Filed to story: Love on the Sidelines (Natalie & Karl)
He stood and hugged me tightly, and I prayed he would never find out that his father’s condition was all my fault.
Moving like a robot, I put the groceries away and then went to change out of my business suit. I wanted to give Karl time to get there ahead of me, because I was afraid if he saw me, he’d leave before I had a chance to talk to him. I didn’t have any idea how I was going to get through to him; I only knew I had to find a way. And who better than I? If anyone knew about grief and shutting down your emotions, I was that person.
Even if the only reaction I got from him was hatred, it was better than nothing.
I waited until fifteen minutes after seven, then climbed in the Trooper and drove slowly across town, and parked in the church’s lot. The house Karl had rented wasn’t too far away, and I realized he must have walked the distance. His truck was nowhere to be found.
I saw him immediately. Katie’s grave was near the back of the cemetery, under a big sweet gum tree, not far from where my Grandmother Collins was buried. And if I hadn’t been expecting him, I’m not sure I would have recognized him.
He was standing there, staring at her headstone, hands in the pockets of his faded jeans. His T-shirt was wrinkled and hung on him loosely, as though he’d lost weight. A beard covered his jaw and his hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in days. And my heart broke all over again. I was responsible for this. I had done this to him, and now I had to make it right.
I stopped behind him and he was so oblivious, so lost in his own thoughts, that he didn’t know I was there until I touched his arm. When I did, he jumped, then spun to stare at me from red-rimmed eyes. But only for a second.
Before I could form a word, he jerked his gaze away and started to turn. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I’ll go.”
“Karl, wait. Please.”
He stopped, his head lowered, still refusing to look at me.
“I don’t want you to go,” I whispered. “I came here to talk to you.”
“Talk to me? How can you stand to even look at me after what I did to you?” I moved until I was in front of him, forced him to meet my eyes. “Listen to me, Karl. You didn’t do anything to me. I did it to myself. No one forced me to marry Hugh. No one forced me to turn my grief over Katie’s death into anger and hate. Do you understand? I did it to myself.”
“You were right to hate me. I left you. You were carrying my baby and I left you.” His tone was flat, unemotional.
“I don’t hate you!” I was desperate, yelling in my fear for him. “I wanted to hate you. I even convinced myself that I did. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop loving you. I love you, damn it!”
“Don’t. There’s no way you could love me, and I don’t need your pity.” He backed up a step, but his attention was caught by Katie’s headstone again, and he stopped. “I never got to see her.” His voice was raw with bottled-up pain. “I never got to hold her.” And suddenly I knew how to get through to him. I had to force him to let go of those emotions choking him. Get them out so they could stop poisoning him. It was something my family should have done for me a long time ago, something that Jenna had finally managed that night we sat in her kitchen and cried together.
Frantically, I dug through my purse until I found my wallet. Once I had it open, I took out the picture of Katie I kept with me and handed it to Karl. He took it like a man in a trance, his gaze fastened hungrily on her tiny face.
“Let me tell you about Katie,” I said quietly.
And for the next hour, that’s exactly what I did. At some point I became aware that tears were running down his cheeks, and silent sobs shaking his body, but I swallowed my own pain and kept going. When I finished, I took the step that separated us and put my arms around him, knowing that his attention was focused on me intently.
“You were only twenty when you left, Karl. Not much more than a boy. You did what you thought you had to, and that’s the best any of us can do. Katie died from SIDS. Even if you’d been here, there was nothing you or anyone could have done to stop it. But you saved the child you could. You saved Daniel, and he’s wonderful. I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me for the way I told you about Katie, but for Daniel’s sake, don’t keep doing this to yourself. He loves and needs you, and he’s scared to death for you.”
Almost reflexively, his arms lifted, went around me so tightly I could hardly breathe. With his face buried in my hair, we both cried. We cried for our child, for the hurt we’d caused each other, and for all the time we’d lost. And when there were no tears left, Karl lifted his head and looked down at me.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“Then come home with me,” I answered.
And he did.
When we reached the tiny house I was renting, he asked where the bathroom was. I pointed him in the right direction and then went to the kitchen. While he showered and shaved, I called Daniel and told him his father was going to be late and not to wait up for him. And then I held the phone away from my ear, smiling at the deafening yell coming across the line.
By the time Karl showed up in the kitchen, cleaner and minus the beard, I had a stack of sandwiches ready. He dug in like he was starved, polishing off almost the entire pile by himself.
Pushing the plate aside, he leaned back in the chair. He still looked tired, but the haggard appearance was fading and his gray eyes were alive again when he looked at me. “Do you have any more pictures?”
Luckily, I did. One of the first things I’d moved were the albums full of Katie’s pictures. Together, we sat on my bed, backs against the headboard, shoulders touching, as we went through it and talked, just like we’d done when we were kids. When we’d turned the last page, we held each other for a long time, until our need for another kind of solace became overpowering, and then we made love, slowly and sweetly.
It was dawn when Karl turned to me and clasped my hand. “I swear, I’ll never leave you again,” he whispered.
I lifted my other hand to his face, fingers caressing his skin. “It wouldn’t do you any good if you did,” I said. “Because the next time, I’d come after you.”
Epilogue
I wish I could tell you that Karl and I were married a week later and lived happily ever after, but I can’t. We loved each other, there’s no doubt about that, but sometimes love isn’t enough. We were two people who had hurt each other beyond words, and things like that aren’t easily fixed. It was a long time before the pain began to ease and we learned to trust each other again, a lot of hard work and even harder talks.
There were other problems, too. All the mistakes we’d made hadn’t only affected us, they had been like a stone thrown into a pool, the ripples continuing long after the rock reached the bottom.
Daniel finally had to be told about the circumstances of his birth before he discovered them from the local gossips. As painful as it was for them, Karl and Lindsey sat him down and told him everything while I waited at home, chewing my nails with fear for all their sakes.
It was late that night when Daniel showed up at my house with a suitcase full of his clothes. I ushered him to the spare room, tucked him in, and then called Karl to let him know his son was safe. For the next month, Daniel lived with me, a silent, pale ghost that took up space but wasn’t really there. I didn’t pressure him to snap out of it because I knew this was something he had to work out on his own. Having gone through something similar with my own father, I could understand what he was feeling.
But Daniel was a smart kid. Eventually he realized that sperm does not a father make. It’s the unconditional love and caring shown by the person who raises you that makes a parent. For me it was the Judge. For Daniel, it was Karl, and the love they had for each other finally overcame the hurt.