A Little Bit Engaged

by Teresa Hill

  Sometimes she felt she’d been rushing around her whole life, and had just managed to slow down and catch her breath. What had she been thinking for all those years? All the wrong things, it seemed.

  She opened her eyes and saw Ben walking toward her. He was wearing a pair of jeans, with the black shirt of a priest, and he’d taken off his collar. Mrs. Ryan would not be happy, but Kate was.

  He was long-legged and lean, walked like a man who knew exactly where he was going, and he had eyes only for her. There was a grin on his face, a light about him, a goodness, that Kate just wanted to soak up like a woman who hadn’t had so much as a sip of water in years.

  Kate stood up and threw her arms around him the minute he got close enough. He caught her, lifted her off her feet and swung her around, kissing her as he finally set her back down on the ground.

  “Mrs. Ryan is sure to hear about this,” she said.

  “I’m sure she will. But remember, she likes me a little bit now. And I think she likes you. I think she can handle a very public kiss in the park.”

  “And Melanie. I’m sure Melanie will have the whole story by five, at the latest.”

  “Do you care?”

  “No, I don’t. In fact, I thought it was time to put a stop to the whole me-and-Joe-reconciling story. I told Melanie a while ago about everything that happened at the café and asked her to spread the news.”

  “You asked her to tell people?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Did she look…agreeable, or like she wasn’t sure what to do?”

  “Now that I think about it, she looked a little strange when I invited her to tell everyone.”

  Ben nodded. “I might have…talked her out of being a gossip.”

  “No way,” Kate said.

  “Yeah, I might have. I gave her my whole floating-blob-of-crap argument weeks ago, and she looked frightened.”

  “‘Floating blob of crap’?”

  He nodded, trying to look solemn and serious and failing miserably.

  “What is the whole floating-blob-of-crap argument?”

  “You know…the karma thing. That what you put out into the world always comes back to you, so you’d better be nice to people, or else.”

  “This is religious philosophy?” she asked.

  “To some people, I guess.” He shrugged. “I mean, I think there’s a lot to be said for being kind to people, for trying not to hurt them, and she hurt you and a lot of other people, just because it amused her or gave her something to do. I just suggested that if I was her and I spent all my time telling stories about other people, I’d be worried.”

  Kate laughed. “You were trying to intimidate her. For me?”

  “I gave it my best shot,” he insisted. “And it looks like it worked. She hasn’t said anything, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Kate said, and realized she didn’t really care.

  “Although it is kind of funny. You come right out and invite her to share your news with everyone, and she’s too scared to do it.”

  “If she hears about us here in the park today, she’ll really be stumped about what to do.” Kate started laughing.

  They got ice cream from the cart, from the same man who’d sold her a fudge bar that first day she’d met Shannon, when her life got turned upside down. Kate got an ice cream sandwich, and Ben got a cup of orange sherbet.

  They sat on the stone wall, in the bright sunshine, eating and laughing and just happy to be together.

  It felt so good, and yet the things Gretchen said were stuck in Kate’s head.

  “You know, we don’t make any sense at all together,” she said finally.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t.”

  “Do things have to always make sense?” he asked, reasonable as could be.

  “To me they do.”

  “Now, I’m going to say something, not to be mean in any way, just something I think is important that you need to consider. You thought you and Joe made perfect sense.”

  “Okay, you’ve got me there, but still…there are just so many things where we’re so different.”

  “Yeah. I’m a man. You’re a woman. Big difference, but I like it.”

  “You know what I mean. What about…ambition? I’m very ambitious, and you’re… Well—” She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but he was the most laid-back person she’d ever met.

  “Kate, think about it. I believe there are people in the world with problems, and I think through the work I do with the church, I can help them. People come to me when their children are dying or their marriage is falling apart. When they’re so depressed they’re not sure if they want to go on living and I want to be able to help them. Now, if you’re looking for someone to climb the corporate ladder and make a ton of money, I tried that, and there were parts of it that I was good at. I just wasn’t happy.”

  She knew. He’d told her about his adventures in big business. He’d been a personnel manager for a huge company in North Carolina. His family, mom, dad and two brothers were still baffled by his decision to join the church.

  “If you’re looking for someone who’s a part of that business world, it’s not gonna be me. But don’t think it’s a lack of ambition or drive to make a difference or to do something important. What else?”

  “Money,” she said. “How do you feel about money?”

  “I like it,” he claimed.

  “You can’t like it. You’re a priest!”

  “Sure I can. It makes my job a lot easier. We have people who need help, and very often, money helps. They need medicine or food or a place to stay. They need time off from their jobs to take care of their families, or their kids need clothes. Shannon needed to see a doctor. The church never has enough money.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever have enough of it, either, and I might…love it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, I just do,” she said.

  “Come on. You have to do better than that.”

  “I guess because things were so hard after my father died. My mother had never worked. She had four kids to take care of, and it was a struggle. For years and years she struggled. I used to see her in the kitchen late at night trying to figure out how to pay the bills, and she worried so much.”

  “And you decided that when you were grown-up, you didn’t ever want to worry about money. Because you saw it as a way of protecting yourself from that one problem you thought was so hard for your family growing up.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Kate, you don’t love the money. You love the sense of control and security you get from having the money. There’s a difference,” he said. “What else?”

  “You know…the whole God, church thing is really not me,” she argued.

  “It wasn’t me, either, not for a long time.”

  He’d lost two of his best friends in a car accident when Ben was only twenty-six. A year later he’d gone to the seminary, trying to make sense of it all.

  “But it’s so important to you now,” Kate said. “I’m not like that.”

  He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you’ll always feel that way.”

  “But maybe I will. And that would have to be a problem between us.”

  “Would it?”

  “Of course it would.” She took a breath, looked at him. “Wouldn’t it?”

  “Has it been a problem so far?”

  “I don’t know. I guess not.”

  “And it’s not a problem right now, so you must be trying to convince yourself it will become one. What do you think God does, Kate? What do you think the church is all about? Because I think we’re all about helping people, or we should be. Life is hard, and we don’t always understand why. I don’t always know the right thing to do, but I don’t think we can go wrong in one, simple thing, and that’s trying to help each other. So when I see somebody who needs something, I try to fix it, and from everything I’ve seen of you, you do the exact same thing.”

 
“But I don’t do it because of a church or because of God.”

  “So? You still do it.”

  “I do it because I always used to think I knew what was right, what people needed, better than they did.”

  “You’re still trying to help, because you care about the people around you, and I think that’s what really counts.”

  She frowned at him. “You’re making me sound much nicer than I am.”

  “You’re making the so-called problems between us sound much bigger than they actually are.”

  “Still—”

  “You’d fit right in at our church, if you wanted to be there. Think of it as a big group of people for you to organize. You love organizing. I know you do. Having someone to manage our money would be great. Having someone tell us how to raise more of it for the things we need to do…that would be great.”

  “So, you’re trying to recruit me as a volunteer now?”

  “I’m saying we could find things for you to do that you’d enjoy and be really good at. And a challenge…you like a challenge, believe me, our financial situation is always a challenge.”

  “So…you want me to be your financial director?”

  “I want you to be much more than that, and you know it. But you’re not ready to admit it to yourself, and I’m trying not to push,” he said. “Still, you must be getting ready to hear all this, because you’re starting to get scared, and you don’t get scared with someone you don’t care about. You only get scared about where a relationship is going when you care a lot and you don’t want to get hurt. Kate, I’m not going to hurt you.”

  It was one of the sweetest promises any man had ever made to her and one of the most sincere, and it scared her half to death.

  “Try not to worry so much.” He kissed her softly. “You could feel safer and happier with me than you ever did before with a nice bank account.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kate sat in her living room late that night, trying not to be scared, trying not to come up with a dozen reasons she shouldn’t fall completely for Ben.

  She thought he was right.

  Money was a safety net to her. She was comfortable with it. She understood it. She thought she could control it. She felt safe with it.

  Not so, with a man.

  She sighed heavily, feeling sorry for herself, and that’s how Shannon found her, when she came walking down the hall.

  “Oh, hi,” she said. “Sorry if I’m in the way.”

  “You’re not. I’m just sitting here thinking. Do you feel all right?”

  “Sure. I just need to go to the bathroom every ten minutes or so. I’m almost always hungry or thirsty, but I get full when I have two bites. And the baby’s sitting on my right hip bone and won’t get off.”

  “Sitting on it?”

  “Or something. Digging into it. Elbowing it. Kneeing it. I don’t know.” Shannon gave the spot a little nudge. “Get off!”

  Poor thing did look miserable. Her belly seemed to get bigger every day. If she stood sideways, she looked like a stick that had swallowed a basketball.

  “Come and sit down. Or lie down on your left side. Maybe gravity alone will take care of the problem,” Kate suggested. “And I’ll get you something to drink.”

  Shannon looked like the least bit of kindness might be her undoing. Kate had been warned the last few weeks of pregnancy were not only uncomfortable but likely a very emotional time. She worried she hadn’t been nearly supportive enough.

  She went into the kitchen while poor Shannon tried to maneuver herself onto her left side on the couch. It wasn’t easy. The girl could barely tie her own shoes anymore.

  Kate found a glass and a straw, then looked in the refrigerator. “How about some sweet tea?”

  “That’s fine,” Shannon said.

  Kate delivered it, then sat on the edge of the cushion, facing Shannon. She didn’t have any makeup on, no artificially white face, no blackened lips, and she might have taken out a piercing or two. She looked like a lost little girl.

  “It’s not going to last forever,” Kate said. “The doctor said it just feels like it will, but it won’t.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Ben’s arranging for us to meet two couples hoping to adopt soon.”

  “I know.” At the moment she sounded resigned to giving up her baby. Of course, she could change that in the next second.

  Poor girl. Her father hadn’t called once, at least, not that Ben or Kate had heard about. It didn’t seem like there was anyone left who cared about her, except for the two of them and one of her teachers at school.

  What was going to happen to her after the baby came? Kate was starting to worry more and more about that.

  “You think I have to give this baby up, don’t you?” Shannon said. “You don’t think I can manage on my own.”

  “I think it’s hard for you to even understand what it takes to raise a child, and I think you still need someone to raise you. You’re only fifteen, Shannon.”

  “I’ve been taking care of myself for years. It’s not like my mother knew what she was doing when she came back, and my father didn’t care at all.”

  “Yes, but taking care of yourself and taking care of a baby are two different things—”

  “I’m not stupid,” Shannon cried. “I know that.”

  “It’s not about being smart, and it’s not about wanting to do a good job. It’s having the ability to do it.”

  “And you don’t think I can?”

  “I know it was almost too much for my own mother to handle, and she was in her mid-thirties when she was left alone with me and my brother and sisters.”

  “Yeah. There were four of you.”

  “And we all helped. My brother’s the oldest, and he helped a lot. I did what I could to help with my sisters, and my mother did what she could, and still…it just takes so much. We all needed so much. Not just money, but her time and attention. We needed reassurance. We needed someone to do the laundry and go to the grocery store and cook and make sure we got to school and did our work there. We needed someone to listen to a million problems, to referee a thousand fights, to be so strong and kind and loving. The list goes on and on, and the needs are constant. It never lets up. I don’t know how my mother did it, and she was one of the strongest, kindest, most amazing women I’ve ever known. To do all that, alone, at fifteen…it just seems impossible to me.”

  “Girls do it.”

  “They do. They try. But the question is, what do you want for your baby, and what do you want for yourself? I saw you watching Emily with her father, when she snuggled up to him and went to sleep in his arms. I had a father like that for a while. You don’t know how important it is until you don’t have it anymore. That little girl, she doesn’t know what it’s like to be without her dad. She thinks all she has to do is reach out her arms, anytime she wants, and he’s going to be there. What would you have given, when you were a girl, to have that? What would you give to have it now?”

  Kate was crying by the time she was done. So was Shannon.

  “It doesn’t mean he’s always going to be there for her, just because he’s there now. Stuff happens. You know that,” Shannon argued.

  “I do.”

  “And just because Paul doesn’t want me or the baby, that doesn’t mean I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life. I’m gonna have someone who loves me someday, somebody who’ll stay. I’m gonna have all those things one day.”

  “I hope you will. But your baby’s coming in a few weeks, Shannon. She needs someone who can take care of her and be a parent to her right now. What if you were her, and someone said to her, you can have this life with your birth mother who’s not even out of high school or this one, with a mom and a dad. Which would you pick?”

  “That’s not fair,” Shannon said, weeping.

  “That’s what’s happening right now. Your baby can’t choose for herself. You’re her mother. You have to decide for her. I think you want her to
have the kind of home you didn’t have when you were growing up, the things you don’t have right now.”

  “I hate this,” she said. “I hate it.”

  “I know.”

  “You think I’m stupid for even letting myself get pregnant in the first place.”

  “No, I think you’re a fifteen-year-old girl.”

  “I was just so lonely, and Paul…he was really nice to me at first. He said he loved me, and there hadn’t been anyone who loved me in so long. I just wanted someone to love me and to hold me. It felt so good when he just held on to me.”

  Kate held out her arms to the girl, and Shannon looked as if there was no way she was going to allow herself that kind of comfort from Kate. But her tears kept falling, and finally she let Kate pull her into an embrace.

  They held each other for a long time, Shannon frantic, her grip almost painful. The girl felt tiny, all skin and bones, except for the baby, which was a hard, round lump between them. Kate felt the baby kick hard once, then again. Shannon sniffled and tried to dry her tears with the back of her hand as she eased away.

  “It’s like she thinks it’s a game,” Shannon said. “Like she’s trying to say hello, or something, or make sure I know she’s there.”

  “She? You think it’s a girl?”

  Shannon nodded. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…you know.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Why are you being so nice to me? You don’t even like me.”

  “I’ve learned to like you,” Kate insisted, and she had. How about that? She hadn’t called her Ghoul Girl in weeks.

  “But…why?”

  “I guess I look at you and think, you need a mother, and you don’t have one. I know what that’s like, too. My mother died six months ago. I really miss her, and I’m not fifteen and pregnant. I guess I think you must need a mother even more than I do, so…I thought I’d do what I could for you.”

  “Because of that guy you want to impress? The one who could help you with your business?”

  “Shannon, I haven’t thought of him in weeks.”

  “Then, because of Ben.”