After the Rains (12 page)

“Don’t you think you should try to get up for a little while?” Daria asked now. “Come downstairs. Maybe you can sit out on the porch and get a little sunshine. It’s really warming up out there today.”

“Maybe later, Mom. I really don’t feel up to it right now.”

“Nattie, it’s not good for you just to lie here and … and think.”

“Mom. Please.”

She didn’t want to push too hard, but Daria knew her daughter well. She knew Natalie had a tendency to be too analytical, to exaggerate things to the point that she didn’t see the reality.
Oh, why did you let this happen, Lord? Nattie struggles enough as it is
.

“Would you just tell me what you’re thinking about while you’re lying up here?”

“What do you think I’m thinking, Mom? What else could I be thinking?” Suddenly her face crumpled, and she threw herself into Daria’s arms
as though she were five years old again. “Oh, Mom. It’s my fault. Sara’s gone, and it’s all my fault.”

Daria fought back her own tears and stroked her daughter’s back. “Shh, shh,” she whispered. “Natalie, it was not your fault. We’ve told you already, Brian ran the stop sign. The sheriff’s deputy said that the highway patrol did tests that tell them exactly what happened.”

She didn’t want to upset Natalie, but she knew they needed to talk about what had happened that night. Gently, she pushed Natalie away from her and took both of her hands. “Honey, have you remembered anything else from that night?” In her heart, Daria knew the accident report told the truth: Natalie’s car had been pulling out of the driveway that led to the river on Hansens’ property when it was struck. But she desperately wanted to believe that her daughter had had a good reason to be there on that night. “You … you and Sara were at the party before the accident happened?”

Natalie’s eyes narrowed, her nostrils flared almost imperceptibly, and she nodded slowly. “Yeah, Mom. We were there.”

Daria’s pulse quickened. “Why?”

Natalie glared at her, then dropped her head. “We just drove out to see who was there.”

Daria struggled to keep her voice steady. “How long were you there?”

“I don’t know, Mom. Not very long.”

“You two weren’t—”

“Mom! Please,” Natalie’s head snapped up. “I really don’t want to talk about this. It doesn’t matter anyway. It doesn’t change … anything.” She started to cry again.

“Natalie, nobody is blaming you. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and something terrible happened, but it doesn’t do anyone any good for you to sit here and beat yourself up over it.”

Daria took her daughter into her arms again. She felt Natalie stiffen. She had stopped crying. After a few minutes, Daria gently pushed her away and smoothed a pale strand of hair off her forehead. “Honey, I know this is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to face. It’s been hard for all of us. We loved Sara too. But now it’s you we’re worried about. You have to go
on. You have to go on and live your life. You know Sara would have wanted you to.”

“Sara would have wanted to live.”

The hard edge in Natalie’s tone frightened Daria. “Of course she would have. But God must have had something else in mind.”

“Don’t blame it on God, Mom. It was my fault.”

“Natalie, stop it.” She tried to make her voice firm. “I won’t hear any more of this kind of talk. I’m very sorry that Sara died. You lost a wonderful friend. We all did. It was a terrible, terrible tragedy. But you can’t go on blaming yourself for what happened.”

Natalie swung her legs over the side of the bed and put her head in her hands.

“Mom.” Natalie’s voice broke, and something in her tone made Daria’s heart beat faster. Natalie lifted her chin. Their gazes met, and Natalie opened her mouth as if she meant to say something.

“What’s wrong, honey? Just let it out. Cry if you need to; scream if you need to.”

But then her daughter turned away again and sat motionless and mute on the edge of the mattress, her eyes fixed on some monster that Daria could neither see nor slay.

Eleven

Timoné, Colombia, South America

T
he clouds rolled in and the afternoon rains threatened as Nathan Camfield crossed the village commons and began loping toward the hut across the stream. He jumped the brook and almost made it to safety before the skies broke open to wash the jungle canopy. But the rainwater quickly pierced layers of palm branches and lush jungle foliage and ran in tiny rivulets on Nate’s skin, trickling down to larger streams on the forest floor. Drenched and out of breath, he scaled the stairs two at a time and burst into the relative dryness of the hut that served as the mission office.

David Chambers looked up from the makeshift desk where he’d been engrossed in some document on his laptop computer screen. He laughed as he watched Nate try to dry himself with a thin rag not much bigger than a washcloth. “You’ll never learn, will you, man?”

Nate gave his coworker a good-natured grin as he rubbed his close-cropped hair with the rag. “I always think I can get just one more thing done before it pours, you know?” He turned his head to one side and jabbed a corner of the towel into his ear, then turned his head and dried his other ear.

He hung up the towel and went to a small shelf in the corner. Picking up a grimy thermos, he shook it gently. “Is there any coffee left?”

“If you can call it that,” Chambers muttered, already deep into his translation work again.

Nate poured a stream of the vile brown liquid into his stain-spattered mug and took a sip. “Man!” he complained, giving his head a shake. “How do we drink this stuff day after day?”

David Chambers looked up and smiled, stroking his neatly trimmed beard and taking a sip from his own cup. “I’ve been telling you, homegrown
Colombian coffee ought to taste better than this. We’re doing something wrong.”

“At least it’s hot. So how’s it going today?” Nate asked him, indicating the laptop.

“Pretty good. I found some great info on that database I downloaded in San José. I’m just starting to sort through it all, but I think it’s something I can really make use of. I want to try to get Tados in here for a few days this week and nail some of the intonations.”

“Good luck,” Nate said wryly. “You think he’ll agree to that with a fishing expedition on the calendar?”

David shook his head glumly. “Good point. Oh, hey, don’t forget you’ve got some e-mail.”

“That’s right! Did you print them out?”

“No, they’re on the hard drive. Lucretia was griping about their paper supply as it was, and I’d already printed all these word lists.” He patted a stack of wrinkled paper covered in what looked like an alien language. Looking sheepish, David said, “Sorry. I hope that’s okay—”

Nate stopped him with an upheld hand. “It’s not a problem. Just let me know when I can get on the computer.” He crossed the room and sat down at his desk.

“I can wrap this up in a couple of minutes,” Chambers told him.

“Thanks, Dave. No hurry.”

If anyone had told him even ten years ago that he would be reading e-mail and watching his coworker use a computer here in Timoné, he would have told them they were crazy. But he had to admit that it did make their work easier. Of course, they weren’t online in the village yet, but with the new airstrip at Conzalez just half a day away on the river, David could fly into San José del Guaviare every few weeks. There he had access to up-to-date computers and could download linguistic information and software for his translation work, along with an impressive array of medical data for Nate. In addition, it allowed them to order medical supplies and their own personal provisions with ease. Best of all, it made it possible for them to keep in closer touch with their families back home and with other missionaries, both in Colombia and around the world.

Nate sometimes regretted that he had been so obstinate with Daria when they’d first come to Timoné. He had been determined to win the hearts and minds of the Timoné people by becoming a part of their culture. He’d come to realize that with judicious use of technology, he had much more to offer the village. Though he still thought there was merit to his concept of living as one with the culture, he realized that he’d probably carried it too far those first years he and Daria were here. And she had suffered for it. Not that she’d ever complained, but he knew that as a woman and a homemaker, Daria had made far more sacrifices than he had for his precious philosophy.

He shook off the thoughts of Daria—it was a dangerous place for his mind to wander. Though nothing could ever make him stop loving her, Daria belonged to someone else now. He was grateful when, across the room, David Chambers shuffled some papers on the desk, closed the laptop, and stood.

“It’s all yours,” David said. He stooped to look out the window, then yawned and stretched his six-foot-five frame as much as the low ceiling of the hut would allow. “I think the rain’s let up enough. I’m going to go home and do some reading, and if I should just happen to fall asleep in the process, well, so be it.”

“I hear you,” Nate laughed. “I might rest my eyes for a minute myself after I read my mail.”

“Do you want me to check on Monni’s baby on my way back?” he asked, referring to an infant Nate had delivered yesterday morning.

The little boy had been born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. They had almost lost him. Nate had enlisted David’s help with the difficult delivery, and now he smiled to himself as he realized that his colleague felt a special bond with the child he’d helped bring into the world.

“If you want to, that’d be great, but don’t feel obligated, Dave. I was planning to check in on them on my way home tonight. They were both doing just fine when I stopped in this morning.”

David nodded and smiled at the news. “That’s good to hear.” He gathered a few books off his cluttered desk and waved before ducking beneath the door frame.

Nate went to the shelf and drained the last of the thermos of muddy coffee into his mug. He got the laptop and settled in at his desk again. Through the window, he watched David dodge puddles as he made his way next door to the small hut that served as his living quarters.

Nate thought again, what a blessing the young man had been to him. David Chambers had been here just over a year now, sent by Gospel Outreach to begin the task of putting the New Testament in the Timoné dialect. It was a daunting assignment, given that Timoné had no written language and that the dialect had its roots, not in the Castilian Spanish spoken by most of Colombia, but in a peculiar mix of Portuguese and Spanish with a bit of Swahili thrown in for good measure.

David was in his late twenties. He had taught French and Spanish at an American university for several years before answering the call of the mission field. He had picked up the Timoné tongue quickly and was making amazing progress on an assignment that promised to take years to complete.

Nate crossed an ankle over his knee and propped the laptop in the resulting triangle. He began clicking on icons, rearranging the computer desktop, which David had left in disarray, as usual. Then, opening the email program, he leaned back in his chair and scanned the short list of posts David had received in San José yesterday.

He was surprised to see Daria’s name in his in box. She occasionally sent him news of Natalie, but more often that came via his parents or Betsy. He hoped everything was all right.

He opened the file and began to read.

Dear Nate,

I need to let you know what’s going on with Natalie. I don’t want to alarm you, and I don’t think it’s necessary that you come home, but she needs your prayers (and so do we). Last Saturday night Nattie was in a car accident. Physically she has recovered very well, but two other teenagers, including Natalie’s best friend, Sara Dever, were killed in the wreck. The boy who was killed had been drinking. He ran a stop sign, and his pickup broadsided Natalie’s car. Another boy riding in the pickup was critically injured.

Natalie’s Camry was totaled, which seems a petty thing in light of the tragic deaths, but since your father bought it for her with your blessing, I thought you should know that.

We haven’t been able to get her to talk about it much, but even though the accident wasn’t her fault, I know Natalie is struggling with the fact that she was driving when it happened.

Nate tensed and scrolled to the top of the screen to check the date the e-mail had been sent. The accident had happened more than two weeks ago now. He read Daria’s description of the events, and tears filled his eyes.

His heart broke as he thought of Natalie’s pain and despondency over the tragedy. He vaguely remembered Sara Dever. The girl had come with Natalie to his parents’ house once while he’d been home on furlough. They had been at that silly, giggly stage of adolescence at the time, but he remembered thinking that she seemed to be a sweet girl, and it had been obvious that Natalie adored her. He sent up a prayer that the Lord would comfort his daughter and help her to heal emotionally as well as physically. He wondered if he’d done the right thing. Wondered if he would’ve been able to comfort the daughter he loved, had she not been a world away.

He forced himself to pause and pray more intently. But an arsenal of troubling thoughts assaulted him. These were the times when it still hurt—even after all these years—not to be a part of his daughter’s life. He wished with everything in him that he could hop on a plane and go to Natalie, go to Daria. But another man had taken the place of protector and defender in their lives. Yet, in spite of the pain that was still raw at times, he never doubted that he had made the right decision in abdicating his role as Natalie’s father, in coming back to Timoné and leaving Daria to continue the new life she had begun without him. From what he could tell from his conversations with Daria and his limited correspondence with Natalie, he believed that Cole Hunter was doing right by his family. Nevertheless, he sent up a silent prayer that the Lord would give the man an extra measure of wisdom now. That God would help Cole be the father that Nate could not be to Natalie.