed her stomach because it hurt, like the time Tommy Tidwell had kicked her during recess. “But—”
“Don’t you argue with me, missy. Turn right around and leave. Right now.”
Kate took a step backward. Then another. She couldn’t believe it. He was mad at her. “Don’t you want me?”
His eyes got all cold and icy looking. “I have a wife and son. You are not my child. I don’t know who gave you the idea that you belonged to me, but you don’t.”
He pushed through the crowd. “Excuse me, Governor, while I deal with this, will you? I’ll return in a moment.”
His grip was steel on her arm. He dragged her through the crowd, avoiding their eyes but never loosening his grasp on her. She felt her sneakers slide a few times on the grass. Finally, they were beneath the willow tree where she’d left her backpack and bike.
He released her. “Get back on that bike and get off my property. You have embarrassed me in front of the most powerful people in Texas, girl.”
“But my momma told me—”
“I don’t care what that woman told you. You don’t belong to me.”
His words felt like bullets whizzing through her body. They hurt and made her feel like she might sink down and die. Tears streamed down her cheeks, she couldn’t stop them. They dripped from her chin as she picked up the handlebars of her bike.
She glanced once more at the man. His face was red like he’d been working in the sun. His eyes looked weird.
“You will never belong to me,” he said.
Kate slid onto her bike and pedaled away as fast as she could down that hard-packed drive. She imagined that she was escaping from a bad man. A boogey monster. She pedaled until her legs burned, right out the gate, all the way down the county road until she couldn’t see that big white house anymore. Then she jumped off her bike and ran. Ran till her lungs burned. Ran till she couldn’t run anymore. At some point, she realized that she’d peed on herself. Her legs were wet and her new tennis shoes squished as she ran. But she didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore.
She finally collapsed near an old wooden fence that had been nearly eaten through with termites and lay beneath the brilliant blue sky.
She’d left her backpack. It had her opal ring and fairy journal in it. It also had the bunny he’d given her. And the picture of Justus and her mom at the state fair in Dallas, the one where her mother’s hair looked like the girl from
I Dream of Jeannie
. All her good stuff had been in there. And now it was gone.
He’d probably throw it away like it was junk. Just like he’d thrown her away.
She hated him.
She’d always hate him.
The erratic beeping of the heart monitor pulled Kate from the memory into the present.
That same man lay before her, broken and weak.
She met his eyes once again. He’d killed part of her that April day. Taken away her innocence and made her hard. Made her rebellious. Determined. Guarded. Everything that constituted who she now was.
She’d lost her mother, her father and her dreams that day.
But she’d forged new ones. Ones that she still clung to. Dreams of Fantabulous. And independence. Dreams that felt cloudier by the day. Who was she if she didn’t have her anger to protect her?
She looked away.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I shouldn’t have done what I did. I hurt you.”
Anger boiled inside her. Even as he lay so vulnerable and sick, she wanted to hurt him. Make him pay for the act he’d perpetrated on a nine-year-old girl.
At the same time, as much as she longed to hold on to that kernel of hate, she wondered if perhaps it was time to let it go. To let the resentment slip into the past and take the hurt with it. Then, perhaps, she’d have room in her heart for better things. Things like faith, hope and charity.
Rick’s image appeared.
And maybe she’d have room to fall in love.
“Yes, you did hurt me. I was young. I didn’t realize the way the world worked.” Kate sighed, finally glancing at him.
“I—I was a bastard. Mean. I hurt you out of pride. Damned pride.” She could hear the disgust in his voice and wondered how long he’d felt that way.
Kate pressed her fingers into her eyes. She was tired of crying, but when she pulled her hands away, they were wet. “I shouldn’t have gone to Cottonwood that day. I didn’t know. I thought…” Hell, did it matter anymore? Was she any different than any other kid who’d been unwanted by a parent?
A choking noise came from Justus. She jumped up to fetch a cup of water, but his good hand caught her and pressed her into the chair. For someone who’d suffered another stroke, his grip was firm. Her eyes jerked from his hand to his face.
He was crying.
“I tried to forget about you. Tried to pretend you weren’t my kid. But the wee hours of morning bring truth when they bring the sun. You can’t hide from your mistakes at dawn.” Tears slid down his weathered cheeks and dropped onto the sheet. He made no attempt to brush them away. His good hand was on her arm, gripping her the way he’d done the day he’d dragged her toward that pink bike beneath the weeping willow.
“I’m so very sorry, Katie. You were just a little girl. A little girl who wanted to be loved. I still see your face. See how hurt you were. It haunts me.”
His words surrounded her, settling around her shoulders, pressing her down. And as the regret in his voice penetrated her heart, a flood of sadness, anger, need came gushing forth. “So why did you wait? Why did you ignore me all these years?”
His eyes shuttered. “I’m a fool. I didn’t want to face you. I was about as ashamed as a man can be. And I was scared you wouldn’t talk to me. When your letter came, I—” He paused. “I couldn’t ignore what I needed to do.”
She dropped her head. “It feels too late, Justus.”
“No, don’t say that. It’s not too late for forgiveness. Even Jesus forgave while nailed to the cross. Please, Katie. I’m a foolish, unworthy man.”
A sob rose in her throat, overpowering her. She let it loose. Let the storm that had gathered inside her for over twenty years come forth. Her body fell forward onto the bed as she shook with the emotion he’d unleashed within her.
And in that small room surrounded by the machines that monitored her father’s vital statistics, Kate cried like she’d never cried…not since the day her father had denied her in front of a crowd of Texas’s most influential. All the frustration, loneliness and hurt spilled out onto hospital sheets that smelled of bleach.
She cried until her nose ran and her head throbbed. At some point, she realized her father stroked her head soothingly.
“Shh, my Katie, shh,” he said, his voice still heavy with the tears he’d cried.
But Kate couldn’t stop. The emotion flooded her again and again until finally she stilled beneath his hand, exhausted and replete.
“It’s okay, Katie,” he said, patting her head in an awkward manner. “It’s okay.”
She lifted her head and looked at him square in the eye. “I forgive you.”
And as she said the words, she meant them.
No more hanging on to the hurt of the past. No more hating Ryan because he’d had what she didn’t. No more hating Vera because she’d stolen her mother’s dream. No more hating her mother for being so weak. No more hating Oak Stand. Kate was just plain tired of being so angry about her past. It was time to let it all go.
Her father’s hand slid to hers and he gave it a squeeze. She watched as his eyes closed and his face grew slack. His breathing rose slow and steady. He looked at peace.
And he was very much asleep.
Kate removed her hand from his and wiped her eyes. She turned toward the table for a tissue to mop her face, and that’s when she saw them out of the corner of her eye.
Rick and Vera stood in the doorway.
Vera had tears streaming down her face, and the man who’d stood beside her over the past week had suspicious moisture glinting in his own brown eyes.
No words were said.
Vera simply held out her arms.
Kate didn’t think twice. She rose, took three steps and fell into them. Vera wrapped her arms around her and held her, murmuring soothing endearments into her hair as she stroked her back.
Kate didn’t bother to think about the fact that Vera was mad at her. Or the fact that visiting hours were over and the no-nonsense nurse had her arms crossed and foot tapping.
She let her father’s wife hold her.
Because Kate thought that she might have finally found a family.