Healing Faith

by Jennyfer Browne

I looked out the kitchen window at the fog and rain lightly falling. It had been that way since I had come home. No sun, no heat. Just the cold wet California coastal dreariness.

  "It's raining. I'd rather not go out when it's raining," I replied coolly and turned to start the water for dishes.

  “We’ll stay in,” Stacy suggested. “You can help me with some things on the computer.”

  I nodded and concentrated on the dishes, the room growing silent except for the running of water. I had thought our father had left until I heard his voice a few minutes later.

  "I'm sorry, Katie."

  I paused in scraping the dishes to turn and look his way. He sat there, slightly hunched in his chair and looking down at his hands in his lap. He was a tall man, much like Nathan, but now he seemed small in comparison. He seemed so insignificant as he slouched there, so unlike Jonah or any of the Amish men who would have sat tall and protected their family.

  Frank Hill was nothing but a coward, all show for his public audiences, but in his home, he was lost.

  I waited for him to continue.

  "I can't begin to think of what you have gone through," he started.

  I laid the plate down and leaned against the counter, waiting for more. Waiting for him to acknowledge what I had been trying to tell him for so long. How his neglect had made me feel insignificant. How his attitude towards Sean had made me think he cared for him more than me.

  His words surprised me.

  "I'll make this right, Katie. You don't need to run anymore. I'll get this figured out. I'll take care of Sean," he said, his eyes narrowing as if in determination.

  "Then you should have had him locked up when we first got home, Dad. He's gone, probably hiding with friends on campus or down in San Francisco. Probably using the money you gave him," I replied, my voice a little rough in my ears.

  He looked up and shook his head vehemently.

  "No. Sean wouldn't run. Bill told me last night. He'll bring him in. And if this DNA comes back positive," he began.

  "When the DNA comes back positive, Dad!" I exclaimed, Stacy stepping in to hold me back as I advanced on our father. "When it comes back! Still you don't believe me! What will it take? Him beating me in front of you? Me dead? Why can't you believe me?"

  "I believe you, Katie," he murmured, looking down again, uncomfortable.

  "You believe me because I went around you. The evidence is there now. Neither you nor Mr. Miller can hide it now," I said.

  "Bill would never hide anything, Katie,” he spat out, his eyes hardening again. “You were the one that hid. Ran away instead of facing your problems."

  "Not anymore," I whispered and turned back to the dishes.

  "I'll fix it, Katie. I'll keep you safe."

  "I was safe where I was, Dad. Until Sean came. I won't be safe until he is locked up," I replied and plunged the dishes into the hot water, fighting back the tears.

  "I'll make sure no one hurts you again, Katie. Now that you're back, I'll be here more. We'll do more things. I’ll quit the council," he started only to pause when I shook my head and laughed again.

  "I'm not staying, Dad. As soon as Sean's in jail, I'm leaving," I said. “You can keep your council seat. It was always more important than us. Mom knew. I know now.”

  “That’s unfair,” he said and stood. “My work has kept a roof over your head and kept you happy.”

  “Not happy, Dad,” I replied, never looking back. “Kept, yes. But never happy. I was happy in Iowa.”

  I could feel him moving behind me, and I closed my eyes, bracing for him to hit me. Or push me. Anything.

  "I don't think it's a good idea for you to go traipsing back to wherever Sean found you. You belong here. This is your home. You belong here," he argued, his voice only a little closer. He knew to stay away it seemed.

  "I have nothing here. As soon as I can, Dad. I'm gone," I whispered and returned to cleaning.

  He was quiet as I worked, and when I looked back several minutes later, I saw both he and Stacy had gone, leaving me to the quiet to think. I didn’t want the quiet to think though. Thinking only made me remember those I had left and what they would be doing. I needed to keep busy or I’d go insane.

  I finished up the dishes and made a list of chores to accomplish. The list was long as I looked through the house. Laundry to be done, dusting, vacuuming. If it were not raining, the carpets would have gone out to be beaten clean. I sighed and went to work, happy for the work to occupy my time.

  The things I had done before I had found the Bergers didn’t interest me anymore. My father stayed clear of me, watching television or talking on the phone with Deputy Miller about Sean. I caught a few words: surveillance, warrants, tests needed to be processed faster than they were. I wondered if maybe he thought I was right with Sean disappearing, or that Sean had already run. I wondered if Deputy Miller had called him with news of Sean conveniently gone. A cold shiver ran through me at the thought that he could show up at any time.

  Or he was on his way back to deal with Nathan.

  How far would Sean go to get back at me?

  I cleaned a little harder, trying to forget about the fear and loneliness that gripped me. After only a month with them, the Berger's had become such a part of my life. Nathan had become everything. I missed them desperately. And I was afraid for them.

  Stacy ventured to help me with lunch, trying unsuccessfully to cheer me up. In the end she and my dad ate their lunch in silence in the kitchen, and I retreated up to my room to sit and wait for the laundry to finish. I felt restless as I lay there on my big plush bed. I wasn't used to having so much free time. I moved around in my room, straightening up, sorting through my clothes to find something I felt comfortable in. I tried to read but I couldn't, a headache coming on from the grey light in the room. I sighed and made my way back downstairs, desperate to do something, anything that would get my mind off the tortuous thoughts of what the Bergers and Nathan would be doing, and if they had tried to find me at all.

  I made dinner, something simple and lackluster that my dad merely grunted and shoveled in.

  Business as usual.

  Stacy tried again to pull me from my solitude by offering to play a board game, but I refused her. I could see the hurt in her eyes at my refusal, but every moment I spent with my family made me wish I were back in Iowa.

  I went to bed early by my father’s standards, late by my new ones. But the fear of Sean coming for me made me restless. I had trouble closing my eyes until exhaustion took over, only to be confronted with paranoid visions as I slept. I dreamt of running through the corn, up a familiar hill, to find myself lost, pushing and shoving through endless rows dry, rustling stalks that grabbed at me. I woke up several times in the night, sweating and tangled in my sheets as if I had truly run in my sleep.

  My dad retreated back to work the next day, promising to come home early. Still no news of Sean, and still no test results. I grew more restless, needing something to do. But the house was clean. And the rain poured outside, trapping me indoors. I was scared of being ambushed should I walk outside the house. Sean had friends here too.

  The house became a prison of sorts, leaving my mind to drift over scenarios that included Sean coming after me or of Nathan being harmed because of Sean's jealous rage. I grew more worried that Sean had left to go back to Iowa when I overheard Stacy arguing with my dad as soon as he came home late in the afternoon. My dad went so far as to slam the front door when the conversation turned to my sister accusing my father of helping to hide Sean from the law. Stacy soon stomped to her room, her own door slamming to end the argument.

  I pulled away from the window in my room, tired of all the rain, wishing for the warm sunset over Nathan’s hill. I hoped I would be able to see it again soon. I could feel the distance between us. I could feel my heart growing heavier at the length of time away. Four days now, and no way to comfort him. No way to tell him I was even alive.

  He would think the worst.

&nb
sp; Hunger finally drove me back to the kitchen, my only refuge from my restlessness. I was contemplating spaghetti when I heard a knock at the front door. I heard my father walk towards the hall to answer it. Fear gripped me and I paused in the kitchen doorway when I saw him frown at whatever he saw through the door.

  I held my breath and pushed myself back into the doorway of the kitchen, scared that perhaps it was Sean. Or the police to tell us that Sean was indeed gone. My dad glanced at me and put his hand up as if to warn me to stay away. I grabbed a hold of the doorframe to brace for the worst as he opened the door.

  The smell of the rain assaulted my senses as the cool wind blew in.

  And a voice.

  "Pleasant day, Mr. Hill? I am Nathan Fisher. I am here to bring Kate home."

  I felt my heart jump in my throat at the words.

  Nathan was here.

  Nathan had come to bring me home.

  Chapter 29

  I was shaking.

  His voice.

  Nathan was here?

  I couldn't get my head around it.

  I took a halting step forward, terrified that my mind had suddenly snapped and that I was imagining things.

  My father stood in the doorway, blocking my view. But I knew that voice.

  "Please, Mr. Hill. I have come a long way. Is Kate here?"

  Maybe it was the pain in his soft voice. Maybe it was the magnetic pull I felt whenever he was close.

  Maybe it was the desperate need to be comforted again.

  I found myself slipping around my father to find Nathan standing before me. His eyes widened a second before I had my arms around him, wanting to feel him against me.

  Please be real.

  "Kate."

  His voice was choked as his arms wrapped around me, cold and wet. He was standing there, on my porch, drenched from the rain.

  Away from his home.

  In English clothes.

  It didn't even faze me.

  I couldn't appreciate the beauty of him, because he was trembling from the cold California coastal chill that must have caught him unawares. I pulled away to look at him. To be sure it was really he, because my head had hoped and imagined such things before too many times.

  He looked different in these clothes. Taller and thinner, and his face looked different.

  Pale and drawn.

  Blue lips.

  Trembling.

  "You're soaked," I breathed, feeling the rain that soaked through his clothes bleeding into mine as he held me.

  "It is raining," he murmured, his dark eyes taking me in, seeing everything. "I did not think about the rain."

  His teeth chattered and I felt his body shudder again.

  "You need to come in out of the weather," I replied, my mind swiftly thinking about caring for him in his need.

  Had to get him dry. Had to get him warm.

  Had to know he was real.

  I reached for his cold hand and pulled him towards the door.

  "Kate," my father said roughly behind me. "Who the hell is this?"

  I tugged Nathan inside, towards the stairs, never looking away.

  "This is Nathan."

  Wasn't it obvious?

  I pulled him up the stairs, his eyes never leaving mine as he stumbled behind me. I heard my father below, calling my name in agitation, but I didn't care. Everything in me was saying Nathan was here, and I needed to get him out of his wet clothes.

  I switched on the bathroom light to which his eyes squinted at the harshness of it.

  "I know, you'll get used to it in a minute," I whispered and moved to turn on the shower, to get the steam going.

  "Kate," he whispered, his voice quivering. He was looking at me again, at everything about me with pained eyes.

  I shook my head and looked at his chest, at the buttons I was unfastening quickly to get rid of the wet shirt that clung to the t-shirt underneath.

  "We have to get you warm. I know it's not that cold out, but you're not used to it. Your lips are blue. You'll get sick. I couldn't stand it if you got sick," I said, seeing only the task at hand.

  Get him warm.

  Take care of him.

  Pulling off the soaked t-shirt to reveal shivering skin.

  "Kate," he said, a little louder.

  I felt his cold hands on mine, stalling me at his half unbuttoned jeans. The gentle pressure of his hands broke me from my trance so that I could look upon him and see that he was really there, standing before me shivering and bare-chested.

  He gently pried my hands away, frowning as he looked down at me.

  "I can do this, Kate. You do not have to tend to me," he whispered gently, his cold fingertips tracing along my cheek, just under the bruise that lay there.

  I looked down again, embarrassed at what he saw and nodded.

  "Sorry. I don't know what I was doing. I just. You're here," I choked out and put my head in my hands, feeling my breath catch at the immensity of having him there with me. I felt his arms around me once more, cementing it for me.

  Nathan was here.

  "Kate!"

  I jumped at the sound of my name and the banging on the bathroom door. I wiped my eyes and stepped away hurriedly, looking down at my feet as I took a step towards the door.

  "I'll get you a change of clothes. And then I'll make you something to eat," I said hurriedly, avoiding his eyes, before cracking the door open and slipping out to face Dad who seemed to loom just outside the door. Stacy was coming out of her room, her eyes wide when she noticed someone else in the bathroom behind me just as I closed the door.

  But our father wasn’t in the mood to wait for answers.

  "Care to tell me who exactly this Nathan is? And why you think it's a good idea to have him taking a shower in my house?" he hissed, pointing towards the bathroom.

  “A shower?” Stacy interjected, her eyebrows rising as she looked at me expectantly.

  I pushed away from the door and moved past them, down the stairs to where the laundry lay folded up. I found a t-shirt of my father’s, and a pair of sweat pants. I paused over the boxer shorts, thinking in bittersweet reflection of the last time I had dealt with Nathan’s underclothes.

  Turning around, my father was hovering again.

  "Who is he, Katie?"

  I couldn't step away from his intimidating stare, but it was difficult to explain who Nathan was to me in this world.

  "He's her boyfriend," Stacy answered for me, glancing back up the stairs with a curious look on her face.

  The news that I had a boyfriend other than Sean confounded my father; I could tell by his open mouth, his disbelieving eyes.

  "You ran away from Sean and got yourself a boyfriend while you were gone? While you were figuring out life, you find this kid?" he asked, incredulous.

  I lifted my chin a bit in defiance.

  "I figured out a lot of things while I was gone, Dad. But you haven't once really asked me about what happened while I was gone, have you?" I asked, my eyes challenging him to argue with me.

  He blinked and stood there looming over me as if to say something else, before he took a step back, surrendering. He swallowed and glanced up at the ceiling, as if he could see Nathan above us in the shower as the water shut off.

  "Well don't expect him to stay here tonight," he grumbled and turned to walk out.

  "Then I'll leave too. I go where he goes," I said, my heart hammering in my throat at the conviction I had in my voice.

  My father turned back to me, gauging the authority in my voice. I stood there, trying not to shake. I had no doubts that I would leave with Nathan if my father refused him. It was just the simple fact of leaving the house, with Sean still on the loose that scared me. I needed closure with all of this before I finally did leave.

  And I knew without a doubt now that I would leave this all behind.

  “Katie,” Stacy intervened once more. “This is the perfect opportunity to let us get to know him. I’m sure Dad sees that. We don’t want you to le
ave before we know where it is you’re going, right, Dad?”

  She looked at him as if to persuade him to let Nathan stay.

  "He can sleep on the couch," he grumbled and started towards the hallway. “I’m not happy he’s here. I don’t like the idea that you turned your back on Sean for some kid I don’t even know. If he stays, I expect answers.”

  “Nathan wasn’t the one I was running from, Dad,” I said, feeling the anger bubble up inside of me once more.

  “Then your boyfriend won’t mind answering some questions to clear things up,” he said and turned back down the hall, disappearing into his office.

  “Don’t worry, Kate,” Stacy whispered. “If he is anything like you say he is, I’m sure this guy can handle our father. And besides, I’m curious.”

  I couldn’t help the small smile when I looked up to see Stacy’s eyes shining with mischief. She shrugged and wiggled her eyebrows before disappearing down the hall after our father. I took a calming breath and made my way back up stairs, knocking on the bathroom door quietly, and intent on taking care of the man that was most important to me.

  "Nathan?" I said softly through the door.

  The door cracked open, his face peeking out. I could tell his chest was still bare, the reflection in the mirror behind him showed off a lot more than he realized. I looked back into his eyes and quickly thrust the clothes towards him.

  "I have a change of clothes for you. We can dry the other ones," I murmured.

  He took the clothes from me and looked down at them in his hands, bashful.

  "Thank you, Kate. I will be out in a moment. Do not leave?" he asked, his voice sounding rough.

  "I'll be right here."

  A small smile appeared on his lips and he nodded as he closed the door. I could hear him in the bathroom, fumbling around until less than a minute later; he was opening the door and stepping out, clean and dry, except for his hair that was damp and finger combed haphazardly. I took the bundle of damp clothes from his hands and motioned him to follow me back downstairs. He stayed close, his hand brushing along the small of my back until we reached the kitchen, where I tossed his damp clothes into the dryer. I was turning around to face him when I felt his fingertips along my arm, tracing along the bruises I knew were there.