After the Rains (4 page)

From her vantage point, Daria Hunter searched her daughters out, one by one. She felt like a queen counting the precious gems in her treasury.

Such beautiful girls. And each so different from the others. When had her little girls turned into young women? It seemed impossible that she and Cole had three teenagers. Why, she still felt like a teenager herself!

She spotted Nicole near the thirty-yard line, laughing with a group of her freshmen friends, her brown eyes flashing, the life of the party.

Noelle was there with her friends too, but the junior-high kids hovered at the fringes, not quite welcome in the fraternity yet. Noelle still had the coltish air of preadolescence, but the promise of impending beauty shimmered just beneath the surface.

Farther down the track, Daria spotted Natalie huddled head to head beside Sara Dever. Nattie’s white-blond hair caught glimmers from the bright lights that illuminated the field. Daria smiled to herself, thinking what a godsend that flaxen hair had been when Nattie was a mischievous
child. Cole and Daria had always been able to locate her quickly in any crowd, thanks to those blond tresses.

Daria watched Natalie and Sara and noticed that despite the noisy crowd and an imminent touchdown, the two of them remained deep in conversation. Daria recognized an all-too-familiar expression on Natalie’s face. She was upset about something. Again. Poor Sara. How she continually put up with Natalie’s moods, Daria wasn’t sure. Daria felt a knot form in the pit of her stomach as she thought of the changes they’d seen in Natalie recently. Though she knew that some sibling rivalry was to be expected, it seemed that lately Natalie and Nicole fought almost constantly, and when they weren’t fighting, they weren’t speaking to each other. It broke Daria’s heart to have her children at such enmity with each other. Daria sighed and turned back to the action on the football field. But it was a struggle to shake the melancholy that her fears had provoked.

The game was well under way when Daria spotted Don and Maribeth Dever, Sara’s parents, stepping over boots and thermoses, making their way down the row behind her, where their own reserved seats were located. Daria waved and turned in her seat to move her stadium blanket out of the way while their friends got settled.

“Hey, guys. How’s it going?” Daria asked.

“Good. How ’bout yourself?” Don asked.

Cole waved a brief greeting, then, when a time-out was called a minute later, he turned to shake hands with Don. “Hey, buddy, you just missed a whale of a play.”

“Who? Jensen?”

Cole nodded. “First play of the game—Jensen to Laughlin. Great pass! Picture perfect. I mean, you talk about putting the ball right smack—”

“Cole, please …” Laughing, Daria took her husband by the shoulders and moved him in Don’s direction. “Here, why don’t you switch places with Mari and spare us the play-by-play.”

“But I had that seat all warmed up,” Cole griped good-naturedly as he stepped over the back of the bleachers and traded seats with Maribeth.

When the two women were settled side by side, they chatted while the men behind them cheered the game.

“Do you think Nattie’s still upset?” Maribeth asked after a while.

“About what?”

“You didn’t know that Nattie wanted to go to the dance with Jon?” she asked, her words halting.

“Natalie? With your Jon? Oh, my … Mari, no. I didn’t know. Well … that explains a lot.” She sighed in mock disgust. “Could you please tell me why mothers are always the last to know these things?”

Maribeth put a consoling hand on her sleeve. “Hey, you probably know Sara better than I do. That just seems to be the way it is. I’ve probably said way too much already, Daria.”

Daria held up a hand. “No … I’m glad you told me. I should have seen it.”

“You couldn’t know, Dar. Kids are good at hiding this kind of stuff from their parents. And … I don’t want to put you in a tight spot, but please don’t tell Nattie I said anything. I don’t want Sara to know I tattled. Ugh, that sounds so deceitful.”

“Hey,” Daria commiserated, “we are mothers of teenagers. It is our sworn duty to be conniving and devious.” That made them giggle like teenagers themselves.

“Oh, that girl,” she said to Maribeth now. “I don’t know why she has to be so difficult. I’m sorry Sara always seems to get the brunt of it.”

After the game, Cole and Daria were alone in the car since Noelle was spending the night with a friend and the older girls had gone to the dance. As they crept along in the long line of cars leaving the stadium parking lot, Daria snuggled beside him, trying to get warm.

“So, what were you and Maribeth in such deep conversation about?” he asked, kissing the top of her head.

“You were so involved in that game I’m surprised you even noticed,” she teased.

“It was a great game. I can’t believe you and Maribeth could yak
through the whole thing.” They reached the end of the drive, and he pulled into the street.

She sighed. “Oh … just Natalie … Mari told me something that kind of sheds a new light on things.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you know Nattie was upset that Jon asked Nikki to the dance?”

“Upset? Why?”

“Apparently Nattie has a crush on Jon.”

“You’re kidding.”

Daria shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about Natalie, Cole. She’s always felt like the odd man out. And lately the way she’s been acting with her sisters.” She cleared her throat, not quite sure how to broach the subject. “I … I wonder if some of her problem is the baggage of—well, of
our
history. I can’t help but think that maybe some of what is weighing on her is the whole thing with Nate. I wonder if it would help if Nattie could talk to Nate. Maybe she’s struggling with that whole identity thing. I mean, I know it’s not practical for her to actually visit him right now, but maybe we could encourage her to write him more and even e-mail. Vera and Betsy hear from Nate quite regularly now that he has the computer …” She let her voice trail off, concerned with how Cole would receive her suggestion.

He was silent for several minutes. She watched his face in the light from the passing street lamps and wished she could read his mind.

Finally he turned to her. “My heart aches for Nattie. It really does, Dar. If she has feelings for Jon, it has to hurt to have him and Nikki going out now. But you can’t
make
someone love you. There’s really nothing we can do about this except just be there for Natalie.”

Daria opened her mouth to speak, but Cole answered her counterpoint before she could even voice it. “And every one of us has some kind of baggage from the past,” he said firmly. “If anything, dredging up the whole thing with Nate will just make things worse. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with Natalie corresponding more with Nate. I think that would probably be good. But I don’t want to turn this into an excuse for her. She has no reason to act the way she’s been acting. I don’t know
what her deal is, but somewhere along the way she got a chip on her shoulder the size of a barn, and I, for one, am just a little tired of it.”

Daria knew he had a point, and yet she couldn’t help but feel that he was letting his own attitudes about the past color the way he perceived things.

As they neared the city limits, the streetlamps grew fewer and farther between. Cole turned the car sharply onto Chaffee Street and headed east.

“What’s wrong?” Daria asked.

“I need to stop by the clinic for a minute,” he told her, looking straight ahead, his jaw set.

She recognized it as the excuse it was—Cole’s way of telling her that he was finished discussing the subject tonight. Fourteen years of experience had told her that he would mull things over for a few days, and eventually he would come back to her, ready to talk openly and reasonably, ready to pray together about it, and maybe even to approach Natalie and try to offer her some comfort. But for now she knew better than to push it.

The Bristol High gymnasium shimmered under the eerie glow of black lights, and the blue-jeans-and-sweatshirt-clad teens swaying on the dance floor were an odd complement to the gold and silver balloons and streamers that glittered overhead.

Natalie spotted Sara sitting on the fringes of the room and waved. “Stay right there,” she mouthed over the booming music. “Hey, Evan.” She touched her dance partner’s arm lightly. “I’ll be right back, okay? I need to talk to Sara about something.”

He didn’t look too happy about being abandoned in the middle of a song, but he shrugged and let her go. Natalie wove her way through the crowd and squeezed beside Sara on the crowded bench.

“Hey, girl,” her friend greeted her.

“Where’s Brad?” Natalie asked.

“He’s getting us some punch. Are you having fun?”

She rocked a flat hand, meaning “so-so.” “It’s all right, I guess. How about you?” She was shouting to be heard over the din.

“The same. We’ve only danced twice all night.”

“Lucky you. That’s all Evan wants to do.”

“Do you think he’ll ask you out again?”

“Who cares?
He
didn’t ask me out the first time.”

“Nattie! You’re so rude!”

“Oh, it’s nothing against Evan. He’s just not my type.”

She turned to face the dance floor and sensed Sara do the same beside her. She didn’t have to tell her friend that “her type” was on the dance floor not ten feet in front of them. But he was holding her own sister in his arms, flashing that darling boyish grin of his, whispering in Nicole’s ear. Natalie watched him—watched
them
—with an ache in her throat, remembering back to the day when she’d first decided that she loved Jon Dever. She and Sara were in eighth grade, and Jon had just started high school, so instead of seeing him daily, she’d had to be content with the glimpses she caught of him when she was at Sara’s house and at church.

“Natalie, would you like another slice of pizza?” Maribeth Dever hovered over the table in the Devers’ tiny kitchen. “How about some more salad?”

“Thanks, but I’m stuffed,” Natalie declared. “Everything was delicious.”

“Well, it’s just pizza, but I’m glad you liked it. Sara, did you get enough to eat?”

Her mouth full, Sara waved her mother away
.

“My mom never makes homemade pizza,” Natalie told Sara’s mother. “You’ll have to give her your recipe.”

“She’s welcome to it. It’s not that difficult.”

The back door slammed, and Jon Dever filled the doorway between the kitchen and the mudroom. He was still in his gear from football practice, his dark hair plastered to his forehead
.

Natalie’s heart began to pound out its now familiar but strange rhythm, and she felt the blood rise to her face. She prayed no one would notice the effect Sara’s brother always seemed to have on her
.

“Hey, Jonny,” Maribeth greeted her son. “How was practice?”

“It was okay. What’s for dinner?”

“Pizza. You want to shower first?”

“Yeah, but save some for me. I’m starving.”

Without giving her or Sara so much as a glance, he mumbled something unintelligible and headed to the basement where his room was. Ten minutes later he was back, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, his hair wet and tousled, his face freshly scrubbed
.

He sat down at the end of the table, close enough that his arm brushed Natalie’s when he reached for a slice of pizza. Natalie froze, suddenly finding herself speechless
.

Maribeth started clearing the dishes off the table, and Natalie quickly stood to help her
.

“Thank you, Nattie. I wish your manners”—Mrs. Dever cleared her throat meaningfully—“would rub off on certain people in this house.”

“All right, Mom,” Sara whined. “I get the hint.” She unfolded her lanky height from under the table, went to the sink for the dishrag, and made a halfhearted swipe over the tabletop where her plate had been
.

Jon brushed the hair off his forehead and looked up at Natalie, giving her a lopsided grin that made her knees weak. “Gee, thanks, Nattie,” he said through a mouthful of pizza
.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly
.

He waved her off. “Aw, it’s okay. We’ll just have you over for supper every night so you can do the dishes.”

That would be fine with me,
she thought, heart thumping. But of course she didn’t say that
.

Over all those years, she never had told him how she felt, but something about that exchange had made her go home certain she was in love. What she felt for Jon had only grown over the years. In all her daydreams of the future, it was always Jon she saw beside her walking down the aisle of a church, holding her hand as she gave birth to their children, growing old with her. She’d always thought that someday, somehow they would be together.

Now, watching Jon hold Nicole in his arms, Natalie felt all those dreams begin to die. And it hurt too much.

She jumped up and put a hand on Sara’s shoulder. “I’m going to go
find Evan. Call me when you get home,” she mouthed over the blaring music.