After the Rains (17 page)

Nate looked up from the page, fixing his gaze on some unseen object in the distance. Tears filled his eyes, as he thought of his little girl standing before a judge and being sentenced for such a serious charge. Why hadn’t Natalie told them the truth in the first place? He couldn’t help but wonder if the angst his daughter suffered was—at least in part—a result of his absence from her life. If he’d been able to be a true father to her, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

He shook off the festering emotions before they erupted. He’d been over the regrets, the what-ifs, too many times to count. There was no use in rehashing them. What had happened with Daria all those years ago was done. It was inevitable that there would be some repercussions. He had done what was best under the circumstances, he reminded himself. What was important now was to help Natalie.

He folded the paper and tucked it reverently into the pocket of his cotton shirt. Resting his elbows on his knees, his forehead on the palms of his hands, he sought God’s direction. After many long minutes, he lifted his head and rubbed his face with a heavy sigh.

Jumping down from the stoop, he started across the village toward the mission office. God willing, he would be able to radio Bogotá yet this evening and arrange for Gospel Outreach headquarters to get him a flight back to the States. He only hoped the airstrip in San José would be clear when he got there, given the rumors of sporadic guerrilla raids in the area.

Nate’s heart beat with a sense of urgency. Yet strangely he sensed more purpose in this mission than he’d felt in any task for a long while.

Daria had the windows open. A brisk night breeze rustled the newspaper and a stack of bills and letters that were spread out on the kitchen table. Cole was attending a veterinarians’ meeting in Kansas City, and Natalie and Noelle were already in bed for the night, but Daria was killing time while she waited for Cole and Nikki to get home. Ever since Natalie’s accident, she hadn’t been able to rest easy until her family was safely in bed for the night.

Jon Dever was home from college on winter break, and Nikki had
begged to spend every possible minute with him during this last week that he would be in town. They’d been lenient, even letting her stay out late on school nights, knowing it would be two months before Jon might be home again.

Once more Daria whispered a prayer of gratitude that the whole mess with Natalie hadn’t come between Nikki and Jon. In spite of their reservations about Nicole getting so serious about a boy at such a young age, she and Cole already loved Jon like a son. Daria thought it was a testimony to the two teenagers’ maturity that they had weathered this crisis so well; if anything, they’d become even closer. She had little doubt now that Nicole and Jon would end up getting married.

It would have all been perfect if not for the tragedy of Sara’s death and the part Natalie had played in it.

Daria’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a car on the gravel drive. She glanced at the clock. It was not quite eleven. Sighing, she pushed back her chair and stood to look out the window. Cole’s car slowed and stopped in front of the garage while he waited for the door to glide up.

A minute later he came through the kitchen door, looking surprised to see her. “Hey, babe. You still up?” He leaned to kiss her.

“Nikki’s not home yet,” she told him.

Cole looked at his watch, worry creasing his brow.

“Remember, you gave her till 11:30 tonight,” Daria reminded him, sitting back down at the table.

He sighed and shook his head as though he regretted his decision now. But apparently resigned, he shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the back of a chair.

“Man, it’s freezing in here,” he exclaimed, looking around the room. “Why do you have all the windows open?”

“I don’t know. It seemed stuffy. I’ll close them.” She started to get up, but Cole interrupted her.

“I’ve got it.” He shut each window and straightened the curtains, then came to sit across the table from her.

“Do you want some tea?” she asked. “The kettle’s still on.”

“Sure. I can make it. You want some more?”

She nodded and held out the ceramic mug she’d used earlier.

“Nattie and Noelle are home?”

“Safe and sound.”

He brought two steaming cups over to the table and sat down. “How’s Nattie doing?”

“I don’t know. The same, I guess.”

He put his head down, ostensibly blowing to cool his tea, but she could see that he was troubled. She reached across the table and put a hand on his arm. “She’ll get through it, Cole. We all will.” She wished she believed her own words.

He shook his head. “I just don’t know what to say to her. She shuts me out.”

“It’s not just you, babe. She shuts everybody out.”

“I miss the little girl who calls me ‘Daddy,’ ” he said, his voice breaking.

He looked up, and the pain Daria saw in his eyes broke her heart. She pushed back her chair and went to him, standing behind his chair, wrapping her arms around him, leaning down to put her cheek against his. He took her hands in his and squeezed. They were still that way a minute later when the back door flew open and Nikki and Jon burst in.

“Hey, you two, break it up,” Nikki teased, throwing her purse on the counter.

“Oh, you’re home.” Daria disentangled herself from Cole’s embrace and tried to hide the emotions that were so close to the surface. “How was your evening?”

“Good,” Jon said. “We’ve just been hanging out at my house. We were going to go to Wichita, but Mom kind of wanted us to eat with them, and then it got late.”

“So, you’re heading back tomorrow?” Cole asked.

“Yeah, back to the grind.”

“Well, don’t study too hard,” Cole said wryly.

Jon shrugged and started toward the door. “Well, I’d better get going.” He dipped his head politely and waved. “See you guys in a couple of months.”

Nikki followed him out the door, and when she came back a few minutes later there were tears in her eyes.

“Ah, parting is such sweet sorrow,” Cole teased, with a thespian hand to his chest.

“Quit it, Daddy,” Nicole pouted, but she punched him playfully.

Cole grabbed her arm and wrestled her into a bear hug. “Guess you’ll just have to spend more time with your boring ol’ dad now.”

Their affectionate exchange touched Daria’s heart, but at the same time it hurt. She would have given anything for Cole to have the same close relationship with Natalie. And he would have if Natalie hadn’t pushed him away.

Nicole kissed them both good night and went up to bed. While Daria put their dishes in the sink, Cole turned off the lights and locked the doors. They walked through the mundane comfort of routine that had underpinned their marriage for almost two decades now. But as they fell asleep in each other’s arms, Daria couldn’t help but feel that the tranquil life they cherished was about to come further unraveled.

Fifteen

T
he sun rose high in the sky on a clear January morning one month before Natalie Camfield’s nineteenth birthday. She crawled out of bed and went through the motions of getting ready for school, but the unseasonably balmy air was no antidote for the heaviness in her heart.

Eight weeks from now she would appear before a judge in the same courtroom she’d once visited on a seventh-grade field trip. How naive she’d been on that long ago day, pretending with Sara to be high-powered lawyers, and then taking turns playing the judge, never imagining that one day she would stand on the criminal side of the bench, accused of an act that had ultimately ended in Sara’s death. The thought of it made her sick to her stomach.

She went down to the kitchen. She shook cornflakes into a bowl and sliced a banana over the top. Absently opening the local morning paper, her heart lurched when her eyes came to rest on the
Court Report
. The two-column article shouted the news in twelve-point type. The charge against her—DUI—and the date for her sentencing had been published for the whole world to see. Her shame and humiliation were complete now.

She shoved the newspaper into the recycling bin in the mudroom and went back up to her room and lay down on top of the quilt on her bed. Of course, the news of her DUI charge had gotten around school weeks ago, but once that first day of whispers and stares was over, everyone had seemed as sympathetic and forgiving as they had right after the accident happened. She was grateful for their kindness, yet it hadn’t seemed right. She
deserved
the shame.

But now it was in the paper for Grandma and Grandpa Haydon and all of Mom and Daddy’s friends to see. She hadn’t just shamed herself, but her entire family would be publicly disgraced because of what she’d done. Natalie knew Mom had called Grandma and Grandpa Camfield to tell them. She hadn’t had to face her grandparents since then, but she couldn’t
put it off forever. They’d felt sorry for her when they’d thought she was the victim of a terrible, fatal accident. What must they think now?

Natalie was still lying on the bed, dressed for school, when Noelle stuck her head into the room. “Natalie, hurry up! Nikki says she’s leaving without us.”

Nicole was driving since Daddy had decreed that Natalie could not drive until she’d completed whatever sentence the court imposed. Though she understood why he’d done it, it was an added indignity in this whole mess.

“I’m not going today,” she told Noelle now.

Noelle stepped into the room. “What’s wrong, Nattie?” she asked. Noelle’s sweet concern tugged at something inside Natalie.

“Come here, Noey,” Natalie said, sitting up on the side of the bed. “It was in the paper this morning. My— My DUI.”

“Oh,” Noelle said, her face falling.

Natalie’s heart twisted, realizing that her sisters, too, would have to face all over again the humiliation that the morning newspaper announced.

“I can’t go to school,” she told her sister. “I just can’t. And I really do feel kind of sick.”

Noelle nodded, her unblemished face pale and ever innocent. “You want me to tell Mom?”

Natalie shook her head. “I’ll tell her. Just go on … before Nikki really does leave you.”

Noelle turned to go.

“Wait, Noelle … uh, would you stop by the office and tell them I’m sick?”

Her sister nodded. In the driveway below, Nicole laid on the horn. Noelle raced out of the room, leaving Natalie with a new load of guilt. Now she’d asked her little sister to lie for her.

Daddy always left the house by seven, but she heard Mom down in the kitchen, loading dishes into the dishwasher. Usually her parents read the paper together at breakfast. She wondered if they’d discovered the paper she’d shoved into the recycling bin yet.

Because her mother hadn’t come up to check on her, she was pretty sure Mom didn’t realize that she had stayed home sick. She was about to go down and tell her when the phone rang. Natalie froze. It was probably one of her mother’s friends calling because they’d seen the paper.

She stood at the top of the stairs, listening. She heard Mom cross the kitchen and pick up the phone. Natalie started to steal back to her room, but something in the tone of her mother’s voice as it drifted up the stairs made her halt.

“Oh, my goodness. You’re here—in the States?” Then, very quietly, her voice quavering, “You didn’t have to do that.”

Natalie’s pulse quickened.
In the States?
She sat down at the top of the steps and eavesdropped.

“Oh, Nate. I don’t know what to tell you. She’s … she’s a stranger. She’s shut us all out. I don’t even know how she’s feeling.”

Natalie’s face flushed, and her mind raced. He’d come back because of her. What must her birth father think?

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Mom was saying. “I just think it would be awkward, Nate. For all of us. Cole is— Well, I just don’t think that would be wise.” There was a long pause, then her mother said, “No. Cole isn’t letting her drive now that— Well, you know … but, we— I can bring her to your parents’. I’d be glad to. Maybe it will do her good to get away from here for a few days. I know it will do her good to see you.”

Natalie’s heart was pounding. Nathan Camfield wanted to see her. How could she ever face him now?

Below her, the tone of her mother’s voice changed, and Natalie scooted down a couple steps, straining to hear.

“Nate, I’m— I’m so glad you came back.” There was a long pause, then, “No, I don’t think Cole would mind. He … he’s handling it the best way he knows how. And I don’t know what he could do differently. Things have been pretty strained between them lately. Oh, Nate, I’m so sorry this had to happen … No, of course not. It’s not your fault. There’s nothing you could have done.”

Natalie listened to her mother’s anguished explanations, imagined her father’s response on the other end. As if they hadn’t already been torn apart
by everything that had happened to them when she was a baby, now her actions were causing them to suffer all over again. The despair that had been flirting with her since the accident wrapped itself around her heart and squeezed.

She tiptoed back to her room and lay down on the bed. The next sound she heard was her mother’s gasp.