Kate's Song (23 page)

A tall redhead filed in line behind him without even looking up from the phone in her hand. She punched the screen with such dexterity that Nathaniel couldn’t help but be impressed.
This is the world Kate knows
, he thought with regret.
I do not belong here
.

The boy at the desk raised his voice in protest of another fee he shouldn’t have to pay, and the redhead looked up from her phone. She glanced at Nathaniel and did a double take.

“Are you going to school here? If you are, you’ve seriously got to get some new clothes. Suspenders are not in.”

Nathaniel shook his head. “I am Amish. I am looking for—”

“Amish! I know one other Amish person in the whole world. Her name is Kate. Are you related?”

Nathaniel didn’t mean to raise his voice. “Kate Weaver?”

“Don’t look so worried. I saw her yesterday.” The girl gazed at him narrowly. “You’re not Nathaniel, are you?”

“Jah. How did you know?”

“I should have guessed. Kate talks about you all the time. Tall, handsome, very nice eyes, dresses like a pioneer…”

“Do you know where she is?”

The girl smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear. “It’s about time you showed up. She’s been trying to call you for three weeks. Don’t you ever check your messages? She’s been pretty down about not hearing from you.”

Nathaniel looked away.
Kate
has been depressed? She should try walking in his shoes.

“Can you tell me where to find her?”

The girl looked at her phone. “It’s almost noon. Maria is at work, so Kate will be with Carlos and her baby.”

Carlos and her baby?

The girl punched her phone screen then pulled out a pen and paper from her purse. “Here is the address,” she said. “It’s close enough to walk. I’d take you there myself, but I’ve got to get my schedule figured out.”

Nathaniel nodded and walked quickly out the door. With his long strides, he soon covered the distance to the building where the girl said Kate lived. Standing across the street, he looked at the scrap of paper in his hand. He watched a car pull up to the front of the building, pick up a passenger, and drive away. He studied the mature trees in front. Three maples and an oak. Good furniture wood.

This was the strangest feeling of all. The fear wrapped itself around his throat and left him paralyzed, unable to take one step forward to his goal.

He could hear his heart beating thunderously through his chest. Instead of crossing the street, he sat on a bus-stop bench and stared at the apartment building.

He held his head in his hands. His courage had never failed him before. The apostle Peter had walked on water; Paul appeared before King Agrippa; Stephen testified to an angry mob bent on taking his life. How could Nathaniel give in to fear?

The answer came easily. He feared what he would find—that the Kate he knew would cease to exist and leave in her place only shattered dreams and unfulfilled hopes. If Kate fell, Nathaniel would cease to believe that there was any beauty left in the world. That thought kept him from crossing the street and knocking on her door. He wanted to hold tightly to his illusions, if only for a little longer.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, but he could not move. Buses came and went while he waved them on.

He held his breath when he saw her. She was too far away, but in his mind’s eye he imagined her brilliant green eyes and creamy skin. He had memorized every line, every curve of her face, until he could see her without opening his eyes. He was puzzled to see her in her kapp and Plain dress. Why did she still wear that?

She stood in the archway connecting two buildings and motioned for someone to follow her. A man with coffee-colored skin appeared, holding a chubby baby in one arm while pushing an empty stroller. Nathaniel’s blood heated up. Was this the man who had hit Kate and left her with bruises all over her face? If so, she did not act frightened or threatened now. She looked all too happy in his company.

Nathaniel almost crossed the street right then to warn the man not to hurt Kate again. But he reconsidered. The last time he’d protected Kate, he’d ended up doing violence. He would not let himself be tempted again. If Kate wanted protection, she should not have gone back to that man.

The man said something to Kate and her laugh carried all the way across the street, torturing Nathaniel with its deceptive sweetness. Still, he could not pry his eyes from the scene.

Kate took the baby out of the man’s arms, hugged it tightly, and kissed it lovingly on the top of the head. After buckling the baby in the stroller, she started pushing it up the street.

The man put his arm around Kate as they walked. “Stop it,” Nathaniel heard her squeak. She shrugged the man’s arm off her shoulders and giggled. Smiling, he tried again, and she quickened her pace to avoid his teasing.

Nathaniel’s mouth went dry, and he found it impossible to swallow. He watched Kate and her boyfriend with her baby walk up the street and out of sight. A bus pulled up to the curb, and Nathaniel leaped from the bench and climbed in. He didn’t care where it was going.

* * * * *

It was a few minutes before midnight when Nathaniel stepped off the bus in Apple Lake. He breathed in the tepid air and let the wind pound against his face. He had no recollection of the journey home.

The phone rang twelve times before the machine picked it up. These days, Nathaniel didn’t ever answer his phone. “This is King’s Cabinetry. Please leave a message.”

“Nathaniel, this is Kate. I’m not sure you got my other messages. Please call me no matter if it is early or late. The number is 555-432-8492. I will be awake. Please call me.”

The seventh message from her in three weeks. He marched to the answering machine hung on the wall next to the phone and firmly pressed the E
RASE
button. He wished it were as easy to erase her from his thoughts.

“Nathaniel King, must you work so hard that you don’t even have time to eat?”

Nathaniel glanced up to see Sarah Schwartz standing in the doorway with a plate of food.

“Tell Mamm I will eat something later,” he said, not bothering to meet Sarah’s smiling eyes.

“Your mamm insists you are lying when you say that and made me promise to watch you clean this plate before I go back into the house.”

She came closer and held the plate of steaming potatoes and corn out to him. He ignored her and ran his hand along the smooth edge of the tabletop he had been sanding.

“I made an oath, Nathaniel, and I won’t break my word, even if I have to stay here all night and force-feed a stubborn man.”

Nathaniel hesitated then turned and wiped his hands on an available rag. Sarah handed him the plate, and he reluctantly sat at his desk to shovel in what he could. The corn was so buttery, it practically glided down his throat. Leave it to Mamm to try to fatten him up.

He hid his irritation as Sarah sat on the edge of his desk and watched him eat.

“I’ve heard you’re keeping the cabinetmakers mighty busy these days. Miriam says you don’t even hardly sleep.”

Nathaniel didn’t slow his eating, even to talk. “Lots of orders to keep up with.”

“You keep this room very clean. That must be almost impossible, with dust flying everywhere.”

Nathaniel didn’t respond.

Sarah studied him for several more seconds before she got up and strolled around the workshop. “I love to see the things you can make from a plain block of wood. And the smell is wonderful-gute. Dat took me to a cedar factory once. I thought I was in heaven.”

Chewing faster, Nathaniel tried to shorten the time of Sarah’s visit. She showed up at the house almost daily now, so willing to help Mamm in any way she could. But Sarah could not help Nathaniel. He was past all rescue.

“Oh! Look at this beautiful rocker.”

Nathaniel’s gaze flew to the corner of the room.

“Is this for the auction? It looks like you are almost finished with it.”

Nathaniel froze in place. “That one is not for sale.”

Sarah ran her hand along the armrests and nudged the chair back and forth with her finger. “Can I sit?” she asked.

He nodded curtly.

“It’s so smooth, like silk.” She rocked back and forth and leaned against the slats, where she would find perfect comfort for her back and shoulders. “I love this, Nathaniel. It would be wonderful to rock a baby. I could sit for hours and never get sore.” Closing her eyes, she rested her head against the back of the chair and continued to rock, humming an unrecognizable tune.

Why did something always have to remind him? Couldn’t his memories leave him be? He never wanted to hear so much as a lullaby ever again.

Nathaniel jumped from his chair and strode to the door of his workshop, expecting Sarah to follow. Turning to find her close behind, he presented her with the empty plate. “This should satisfy Mamm.”

Sarah took the plate. “Jah, she will be pleased.”

He rested his fist on the doorframe. “But next time, don’t ask me to make good on your promises.”

Sarah couldn’t quite hide her confusion under her smile as she stepped back and slipped into the house.

Nathaniel shut the door and wandered to the corner of the room, not taking his eyes off the unfinished rocker. All it lacked was a rich, dark stain and a coat of varnish. He nudged it lightly, and it glided back and forth smoothly, the fluid movement a testament to the care he took in crafting it. His finest work, forever unfinished. Forever tainted.

Clutching the back of the rocking chair, he lifted the heavy piece over his head and smashed it into the cement floor. With an earsplitting
boom
, the joints cracked and groaned but did not break. Again and again he beat the chair into the floor until it finally surrendered to the abuse and exploded into a jumble of slats and splinters.

Purposefully, he gathered up the bigger scraps that refused to be defeated, took them outside, and hurled them haphazardly in the direction of the woodpile. They clattered and banged as they hit the barn, the fence, and the compost bin—everything but the woodpile. The seat, which he couldn’t break even with every ounce of his pent-up emotion, he took to the chopping block and reduced to kindling with eight swings of his ax.

Panting heavily, Nathaniel tromped back into his workshop, stormed across the room, and ripped the answering machine from the wall. He refused to listen to one more message from that goldenthroated deceiver. She wanted to relieve her guilty conscience, but he wouldn’t be enticed again. Staggering at the thought of how utterly blind he had been, he pounded the thing against his desk until it disintegrated into a mesh of wires and plastic. He scooped up the pieces and tossed them into the garbage.

How had he not even felt an inkling of who Kate really was?

Because he had let her play him for the fool he was.

Mamm and Aaron had tried to warn him, but he had been beguiled by the dream of something that didn’t really exist. He remembered telling his mamm that he shouldn’t give up chasing his dream because of the pain down the road. How wrong he had been. His life would have been infinitely better had he never known Kate Weaver. The pain of losing her flowed through every blood vessel in his body, throbbed with every beat of his miserable heart. Would the weight of her betrayal crush him in the end?

Too late, he had learned the brutal truth. Kate had been away for two years. It would have been easy for her to fall into the ways of the world. A young, inexperienced girl with hardly any money and no friends would have found safety with a boyfriend. How long would it have taken her to justify sleeping with him to keep him happy? Nathaniel staggered. The thought of Kate cheapening herself sent him reeling.

Nathaniel even felt a little sorry for her. She probably couldn’t fathom what she had gotten herself into. He might have been able to find it in his heart to forgive her if the deception hadn’t wounded him so deeply.

As distressing as it was that she would become pregnant, it was even more reprehensible to Nathaniel that Kate would be willing to abandon her child to flee to the safety of the Plain community. All those letters she received, the worry in her eyes, were for her child left in who-knows-what kind of care. Kate had not been brave enough to bring the baby home with her and face the consequences of her mistakes. And he had been all too willing to believe her to be sincere and innocent.

Her behavior this summer had a logical explanation. The fresh bruises weren’t from fighting off some boy she barely knew, but from an argument with her own abusive boyfriend. She needed a place to escape while things cooled off with the boyfriend. Apple Lake was the perfect solution. Nathaniel, the perfect dupe.

With his strength briefly spent, he sank to the chair at his desk and allowed his breathing to return to normal. A moist, warm sensation propelled Nathaniel’s fingers to his forehead. He pulled back his hand, dripping with blood. An errant splinter of sharp wood must have struck him as he destroyed the rocking chair. With his fingers, he explored the wound—a two-inch gash across the edge of his forehead up past his hairline. It would sting for a while.

Good. It felt deeply satisfying to bleed Kate out of his system. Even if he bled himself dry.

Kate came in from a visit to the mailbox and plopped herself onto the sofa. She sat with her arms folded, staring at the wall. In spite of Maria and Carlos and the baby, she felt so isolated she thought she might scream. Were her parents that busy, that happy to have her away? Why didn’t they write one word of encouragement or love? Their silence spoke louder than any scolding ever could.

And was Nathaniel truly having second thoughts, as Aaron had said? Had he learned the truth about Jared and been unable to forgive her? Kate pinched herself to hold back the tears. Maria would worry if she saw Kate crying, especially two days before the custody hearing.

Someone knocked softly. “Kate, it’s Shannon,” she heard a muffled voice say.

Kate unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door. Shannon stood in the doorway, her pointy-toed boots making her feet appear about three inches longer than they truly were. Kate noticed how Shannon’s hair seemed to blow whimsically around her face whether there was a breeze or not, and when she stepped over the threshold in her sky-blue leather jacket, the room brightened considerably.