Kate climbed out of the car and locked its doors, although she knew it was completely unnecessary in whatever world she had just fallen into. Staying as far away as possible from the field, but still able to see, she leaned against a metal light pole and watched the unfamiliar movements of school-age sports. Jack sat in his chair, scribbling in a notebook: stats, she assumed. His full attention was on the game and she didn’t fear him turning to see her.
Jack seemed content—happy, even—as he hollered encouragement toward the field, writing in his notebook. Every once in a while he checked his cell. A girlfriend maybe? A business deal?
Birmingham was showing off in its spring finery, an overdressed woman wearing too many colors and bright jewelry. The azaleas and camellias, the dogwoods and the daffodils burst from the ground. Kate glanced around the fields and surrounding homes, feeling as though she’d fallen into a Disney movie. She knew it wasn’t perfect, nothing was, but this town sure looked like it on that spring afternoon. She watched Jack, content to be an observer. Maybe she wouldn’t tell him she’d been there at all. Maybe she’d get back in her car and leave him to his perfectly nice life without her interference.
The baseball game was into the second inning when Jack stood to walk to the concession stand. He spoke on his cell phone and meanwhile glanced toward Kate, still leaning against the light post. She held her breath and averted her eyes, as if this would make her invisible. Kate counted to ten and then glanced back toward the concession stand, but he was gone.
“Katie?” Jack said her name.
When she heard his voice, she felt her heart expand and reach for him, but it was when she turned and saw his eyes that the need returned in full. In the middle of a bright baseball park, surrounded by families, she saw only Jack. It was propriety and fears that kept her arms straight and her hands from touching him at all. She smiled. “Hey, Jack.”
They stood, face to face, inches apart as unsaid words filled the cracks of distance and time. Finally he spoke. “It’s really you. What are you doing here?”
She bit the right side of her lip in a childhood nervous gesture. She’d hoped she wouldn’t want exactly what she wanted at the moment—to kiss him, and more than once. She would not ruin this moment with her need. She would not chase him away with her old desire. “Would you believe me if I said I just happened to be in the neighborhood?”
He laughed and it was a lovely sound—deep and freeing and full of life. He hugged her and she fell against his chest, into the hollow cleft where she’d once so casually settled her body. He let go and stepped back. “Let me look at you and then you can explain yourself.”
She blushed. Warmth traveled through her body and settled in her face. She covered her face with her hands, and he took her fingers and pulled her hands into his grasp. “You,” he said.
“You,” she said in return, staring once again into those green and unsettling eyes.
“So, you’re a big baseball fan?” he asked.
She smiled. “Really, I’m not positive about the difference between a run and a touchdown. I came to see you. I guess, maybe, I should have called.”
“How did you find us?”
“Well, I went to the house and you were leaving, so I followed.”
“Were you going to tell me you were here or just spy on me?”
“Tell you, of course. I sort of felt like I was interrupting and I wanted to wait until the game was over.”
“This is amazing, Katie.”
“I go by Kate now,” she said.
“Well, that’s nice. But to me, you’re Katie.” He tipped his hat. “With all due respect.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t really know what to say because I’m a little stunned.”
“I know. I wanted to see you and talk.”
He smiled. “Can all those things wait until after Caleb bats?”
“Absolutely. They can wait until he bats ten times.”
He laughed—that lovely sound again—and shook his head. “This is wild. But come sit. Watch baseball with me.”
“Watch baseball with you.” She smiled. “Nice.”
They walked together toward the baseball diamond and Jack offered Katie his chair. Number 17 was at bat.
“That’s Caleb. He’s the shortest on the team, but he’s the fastest,” Jack said, talking in a low whisper. “His coach is obnoxious, but Caleb loves the game. He’s obsessed. Knows every stat of every player in the majors.”
“There are worse things to be obsessed with,” Kate said and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees,
Caleb swung the bat and missed the ball, which landed with a thwump in the catcher’s mitt.
“Strike One,” the ump hollered, making a motion with his hands.
“Does he have to scream it like that?” Kate asked.
Jack smiled at her and shook his head. “You don’t go to many games do you?”
“I think the last baseball game I went to, I was with my dad and he took me to Atlanta. I was about ten years old. I whined the entire game about being bored and he never took me again.”
“When you meet Caleb, do not tell him that story,” Jack said. He was speaking to her, smiling, but his gaze was on the field.
“Ball,” the ump hollered as the pitch went far right and hit the fence. Caleb stepped back from the plate and looked over his shoulder at his dad.
Jack gave his son a thumbs-up and said, “Wait on the ball.”
Caleb nodded and stepped back, facing the pitcher. A ball came across the plate and Caleb swung, making contact with a thunk that sent the ball flying over the second baseman’s head. Kate jumped up with a holler before she even understood what she was doing. Caleb was safe at first base.
“Looks like you’re good luck,” Jack said.
Chatting about the weather and the rules of a game she didn’t understand, Kate enjoyed watching eight-year-old boys running around. They were all so earnest.
“They all look like they’re playing the most important game of their life,” she said.
“They are. Today is always the most important when you’re eight years old,” Jack said and squatted down next to her chair. “Always.”
She nodded. “Good way to live, I think.”
They sat through the remainder of the game and watched Caleb’s Hornets lose by one run. While Jack folded up the chair and waited for Caleb, Kate wandered over to the concession stand and bought a fountain Coke. She sipped from the vintage-looking red-striped straw as Jack and Caleb walked toward her.
They reached Kate’s side, and Jack stopped as Caleb kept walking.
“Son,” Jack said. “Stop. I want you to meet an old friend.”
Caleb turned around to look at Kate. His baseball cap partially shaded his face but his green eyes and the cleft in his chin were obvious statements of his father’s imprint.
“Hello, Ma’am,” Caleb said in a voice that was young and quiet.
“Hi, Caleb. I’m Kate Vaughn.”
“Miss Vaughn to you,” Jack said and came to his son’s side. “I think we can take her to our postgame pizza, don’t you?”
Caleb nodded. “I think so too.”
“Well, I’m honored,” Kate said. “I love pizza.”
Caleb looked up toward his dad. “When is Gram picking me up?”
“After pizza. I have your bag in the car.” Jack turned to Kate. “Do you want to ride with us?”
“I’ll follow,” Kate said, pointing toward the parking lot. “I’ve got my car.”
In the parking lot, Caleb and Jack threw bags into the truck’s bed before walking to opposite sides of the vehicle and climbing into their seats. Caleb looked so like Jack, and questions she rarely allowed to surface rose with a furious roar.
Yes, it was the damn un-knowing.
six
BLUFFTON, SC
1996
The first telling had been the worst: her parents. Katie had said the words, “I’m pregnant,” and then hid her face behind her hands. Mo
lly was a senior in high school, and her questions were simple and yet completely complicated: Would the baby have a dad? Where would the baby live? These were, of course, unanswerable.
After the family tears had been shed, Katie left to tell Jack. Yes, he needed to at least know that their last time together had been much more than a simple last time.
The road between Bluffton and Birmingham seemed formed of a flimsy connection like the lines drawn on the astronomy chart that hung in her childhood room. She was five months along and could no longer put off the inevitable. We are pregnant.
If she had ever imagined this moment, which of course she had, she was carrying Jack’s child, yes, but they’d be married and living in a two-bedroom house with a front porch. They’d do laundry together and match socks while watching a movie in the living room. They’d talk about whether to have a holiday party; they’d argue over whose family was more annoying. They’d plan the pool for the backyard and argue over bills. Then one day, together they’d visit the doctor to hear the news, “You’re going to have a baby.”
Instead, Katie had been alone on the day she’d heard the news from a nurse at the doctor’s office in Bluffton. The earth had opened wide and her Planned Life fell in. She’d held a protective hand over her belly and known that decisions needed to be made. She could no longer deny that a child, already five months along, was growing inside her body. Her child. Jack’s child.
An hour into the drive, anger arrived as an unwelcome guest: boisterous, raging, and red-faced.
Katie thought about Lida and how the young girl would believe that Katie had deserted her—exactly as her mama had, just as her aunt Clara had. Lida had been the girl Katie wanted to heal more than any other and now she was causing more pain by leaving the wilderness early. Moving her hand over her stomach, Katie felt as if Lida and her own child were somehow one, as if she were being given a chance to do right and well by this child. How could she ever bring a child into this world that wouldn’t be totally loved? Completely adored by both parents? Completely wanted? Yes, that was the word—wanted. Katie had seen—first- and lasthand—what could happen when a child wasn’t completely wanted. It seemed ridiculous to even think that this child wasn’t loved and in so many ways wanted, but was that enough?
Katie banged her fists on the steering wheel. Now? Seriously, now when he’s married? She pulled the car to the side of the road, to the emergency lane (if there was ever an emergency, this was one) and ranted at the sky and the gods and all she’d believed. Bent over the steering wheel, she fought tears that came without regard for her need to stay calm.
Flashing, pulsing blue lights surrounded the car, bouncing off the rearview and side mirrors. Kate wiped at her face, embarrassed at her own tirade and at the emotions that had ripped through her like razors.
The policeman came to the car and Katie rolled down the window.
“You okay, Ma’am?”
Katie nodded.
“Have you been drinking?”
Katie protested, holding up her hand. “No, Sir.” And then the oddest thing happened. She began to laugh. It was a giggle at first, the kind a child would emit in the middle of Sunday school when the teacher spoke of Adam knowing Eve. Then she was into full-blown laughter, bent over the steering wheel. Sobs and laughter mixed in a combination of opposites that made an animal-like sound.
Sunglasses covered the policeman’s eyes, but his smirk told her that he didn’t believe she was sober. “Will you please get out of the car?”
Katie opened the door and stepped out. The winter chill swept over her.
“I need you to walk a straight line, toe to toe.” The cop explained in slow words as if speaking to a toddler.
“Seriously?” Katie asked. “You think I’ve been drinking? It’s noon.”
“Just do it.”
Her feet firmly planted, she placed one foot in front of the other and then did a cartwheel, landing on the same line. High school cheerleading finally became resourceful. She twirled around and bowed to the cop.
He shook his head, but the hint of a smile pulled on the corners of his mouth. “That’s not what I asked you to do.”
“I’m sorry, Sir. I’m trying to prove a point.”
“Okay, then. Why are you parked in the emergency lane? Are you in trouble?”
“I needed to cry. I don’t usually need to cry and so I thought it best if I wasn’t operating heavy machinery while I did so.” She smiled at the policeman.
He nodded and took off his sunglasses. “You okay to drive now?”
“Yes, I think I am.”
Katie returned to the car. The cop walked with her and placed his hands on the roof, staring into her driver’s-side window as she started the engine. “Are you really okay? If you’re not, you can take a little time here. I’ll park behind you.”
“Thanks, but I really do think I’m good for now.”
He nodded. “I hope that whatever made you cry gets better soon.”
“It won’t,” she said. “But I’ll be okay.”
Katie rolled up the window, put the shift into drive. “I’ll be okay,” she repeated to herself, but the words fell hollow into the empty car.
* * *
“Are you okay?” Jack asked. He greeted her without hello, preamble, or hug.
He stood on his front doorstep, the shadow on his face from more than the setting sun. She wanted to touch him, to wrap her body around his until they both found peace, until they could be together for good and all. No one moved her this way. And she knew no one ever would.
“No, really, I’m not okay. I need to talk to you. I promise it won’t take long.”
She’d called to tell him she was coming, and yet he stared at her as if she’d shown up unannounced. “Come in,” he finally said. Together they walked into his house, and then to the living room she hadn’t seen since that night.
“Sit down, please. I can’t stand up and tell you this,” Katie said. She glanced around the room. Only one wall had been painted. Closed paint cans were piled in the corner waiting to be used again. A hole gaped open on the top right corner of the ceiling where she could see into the attic. Everything was half-finished, almost done.
But only almost.
“Okay.” He sat and they faced each other on opposite ends of the couch.
“We.” She took in a breath that shook with fear and truth. “You and me. We’re pregnant.”
Emotions she was never able to label worked their way across his face. Like fast-action photography it was morning and then noon and then twilight and then darkest night and then morning again. It ended in agony.
She fell into him. “I’m sorry,” she said into his chest.
He pulled her back. “My God,” he said.
“I know, Jack. I know. I’m not asking for anything and I don’t expect you to run away with me. You don’t have to say it. But I needed to tell you. It’s not a secret thing I could keep from you.”
“Oh, Katie.” He dropped his face.
Sunlight filled the living room as if it had been poured on the couch and floors; the aroma of coffee filled the lightness, thrusting its smell into Katie’s nostrils. “I think I’m going to throw up,” Katie said, closing her eyes.
He touched her back, gently, tentative.
“I’m sorry. It’s the coffee smell—all my favorite things now make me sick. It’s like an opposite world.”
His face crumbled, a puzzle undoing. I needed to move on and I did. And now you’re telling me that we are going to have a child?” He paused, struggling for the words she didn’t want to hear. “I’m married. I love…”
“Please don’t say how much you love her. I can’t have the words in my head for the rest of my life. I know you don’t love me anymore. I’m only here to tell you so that … well, I thought you should know.” Katie said.
He knelt before her, taking her hands into his. He admitted that he’d always love her, but that he’d made a vow to someone else and that pr
omise had to be kept. He didn’t want to leave his life or his wife; that much was clear. And yet he cried out, “What now? This is our child.”
Katie didn’t have the answers and yet she knew that if she begged Jack to leave, it would ruin them both. He seemed far away, as if the life of him had gone deep inside where Katie would never again find him.
“We could try to find a way to split the parenting … or,” he said.
“Raising a child isn’t something you just try, Jack. Being married isn’t something you just try. Seeing what I’ve seen, knowing what I now know, even the best parents, even with love and resources and family, parenting is not something you try. You do it all the way or you don’t do it all, and even when you think you’re doing it right … still…”
He held out his hand to stop her flow of words. “Let’s not decide anything right now. I can’t. I can’t breathe.”
“I know you don’t want Maggie to know I came here, so I’m going to leave. We’ll talk and figure this out. We have months.”
They didn’t cry, either of them, but their bodies shook with the three words that changed everything: we are pregnant. He took her in his arms, held her until she couldn’t tell where he began and she ended. Someone had to let go and it was Jack who did so first.
* * *
Time heals all wounds. That was the old adage, but for Katie Vaughn, these were hollow words. A decision needed to be made and time wasn’t helping at all. In fact, it was rushing by too fast.
The final choice to place her baby for adoption wasn’t made in a single day or even a month, but like the tributaries that fed into Katie’s beloved river, the facts joined in a raging and moving body of one tear-drenched choice.
Katie was never alone. She was surrounded by her family and Norah. But it was Jack’s absence she felt, wider and deeper than anyone’s presence. And it was that loneliness that ached the most. Katie had always thought herself strong and sure, but now she found herself weak and unable to make the slightest decision. Her wildness and strong will seeped out, leaving her hollow.
And Then I Found You Page 6
