The Cedar Tree (Love Is Not Enough) (25 page)

Across her mother's grave, Gil braced against the full force of wind, his eyes watering, his jaw clenched to keep his teeth from chattering.

"Jesus said—"

The wind instantly snatched his grandfather's words and whirled them away.

"I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die…"

Katie's eyes, smudges of pure blue in a white world, desperately clung to the old man and his words.

Just as desperately, he kept his gaze locked on her across the cherry wood casket, now dusted with snow, willing her to look at him.

Finally, the congregation sang the last hymn.

Heav'n's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee, in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me…

The hymn's final thin notes blew away. The closing prayer ended.

At last, Katie raised her gaze to meet his. Her beautiful, deep-set eyes, too big for her face, pooled with sorrow and longing.

And goodbye.

He stared at her, unable to breathe. Unable to move.

No.

God, no. Please.

Lance took the handles of Dave's wheelchair and pushed it toward the parked cars, Katie beside him. She slipped into the front seat of the old Buick while Lance helped Dave into the back seat. She leaned back her head, eyes closed. Lance slid in. The Buick disappeared into the wall of snow.

"Son?" his grandfather's voice asked behind him.

Slack-jawed with disbelief, he turned.

His grandfather studied him, his eyes turning sick with a remembered heartache. "Son, this's gonna need some time," he said quietly.

Someone nudged him from behind. He turned to stare blankly at the funeral director, a middle-aged man in a long black coat with a bad comb-over and a whiskey nose.

"Excuse me," the man said, walking past on the narrow path between the graves.

Gradually, he became aware of Rachel's voice from where she stood next to Jon. Katie's father held a shovel.

"It's too much, Jon," Rachel said. She tugged his arm. "Come with me. It's time to go home."

Jon, stony faced, didn't move. "It's the last thing I'll ever do for her, Rachel."

Rachel stared at him for a long, distressed moment. She turned to Karl in silent appeal.

"C'mon, Dad," Karl said gently. "The rest of us can do it."

"It's the last thing I'll ever do for her," Jon said tonelessly. He moved toward the mound of muddy soil beside the grave.

Rachel covered her face with her hands and wept. Jon thrust the shovel into the mound then moved to the casket. His sons, Dan, and Will joined him.

Since Lance had gone, he stepped up to take the other man's place. One-handed, he helped lower the casket into the grave. Dan fetched more shovels from his pickup.

He took a clumsy turn with the silent men. The heavy, stony soil relentlessly thudded onto the coffin, and then slowly filled the grave. Using the flat of his shovel, he helped pat the fresh earth over Katie's mother into a neat mound.  

He didn't know what else to do.

***

In his grandfather's kitchen late that afternoon, the Bakelite clock on the wall—new forty years before—ticked dependably away in the silent room. He sat at the table staring into a cup of cold coffee, his thoughts wandering.

If a silent man sat alone at a table, did a clock's second hand make too many ticks between each minute?

If a clock ticked in a forest and no one heard it, did it still make a sound?

And…this was a good one…if a man spoke in a forest and no woman heard him, was he still wrong?

His mother wouldn't have liked that. She'd say, "Oh, for Pete's sake, Gil. Why can't you be serious for once in your life? Why do you always have to joke around, even at a time like this?"

He'd say, "I'm not jokin' around, Mama. I'm serious as cancer this time…"

He rubbed his hand through his hair. Was Katie with Lance, now? Crying while he held her? His Katie with Lance…?

God, no. Please.

How could the whole thing be happening? What had he done wrong?

He looked at the clock. Five forty-five. Was his grandfather ever going to get home?

At six o'clock he looked at the clock again. In an hour, he'd call her. He'd made a mistake about what he'd seen in her eyes at the cemetery. She hadn't been saying goodbye.

At seven o'clock, he dialed the phone. She answered.

"Katie, it's me."

The baby cried in the background, shrill and monotonous.

"I have to go," she said.

The unrecognizable tone in her voice stopped his heart. "Katie, wait," he said hastily.

"Please don't call anymore."

"Don't hang—"

The phone clicked in his ear.

"up."

He clutched the receiver in his clammy hand. All his life he'd done everything he was big enough to do, but…he wasn't big enough for that.

She had been saying goodbye.

Chapter Fifteen

On Christmas morning, the sun blazed inside a perfect blue dome, glaring off snowcapped peaks, and striking a glittering carpet of diamonds from a foot of new snowfall in the home pasture. The glare made Molly's bugged-out eyes water and her panting breath puffed tiny circles of white fog into the frigid air.

She scrambled around on Gil's cast propped on the open window of his truck, blocking the view of his grandfather in the rearview mirror. The old man, clad in brown coveralls and a stocking cap, balanced against the movement of the hay trailer as the truck crawled forward, the chains on the tires grinding through the squeaky snow. Steadily breaking open bales on his knee, his grandfather heaved the hay onto the snow. A long line of bawling cattle shuffled after the trail of summer-green, clouds of vapor steaming from their red hides.

He brushed Molly out of the way. She jumped onto his cast again. 

"Molly, you little pain in the butt," he muttered, eying her tiny dog sweater with its ragged hole in the side—she had chewed the pink and white yarn, unraveling the pattern. "Look at your sweater. If you tear this one up, too, I ain't gettin' you another one. You'll just have to freeze to death."

He lifted her to his shoulder. She immediately latched onto his ear and started gnawing. Scowling, he brushed at her again. He caught sight of his own eyes in the mirror.

For the first time in years, he'd awakened on Christmas morning without a hangover, but it didn't much look like it. His eyes looked like two pee holes in the snow. He reached above the visor for his metal framed sunglasses and slid them on.

He glanced at the pretty package on the seat beside him. The lady at the gift shop had wrapped it the day before—a box of chocolate and a stuffed toy dog instead of the real mutt. Since Katie was saddled with a kid now, he could hardly give her a puppy to tend, too.

She hadn't answered any of his calls since the day of her mother's funeral and had avoided him every time he stepped into the house. But today was Christmas, after all. If he could just talk to her for a minute…

Two hours later, he found Rachel sitting at the table in the Campbell kitchen holding the baby. It didn't take her apologetic expression or a heat seeking missile to detect warmth still rising from Katie's hastily vacated chair.

He set the package on the table next to a half-finished bowl of cereal, mumbled something to Rachel and left in a haze of pain.

At noon, he and his grandfather drove to Will's house for dinner. Linda's attitude toward him had made a remarkable turn for the better. She pressed second helpings on him, concern shadowing her eyes.

After dinner, he fell asleep in a living room recliner, awaking later to a disturbance in his hair and Will's three-year-old daughter breathing on him. The smell of ham with overtones of chocolate pudding filled his nose. The child brandished a pink comb.

"Sara, no." Linda smiled apologetically, pulling the little girl away. Linda's smile resembled her brother Lance's, but he was a bony stork, she a tiny sparrow with long, brown hair. "She thinks your hair's like an Indian's because it's black and shiny. She likes Annie's, too."

"She's okay," he mumbled, sitting upright and wiping his mouth in case he'd drooled. "Don't make her go."

Sara, a smaller sparrow than her mother, flew away to return moments later holding a gaudy headband with a drooping pigeon feather. He awkwardly lifted the little girl onto his lap then meekly submitted while she shoved the headband onto his head with her sticky hands. He'd never liked kids, but as the child chattered at him and fixed him into her version of an Indian, the raw pain inside him eased somewhat.

The slight relief didn't last into the long hours of the night. As he had every night since Becky Campbell's death, he stared at the ceiling, groping through memories of the past weeks.

Where had he messed up with Katie? She had appeared genuinely happy at his baptism. When he'd taken her home that night, her kiss outside the kitchen door had been sweet. She'd even invited him for supper on the following Friday night.

He'd been almost drunk with his own happiness that day, though. Maybe he just hadn't been able to see—

It was probably that stupid letter. She'd got to thinking about it and decided she couldn't live with his past. Her mother's death couldn't have made her fall out of love with him. It had to be that letter.

He rolled out of his bed. On the hard boards of the floor, he bowed to his King without shame, wrestling his confusion and pain, trying to reconcile it with his new faith. Afterward, he flipped on his lamp and reached for his Bible, scouring its pages for answers. Finally, he fell asleep with it opened on his chest.

***

The New Year passed without a hangover, too. On January third, he sat in his pickup at the end of the lane as Katie's school bus materialized in the grey light just before sunrise. He hungrily scanned the windows for her. The kid with red hair sat in her seat.

He drove after the bus and passed it. From a window at the back, Tim gave him a puzzled frown and waved, but Katie wasn't on that side, either. He turned around and drove to the tree. The notes he'd put in every day were there, untouched. He added a new one and drove home.

That night he sat in his broken down chair with Molly standing on point at his feet, her gaze glued to a squeaky toy in his hand. He squeaked the bear and threw it into the hallway. Molly ran after it.

"Why wasn't Katie on the bus this mornin'?" he asked his grandfather.

The old man turned a page of his stockman's paper. "She says she's not goin' back to school."

"What?" He frowned. "Why not?" 

"Said she needs to take care of things at home."

Molly brought back the bear, dropping it at his feet. He ignored it, staring at the old man in disbelief. "You're serious?"

His grandfather nodded.

"She's only got this last semester, Gramps. Can't you talk to her?"

"I did. I told her she should let Rachel help her until she graduates. She won't hear of it."

"Why?"

The old man eyed him over his reading glasses. "The Campbells are big on takin' care of their own, Son. She won't shove her people or their problems off on anybody even if she's just a girl herself."

He picked up Molly's bear then hurled it away, frowning. "Rachel is her people. She probably wants her to finish school."

"She does."

"Well then, why—"

"Katie's a little stubborn."

"You think?" he asked with heavy sarcasm. "It's her dad's kid caused all this. Why don't he—"

"Don't be too hard on him, Son. He's aware it's his kid caused it. I'll be surprised if he comes through this with his mind." His grandfather sighed. "Dave could take care of the baby while Katie's at school, but I think she's afraid to leave her dad."

His frown deepened. Katie had a valid worry. Her dad had aged into an old man overnight. Silent pain deepened the lines of his weathered face, dulling his sharp gaze. The energy that had once powered his wiry frame had disappeared and he dragged around with no apparent interest in the daily operations of his family or the ranch.

Molly squeaked her toy encouragingly. He tossed it away. She brought it back.

He cleared his throat. "Katie said her mom bled when she had kids. Is that what happened?"

His grandfather lowered his paper. "Not this time. The coroner said her heart just gave out." He removed his glasses, rubbing his eyes. "She had rheumatic fever when she was a kid, was always a little frail." His gaze took on a far-off look. "Your gramma was a midwife with Esther for years. They told Becky after Karl was born she shouldn't have any more babies."

"Why'd she keep doin' it, then?"

His grandfather shrugged. "She was an only child. Hated it. Wanted a big family." He lifted his paper. "Why don't you get out of here? I'm tired of you sittin' around here actin' like an old man and playin' with that little dog. Go see Will or somebody." He looked up, hesitating. "Just don't… You won't go to town, will you?"

He stared at the old man, scowling. "You mean to the bar?"

His grandfather nodded.

"I ain't Dad, Gramps." 

The old man dropped his gaze. "I'm sorry, Son. I worry—"

"Well, don't. That ain't gonna happen."

He dressed Molly in her sweater—Sara might like to play with her—and became a regular visitor at Will's. He found an unexpected ally and confidant in Katie's Aunt Rachel, too. One day after Sunday dinner, he sat with her at the kitchen table while Dan snored in his living room chair.

"I don't understand any of this," he said. "Dave gettin' hurt. Katie's mom. The kid."

Rachel created a pattern of circles on the tablecloth with the condensation on the bottom of her glass. "I don't, either."

He regarded her in surprise. "You don't?"

"No. Same way I don't understand God allowin' the Holocaust. Or babies left in dumpsters when there's women like me that want babies and can't have them. Or an innocent Christ crucified on a cross for mean people that live for a hundred years while good people die young."