Maybe I'd never meet him.
Maybe I'd never fall in love in my whole life.
Ever.
Sighing, I sauntered back into the family room, straightening a pillow on the couch and the magazines on our coffee table. In the corner, Winnie wagged her stump of a tail, then sighed back into sleep.
Derek glanced at his watch. “I have to go in fifteen minutes. I should take Katherine's car home and get my own to drive to work.”
I swept imaginary crumbs off a cushion. “Maybe we'll hear by then.”
Ten minutes later, Katherine called. “What happened?” I demanded.
“Thank God we got in to see a doctor right away.” She sounded tired. “Robert's leg is broken. They're puttin' a cast on him now. Your daddy's with him and wanted me to call.”
“Oh, no.” Tears bit my eyes.
“He'll be okay, Jackie. They've given him something for the pain. We should be home in, I don't know, a couple of hours.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I'll have supper ready. You'll stay, I hope.”
“Sure. Thank you.” In the background, I could hear a doctor's name being paged.
“How long is he going to be in a cast?”
“Six to eight weeks. No more softball for him this year, I'm afraid. He's already asking who won the game.”
I had to smile. It sounded so like Robert. “Don't know. It must have gone into extra innings, because Grandpa hasn't called yet.”
“Ooh. Maybe I'll call back in a little while. Robert's anxious to hear. I think he's using that to keep his mind off things.”
“Okay.” I shifted my feet. “And thanks, Katherine. I'm glad you're with them.”
“I am too,” she said softly.
I told Derek and Clarissa the news, and he rose to leave. I walked him to the door. “Thank you so much,” I told him rather formally. “You've been very kind.”
He smiled at me lopsidedly. “You're easy to be kind to.”
I could think of no response. It was one of the nicest things anyone had said to me in a long time.
I watched him lope to the street. Derek folded himself into the car, then ducked his head down to wave to me. I saw in the gesture his self-consciousness. I waved back, smiling, as he drove away.
Robert looked pale as he shuffled into the house awkwardly on his crutches, the right leg of his softball uniform cut away to reveal a bright blue cast.
“Whoa.” Clarissa's eyes grew round.
Winnie pranced around, sniffing at the plaster. Her anxiety frayed my own nerves. “Come on, you're in the way.” I opened the sliding glass door and pointed outside. She looked up at me with the eyes of a martyr and slunk onto the deck. When I closed the door, she sat peering through the glass as if she were the most abused canine on earth.
I turned back to my brother. “That's quite a color,” I remarked, trying to sound like he hadn't frightened me out of my wits.
He puckered his chin, surveying the cast. “White's kinda boring.”
We all hovered as he made his way to the couch. Clarissa hugged Katherine for moral support. Katherine assured my sister in hushed tones that he would be okay.
“You sure you feel like lying here instead of in bed, Robert?” Daddy piled three pillows on the end of the couch.
“Yeah.” Robert pulled up to the couch, then stood staring from it to the leg he couldn't bend, his expression muddled.
“Maybe it would be easier if you turned around so it's on your left,” Katherine suggested. Her ponytail lay askew, the red ribbon practically pulled out of its bow. Her shirt puffed around her waist untucked, as if she hadn't given herself a thought in hours. She put a hand on Robert's shoulder to urge him the other direction, then helped him lie down, his good leg on the couch and the heel of his cast resting on the floor. Carefully, she eased up the leg and moved it onto the couch. “That better?”
Her actions sent a pang through me. Mama would have done the very same thing.
Robert nodded. We all looked at him. I wondered what on earth he'd do in this condition for six weeks.
He wiggled his left ankle as if already bored. “Least our team won,” he said tersely.
“Thanks to you.” I scruffed his hair.
He snorted. “Lot a good I did.”
“You brought Theodore in, sounds like a lot a good to me. Grandpa told me once you were hurt, your team wasn't about to lose. By the eighth inning, they were practically beside themselves. Then Chuck stepped up to the plate, declarin', âThis is for Robert,' and hit the ball clean out of the park.”
“Amazing.” Daddy raised his eyebrows at Robert. “Chuck's never hit a home run in his life.”
“Guess I oughtta break my leg more often.”
We laughed. Muted though it was, the laughter felt clean in my throat, renewing.
“Somethin' smells mighty good.” Daddy gave me a weary smile. I saw forgiveness in his eyes.
“It's spaghetti.” A favorite of both Daddy and Robert.
“I'll help you get it on the table,” Katherine offered, and for the first time I felt glad to let her. The concern for my brother that glinted in her eyes meant more than I could say.
By the time we called the family to supper, Robert had fallen asleep on the couch, fingers spread over his stomach and faintly twitching. Most likely dreaming of the home run he never completed.
F
or the first time in Katherine's presence, we sat around our kitchen table instead of the more formal dining room. Mama's kitchen chair had been in the garage since a few months after her death. Every time I'd gone in there, my eyes had been drawn to it. The vast emptiness of that chair, the loneliness it represented. Now here was Daddy, fetching it and bringing it back to the table. My throat tightened as I watched him seat Katherine. She settled into it far too easily for me, with no apparent thought to its significance. Yes, she had been kind to Robert, and I was grateful. But
this
...
We'd managed to wake Robert up and get him to the table, but he remained groggy from the pain pills. He ate a fourth of what he usually would, trying his best to keep a placid expression. I could tell his leg still hurt. Not much conversation that night. Plenty on all our minds, I suppose. As soon as we finished, Daddy helped Robert into bed, which took a while. The cast made him awkward, and the pain pills rendered him nearly useless. Clarissa cleared the table while Katherine and I did the dishes. Winnie flopped on her back in her usual corner and fell asleep, all four legs splayed wide apart, her head sticking out at a funny angle. I had to laugh. With her neck twisted that way, she reminded me of Derek.
Robert put to bed, the four of us watched television. My sister lay happy as a clam with her head in Katherine's lap and her feet in Daddy's. Katherine stroked her hair. I knew Daddy and Katherine wanted some time alone. If they couldn't go out on a date and talk, at least they could talk here. I kept an eye on the clock.
“I'm goin' to run your bathwater,” I told Clarissa at 8:30.
“I don't wanna go to bed.” She pouted at me.
“Yeah, so what's new?” I headed for our bathroom to fill the tub.
“But I wanna stay till Katherine leaves.”
“Now, Clarissa,” I heard Daddy reply, “you know I won't let you stay up late, especially after everything that happened today. You need your sleep; we've got church tomorrow.”
Half an hour later Clarissa stood clad in her frilly pink nightgown, ready for bed. She lingered in the family room for extra good-night kisses, then sighed her way down the hall.
“I'm tired myself,” I told Daddy and Katherine. “I'm gonna read in bed after I get her settled.”
Daddy shot me a grateful look. Katherine stood up, and we exchanged our first hug. “Good night,” she said. I gave her a self-conscious smile.
I fully intended to leave them alone. Really. Eavesdropping had never entered my mind. It's just that once I got Clarissa to bed and changed into my pajamas, I remembered I hadn't brushed my teeth. As I exited the bathroom, I heard the quiet drone of voices, and something pulled me toward them.
Knowing what I do now, sometimes I wonderâif I could go back and change that evening, would I do it? Would I slip into my bedroom and firmly close the door, never to hear the words that would cut me so deeply? And then I think of God and his mercy. How he uses even our mistakes to hone us. How he allows the wind of our past to blow us into the wisdom of our future.
But at the time, I merely followed my curiosity. Creeping over the floor, I eased down the hall and around the corner. I stopped a good length from the next corner to make sure I couldn't be seen, even if one of them looked back from their seats on the couch. Not for the life of me would I have allowed myself to be caught. I'd never live down the embarrassment. Pressing my back against the wall, I listened.
They commented on the game and Robert's leg. Daddy said something, and a long pause followed before Katherine spoke. I sensed in their stilted tones the newness of the conversation, as if they'd turned off the TV only minutes before and feigned chitchat. The thought surprised me. Two adults as tongue-tied as I might be on a date?
“Katherine,” Daddy said at length, “you've been wonderful today. Thank you.”
“I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else.”
“It must be hard, being thrown in the midst of a family like you have been. Always a lot goin' on. 'Course today was rather unusual.”
“Your children are wonderful, Bobby. All three of them are a joy to be around.”
“Jackie's . . . taken her time warmin' up to you.”
“She's the oldest. She's had to fill in the role of mama. It's understandable.” “Seems like you two are gettin' along better now, though.”
A pause. I heard the sound of someone shifting position. “Did I do wrong, Bobby, telling her about Greg Kostakis? I'm so sorry if I did.”
Daddy hesitated. “I suppose you did it to reach out to her.”
“Of course I want to reach out to her, but it's more than that. She's sixteen, Bobby; she's at that age of hopes and dreams. Then here's this boy she listens to on the radio, coming here! I know how crazy girls get over meeting these singers. I saw it often enough when I worked at the radio station. What an exciting thing to happen for Jackie. How could I not tell her?”
Silence. It seemed to last forever.
“Please tell me what you're thinking. Do you not want her to meet Greg?”
“I just . . . don't want her to get hurt. I can understand that meetin' some star would probably be a dream come true for her. That's just it. What's she goin' to do when he leaves?”
“He won't be here that long,” Katherine said. “I didn't think we'd be doing much more than giving them a chance to get acquainted.”
“What if that's all it would take?” Daddy retorted, an edge in his voice.
I pressed my palms together, surprised at the intensity of his tone.
“Bobby,” Katherine said softly. “What is this about?”
Silence again. Finally Daddy spoke, the words almost worn. “Come here.”
Clothes rustled. Katherine still must have sat a Clarissa-length away. In the protracted stillness that followed, I knew they were kissing.
How to explain all the things I felt? I remember leaning my head against the wall, a desperate ache rising in my throat. Part of me wanted to flee to my bedroom, both to block the knowledge and to leave them be. I had no right to spy on them like this. Another part screamed
no, no, no
at the boundary now crossed, my mama's memory betrayed and dimming on the other side. Did Daddy not care that our last family photograph watched them from the mantel? Did Katherine not care?
And the rest of me looped and knotted with undeniable self-pity. I was the teenager, “full of hopes and dreams,” the one ready to fall in love. This was supposed to be happening to
me
.
Katherine laughed quietly. “If we were disagreeing, maybe we ought to do it more often.”
No response from Daddy. Perhaps emotion held his tongue.
“Bobby, there's so much we need to talk about. So much I need to say.”
“Me too.” Daddy paused. “But you go first.” I heard a smile in his voice.
“Oh, thanks, put me on the spot. How much time do I get?”
“All the time you need.”
“Okay.” Pause. “Suddenly, I'm . . . scared.”
“Not any more scared than I am.”
A whisper of movement, as though she pulled back to gaze at him. “Why are
you
scared, Bobby?”
He didn't answer immediately. When he did speak, all teasing had melted from his tone. “Because I'm falling in love with you.”
The word seeped like simmering water into my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“I won't play games, Katherine. I don't have the energy, and I've been through too much. So I'm tellin' you outright. I have only loved twice in my life. My first love hurt me badly, and I made some terrible mistakes. The second with Melissa brought me years of joy, then nearly killed me when I lost her. I tend to be a quiet person, but I feel things deeply. People look at me and see someone they think is strong. I have to look that way for the kids. But they don't know how weak and fearful I feel inside.”
Oh, Daddy.
My heart turned over at his words. But what was he talking aboutâtwo loves? Daddy had never loved anyone but Mama.
“Bobbyâ” Katherine's voice caught. “I love you.”
The sibilance of movement, then quiet. I tried to steady my own breathing.
“Want to hear my confession?” Katherine finally said. She inhaled audibly. “I came back here because of you.”
“Me? I don't . . . You'd been gone for eleven years.”
Katherine breathed a laugh. “You don't know, do you? You never had any idea. But then, why should you, being so much older. I had a crush on you when I was twelve years old. You were a senior in high school and dating Melissa. I used to dream of getting up the courage to tell you to wait for me.”