“Glory,” my best friend, Alison, nudged my arm when the unknown woman slid into the end of the Kings' usual pewâacross the aisle and down two rows. “Who is
that?
”
“Got me,” I whispered back, amazed. The woman looked like she'd stepped from the pages of a magazine, with an aura of confidence as sleek as her shoulder-length black hair. She wore a bright yellow dress that fitted her just so, and high black-strapped heels. Her fingernails gleamed long and bright redâthe same color as her lips. I blinked at that. Nobody wore that color lipstick to church.
I raised questioning eyebrows at Daddy over the heads of Robert and Clarissa. His gaze at the woman crinkled into puzzlement, then smoothed into surprised recognition. And then came the look that would change our lives. A flicker of undeniable pleasure tugged one corner of my daddy's mouth.
I remember that look as if it were yesterday. For me, it carried a lifetime of meaning. I'd seen the look often enough on the faces of my girlfriends as they admired some boy. I'd felt it on my own features whenever Billy Sullivan came into view. The expression bespoke eye-tugging attractionâcaged only by social graces.
Four years have passed since that day. One thing I have learned since then: the bonfires of change start with the merest spark. Sometimes we see that flicker. Sometimes we blink in surprise at the flame only after it has marched hot legs upward to fully ignite. Either way, flicker or flame, we'd better do some serious praying. When God's on the move in our lives, he tends to burn up things we'd just as soon keep.
When it came to Daddy and Katherine May, I saw the spark right off. I knew my daddy too well. I stared at him, air catching in my throat.
He caught me watching and gave a little shrug. With purpose, he turned his head toward Pastor Beekins, who approached the pulpit to announce the first hymn. Half dazed, I stood with the rest of the congregation to sing, fumbling for the correct page in the hymnbook. But my eyes slid back to the woman, who held half a book, sharing with Derek King. Now that was a contrast. Derek King was a year ahead of me in school and the weirdest person I knew. He looked like a scrawny chicken next to a panther. I'd have laughed if my brain wasn't so busy scrambling for equilibrium.
I heard not a word of the sermon. I tried to focus on the pastor, but my eyes kept drifting left. A couple of times I stole glances at Daddy. He appeared to be listening with intent. But somehow I knew his thoughts were elsewhere. I could
feel
it.
After the service, I slipped quickly into the aisle, Alison on my heels, then stood waiting for Daddy like a protective guardian. I planned on turning him aside from this woman. But she was too clever for me.
“Well,
there
you are,” she said, holding out a slender arm. “You're Bobby Delham, aren't you.”
The name tripped off her tongue as if she'd said it a thousand times. I darted a surprised look at my father.
“Yes.” Daddy took her hand in his. “Now that you're with your family, I recognize you. Katherine King, right? It's been a while since you've visited.”
“Far too long.” She smiled at him a suspended moment, then glided her eyes to Clarissa. “And who's this beautiful young lady?” She bent over and studied my sister's face. “Yup, I thought so.”
Clarissa stared up at her with wide green eyes. “Huh?”
“The Pretty Fairy visits you every night, and every night she kisses you right here.” She ran a finger down Clarissa's nose and tapped the end. “That's why you're so lovely. And you'll get lovelier every day.”
Clarissa considered Katherine as if amazed that a grown woman would tell her such a tale. Then she grinned, captivated. “My name's Clarissa,” she said.
“A perfect name for you,” Katherine replied.
I put an arm around Clarissa's shoulders and drew her to my side. Katherine turned her eyes on me. “And you must be her sister.”
I could only nod, mouth pressed.
She seemed undaunted at my coldness. “What's your name?”
I hesitated. “Jackie.”
“And this is my son, Robert,” Daddy broke in, as if embarrassed at my attitude. “And Jackie's friend, Alison.”
“Hi.” Alison nearly gawked. I could have strangled her. Katherine King did not deserve any kind of awe. Not at all.
“Wonderful to meet you.” Katherine smiled again at my daddy. He smiled back.
“Are you visiting for a while?” he asked.
“Yes. I expect I'll be here for some time, staying at my parents' house.”
I tightened my fingers on Clarissa's shoulder. “Ouch!” She frowned at me.
“That's nice to hear. I imagine they will be glad to have you around.” Daddy stood awkwardly then, as if trying to think of something else to say. “Well.” He cleared his throat. “We'll be seeing you, I'm sure.”
Oh, no, we won't.
Our families parted ways.
Daddy was quiet as he started the car for our short ride home. “Who is she?” I demanded.
“You heard who she isâJason and Connie King's daughter.”
“But where's she been?”
He shrugged. “Don't know. Now that I think about it, she probably left town after she finished high school.”
The rhythm of his name from her lips beat in my memory. “Did she go to school with you?”
“Not really. She was probably”âhe thought a momentâ“five or six years behind me. So I didn't pay all that much attention to her.”
“Well, she certainly paid plenty of attention to you,” I retorted. “And where did you see her before, anyway?”
Daddy gave me a look, clearly perturbed. “I saw her outside in the wind just before the tornado came. I pulled her inside the bank.”
Oh, great, he'd saved her, like some knight in shining armor. I narrowed my eyes at the road. “She could have at least thanked you.”
“She did.”
Ah. Clearly, there were details he wasn't telling me.
“Isn't she married?”
“Apparently not.”
“I like her, Daddy,” Clarissa chirped from the backseat. “She's real pretty.”
Such timing from my innocent sister. I pressed back against the seat and folded my arms. “Her lipstick's too red.”
A teenage girl's bedroom is her haven. At that time in my life, my room was as much a part of me as my right hand. Its doorway symbolized the threshold between my two livesâersatz mother and trembling young girl. Within the rest of our house responsibilities weighted me. I cooked and cleaned and cared for my siblings, sweeping my fears and self-doubts into a safe pile in the corner of my heart as surely as I swept dust from the kitchen floor. But in my room, closed off from the wearying demands and expectations, I could be sixteen. There, I exchanged secrets on the phone with my friends. Amid those four walls I begged God for help countless times. I rested there. Stewed and complained and cried there. I daydreamed of love there.
And in that year of 1998, through all the elation and heartache that would grip my family, I would grow up there. While growing up is a much-sought prize, I would feel no satisfaction at the time. In truth, I would feel like a feather caught in a whirlwind. Only later would I realize what had happened: the dual parts of me had become one. Somewhere along the way, the once definable threshold of my room, my life, had faded into nondistinction, like photo development in reverse.
After church on that day in March, I sat at my bedroom desk, trying to study for a history test, but my thoughts had other plans. The scene from church echoed until my head rang with it. I tried to read, yet could only see that look on Daddy's face, and Katherine King's poised perfection as she spoke his name. Disgusted, I turned away from my book only to catch my reflection in the dresser mirror. I gazed at myself.
Why had I never noticed how plain I was?
Everybody said I looked just like Mamaâa high compliment. Like me, she was short and slim, with light brown hair and wide-set, almond-shaped brown eyes. She had an oval face and lips that turned up at the corners. It was true, Mama had been beautiful. But suddenly her looks on my face didn't translate so well.
I told myself it had nothing to do with Katherine King. What a betrayal that would be, comparing her looks to Mama's and finding them superior. The mere thought sent such a pang through me that I shoved it away right then. Even now that thought disturbs me.
No. I was not plain, I told myself. I was just a lost cause. I'd turned the magic age of sixteen the previous month. Finally old enough to date but too burdened with being “mama” of our family, a weary woman in a teenager's body. Mama and I had talked about my dating since I was twelve. “You're lucky times have changed in Bradleyville,” she once told me. “When I was young, we couldn't date until seventeen. And even then, the whole town watched us.”
“You went out with Daddy right from the start, didn't you?” I asked. She smiled one of her secretive little smiles, tinged with sadness. “Yes. I did.”
Mama had never loved anyone except Daddy. She told me so many times. He was her first kiss and her last. A perfect romance.
How easy love seemed when I was sixteen.
My gaze drifted to the glossy posters on my walls, photos of the music stars I listened to constantly on the radio. I especially liked the boy bands: 98 Degrees, Backstreet Boys, and 'NSync. What lives those singers must lead, I thought. What perfect romances they must have seen to enable them to sing such love songs.
They might as well have lived in a different world.
I closed my eyes and envisioned Daddy's smile of pleasure.
How
could he have looked at some other woman that way?
It won't go anywhere, Jackie. Stop thinking about it.
I turned back to my history book, rubbing my forehead, and tried to concentrate. But before long, my thoughts drifted back to the telltale flash of delight on my daddy's lips as he beheld Katherine King.
I
t doesn't take much in Bradleyville to cause a stir. No matter where I went that week, folks talked about Katherine King's sudden appearance. At the grocery store on Monday, Edith Bishop was yakking away to Shirley Clawson. Their voices fell to a whisper as I pushed my cart by, but I could still make out their words. Besides, at the mention of Katherine's name, my ears pricked. I stopped not too far away and pretended to consider the prices on canned beans.
“Connie tol' me she feels like it's Christmas all over again, havin' her daughter back,” Miss Edith said.
“I can only imagine.” Miss Shirley's voice dripped empathy. “But land sakes, where's the girl been for eleven years?”
“Too many places, apparently. And she's only visited her parents a few times. But except for her grandma's funeral, she'd refuse to come to churchâeven on Christmas Eve or Easter.”
“Don't sound right to me.”
“Well. At least she come Sunday.”
“True, true.”
The conversation paused. I could almost feel the women's suspicious glances at my profile. I made a point of sighing at the beans and shaking my head, then moved reluctantly on down the aisle. The voices resumed.
The next day I popped into the hardware store, and two other women were talking, these from the Baptist church. They'd apparently heard how Katherine's red lipstick and nails fired up the Methodist sanctuary. And glory, had the other woman seen Katherine May just that mornin', wearin' those tight jeans? It's a wonder she got a leg in 'em.
Katherine May. That was the first time I'd heard her full name. I did not like the ring of it.
Even at home I could not escape from the topic. That night at supper Clarissa asked, “Is that girl Katherine gonna be at church again Sunday?”
“Don't know,” Daddy said.
“Probably.” Robert shoved mashed potatoes into his mouth.
I blinked at him. “Like how would you know?”
He swallowed. “I saw her.”
“Saw her? Where?”
“When I was walkin' home from softball practice yesterday.”
My brother had the maddening habit of saying the least words possible. “Well, what'd she say?”
“She said she'd probably see us in church Sunday.”
I scorched him with a look. “Do tell, Robert. But what else, like why'd she talk to you at all?”
He eyed me, forehead creasing. “Like I said, I was walkin' home. She drove by and saw me, so she pulled over and said hi.”
I narrowed my eyes. The only reason Katherine King would pull over to say hi to Robert was that he was my daddy's son. Had she no shame?
Robert shrugged. “She said, âYou're Bobby Delham's son, Robert, right?' and I said, âYes, ma'am.' And she said even if she hadn't a met me in church, she'd a known me for a Delham, seein' as how I have the same thick dark hair and handsome face as Daddy.”
My jaw dropped. “She told you
that?”
“Uh-huh.” Robert resumed eating.
I turned a shocked gaze on Daddy, as if daring him not to disdain this madness. He tipped his head with an “Oh, well,” expression, then took a drink of iced tea. His little charade didn't fool me one bit. I could tell he was pleased. Anger plinked up my spine.
“Goes to show folks are right,” I declared, cutting my meat with ferocious intent.
“About what?” asked Clarissa.
“All they're saying about Katherine King.” I took a prim bite of chicken.
“Jackie, you know you shouldn't listen to gossip.” Daddy frowned at me. A moment passed. “What do they say?”
I told him every detail.
Daddy nodded slowly, pressing his full lips together the way he did when he was thinking. “Here's what I say. One, don't believe everything you hear. Two, even if you hear somethin' awful about a person and you know it's true, best be forgivin', like Jesus told us to be. Everybody makes mistakes, and some day, you might need some forgivin' yourself.”