“I just thought if you were going to the festival dance that you would be looking forward to it.”
“Festival dance.” She said it as though she’d never heard of it either.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of . . .”
“Of course I have, you goofball. I’m just pulling your chain.”
“So are you going?”
“Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“If anyone asks me. Anyone, that is, with whom I’d be interested in going.”
Josh stopped walking, but it took Deb a few steps to notice. When she turned around and looked to see where he’d gone, she discovered him just standing in the middle of the hall staring at her, traffic oozing around him, opening and closing behind and in front of him. While she was walking back toward him, he’d decided he just needed to trip his trigger. He wasn’t good at word games. “Are you interested in going with me?”
She sized him up for a good couple seconds, trying to decide if he was inviting her or just testing the waters—or now pulling her chain. “Are you inviting me?”
“Yes, Deb. Will you go to the dance with me?”
“Yes.” The bell rang, and just like that, he had a date.
Now he had to talk to Kevin, whom he hadn’t talked to since their uncomfortable encounter. Josh had managed to sit at the opposite end of their regular lunchroom table since their face-off, and to act as though he hadn’t even seen Kevin a time or two in the halls. Kevin had done nothing to initiate contact, either. One more class and they’d be seated at the table next to each other, if the rest of his plan fell into place.
When Dorothy opened her front door, it was all she could do to keep from clutching Katie to herself. However, by virtue of having searched the faces of so many hurting people in her long life, she could see that Katie had her full emotional mental guard up in an attempt—a failing attempt—to hide her trepidation. She was, at this moment, physically unapproachable. Dorothy held back and welcomed Katie, but she could not keep her own eyes from welling up at this heartbreaking site: behind the outward appearance of this strong, self-sufficient, professional businesswoman was no more than a frightened child.
Katie seated herself at the table in the kitchen where Dorothy had led them. She rested her hands one on top of the other in front of her on the floral placemat with ruffled edges. She’d unconsciously done so in an attempt to anchor herself in the room to keep from fleeing what by now felt certain to be unwelcome news. Katie recognized the placemat as the same one that had been on the table when she’d first entered this house after Aunt Tess’s death the past April. Everything was so different now that Dorothy had moved in and decorated. The place was so livened up that it was sometimes hard to recall the devastating mess in which she’d found it. But recall she did, since in the midst of all the mess of the rest of the house, the order of the kitchen and the aesthetic setting of the table had been a surprising mystery. While there were piles of clothing, papers and odds and ends everywhere else in the house, the kitchen table was set as though Aunt Tess had been expecting company: three ruffled placemats; a tall empty water glass at each setting (same as Dorothy had today, only now they contained water with a fresh lemon slice); a rose-scented candle; a vase with flowers, wilted since her death (a vase Katie now kept on her own kitchen table); a framed photograph of her mom and Aunt Tess next to the silo on Dorothy’s farm, with a separate picture of her and a young Josh tucked into the corner of the frame, both of which Katie kept right next to the vase.
Dorothy sat in silence waiting for Katie to look at her. She could nearly read her mind as she watched Katie’s eyes flick from the placemats to the water glasses. Dorothy, too, had been privy to the oddity of the table that left them all wondering who Aunt Tess had been cognizant enough to so carefully be expecting in the middle of her otherwise troubled mind—although Dorothy had always hoped . . .
Katie recollected the contents of that photograph and a zing raced through her. It had been quite a surprise during Aunt Tess’s funeral dinner out at the farm to discover that the silo in the photo was Dorothy’s. For the first time she wondered exactly how old her mother was in that photograph. How long after it was taken did Mom move to Chicago? Since the timelines in those letters just do not add up, might Mom have already been pregnant with me? Her heart was now pounding.
At last, Katie’s eyes—eyes filled with questions and vulnerabilities—met with Dorothy’s.
“It’s time to begin,” Dorothy said in a solemn proclamation. “But where . . . how . . . I have wrestled with God and angels about these decisions until I can wrestle no more. There’s no point in dancing around it either. Lord, here we go. Be with us.” She drew a deep breath, held it a second and then exhaled.
“Katie, your father is not who you’ve been told he was.” She paused a moment, but clearly from the look on Katie’s face, something in the letters must have already led her to at least suspect as much. And yet, the cold reality of hearing it needed time to settle in. “The man you’ve been told was your father has in fact never existed.” Dorothy’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “He was fabricated by your mother to hide a terrible truth.” Katie’s eyes welled with tears and her hands formed into fists as she fought to stay in control. So it’s true! She swallowed numerous times and blinked back the tears.
“I wish I could tell you that what I have to say will get easier from here, child, but it will not. I wish to God I could have your earthly father standing in the next room, waiting to come to you at the end of what I’ll unfold here today, but I cannot.” Dorothy paused, making sure Katie was digesting each piece of information. Although Katie had weathered the news that her father wasn’t whom she’d been told, Dorothy figured there could be no way for her to predict what she was about to say next. She reached across the table to take one of Katie’s hands, but Katie withdrew them and put them protectively in her lap. Dorothy nodded, trying to send a signal to Katie that she understood . . . it was okay . . . whatever she needed to do. . . .
“Katie, honey, your birth father died more than ten years ago, around the same time as your mother.”
Katie’s emotions felt like they were in a pinball machine. It wasn’t like learning about the surprise death of someone she’d known. Still, she realized that in the midst of her doubts and suspicions, she had subconsciously begun to cling to some vague hope that for the first time in her life, perhaps she might have a father she could meet.
A guttural moan rose from within Katie. With her eyes closed, she began to rock forward and backward in her chair. Dorothy prayed to know when to continue, what physical steps to take next, if any. Oh, how she wanted to reach out, and yet, she continued to feel prompted to sit still. Katie’s brief rocking ceased and she bore her eyes into Dorothy, signaling her to proceed.
“I need to say this before anything else, because it is truth, and I pray you one day, no, this day, believe it: You are no mistake, Katie Durbin. You are loved by God and somehow, with His help, this can all work together for the good. I just know it.”
During the brief silence something shifted in Katie. She swallowed, clenched her jaw and now glared at Dorothy, as though daring her to continue with this preposterous tale couched in God talk.
“Things were different back then, Katie. People did things differently when a baby was conceived out of wedlock. Clarice made a choice to move away and finally lead a life of her own apart from your aunt and the suspicious eyes of a small town. She made a choice she believed was not only best for her, but especially for you.”
For the first time since she’d arrived, Katie spoke. “I’m listening, Dorothy.” Her voice was ice. “I can hardly wait to hear the rest of this.” Ice and cynicism. “Whoever my father is, was, he must have been a master of . . . well, of many things, including self-justification and abandonment.”
“Your father, Katie, was a good man who loved deeply. A man who, for a brief moment, found himself succumbing to a temptat
ion he never imagined could be his. But more importantly, Katie, he . . . never knew about you. Your mother never gave him a chance to find out.” Katie’s jaw clenched.
Help me to hear what you want me to say, Lord, and then have the courage and Your power and might to say it so it can be received! Shape my words, oh God! Speak to Katie.
“Your mother, Katie, was a warm, loving human being. She was raised by a sister who was no more than an orphaned and grieving girl of seventeen herself when she took on the full role of parenting her two-year-old sister, your mother. Clarice grew to be a strong, strong-willed, beautiful woman who had been brought up most of her life without the presence of a father—not unlike yourself.” Dorothy paused to allow for that connection to be drawn. “Clarice and Tess only had each other, and although their relationship was a complicated one because of their circumstances and roles, God saw them . . .”
Katie jumped into Dorothy’s heartfelt sentence, lashing out with biting disdain. “Spare me any more God talk, okay? I want to know if we’re almost to the good part of the story now, Dorothy. The part where I get to learn who this saint of a man was? This saint who succumbed to a moment of temptation with my saint of a mother?”
Dorothy braced herself against the torrent of words that came at her like the biting winds of change that had blown into her home not long ago. The image of the tree branches bending—yet not breaking—flicked into her mind and steadied her. Thank you, Jesus, for Your grace. Dorothy also knew that anger masked fear and wound; ever so gently and softly, she spoke to the lost soul before her. “Do you want me to be to that part of the story, Katie? Do you really want to know who your real father is? Goodness knows, it won’t be easy.”
“Want? Do I WANT you to tell me?” Katie rose to her feet. “What I want is of no accord here, nor has it ever been. What I am left with is. . . .” She turned her back on Dorothy.
What was she left with? She had two choices: say yes and learn, or say no and leave. Learn and deal with it, never meeting the man who had sired her. Leave and never know, run . . . back to Chicago and forget this entire Pardon-Me-Ville sham of a town.
Chicago. What was there for her now? Who was there for her now?
And if she did run, how could she ever leave her questions behind?
Did she want to know?
She turned and stared at Dorothy, the question hanging between them.
Dorothy closed her eyes and began to pray aloud. “Lord, it needs to be said. Forgive me for breaking the covenant . . . and for being a part of it. Prepare Katie’s heart, God, now. Prepare her heart and make strong my conviction to speak it.”
Dorothy kept her eyes closed while Katie could only wonder, Do I want to know? Do I WANT to know? Before she could account for it, Katie spat, “Do I want to know?” She bit her lip, first on one side, then the other. Her quieting voice and slumping posture indicated the resignation and brokenness in her next words as she sank back down in her chair. “How can I not?”
“Katie,” Dorothy said in a firm voice, “your father is Delbert Carol. Pastor Delbert Carol, Senior.”
16
“Eugene. Doc here. Seems you’ve been tracking me down like a beagle on a coon’s trail. I got to the office and Ellie had your message waiting for me. She said she told you it might be this afternoon before I called you back, so I hope you haven’t been sitting by your phone all day.”
“You think that’s all I’ve got to do?” Eugene chuckled—although Doc hadn’t been far off the mark.
“I’m sure it’s not. I stopped at Harry’s to get a bite to eat before coming home; my refrigerator is nearly bare. When I got home, before I could even pick up the receiver, there you were on my answering machine. By golly, you are a relentless old dog. Along with your call, I also had four other messages from people who saw Sharon’s article in the paper yesterday announcing the committees, including our names for history. Seems everybody thinks they’re worthy of fame in our booklet.”
“I got a few calls myself. Speaking of relentless old dogs, I bet if we compared our call lists, they’d nearly be one and the same. Cora Davis, right?”
“Right.”
“Gladys, right? Although she said she was just calling to check in with our progress.”
“Right. But we both know she better be on our lists, and at the top, too.”
“Right. And then, let’s see, Sam Vitner. Said, ‘Who wouldn’t want to read about how Swappin’ Sam’s came into being.’”
“Nope. I didn’t hear from Sam. I did have a lengthy message on my machine from Maggie Malone, though. She said she probably has more living relatives and heirs in and around this town than anyone else. And you know, I believe she’s right. Do you know anyone else who had nine kids who all had kids?”
“Nope. Rather than spending more time on our phone calls, though, let’s get to our picks.”
“I set it right here by the phone before I went to bed last night so I’d remember where it was when we talked. Hold on; let me get my reading glasses out of their case.” The phone banged to the floor and Eugene heard Doc’s voice from a distance. “Stay with me, Eugene! I dropped the phone!” There were a few clunking noises, then Doc was back. “All right. Ready. Who wants to go first?”
“Go right on ahead.”
“I’ll just read you my list, which is in no particular order. There’s a couple you might not agree with, but then there’s a couple that just seem obvious, aside from you and me, of course.”
“Fire.”
“Speaking of you and me, I’m assuming since Gladys put us on the history committee because of our birthin’ and buryin’ that she also wants our personal stories in the booklet, right?”
“You know, Doc, I hadn’t really thought about it, but now that you mention it, I believe you’re right about that. So should we make ourselves one of our five? Or put us on each other’s lists?”
“Eugene,” Doc said, then halted himself while he squeezed out a dose of patience. Like Ellie had learned this morning (and not for the first time), Eugene could occasionally become exasperating. “Read me your list first, just the way you got it, okay? You’re gonna be burying me before we get the easy part of our task over with!”
“Okay. Here we go. First on my list of important people who have had an impact on Partonville: Pastor Delbert Carol, Senior. What with he and his son pastoring the largest church in our town for nearly fifty years total—a landmark worth its own celebration—we’d be hard pressed to find a man who has had more of a far-reaching influence on as many lives as his, all the way into eternity. I’m sure Pastor Delbert (pause) junior, that is, would be glad to put together a piece about his dad and family.”
“Excellent choice, Eugene! Excellent! Their family was at the top of my list too. I’ll give Pastor a call as soon as we hang up.”
Kevin was already sitting at the jocks’ table by the time Josh made it to the service area in the lunchroom cafeteria line. Although Josh was making small talk with a couple of the guys in line in front of him, as well as being polite to Anita and Becky who were preening behind him and talking loudly about the upcoming dance—no doubt hinting at, and clearly vying for invitations (obviously Deb wasn’t a tell-all)—he’d kept an eye on Kevin’s every move, waiting to see if they might make eye contact so he could get a read on how welcome he’d be sitting next to him.
No eye contact. He’d been so intent on watching Kevin and fielding conversations that he’d mindlessly scooted his tray down the line, bypassing all the main-dish selections. By the time he woke up to the task at hand, all that was left were the vegetable choices, so he got two sides of mashed potatoes, a side corn and a turkey dressing. He plunked two cartons of milk on his tray and grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl near the registers. Return to Doofusville.
He mentally throttled down shades of anything that resembled evidence of what was beginning to feel like his new town of residence, shored himself up and approached the table with an air of bravado. “Hey!” he
said to Kevin as he wedged his tray down to the table between Kevin’s shoulders and the guy next to him, a guy who gave him a dirty look, but nevertheless scooted over enough for Josh to swing one leg over the seat bench, then the next, finally settling himself in.
“Hey yourself, Josh-o.” Rather than look at Josh, Kevin looked at Josh’s tray while he talked. “What’s up with the vegetarian platter? You’re not turning weird, are you?”
Skip asking him to never call you Josh-o again, and just seize the opening. “No weirder than I acted last week.” Atta boy! “Sorry about the attitude. I’ve gotten over myself. No hard feelings?” He held out his right hand toward Kevin, palm up.
Kevin stared at it for a second. “None, my man,” he finally said with a half-grin. Kevin skidded his palm across Josh’s in a familiar gesture of Hethrow High buddies.
“In fact, I’m so over myself, I wondered if you might wanna double to the dance.”
Kevin held his fork in front of his mouth for a moment, then set it down on his plate and turned to face Josh square on. “Serious?”
“Serious.”
“Who with, I mean besides you?”
“Deb.”
“Deb?”
“Deborah Arnold.”
“You joking?”
“Nope.”
Kevin turned back to his plate and shoveled in a mouthful. After chewing, swallowing and loading up his fork again, he spoke, but again without looking at Josh. “You didn’t ask her yet though, right?”
“Wrong. I already asked her.”
“And she said yes?”
“It’s a date!”
Kevin ate the bite that had been perched in front of his mouth, took a few gulps of milk and ate some more, his fork clanking into his plate with each reload as though he was trying to crack it open before scooping. “Double, huh?”
“Thought it might be fun. Think?”
“Does she know you wanna double, with me?”
“Not yet, but I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t think it was okay. You two know each other, right?”
Dearest Dorothy, Help! I've Lost Myself! Page 17
