Capture the Wind for Me (46 page)

I froze, a plate in each hand. Guilt sloshed about in my stomach as I forced myself to look at her. “Very much.”

She gave me a sad smile. “I know you visit him every Saturday. Folks tell me they see you at his grave.”

Those Bradleyville eyes never did miss much. Maybe half the town guessed about Derek and me. Did they know about that horrid little voice inside me too? I placed one plate on top of the other, reached for a third. “He was . . . very dear to me.”

She ran her hand up and down the glass. Then straightened her back to look me full in the face. “I know about the socks.”

Her stunning statement brought heat to my cheeks. No, I wailed inside,
she took away the one thing we could always share!
All those weeks that I'd taken comfort in the socks—how they'd symbolized the part of me I'd given to Derek. I focused on the dirty plates, suddenly heavy in my hands. Stiffly, I put them back on the table.

“Mr. Henks called me. The funeral director. He wanted to carry out your wish, but he just didn't feel right without getting my permission.”

My eyes would not rise from the tablecloth. If he'd told her this, surely he'd relayed to her my reason. She had to know everything, all I'd done. The depth of my dishonesty. What she must think of me.

“I told him yes, of course.”

I blinked at her in surprise. The way she spoke the last two words, as if denying my request would somehow have denied her precious son. The gratitude that flooded me nearly weakened my knees.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Derek wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Because they were a gift from you.”

I nodded again, unable to say another word. Her eyes glistened as they told me things she wouldn't speak. She took a deep breath, blew it out. “Well. Guess we'd better get these dishes cleared.” She reached for the glass.

“Miss Connie,” I blurted, “does anyone else know? About the socks, I mean.”
Please no! Please not Katherine!

“Just Derek's daddy. No one else will ever know.”

My eyes closed. I felt almost sick with relief. When I looked at her face once more, I saw no judgment there, only regret for things that would never be.

Miss Connie slowly exhaled, then picked up the glass. I stood rooted to the spot as she disappeared into the kitchen.

We did not speak of the socks again.

chapter 53

T
hanksgiving weekend wrapped up the LuvRush tour. Greg phoned me on Monday, elated over their final concert. “It is wonderful!” he exclaimed. “We sing very good. We are so tired, we think we will be happy it is the last, but then we do not want it to stop.”

They would spend a few days in L.A., discussing future issues with their manager. On Friday, Demetri, Alex, and Lysander would return to Greece. Greg would catch an early morning flight to Lexington that day, then drive to Bradleyville. Celia and his brother, Danny, also were coming.

I couldn't stand the waiting. Everything within me reached toward Friday evening, when Greg would appear at my door. After all the heartache and guilt of the past few months, and with the unsettled atmosphere between Daddy and Katherine, even as they counted the days until their wedding, all I wanted to do was cling to Greg. Tell him in person how much I loved him. Try to get my life back to some sense of equilibrium.

In that final patchwork of days before I saw Greg, the last worn threads of Daddy and Katherine's relationship unraveled.

Tuesday evening, Katherine would not come to the phone when Daddy called her parents' house. “She's just pullin' away from everybody,” Miss Connie worried to him. Daddy clicked off the receiver and stood wordlessly in the kitchen, staring through the back glass to the cold night beyond. One look at his face, and a trapdoor opened in my stomach. I hadn't seen such fear in his expression since Mama's approaching death.

I put my arms around him, feeling the new slimness around his back. “Daddy, I love you. Everything's gonna be okay.”

He barely returned the hug. “I love you too, Jackie.”

Later I would hear the details of the events that followed. On Wednesday, Daddy tried to call Katherine at the boutique numerous times. “I'm too busy to talk right now, Bobby,” she said every time, her voice preoccupied, aloof. “I'll call you later.”

That night Daddy showed up unannounced at the Kings', demanding that Katherine take a drive. They
had
to talk. Reluctantly, Katherine acquiesced. Not until then did Katherine admit she was having second thoughts about the wedding. So much had happened. So much within herself had changed. Yes, she loved him and the kids, she said. But how could she take Melissa's place? She'd begun to realize in October that she never would. “Jackie's now acting like she doesn't want me around,” she added. And she had no strength to fight me. She did not admit then how deeply my indifference cut her. How used she felt. She'd done all she could to help me with Greg, overlooking the desires of her own brother. Now I had Greg completely, and Derek was dead. Now I no longer needed her services.

Finally, Katherine told Daddy, he'd made it clear that she was not first in his eyes. He would never move from Bradleyville for her sake. Didn't even want her working in Lexington a few days each month. She felt unwanted, unappreciated, and yes, trapped.

They could work out their problems, Daddy insisted. They loved each other. Daddy placed a hand on her cheek. “I don't think any of these things are the real reason,” he said quietly. “I think you're lettin' your old fears rise up. ‘Trapped' is a word from your past. This is the present. We love you. We need you.”

Katherine shook her head. “You think you do. But I'm not good enough for you. Deep inside you believe that. I'm not good and perfect like Melissa was.”

“That's not true! How can you say that?”

“It is true, Bobby. And it will only become more true. I need more than you can give. And besides, we are so completely different! We'll only end up hurting each other.”

They talked for two more hours until Daddy believed he'd convinced her how wrong she was. Katherine finally waved a tired hand at Daddy, mouthing shallow assurances—you're right, you're right. Take me back home now, I'll be fine. I just haven't been thinking straight.

I don't believe until that point she had planned to leave that night. But Katherine now hung like a drop of dew on a spiderweb—clinging, balancing, ready to fall. She knew in her heart the marriage would not survive, and she couldn't stand to witness its slow demise. And for all their talking, she didn't feel Daddy had heard her. Best to cut things off right now, she told herself. Less pain for everyone in the long run.

As her parents slept, she quietly packed her car.

Thursday morning, the day before Greg came, Katherine went to work as usual. She called her mama at the end of the day, took a deep breath, and told what she'd decided. She knew it was the right thing to do, so don't try to talk her out of it. She was headed for Lexington to stay with Sylvia. If she was going to break things off with Bobby, she needed to get completely away. Next, she would call Bobby to tell him the wedding was off.

Miss Connie, her heart already broken over one child, begged and begged Katherine not to go. Her daddy threatened to drive to the shop and force her home.

“Don't,” Katherine retorted. “You can't force me anywhere, Daddy; you think you can live my life for me? Think you can make my decisions?”

When she phoned our house, I answered. In a worn and distant tone she asked to speak with Daddy. And somehow I knew. She could not be home yet, I realized. She had to still be at the store. I pressed the receiver to my ear, gripping the edge of the kitchen counter, trying to think of something,
anything
to say. I could not call Daddy to the phone. But he'd heard the ring from the family room and now stood in the doorway, his body going rigid at the sight of my own. Silently, he held out his hand.

My feet cemented to the floor as I watched Daddy's face. I could hear Katherine's voice as she told him how sorry she was. How she wished it would have worked out. That she loved him, but there was simply too many differences between them to overcome. Please tell Clarissa and Robert goodbye for her.

She did not mention me. I winced at that, thinking how much she must despise me. I now know that she simply did not think I would care.

Daddy pled with her, but she would not listen. Finally spent, he fell into stunned silence. He showed no anger. That would come later. Shock comes first; I know that. I've lived through death before.

He did not hang up the phone, even as the dial tone clicked on. I had to take the receiver from his dangling hand.

Clarissa wandered in, tipping her head and frowning as she studied our faces. “What's—”

“Nothin', Clarissa, go on.” I gave her a little shove.

“But—”

“Go.”

Daddy blinked, then looked right through her. Apprehension widened her eyes. Abruptly, then, she trotted away and down the hall, as if the very act of leaving would protect her from whatever new bad thing had happened.

I placed the receiver on the table. “Daddy?”

He came to life with a rasp of breath and stumbled from the kitchen. His bedroom door smacked shut. I crept after him on shaky legs and listened at his door, my heart hammering. Nothing. Then a groan rose from deep within him, a groan of such despair that it ripped my chest in two. My knees went weak. At that moment, I honestly was afraid of what my daddy might do.

I ran back to the kitchen and with shaking fingers dialed my grandparents. “You better come over,” I choked to Grandma Delham. “Katherine's left Daddy, and I'm so scared. He needs you.” Then in desperation I called Miss Jessie, begging her to
please do
something, talk some sense into Katherine, as if she had wings and magic to fly across space and land in her niece's fleeing path.

Grandma and Grandpa rushed through the front door without knocking, their faces pale. Grandpa headed to Robert's room to “keep the young 'uns occupied,” knowing instinctively that Daddy needed a mama's touch.

I hustled behind Grandma past the kitchen to the master bedroom, then hung back, palms pressed, fingers to my lips. A low moan filtered through the door. Grandma's eyes squeezed shut.

She knocked gently. “Bobby?” She eased the door open. I caught a glimpse of Daddy on his knees, face in his hands. Grandma hurried to him, knelt down. Put her arm around his shoulders. Daddy sagged against her like a lost child and broke into the wracking sobs of a man in agony. “Oh, Bobby,” Grandma crooned. “Oh, Bobby.”

Sick to the core, I turned away, unable to bear the sight.

chapter 54

F
riday. Greg would arrive around suppertime. Not that we'd be eating. Our entire family was numb. I think the town felt numb. By Thursday night, everybody knew, the phone lines buzzing, people gasping at the news, everyone resolving to pray.

Daddy did not go to work. Not since Mama died had I seen him so immobilized. That morning, he barely dragged himself from his bedroom. Determined to keep an eye on him, I refused to go to school. I'd thought to get the kids off, but Robert would not go either. And Clarissa couldn't stop crying long enough to get dressed. I gave up and let them stay home.

My brother proved the small version of Daddy, breaking down in my arms before the morning had passed. “Why did she go?” he demanded over and over.
“Why?”
I held his thin shoulders and patted his hair, seething with anger at Katherine, decrying the day she set foot in town. I should have done more to stop her then. I'd known from the very beginning, hadn't I? I'd let her wheedle me in, wrap me around her finger like she had the rest of the town. I should have done
something.

The phone rang constantly. I answered, knowing that Daddy had unplugged the receiver in his bedroom. Folks wondered if there was anything they could do other than pray. They assured me Katherine would come back. I knew better. Katherine did not “come back” to anything once she'd left.

Miss Connie came over, shoulders drooping, her eyes rimmed and puffy. Daddy put listless arms around her, and she heaved into tears. She'd come to apologize for her daughter, she said. On her knees, if she could. She was so, so sorry and ashamed. As if what Katherine had done somehow reflected on her own motherhood.

“Don't you worry, we'll keep prayin',” Daddy soothed her. For the moment, he was out of tears.

She wiped her eyes, drawing a deep breath. “I have to . . .” She blinked tears away. Reached for her purse. Drew out a small blue velvet box, her fingers closed around it as if it might break. “I found this on her dresser.” She held it out to Daddy, unable to look him in the eye. “The ring's inside.”

Daddy stared at it in disbelief. I think until that point, even in his grief, he'd held on to the hope that Katherine would return, that the wedding could go on as planned. He took the box from Miss Connie without a word.

Twelve o'clock. Six hours before Greg arrived. He'd called the night before, excited about coming, only for me to throw a wet blanket on his entire trip with the news. I couldn't help thinking how unfair it would be for Daddy to see us together. I wanted to cry over that thought, but I couldn't. I wanted to cry my pain over Daddy's hopelessness, and my anger over Katherine's foolishness. I wanted to cry for how much I'd missed Greg, and for Derek, and for Mama. And I desperately wanted to cry over Katherine, for now my emotions had swung from wishing we'd never met her to fervently wishing she hadn't gone. Despite the recent distance between us, despite what she thought of me or I thought of her, I knew how much my family had come to rely on her. She had brought them happiness. Now that their joy had been snatched away, I couldn't help but think I was partly to blame. I began to realize how my own guilt had pushed Katherine away. For my family's sake, I should have done something to close the gap that had opened between us. Maybe, just maybe then, she wouldn't have gone.