The Handfasting

by David Burnett

  Katherine had not been scheduled to work on Sunday. She did not work on weekends unless there was an emergency, but she had traded shifts with Dr. Fisher. Kelly, in turn, would take call for her when her parents were in town.

  She was glad that she would be able to spend time with her parents, but the decision had come with a price, when a little boy was carried into the ER by his mother. He was only six years old and he had been sick for over a week, unable to eat or drink much of anything. Dehydrated and barely conscious when his mother brought him into the ER on Sunday morning, they pumped fluids, but it made no difference.

  Katherine spent the day fighting for his life and felt unable to leave when her shift ended, so she sat with him and his mother for almost an hour. His mother was a wreck—desperate and crying. The little boy—his name was Timmy—he was brave and quiet, as if he knew what Katherine and his mother were both afraid to admit.

  When it happened, when he passed away, she was holding one of Timmy’s hands as his mother had a tight grip on the other, her head resting on the tear-stained pillow beside him. Then, just before he died, he opened his eyes, looked up at his mother, then at Katherine, and he smiled. He actually thanked her. That poor little boy whispered that it wasn’t her fault, that she had done her best.

  When his mother went into shock, Katherine tried to help, to say the right thing, but she was at a loss. As the woman’s sister arrived, Katherine took the opportunity to leave.

  A nurse caught her as she left the ER. “Dr. Jackson, there’s a telephone call for you.”

  In a daze, she turned into the staff lounge to take the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Katherine, it’s Bill! How are you?”

  She had thought that the day could not get any worse—she’d been wrong. Katherine paused and took a deep breath, but Bill continued before she could respond.

  “I called your apartment, but no one answered. Why are you at the hospital? You don’t work on weekends, do you?”

  “Not usually, Bill, I traded shifts.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have to work on weekends, ever. How are you?”

  “Not well, Bill.” She told him about the little boy. “He was just six years old. It broke my heart.”

  “Katherine, be realistic. These people don’t care for their children. They don’t feed them properly, don’t keep them clean, don’t take them to the doctor when they’re sick. You said he had been ill for a week?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Why wasn’t he at a doctor’s office days ago? Why did his mother wait?”

  “She didn’t know how sick he was, didn’t have the money, was afraid.” She choked back a sob. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, it’s her fault. She should be charged with neglect.” Bill coughed. “Anyway, you can’t save everyone, Katherine.”

  “I know, but…”

  “We’ll get you out of that hell hole. Dr. Nelson is expecting you on March second. You can spend your time treating people who care about their children.”

  “She did care, Bill.” She wiped her eyes. But maybe he was right. Maybe if she worked with Dr. Nelson this would never happen to her again.

  Bill continued as if she had not spoken. “Now, Valentine’s Day would be a good time for me to pop the question, as they say.”

  “No. Yes. No. That’s a Thursday, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “My parents will be in town the next day.”

  Again, Bill plowed ahead. “You’ve never actually told me that you’ll accept my proposal.”

  “You’re supposed to pop the question to get the answer.”

  “Don’t be silly, Katherine. We’re not teenagers, and this is too important. We’ve talked about this.”

  Katherine let out a deep sigh. What real choice did she have? She would marry him. At some level, she had known that she would since the day he first made the proposal. “Yes, Bill. I’ll say yes.” She gritted her teeth. “You can prepare your press release.”

  “I’ll be in New York on Thursday then.”

  Did the man not ever listen to her? Clearly, he had missed the irritation in her voice, or he had chosen to ignore it. She shook her head, just wanting to get off the phone now. “I work until three. Don’t come to the hospital and cause another scene.”

  “I’ll arrive about two, I think. I’ll be staying at the Royal. You can find me in the bar.”

  Katherine stiffened at the mention of the hotel. “No! Not at the hotel. Meet me at my apartment at four-thirty.”

  “No. That’s too much trouble. The Royal will be fine.”

  Too much trouble for whom? Katherine clenched her fist and tapped it against the counter.

  “Katherine, are you still there?”

  “I’ll meet you at four. We’ll leave as soon as I arrive.”

  “Well, a drink or two first—”

  “No, Bill, we’ll leave as soon as I arrive.” Her voice was firm.

  He was quiet and there seemed to be a voice in the background, talking to Bill, so she stopped and listened. She couldn’t make out what they were saying. Bill whispered something and then he popped back on the line, cheerful, as if everything was perfectly normal.

  “Well, okay, I’ll see you, then—my love!”

  Katherine choked. She couldn’t tell whether his cheerful voice reflected his feelings or whether there was a hint of sarcasm in the endearment. Her request, she noted, had been ignored, much like everything else she had said.

  She hung up and went back to her thoughts of the young boy. She wandered down the hallway, through the staff entrance, into the sunlight. She had never lost a patient before, not in this way, not while she was the primary physician, not while she held the patient’s hand. She had failed.

  She had agreed to marry a man, the thought of whom made her want to wretch. Again, she had failed.

  She would move home to a routine medical practice. She knew that work at the free clinic was an empty promise. She had wanted to do something significant, but she had failed.

  She walked across town, passing the entrance to the subway without a glance, moving slowly. Cars whizzed past, horns honked, tires screeched. A man stopped her, asking for directions. A guy leaning against a car across the street whistled. She passed restaurants, the aroma of food enticing her to enter, but she did not. She saw the posters at the theaters, hawking the latest releases. All of it—the sights, the sounds, the smells—merged into the background as she listed, over and again, all of the ways in which she was a failure.

  It was dark when she finally looked up to realize she was standing in front of the house where Steven lived. She had not really talked with him since early November, three months ago, except for their encounter at the airport. She had never been able to reach him by telephone. She had cut him off with no explanation, no true apology. “I’m sorry” while sipping coffee at the airport just was so inadequate! What must he think of her?

  She rang the bell. When he did not come, she knocked, and then knocked again, harder, as if he might not have heard.

  “No one is home.” She heard Steven’s voice. She turned and saw that he was standing right behind her. She had been so intent on attracting his attention that she had not noticed when he approached. “What’s wrong?”

  “Why do you think something is wrong?” Katherine faced the door and rolled her eyes. She had sounded like a twit.

  “You’ve never come by my house uninvited before. I doubt that you’re here to pass the time of day.”

  “I, I just wanted to see—to talk with you.” She looked into his eyes, pleading. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Come in.” He unlocked the door and flipped on the lights.

  “Sit down. Hot tea?”

  Katherine huddled in a large wingback chair while Steven lit the gas logs and started the tea. She looked around the room at the antique silver, the books. New paintings hung on the walls, no sign of the ones of the bridge and the abbey.
<
br />   “It’s my family’s old home in Loganville,” Steven said as he looked above the fireplace. He motioned toward the other wall. “Christ Church College. I thought that it was time to redecorate.”

  He shrugged and looked away. “I have a buyer for the abbey.”

  Neither of them spoke. What was there to say? They both knew why Steven had really taken them down.

  Steven went to the kitchen to pour the tea, while Katherine looked idly around the living room. She spied the vase of flowers on the desk. Magnolia blossoms, she thought, reminding her of the tree in their front yard at home.

  “I lost a patient today,” Katherine announced as Steven sat in the chair beside hers. “He was a little boy.”

  As she told him the story, Steven took her hand.

  “His mother should have brought him in earlier, she should have been more responsible, I can’t save everyone—aren’t you going to tell me all of those things?”

  “Why would I say those things? Saying things like that wouldn’t make you feel better. Even if they were true, it would still hurt.”

  She stared into her teacup. “It really does.”

  Several minutes passed before Katherine spoke again, breaking the silence. “Why are you so nice to me, Steven, when I’ve been so mean to you?”

  “Have you been?”

  “You know I have, but you still care about me.”

  “I like you, Katherine. You might have released me from our handfast, but I still like you.”

  Katherine stared into the fire. Not long ago, he would have said love, not like. He would have called her Katie, not Katherine.

  “But can you forgive me?”

  “Of course, I can. I told you before that I forgive people who are mean to me, people who hurt my feelings—people make mistakes. I only have difficulty forgiving people for not trusting me. That is an intentional choice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I was in Oxford, I dated a girl named Amy. I liked her a lot. I thought that it might be love. She would disappear on odd weekends, never a real reason. I finally learned that she didn’t have the money for college. She would go home, she lived on the coast, and she worked in a fishery all weekend to earn money to stay in school. She found it embarrassing. She didn’t trust me enough to tell me what she was doing.” He stared at the teacup in his hand, blew at the steam. “Imagine.”

  He sipped his tea and shrugged. “I still like Amy. She lives in Oxford, and I saw her when I was there, but I don’t love her. I realized that if you have a problem and you can’t trust someone to understand, then you don’t love that person. Amy didn’t love me, and I concluded that I shouldn’t imagine that I was in love with her either.”

  Katherine gulped. Did he know? She didn’t respond, and again, they sat together in silence.

  Steven looked at his watch.

  Steven never checked the time when they were together. She wondered if he was meeting someone.

  “Steven, I want to tell you…I mean, it’s just that…” She had trouble speaking, and her voice was little more than a whisper.

  Steven stood. “I’m sorry, but I have a da—an appointment tonight and I need to be going. Let me check the teapot.”

  He does have a date. Unable to say what she really wanted to say, Katherine quickly said her good-byes and walked home. She had made her choices. She would live with them now.

  ***

  Bill was awake early on Monday morning. He was planning to shop for a ring. He considered his strategy as he drank instant coffee and munched on dry toast.

  Given the way that rumors spread through Hamilton, if Bill were to look at engagement rings, it would be known across town by dinnertime. If he actually made a purchase, reporters in Richmond would receive calls. If he wanted the engagement kept secret, he should make the purchase in Richmond, he knew, or in Boston, the afternoon before he flew to New York. But of course, he really wanted the secret to leak. He wanted the announcement to come from him, not the Jacksons. Of course, the formal announcement would be theirs, but if he shopped at home, their announcement would simply be a confirmation of what everyone already knew.

  He chuckled as he recalled his proposal. She had been about to turn him down, until he had pointed out that he would have to deny the rumor of their impending marriage—and explain why they would not marry. He had not needed to say any more. She had understood. If he could push her into marriage that easily, well, he could get her to do almost anything.

  He stood, grinning as he mixed a second cup of coffee. He would arrive in New York from Boston at two o’clock, meet Katherine at the hotel at four, and take her home to change.

  He had dinner reservations at the Villa Antonia. The restaurant was not far from her apartment and he had heard that it was one of the best restaurants in that part of town.

  “I love good Italian food,” he muttered, rubbing his hands together. “I’ll actually give her the ring at dinner—we can call our parents, everyone, later. Then, well, we’ll be engaged and it’s Valentine’s Day.”

  He gulped the remainder of the coffee and reached for his coat, chuckling. “I wonder if her roommates will be in town?”

  On his way in to work, Bill stopped at Julia’s Jewelry Store, just down Richmond Road from his office. He would not make a purchase today. He would tell the owner that he was just looking. A bell rang as he opened the door, alerting the owner that a customer had arrived.

  She looked up from the display she had been adjusting. “Bill, good morning. How are you today?”

  “Fine, just fine, Julia. It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  “It is. How is the campaign going?”

  “It is going fine, just fine. Things are rolling right along.”

  “Well, I find it all very exciting. A congressman from Hamilton.” Julia slid behind the counter. “What can I do for you this morning?”

  “I’d like to look at rings for a few minutes, Julia.”

  “Rings?”

  “Yes, engagement rings.”

  She smiled and reached into the display case, retrieving a tray of dazzling engagement rings. “Who is the lucky girl?”

  Bill offered a sly grin. “I’m just looking today, not planning to buy. Just looking.” He was enjoying the expression on Julia’s face. “I want something large.”

  ***

  “The telephone has been ringing since I got home,” Becky told Katherine as she closed the door behind her. “First your mother, then your Aunt Emma. Both of them insist that you call as soon as you get in.”

  Katherine hesitated. It must be serious if both her mother and Aunt Emma were calling.

  “Neither one sounded happy, Katherine.”

  She dialed the phone. “Mom, it’s Katherine. What’s up?”

  “Are you and Bill Wilson engaged?”

  “Why do you ask?” Katherine felt the muscles in her body tense.

  “Well, this morning he stopped by Julia’s Jewelry Store and was looking at engagement rings—large ones. Julia asked whom he was marrying, but he wouldn’t say. Are the two of you actually getting married?”

  “He hasn’t formally proposed, Mom.” She looked up at the ceiling, wishing that she had not returned the call.

  “Do you know what you’re doing? You hardly know Bill Wilson anymore. Is this, what do they call it? Senior panic? Are you marrying him because you broke up with Steven Richardson? If that’s it, Katherine, you need to think very, very carefully about what you’re doing.”

  “I thought you liked Bill. I thought you would be pleased that I was moving back to Hamilton.”

  “Bill will certainly be able to support you, give you a good life, and it would make me very happy to have you in Hamilton. But, Katherine, do you love him?”

  Katherine’s mouth dropped open. “Love him? You told me that marriage was about more than love. It’s about lifestyle, you said, having the kind of life I want. Bill will give me that.”

  “I told you that love w
as not everything, Katherine. I know a number of women who are not in love with their husbands, and yet they are happy. But, honey, marriage is difficult if you are not in love. It is even more difficult if you are in love with someone else.”

  Becky had been standing next to Katherine listening to her side of the conversation. As soon as she hung up, Becky spoke up. “I don’t know exactly what your mother said, but you should listen to her, Katherine! She’s right, and she doesn’t know even half of the story—yet.”

  After talking with her mother, Katherine hesitated to call Aunt Emma, knowing how she felt. She stood for almost a full minute, holding the receiver, contemplating, before she finally summoned the courage to dial. As soon as she said hello, her aunt greeted her in a fashion that made her mother’s reaction seem mild.

  “Katherine, have you lost your mind?”

  Katherine could tell from Becky’s expression that Aunt Emma had spoken loudly enough that she had heard clearly.

  “I’m doing what I think is right, Aunt Emma. You have to let me make my own decisions, live my own life.”

  “You aren’t thinking clearly, Katherine, and you are making a serious mistake.”

  “Please, Aunt Emma, please let me know you support me.”

  “I definitely do not support you in this! You know this is wrong. If it weren’t, your family wouldn’t be learning your plans via the grapevine. I’m tempted to call your father this minute and tell him what’s what.”

  “No, Aunt Emma, no!” Katherine begged.

  Her aunt paused. “All right, I won’t, Katherine, not right now. But only because I firmly believe that you will come to your senses on your own. If you don’t, then you can believe Tom Jackson will hear all about it. Bill Wilson will rue the day he even thought of laying a finger on you.”

  ***

  Steven was ready to climb into bed when his telephone rang. He thought about ignoring it, but something in him told him to answer.

  “Steven, this is Becky. How was England?”

  “England was good, Becky. I had a great time.”

  “Steven, Katherine is asleep, so I’ll need to be quiet. I need to tell you something. About Katherine. Something that happened last November.”