Filed to story: Love on the Sidelines (Natalie & Karl)
I hated the baby. If the only way to get rid of it was to kill myself, then that’s what I thought I had to do. Until the baby came, they put me on a twenty-four hour suicide watch. Then, when he was born, I refused to even look at him. I didn’t care what happened to him.”
Cody put his arm around her shoulders. “Karl took full responsibility for Daniel.
When Lindsey signed away all her paternal rights, Karl adopted him. You’ve meet Bowie Grant?”
I nodded.
“Well, Karl met Bowie when he was visiting Lindsey at the hospital. Bowie was retired with no family, and he sort of took Karl under his wing. When Daniel arrived, Bowie moved in with them and took care of the baby while Karl was working. Lindsey stayed in the army hospital for the next four years, until Karl’s service was up.” She nodded. “After the baby arrived, they were able to start me on a program of medication, and gradually I began to get better, although I was still a long way from being normal. By the time Karl took the job with the oil company, the doctors had decided I’d progressed enough to leave the hospital and live alone. So I went with them when they moved to Saudi. But I still could barely stand the sight of Daniel. I’m not proud of it, but I couldn’t seem to help it. When I looked at him, I didn’t see Daniel. I saw Frank.”
My palms were slick with sweat, and I brushed them against my legs as I leaned back. “But you must have lived with them?”
“No. Karl made arrangements with the company so I’d have my own apartment. I was still seeing a psychiatrist, and once Daniel started school, Bowie kind of took over the job of taking care of me.”
I tried to relax, but the longer we talked, the angrier I became, and the more I tensed. “Daniel said you had to talk Karl into coming home.” Her eyes got a faraway look in them and she smiled sadly. “Poor Karl. He was trying to protect both me and Daniel, even though he was miserable. We all knew he couldn’t forget you, that he still loved you. I couldn’t stand it anymore, couldn’t bear to let it continue. Guilt was eating me alive. I knew that if any of us wanted a chance at a normal life, I had to come back and face the past. I had to put things right.”
“What will you do now?” I forced my hands together in my lap.
Her gaze refocused and met mine. “I had planned to go live with my mother a while, but Cody convinced me to stay. You see, Daniel doesn’t know the truth yet. He still thinks Karl shot Frank. I don’t know how he’ll react when he finds out what really happened, but he deserves to know why his mother has ignored him all this time. And I really do want the chance to try and get to know my son.”
They didn’t stay long after that. I walked them to the door and unlocked it to let them out, my anger barely contained. On the threshold, Lindsey stopped and put her hand on my arm. “Please forgive Karl. He loves you so much, and was so afraid that you’d hate him when you discovered the truth.”
I didn’t answer her, and her hand fell away, a look of sadness in her eyes.
“Are you going to be okay?” Cody asked.
“I’m fine.” My calm tone hid the turmoil that boiled inside me.
“If you need me-“
“I’ll call,” I interrupted. I wanted them gone, out of my store, out of my sight.
I locked the door behind them and returned to my office, the rest of the store dark around me. Slowly, I sank onto my chair and buried my face in my hands. Time crawled by as I sat there, going over every detail of what I’d heard. And with every tick of the clock, my rage grew.
Any rational person would be thrilled that Karl had finally been exonerated. Any rational woman would be delirious with happiness to discover the man she loved hadn’t cheated on her after all, that he really had loved her.
But I wasn’t rational.
For fifteen years I’d worked hard to make myself hate Karl. For fifteen years I’d blamed him for Katie’s death. For fifteen long, agonizing years I’d blamed him for not wanting me. The only thing I hadn’t blamed him for was leaving. For leaving me, yes.
But not for leaving. I’d thought he had no choice, that he’d been forced into it.
Now I knew better, and it was worse than I’d ever believed possible. All those old feelings swamped me, pulling me down until I was drowning in them.
Because he’d had a choice. He could have told the truth and stayed here, gotten help for Lindsey. No one would have subjected her to arrest after what she’d gone through.
He could have trusted me enough to tell me what was going on from the beginning. If he had, I might have been able to help, to stop the chain of events that took place.
But he hadn’t. He’d chosen to take the blame for Frank’s death, and leave me all alone. He’d chosen to protect Lindsey and her child, a child of rape, while my child was left to die.
The pain and grief of Katie’s death hit me as if it had happened only yesterday. It felt like someone had torn my chest open and pulled my heart out. And my rage grew.
Out of all proportion, it grew until I was shaking with it.
I didn’t leave the store until the sun was setting. If anyone had seen me, stopped to talk with me, I would have appeared calm. Unnaturally so. But it would have been the farthest thing from the truth. There was only one thing I could think about now, one thing I wanted.
I wanted to hurt Karl the way he’d hurt me. I wanted him to feel exactly what I was feeling, and know he’d done this to me. And then I never wanted to see him again.
His truck was the only one parked in front of the house he was building, but for the moment I paid no attention. There was something else I had to do before I confronted him.
I flipped on the lights in the front of the barn as I went through, then headed back to my room. Once inside, I grabbed a chair from the table and pulled it to the linen closet. Standing on the seat, I reached far into the darkness of the top shelf until my fingers closed around the box hidden there. I opened the lid and removed the contents, letting the empty box fall to the floor.
Over the years, one of the stalls had become a depository for various tools, things that were rarely used anymore. I rummaged though the pile until I found what I was looking for. A rusty old sledgehammer. Laying the heart-shaped pendant that bore both my name and Karl’s on an anvil, I lifted the hammer over my head and brought it down with all my strength. Again and again, I pounded it, until the shape was unrecognizable. And then I picked up the misshapen lump of metal and turned.
Karl was standing behind me, his face pale in the overhead lights. “You know.” I wiped the sweat from my forehead with one hand. “Yes, I know.”
“Damn Lindsey to hell.” He took a step closer. “I wanted to tell you myself, to try and make you understand-“
“Stop right there.” My voice was cold. “I don’t want to hear any of your excuses.”