Twenty minutes later, his mother answered her telephone.
"Mama? It's me." He eased himself to a seat on his grandfather's stairs, wincing at the pain in his knee.
"What's wrong?" she asked, sharply apprehensive.
He rubbed his hand down his face. "Katie's mom died this mornin'."
His mother's silence pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Mama?"
"Did she have a baby?"
"Yeah," he said, frowning. "How'd you know?"
"She should never have had kids. It's nearly killed her every time." A long moment passed. "How will I ever tell Roy?" she murmured as if to herself.
"What?" he asked with his frown deepening, unsure if he had heard her right.
His mother drew a long breath. "Tell Katie and Jon I'm so sorry."
He glanced at his watch. "Okay. I gotta go, Mama. I need to get my chores done before Katie calls."
He fed his horses one-handed. At noon, he warmed a bowl of soup and stayed inside, waiting. Two o'clock came and went.
He called Katie's house. Esther answered—the family had gone to the funeral home. He stared at the receiver in his hand, frowning. Annie must not have told Katie what he'd said.
He called Will and asked for help feeding the cattle. His grandfather still hadn't returned home by the time they finished after dark. He fed Molly then ate a tasteless bowl of Wheaties. Listening for the phone, he showered and shaved, examining his face in the mirror. The bruise around his eye had faded to a yellowish green and the gash on his cheekbone had scabbed.
Afterward, he stood indecisively in the hall staring at the phone. Finally, he called.
Someone he didn't know answered. After a moment, the stranger returned—Katie didn't feel like talking.
He hung up then climbed the stairs to open his notebook.
The next morning, a red snowplow spewed a wide arc of snow from its blade, leaving a tall mound of muddy slush around the cedar tree.
He stopped his truck—it didn't look like she'd been there, but the snowplow might have covered her tracks. He broke a trail through the thigh-deep ridge to the hollow in the trunk. Empty.
He left his note anyway and drove to her house. A wave of warmth and the smell of frying bacon greeted him. Jon and his sons sat at the table eating. Rachel stood at the old range in a pink robe, her hair pulled into a messy bun. She raised her face, browned and freckled from a lifetime outdoors, and gave him a strained, but kind, smile. A thin cry sounded from the living room.
"Katie, do you need help?" Rachel called.
"I don't know." Katie's voice, dull and lifeless, said from the other room.
Rachel turned to him. "Turn this bacon for me, will you, Gil?"
He shrugged out of his coat and hung it over the back of a chair. While he turned the bacon sizzling in a cast iron skillet, he looked into the living room. Katie sat in the rocking chair, pale and disheveled in her green plaid robe. She awkwardly jiggled the baby. Her dark circled eyes never glanced his way, even when a bottle rolled off her lap and onto the floor.
Suddenly, she rose and handed the baby to Rachel. Crossing quickly to the hallway, she disappeared.
He stared after her, an uneasy chill settling in his chest. What was going on with her?
The bacon strips sizzling in the pan didn't smell good anymore and they didn't need turned again. He did it anyway. The baby stopped crying. Silence filled the room except for an occasional chink of a fork against a plate, or the hollow thud of a cup against the scrubbed pine of the table.
Finally, he lifted the crisp strips from the pan—the best frying job he'd ever done. He set the plate of bacon on the table in front of Jon who stared down at his untouched meal.
"I'll help with the feedin', sir," he said.
Jon didn't move. Had he even heard?
"I'll help—"
Jon jerked up his head woodenly, as though there had been a time delay between the words and his hearing them. His eyes still wore the stunned look, full of pain. "What's that?"
"I came to help with the chores if that's okay."
Jon nodded without interest. "Thanks."
He waited while Karl and Tim finished eating. Katie never reappeared. One-handed, he drove the old Massey tractor while the brothers fed the cattle then he returned home to help his grandfather with the chores on their place.
That night, almost ill from exhaustion and the relentless churning of his thoughts, he drove through the darkness to check the tree. Katie hadn't been there. He slid another note into the hollow space, and the next morning, another one before he helped her brothers with the feeding chores. He didn't really expect her to come to the tree, but it gave him something to do while he tried to rationalize her behavior.
She was in shock. All of them were. He didn't know anything about babies except they had to be held all the time and they cried a lot. The baby probably kept her busy. Funeral stuff, too. And a lot of church people and neighbors coming in and out, bringing food…things like that. The yard was always full of cars.
Lance's car, too. It wasn't anything to worry about. Probably. It'd be weird if he didn't come.
She was just too busy to get to the tree or call him.
Or look at him.
Or speak to him.
That night at church, grief blanketed the congregation, silent and heavy. He sat alone in his and Katie's usual place, fighting to steer his mind away from the dread rearing its head more insistently with each passing hour.
The funeral was tomorrow. Was it normal for a girl's fiancé not to be included in the family stuff? True, Katie's family probably didn't know they were getting married yet, but at a time like that, wouldn't she need him around? Probably she was only considering her dad's feelings.
Okay. He understood that. He could even live with that. After the funeral they'd talk. She'd lose that…dead look.
Everything would be all right.
***
The next morning, blinding snow flurries enshrouded everything. His grandfather, who was preaching the funeral service, left early for the church. Gil followed later, clean shaved and in his best jeans and white shirt—the same one he'd worn to Darlene's funeral but with the sleeve split to accommodate his cast.
Outside the church, a spiteful wind cut effortlessly through his clothes as he crossed the street, already lined with cars. Inside, he signed his name in the guestbook then found a seat at the end of a pew next to the aisle. Katie couldn't miss him.
Mounds of flowers flanked the gleaming cherry wood casket at the front, filling the air with heavy scent. Red roses blanketed the top of the casket—an aching tribute to a beloved woman.
He swallowed a sudden lump in his throat, turning his gaze to the pamphlet he'd been given at the door.
The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want…
He read the twenty-third Psalm, and then the next page.
Rebekah Elizabeth Campbell, age 39, Gene Howard and Dan Spellman officiating, Karl, Tim, Jon, Will O'Neil, Eric and Lance Thomas pall bearers…
He stared blindly at the paper with cold fingers clamped around his heart, making it hard to breathe. A steady shuffle sounded behind him as the church continued to fill with people.
Why was Lance on that list instead of him?
It wasn't his fault he'd barely known Becky, and sure…a one-armed pall bearer wasn't worth a whole lot, but he could've done it. For Katie's sake, surely her dad could have relented.
All the seats filled. People filed in to line the walls. Finally, the standing room filled, too. His grandfather rose from behind a mound of flowers at the front of the church.
"Everybody rise," the old man's deep voice boomed.
He turned. Karl entered the room, grim faced and pushing Dave in a wheelchair. Dave wore dark glasses instead of his patch, his jaw clenched tight. Tim, his face colorless and his Adam's apple working convulsively, followed. Then Katie and her dad.
The slim black dress she wore accentuated the deathlike pallor
of her skin. Jon, grey faced and hollow-eyed, held her around the shoulders. Her steps dragged slowly toward the front as if she faced her own execution, her anguished gaze fixed on the casket.
He willed her to look at him, but she passed without a glance, weeping quietly. On the front pew, she sat next to her father, only the shining fall of hair down her back visible. A moment later, Lance sat down directly behind her, his gangly form blocking her from view.
He gaped at the back of Lance's head. Why was he sitting with her family?
Someone tugged at his shirt—he alone remained standing.
He flushed and sat down. His grandfather's work-hardened hands gripped the sides of the wooden pulpit.
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth—" the scripture rumbled through the building with the certainty of thunder—"Yea, sayeth the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them…"
His grandfather knew Becky's name, too, but he could only stare at the back of Lance's head with a fist of panic driving deep into his gut.
***
At the top of a barren knoll, the Campbell grave plot grew a twisted blue spruce in its thin, rocky soil. The family huddled next to the tree, poor shelter from the merciless wind and heavy snow blurring Katie's small form. Her hair blew wildly around her face. Lance, towering behind her, had his hand on her shoulder.
Across her mother's grave, Gil braced against the full force of wind, his eyes watering, his jaw clenched to keep his teeth from chattering.
"Jesus said—"
The wind instantly snatched his grandfather's words and whirled them away.
"I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die…"
Katie's eyes, smudges of pure blue in a white world, desperately clung to the old man and his words.
Just as desperately, he kept his gaze locked on her across the cherry wood casket, now dusted with snow, willing her to look at him.
Finally, the congregation sang the last hymn.
Heav'n's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee, in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me…
The hymn's final thin notes blew away. The closing prayer ended.
At last, Katie raised her gaze to meet his. Her beautiful, deep-set eyes, too big for her face, pooled with sorrow and longing.
And goodbye.
He stared at her, unable to breathe. Unable to move.
No.
God, no. Please.
Lance took the handles of Dave's wheelchair and pushed it toward the parked cars, Katie beside him. She slipped into the front seat of the old Buick while Lance helped Dave into the back seat. She leaned back her head, eyes closed. Lance slid in. The Buick disappeared into the wall of snow.
"Son?" his grandfather's voice asked behind him.
Slack-jawed with disbelief, he turned.
His grandfather studied him, his eyes turning sick with a remembered heartache. "Son, this's gonna need some time," he said quietly.
Someone nudged him from behind. He turned to stare blankly at the funeral director, a middle-aged man in a long black coat with a bad comb-over and a whiskey nose.
"Excuse me," the man said, walking past on the narrow path between the graves.
Gradually, he became aware of Rachel's voice from where she stood next to Jon. Katie's father held a shovel.
"It's too much, Jon," Rachel said. She tugged his arm. "Come with me. It's time to go home."
Jon, stony faced, didn't move. "It's the last thing I'll ever do for her, Rachel."
Rachel stared at him for a long, distressed moment. She turned to Karl in silent appeal.
"C'mon, Dad," Karl said gently. "The rest of us can do it."
"It's the last thing I'll ever do for her," Jon said tonelessly. He moved toward the mound of muddy soil beside the grave.
Rachel covered her face with her hands and wept. Jon thrust the shovel into the mound then moved to the casket. His sons, Dan, and Will joined him.
Since Lance had gone, he stepped up to take the other man's place. One-handed, he helped lower the casket into the grave. Dan fetched more shovels from his pickup.
He took a clumsy turn with the silent men. The heavy, stony soil relentlessly thudded onto the coffin, and then slowly filled the grave. Using the flat of his shovel, he helped pat the fresh earth over Katie's mother into a neat mound.
He didn't know what else to do.
***
In his grandfather's kitchen late that afternoon, the Bakelite clock on the wall—new forty years before—ticked dependably away in the silent room. He sat at the table staring into a cup of cold coffee, his thoughts wandering.
If a silent man sat alone at a table, did a clock's second hand make too many ticks between each minute?
If a clock ticked in a forest and no one heard it, did it still make a sound?
And…this was a good one…if a man spoke in a forest and no woman heard him, was he still wrong?
His mother wouldn't have liked that. She'd say, "Oh, for Pete's sake, Gil. Why can't you be serious for once in your life? Why do you always have to joke around, even at a time like this?"
He'd say, "I'm not jokin' around, Mama. I'm serious as cancer this time…"
He rubbed his hand through his hair. Was Katie with Lance, now? Crying while he held her? His Katie with Lance…?
God, no. Please.
How could the whole thing be happening? What had he done wrong?
He looked at the clock. Five forty-five. Was his grandfather ever going to get home?
At six o'clock he looked at the clock again. In an hour, he'd call her. He'd made a mistake about what he'd seen in her eyes at the cemetery. She hadn't been saying goodbye.
At seven o'clock, he dialed the phone. She answered.
"Katie, it's me."
The baby cried in the background, shrill and monotonous.
"I have to go," she said.
The unrecognizable tone in her voice stopped his heart. "Katie, wait," he said hastily.
"Please don't call anymore."
"Don't hang—"
The phone clicked in his ear.
"up."
He clutched the receiver in his clammy hand. All his life he'd done everything he was big enough to do, but…he wasn't big enough for that.
She had been saying goodbye.
Chapter Fifteen
On Christmas morning, the sun blazed inside a perfect blue dome, glaring off snowcapped peaks, and striking a glittering carpet of diamonds from a foot of new snowfall in the home pasture. The glare made Molly's bugged-out eyes water and her panting breath puffed tiny circles of white fog into the frigid air.
She scrambled around on Gil's cast propped on the open window of his truck, blocking the view of his grandfather in the rearview mirror. The old man, clad in brown coveralls and a stocking cap, balanced against the movement of the hay trailer as the truck crawled forward, the chains on the tires grinding through the squeaky snow. Steadily breaking open bales on his knee, his grandfather heaved the hay onto the snow. A long line of bawling cattle shuffled after the trail of summer-green, clouds of vapor steaming from their red hides.
He brushed Molly out of the way. She jumped onto his cast again.
"Molly, you little pain in the butt," he muttered, eying her tiny dog sweater with its ragged hole in the side—she had chewed the pink and white yarn, unraveling the pattern. "Look at your sweater. If you tear this one up, too, I ain't gettin' you another one. You'll just have to freeze to death."
He lifted her to his shoulder. She immediately latched onto his ear and started gnawing. Scowling, he brushed at her again. He caught sight of his own eyes in the mirror.
For the first time in years, he'd awakened on Christmas morning without a hangover, but it didn't much look like it. His eyes looked like two pee holes in the snow. He reached above the visor for his metal framed sunglasses and
slid them on.
He glanced at the pretty package on the seat beside him. The lady at the gift shop had wrapped it the day before—a box of chocolate and a stuffed toy dog instead of the real mutt. Since Katie was saddled with a kid now, he could hardly give her a puppy to tend, too.
She hadn't answered any of his calls since the day of her mother's funeral and had avoided him every time he stepped into the house. But today was Christmas, after all. If he could just talk to her for a minute…
Two hours later, he found Rachel sitting at the table in the Campbell kitchen holding the baby. It didn't take her apologetic expression or a heat seeking missile to detect warmth still rising from Katie's hastily vacated chair.
He set the package on the table next to a half-finished bowl of cereal, mumbled something to Rachel and left in a haze of pain.
At noon, he and his grandfather drove to Will's house for dinner. Linda's attitude toward him had made a remarkable turn for the better. She pressed second helpings on him, concern shadowing her eyes.
After dinner, he fell asleep in a living room recliner, awaking later to a disturbance in his hair and Will's three-year-old daughter breathing on him. The smell of ham with overtones of chocolate pudding filled his nose. The child brandished a pink comb.
"Sara, no." Linda smiled apologetically, pulling the little girl away. Linda's smile resembled her brother Lance's, but he was a bony stork, she a tiny sparrow with long, brown hair. "She thinks your hair's like an Indian's because it's black and shiny. She likes Annie's, too."
"She's okay," he mumbled, sitting upright and wiping his mouth in case he'd drooled. "Don't make her go."
Sara, a smaller sparrow than her mother, flew away to return moments later holding a gaudy headband with a drooping pigeon feather. He awkwardly lifted the little girl onto his lap then meekly submitted while she shoved the headband onto his head with her sticky hands. He'd never liked kids, but as the child chattered at him and fixed him into her version of an Indian, the raw pain inside him eased somewhat.
The slight relief didn't last into the long hours of the night. As he had every night since Becky Campbell's death, he stared at the ceiling, groping through memories of the past weeks.
The Cedar Tree (Love Is Not Enough) Page 19
