Filed to story: Love on the Sidelines (Natalie & Karl)
“Dad would be nice, but if you’re not ready for that, Jim will do.”
“Where have you been all this time?”
“In the navy until a few years ago. Now I live in Jonesboro and work for an accounting firm. I wanted to be as close to you as possible.” 61
“You never got married?”
“No. I guess part of me still loves your mother and always will.”
“And Aunt Jane?”
He hesitated again. “I cared about her, Natalie, but I don’t think I ever really loved her.
If we’d gotten married it would have been a disaster. I think she understands that now, and she’s obviously forgiven your mother and loves you. They all do. Your mother is waiting to hear from you. She’s nearly sick with worry.”
“You’ve talked to her?”
“Yes. Several times in the last week. It’s not going to be easy for either of us, but I believe she’s willing to work around her feelings toward me for your sake. Everything she did was to protect you, Natalie. Don’t you think it’s time to go home now?”
“I don’t know.” Part of me longed to, felt only half-alive without my family. But the other part still hesitated, unsure of how to behave now that everything I’d believed in had come crashing down.
“You don’t have to do it alone,” he said. “I’ll go with you.” I couldn’t move in with Jenna permanently. Sooner or later I had to face my mother.
It might as well be now. Slowly, I slid off the wooden seat. “Okay.” My father was a stranger to me. I don’t know why his presence seemed so comforting at that moment. Maybe it was because he was a stranger, someone who could take a neutral stance in the emotional upheaval I knew was coming. If he’d blamed my mother, or tried to excuse what he’d done, things would have been different. But he hadn’t, and for that if nothing else, I thought I might come to like him.
Mama was watching for us at the back door. She met me halfway, her step hesitant as her eyes searched mine. And suddenly, I was three years old again, depending on her to fix all my injuries, to make my world safe. “I’m sorry, Mama,” I whispered, tears choking my throat until it hurt.
Without a word, she held her arms open and I stumbled into them, both of us crying and apologizing, each tripping over the words in our rush to make amends, then laughing through our tears. My father stood quietly beside us, a bit of moisture in his eyes as well.
Eventually the waterworks dried up and the three of us spent a long time talking that night. Mama refused to let Jim take all the blame for what had happened. She said if she’d handled the situation differently, been honest with herself and Jane from the start, things would have worked out better for all of us. She also agreed that I should get to know my father, spend some time with him occasionally.
But while I gained a father, in the long run I lost an element of closeness with my mother that we could never get back. I was changed by the experience I’d gone through, as was she. We still loved each other and always would, but I wasn’t a naïve little girl anymore. I had found the hidden closet in our lives and dragged the skeletons out into the bright light of day. We could never put them back again.
If our relationship hadn’t changed, maybe I could have talked to her later when I needed to so desperately. But it had, and I didn’t, and a hundred wishes won’t change the past. Mama had found that out the hard way. My lesson was still coming, and it would be the most grueling thing I’d experienced up to that point. But maybe I needed it. Maybe I couldn’t have gotten through what came afterwards if I hadn’t been tempered by the flames of Karl’s leaving.
Another year went by. Life gradually settled back to its normal routine after my father’s first appearance, and if I was a little quieter no one seemed to notice, not even Karl. But then, I hadn’t seen much of Karl lately. When he’d first gone to work at the garage, he’d lived almost exclusively in his room in the barn. That continued through the winter I was in eleventh grade and on into the summer. Now, inexplicably, he began staying at the salvage yard again and rarely showed up at the farm.
I didn’t think too much about it at first. Other things occupied my mind. My eighteenth birthday had come and gone, I had a father I was trying to become accustomed to, and I was a senior that year. On top of that, Hugh had stepped up his campaign to get me to go out with him.
Hugh was a nice looking young man, tall and well-built with his mother’s thick, light brown hair and his father’s green eyes. He was popular, too, and could have had his choice of any of the girls in town even without his family’s money backing him up.
Although she’d never admitted it, I think Jenna had a mad crush on him during most of our school years. But I suspected that his family, like mine, was pushing him to date me. Helena Morgan had very definite ideas about who was suitable for her son, and I was on the top of her list. If she’d known the circumstances of my birth she might have changed her mind, but as far as anyone but a handful of people knew, my father was merely my mother’s ex-husband.
All in all, I was simply tired of telling Hugh “no” every thirty minutes. That’s why, a month into my final year of school, I decided it was time for Karl and me to bring our relationship into the open. I didn’t want to hide anymore. I wanted the entire world to know I loved him.
It had been two weeks since I’d last seen him and I didn’t know when he’d be back in his room. Not willing to wait, I headed for the garage as soon as school was out that afternoon. I parked the Chevy on the far sideoftheairpumpsoitwouldn’tbein anyone’s way and headed for the work bay. I never made it.
I had only taken a few steps when I saw him. He was in back of the building, old worn-out tires scattered around him in haphazard piles, and he wasn’t alone. Lindsey was with him. I could have ignored that if it weren’t for their postures, but the way they were standing brought me to a sudden halt.
Lindsey’s face was lifted to his, and Karl was looking down at her, his expression intense while he talked to her in a low gentle voice I could hear, but not understand.
His hand curled around her nape in a possessive way that even I couldn’t miss, his thumb moving over her cheek. Lindsey’s body curved toward his as if drawn by 64 magnetic forces beyond her control. And just like that, I knew why he hadn’t been coming to the farm. I was only surprised I hadn’t realized it until now.
Coming as it did, while I was still wrestling with having a father in my life and dealing with the changes in my relationship with Mama, it was too much for me to take.
I didn’t get mad, or jealous, or throw a fit. My emotions simply shut down until all I felt was blessed numbness. I can only imagine that’s what Karl saw when he looked up abruptly, his eyes meeting mine.
I turned around, got back in the car, and left. If Karl made any attempt to stop me, I didn’t hear it and wouldn’t have listened if I had. Couldn’t listen. But I don’t think he did.
Once home, I went straight to the phone and dialed Hugh’s number. Still reacting, not thinking. Anything to keep from thinking.
My voice was calm when he answered. “Hugh? It’s Natalie. Do you still want to go to the movies tomorrow night?” I listened while he said yes. “Great. Pick me up about six-thirty.”
If Karl thought I’d confront him about what I’d seen, demand an explanation like I would have a year ago, he was wrong. I couldn’t seem to make myself care enough to bother. For the next three months I moved on autopilot. I ate, I went to school, I studied like I never had before, and I dated Hugh every time he asked me. Gradually, people began to link our names together like they always do with couples. It was Natalie and Hugh, never simply Natalie alone, or Hugh alone. People started to take it for granted that we’d be married as soon as we graduated, and the only one who wasn’t thrilled was Piggy Treece. She’d always thought she and Hugh were meant for each other and she didn’t appreciate my interference. She and her friends did their best to start nasty rumors about me, but it’s hard to wound someone who doesn’t care, and they finally gave it up.
Hugh never took more liberties than a goodnight kiss while we were together. He was a friend, first and foremost, and I think he suspected that something wasn’t quite right. He treated me like I was some rare and fragile egg that might shatter if he held me wrong. Who knows? Maybe he was right.
On Christmas, we spent most of the day together, first with my family for dinner, then with his for supper. He gave me a beautiful charm bracelet adorned with a multitude of tiny, delicate charms. I gave him a plaque with his name embossed on the front and the words “Vice President” etched underneath to put on his desk when he started working with his father. His family got a big kick out of it, but I think they were all secretly pleased at my faith in Hugh.