The Cedar Tree (Love Is Not Enough) (24 page)

"Where's Karl?"

"He went out with him."

She turned a circle, scanning the room with frantic eyes. Her gaze passed over him as if he wasn't there.

He bewilderedly sought his grandfather's gaze. The old man shook his head, his eyes as old as time and helpless.

"Where's Dad?" Katie asked again. Moving around the table next to Dave, she leaned over it on her hands. The table shook with the trembling of her body. "I want Dad," she said loudly, a wavering note of hysteria in her voice. 

Dave scowled at her. "Katie, get a hold of yourself, for Pete's sake. We don't need to deal with you, too."

She stared at Dave as though she didn't see him. Esther labored to her feet. Painfully straightening as much as her stooped shoulders allowed, she shuffled around the table to gather Katie into her arms.

"Hush, now…" the old midwife murmured, holding Katie's disheveled blonde head to her sagging breast.

Esther's calm voice seemed to soothe her. Gradually, some of the trembling rigidity left her slight frame.

"Come with me, Sweetheart." Esther guided her toward the hallway. "I need to lay down on the bed, and you can lay down with me. We'll turn this over to the Lord."

He stepped aside for them to pass. The midwife met his gaze with gentle compassion, but Katie didn't lift her head. She stumbled down the hall beside Esther to a door at the end. The door clicked shut behind them.

He stared at the closed door like he'd been hit with a meat axe.

He didn't know what he had expected to find, but not that.

Never that.

***

An hour later, first grey light seeped slowly through a heavy blanket of clouds, tinting the vehicles and buildings in the Campbell yard with the washed out shades of an old movie. He stood undecidedly on the porch hunched into his coat, his eyes watering from the biting cold. Snowflakes, wet and feathery, drifted down like slow tears.

Should he leave and come back later? Should he stay? He'd never been in such a position. 

Karl stepped out of the barn. Relieved by something to do, he limped to meet Karl through the churned mud and snow of the driveway.

"I'm so sorry, man," he said.

"Thanks," Karl said in a tone as colorless as his face.

"Can I do anything to help? Chores?"

Karl eyed his arm in its sling. "Can you drive?"

"Sure."

"I could use some help feedin' then. Tim's not up to it, and Uncle Dan needs to help Dad…" Karl shrugged. "You know. Take care of things."

He and Karl finished the feeding chores by late morning then he returned to the house. More cars crowded the yard. He stepped into the kitchen where a murmur of voices from the living room met him. His grandfather's snores rose over the voices, his sock feet visible on a recliner footrest just inside the living room doorway.

Alone in the kitchen, Annie sat in a rocking chair holding the baby near an old-fashioned cooking range of bright turquoise with nickel trim. A fire roared in the stove's fire-box. Stepping close to it, he held out his hand to the warmth, curiously scanning the room.

Everything in the ranch kitchen appeared to be a tired relic from the past—the range, a rounded top refrigerator, a cupboard with flour and sugar bins over a zinc covered stretch of counter, and the table made of long pine planks, any finish long since scrubbed away.

Annie glanced at him then back down at the baby.

He shifted awkwardly. He'd never actually met the beautiful girl—she didn't ever hang around after church.

He cleared his throat. "I've seen you at church. I'm Gil Howard."

She nodded.

"How's the…er…baby?"

"He is very small."

He strained to hear her quiet, carefully spoken words with their slight Navajo inflection. Stepping closer, he peered into the nest of blankets. Only a tiny red nose and mouth showed.

He moved back to the stove and cleared his throat again. "Is Katie…?" He nodded toward her bedroom.

Annie raised large, almond shaped eyes to his. "She is still asleep with my grandmother."

"That's good." He held her gaze uncertainly. "Ain't it?"

"Yes."

"Are they all still goin' to the funeral home this afternoon?"

"Yes."

"I need to go home and do chores, but will you tell her to call me and I'll go with her?"

Annie nodded. The door opened and Karl entered. Jaw tight, he pulled off his boots and his stocking cap with a Denver Broncos logo then he hung his wet coat on a hook beside the door. Without glancing at the silent young woman holding his new brother, he crossed to the stairs just inside the living room doorway then disappeared up them. Her gaze followed Karl with a shade of worried bewilderment, quickly smoothed away.

From his place at the stove, he eyed Annie.

He knew just how she felt.

***

Twenty minutes later, his mother answered her telephone.

"Mama? It's me." He eased himself to a seat on his grandfather's stairs, wincing at the pain in his knee.

"What's wrong?" she asked, sharply apprehensive.

He rubbed his hand down his face. "Katie's mom died this mornin'."

His mother's silence pulsed like a heartbeat.

"Mama?"

"Did she have a baby?"

"Yeah," he said, frowning. "How'd you know?"

"She should never have had kids. It's nearly killed her every time." A long moment passed. "How will I ever tell Roy?" she murmured as if to herself.

"What?" he asked with his frown deepening, unsure if he had heard her right.

His mother drew a long breath. "Tell Katie and Jon I'm so sorry."

He glanced at his watch. "Okay. I gotta go, Mama. I need to get my chores done before Katie calls."

He fed his horses one-handed. At noon, he warmed a bowl of soup and stayed inside, waiting. Two o'clock came and went.

He called Katie's house. Esther answered—the family had gone to the funeral home. He stared at the receiver in his hand, frowning. Annie must not have told Katie what he'd said.

He called Will and asked for help feeding the cattle. His grandfather still hadn't returned home by the time they finished after dark. He fed Molly then ate a tasteless bowl of Wheaties. Listening for the phone, he showered and shaved, examining his face in the mirror. The bruise around his eye had faded to a yellowish green and the gash on his cheekbone had scabbed.

Afterward, he stood indecisively in the hall staring at the phone. Finally, he called.

Someone he didn't know answered. After a moment, the stranger returned—Katie didn't feel like talking.

He hung up then climbed the stairs to open his notebook.

The next morning, a red snowplow spewed a wide arc of snow from its blade, leaving a tall mound of muddy slush around the cedar tree.

He stopped his truck—it didn't look like she'd been there, but the snowplow might have covered her tracks. He broke a trail through the thigh-deep ridge to the hollow in the trunk. Empty.

He left his note anyway and drove to her house. A wave of warmth and the smell of frying bacon greeted him. Jon and his sons sat at the table eating. Rachel stood at the old range in a pink robe, her hair pulled into a messy bun. She raised her face, browned and freckled from a lifetime outdoors, and gave him a strained, but kind, smile. A thin cry sounded from the living room.

"Katie, do you need help?" Rachel called.

"I don't know." Katie's voice, dull and lifeless, said from the other room.

Rachel turned to him. "Turn this bacon for me, will you, Gil?"

He shrugged out of his coat and hung it over the back of a chair. While he turned the bacon sizzling in a cast iron skillet, he looked into the living room. Katie sat in the rocking chair, pale and disheveled in her green plaid robe. She awkwardly jiggled the baby. Her dark circled eyes never glanced his way, even when a bottle rolled off her lap and onto the floor.

Suddenly, she rose and handed the baby to Rachel. Crossing quickly to the hallway, she disappeared.

He stared after her, an uneasy chill settling in his chest. What was going on with her?

The bacon strips sizzling in the pan didn't smell good anymore and they didn't need turned again. He did it anyway. The baby stopped crying. Silence filled the room except for an occasional chink of a fork against a plate, or the hollow thud of a cup against the scrubbed pine of the table.

Finally, he lifted the crisp strips from the pan—the best frying job he'd ever done. He set the plate of bacon on the table in front of Jon who stared down at his untouched meal.

"I'll help with the feedin', sir," he said.

Jon didn't move. Had he even heard?

"I'll help—"

Jon jerked up his head woodenly, as though there had been a time delay between the words and his hearing them. His eyes still wore the stunned look, full of pain. "What's that?"

"I came to help with the chores if that's okay."

Jon nodded without interest. "Thanks."

He waited while Karl and Tim finished eating. Katie never reappeared. One-handed, he drove the old Massey tractor while the brothers fed the cattle then he returned home to help his grandfather with the chores on their place.

That night, almost ill from exhaustion and the relentless churning of his thoughts, he drove through the darkness to check the tree. Katie hadn't been there. He slid another note into the hollow space, and the next morning, another one before he helped her brothers with the feeding chores. He didn't really expect her to come to the tree, but it gave him something to do while he tried to rationalize her behavior.

She was in shock. All of them were. He didn't know anything about babies except they had to be held all the time and they cried a lot. The baby probably kept her busy. Funeral stuff, too. And a lot of church people and neighbors coming in and out, bringing food…things like that. The yard was always full of cars.

Lance's car, too. It wasn't anything to worry about. Probably. It'd be weird if he didn't come.

She was just too busy to get to the tree or call him.

Or look at him.

Or speak to him.

That night at church, grief blanketed the congregation, silent and heavy. He sat alone in his and Katie's usual place, fighting to steer his mind away from the dread rearing its head more insistently with each passing hour.

The funeral was tomorrow. Was it normal for a girl's fiancé not to be included in the family stuff? True, Katie's family probably didn't know they were getting married yet, but at a time like that, wouldn't she need him around? Probably she was only considering her dad's feelings.

Okay. He understood that. He could even live with that. After the funeral they'd talk. She'd lose that…dead look.

Everything would be all right.

***

The next morning, blinding snow flurries enshrouded everything. His grandfather, who was preaching the funeral service, left early for the church. Gil followed later, clean shaved and in his best jeans and white shirt—the same one he'd worn to Darlene's funeral but with the sleeve split to accommodate his cast.

Outside the church, a spiteful wind cut effortlessly through his clothes as he crossed the street, already lined with cars. Inside, he signed his name in the guestbook then found a seat at the end of a pew next to the aisle. Katie couldn't miss him.

Mounds of flowers flanked the gleaming cherry wood casket at the front, filling the air with heavy scent. Red roses blanketed the top of the casket—an aching tribute to a beloved woman.

He swallowed a sudden lump in his throat, turning his gaze to the pamphlet he'd been given at the door.

The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want…

He read the twenty-third Psalm, and then the next page.

Rebekah Elizabeth Campbell, age 39, Gene Howard and Dan Spellman officiating, Karl, Tim, Jon, Will O'Neil, Eric and Lance Thomas pall bearers…

He stared blindly at the paper with cold fingers clamped around his heart, making it hard to breathe. A steady shuffle sounded behind him as the church continued to fill with people.

Why was Lance on that list instead of him?

It wasn't his fault he'd barely known Becky, and sure…a one-armed pall bearer wasn't worth a whole lot, but he could've done it. For Katie's sake, surely her dad could have relented.

All the seats filled. People filed in to line the walls. Finally, the standing room filled, too. His grandfather rose from behind a mound of flowers at the front of the church.

"Everybody rise," the old man's deep voice boomed.

He turned. Karl entered the room, grim faced and pushing Dave in a wheelchair. Dave wore dark glasses instead of his patch, his jaw clenched tight. Tim, his face colorless and his Adam's apple working convulsively, followed. Then Katie and her dad.

The slim black dress she wore accentuated the deathlike pallor of her skin. Jon, grey faced and hollow-eyed, held her around the shoulders. Her steps dragged slowly toward the front as if she faced her own execution, her anguished gaze fixed on the casket.

He willed her to look at him, but she passed without a glance, weeping quietly. On the front pew, she sat next to her father, only the shining fall of hair down her back visible. A moment later, Lance sat down directly behind her, his gangly form blocking her from view.

He gaped at the back of Lance's head. Why was he sitting with her family?

Someone tugged at his shirt—he alone remained standing.

He flushed and sat down. His grandfather's work-hardened hands gripped the sides of the wooden pulpit.

"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth—" the scripture rumbled through the building with the certainty of thunder—"Yea, sayeth the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them…"

His grandfather knew Becky's name, too, but he could only stare at the back of Lance's head with a fist of panic driving deep into his gut.

***

At the top of a barren knoll, the Campbell grave plot grew a twisted blue spruce in its thin, rocky soil. The family huddled next to the tree, poor shelter from the merciless wind and heavy snow blurring Katie's small form. Her hair blew wildly around her face. Lance, towering behind her, had his hand on her shoulder.