Capture the Wind for Me

by Brandilyn Collins

  “See how selfish you are?” she retorted. “You can’t even give me some space when I need it.”

  “Space! Is that all you call this? Katherine, you left your ring behind! Our wedding’s supposed to be in a week; this is a fine time to decide you need some space.”

  “Bobby, you’re not listening to me. Like you haven’t been listening for the past two months. I’m too messed up inside right now. I can’t give you what you need. And you obviously can’t give me what I need. So please, just . . . let me be.”

  Daddy’s voice fell to cold fury. “So you can do what—decide to pick up and move across the country again? Take up with somebody else?” “Bobby, don’t—”

  “Trent Baxter was right. He warned us what you would do.”

  Katherine sucked in a breath. “I’m not the same as I was then. This is different.”

  “Really?” Daddy’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “Well, you couldn’t prove it by me.”

  He slammed down the phone.

  After he’d calmed down, he tried calling back again and again, but Katherine would not answer. She finally took the phone off the hook. Daddy sank again into despair. He remained mostly in his bedroom, praying and begging God to do something. Hadn’t he lost enough in his life?

  One bright spot shimmers from that stained and worn afternoon. For some reason—I suppose because she’d finally had all she could take—Clarissa chose that auspicious day to stand up to Alma Sue.

  About an hour after school let out, Alma Sue banged on our door. I almost refused to let her in, irritated that her mama had let her come over when our household lay in such disarray. But Clarissa needed a diversion, and so I relented. Daddy remained in his room with the door closed. Robert had retreated to his bedroom as well and lay on the floor with his chin on his stacked fists, reading a softball magazine. “You two can play in the family area until 5:00,” I told Clarissa. “Then it’ll be gettin’ dark, and I’ll have to send Alma Sue home. Keep it quiet.”

  I retreated to my own bedroom and turned on the radio, leaving the door open. Clarissa had not had an easy day. I wanted to keep an eye on her, make sure Alma Sue behaved.

  Lolling before the picture of LuvRush, I stared at Greg. Two hours. A shiver ran through me. He was really going to be here. Here. For the first time that week, real exhilaration brushed my nerves. I closed my eyes and envisioned holding him, heard his voice say, “I love you.” Suddenly I realized just how very much I needed him.

  I don’t know how much time had passed before the raised voices of my sister and Alma Sue attracted my attention. Sighing, I headed out to the hallway to put a lid on whatever trouble brewed. “You cheated!” I heard Clarissa declare.

  “I did not.”

  “You did too!”

  Something in Clarissa’s voice—a tone I had not heard before. I pulled up, then edged against the wall to listen, much as I had listened ages ago to Daddy and Katherine.

  “You moved those two dominoes,” Clarissa insisted. “I saw you.”

  “I did not! You’re just mad because I’m winning.”

  “Well, for your information, I don’t care if you’re winning. But I am sick of you cheating. You do it all the time!”

  Alma Sue made a disgusted sound in her throat. “You’re such a baby, Clarissa, you just make things up. Forget this.”

  “Fine, I will!” Dominoes hissed and rattled. I peeked around the corner. Clarissa had swept them off the coffee table. She and Alma Sue faced each other, their profiles to me.

  As my sister would tell me much later, that one unexpected act on her own part fueled something inside her, sort of like striking a match. Boldly, she glared at her nemesis.

  Alma Sue drew to her full height and stared down at Clarissa, hands on her hips. “You wanna fight?” she challenged.

  “Yeah,” Clarissa sneered back, chin jutting.

  Alma Sue blinked in surprise. Then recovered. “Okay, fine. I’ll count to three, and we’ll start.”

  Some things had not yet changed. Alma Sue still knew how to take charge. And apparently she felt not the least bit intimidated. That thought almost prompted me to intervene, but I held back, waiting. Come on, Clarissa.

  “One,” Alma Sue called.

  I watched the expression on my sister’s face focus, gel.

  “Two.”

  Clarissa raised a fist. Uh-oh, I thought. I really should stop this.

  “Thr—”

  Clarissa let loose her arm with fury, balled fingers slamming straight into Alma Sue’s nose. The girl’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.

  “Waaaaah!” Alma Sue wailed. “I wasn’t reeeaaaadyyy!” Her hands flew to her bleeding nostrils, and she ran out of our family room right past me, down the hall, and slammed out of our house.

  I stood in her wake, mouth open, and ogled the door. Then swung back to find Clarissa equally frozen. She stared from her fist to a glistening drop of telltale blood in the domino box, and back to her fist, clearly wondering what on earth she’d done, and would she now have Alma Sue after her but good.

  Then a slow smile spread across her face.

  “What is goin’ on out here?” Daddy demanded as he appeared in the hall, frustration hanging about him like a black cloud.

  “Nothin’, Daddy. Clarissa just punched Alma Sue in the nose, that’s all.”

  He twisted his face. “What?”

  “Never mind, it’s okay, everything’s under control.” I hurried to Clarissa’s side and started gathering the dominoes off the floor.

  Daddy hung there, only half seeing us.

  “Go on, Daddy, it’s okay. Really.”

  He put a hand to his forehead and retreated back to his bedroom.

  I picked up the domino box, smiling wickedly at the bloodstain. “Proof.”

  Clarissa giggled. It was a joyous sound.

  “Daddy.” I knocked on his door at 5:30.

  “What is it?”

  I stuck my head inside his room, my stomach quivering both with anticipation of Greg’s arrival and with guilt. Daddy sat in his chair, Bible on his lap. I could see circles under his eyes.

  “Are you . . . okay?” I asked.

  “Fine.”

  I slipped over to sit on the edge of the bed. “Daddy, we know where Katherine’s stayin’. Maybe you should go there tomorrow, talk to her.”

  “I’ve tried and tried to talk to her this afternoon, Jackie. She won’t even answer the phone now. And she certainly wouldn’t let me in the door.”

  I focused on my lap. “I know she loves you, Daddy.”

  “Well, she has an odd way of showin’ it.” He ran a thumb up and down the side of his Bible. For a moment I watched him in silence.

  I drew a deep breath. “Greg’s goin’ to be comin’ over soon.”

  Daddy’s eyes closed. “Yeah.”

  “We were goin’ to go out to a movie or somethin’. Is that still okay?” “How will Greg keep from bein’ recognized?”

  I fingered the edging on his bedspread. “He probably won’t, Daddy, not anymore. We’ll try to find an out-of-the-way place. But this is just . . . somethin’ we’ll always have to deal with.”

  Always. I regretted the word the moment it left my mouth. It could only remind Daddy of what he’d lost.

  Daddy sighed deeply, then gave me a wan smile. “Jackie, you don’t need to feel guilty. I know you’ve been through a lot of upheaval. I know you’ve missed Greg. Just let yourself be glad he’s back.”

  My throat tightened. I walked over to hug him, and he patted my back. “Thank you.”

  “Now listen.” He pointed his finger at me. “You’re either in a restaurant or a movie, or you’re comin’ home, understand? You’re not—”

  “I know, I know.”

  We exchanged a weary smile.

  “Go on now and get ready.” He nudged me away. “I’ll take care of makin’ supper for Robert and Clarissa.”

  For the next half hour, I paced the house, waiting, watching the s
treet. My anticipation built until I could hardly breathe. “You’re gonna wear out the floor,” Robert commented. When I thought I could bear it no more, I heard a car pull up to the curb.

  “Oh.” I waved my hands. “They’re here.”

  “Lemme say hi first, lemme go!” Clarissa trotted down the hall and threw open the front door. I sailed up behind her, cold air whisking into the hall. Greg was climbing out of the car, a black leather coat over his jeans. At the mere sight of him, something within me cracked open like a fissure. I pushed past Clarissa and stepped out onto the porch, chest fluttering. “Hi!”

  “Jackie!”

  He hurried up the sidewalk, and I ran down the steps until we flung ourselves into each other’s arms. I pressed my face into his neck, not caring that his brother and sister-in-law looked on, not to mention Clarissa. “Greg,” I breathed into his skin, smelling the leather of his coat. “Greg.” He pressed the back of my head, fingers clutching my hair until it pulled.

  “I am here for you now, Jackie.”

  I burst into tears and clung to him, shivering, not wanting to let go. Greg could not let go either, his hands sliding from my hair to my shoulders to my head again, as if he couldn’t quite believe he held me at all.

  “You still love me?” he whispered.

  “Of course, I still love you; I never stopped.”

  The ache in his voice bore a hole right through me—that he would have to ask that question again. My released emotions flooded through my limbs. How could I ever have betrayed him? How had we gotten through these last months apart? And how would all of us—Daddy especially—get through the coming days now?

  I dug my fingers into the back of Greg’s coat and shuddered against the cold.

  “I am here for you now, Jackie. I am here.”

  chapter 55

  Daddy tried again and again Friday night to call Katherine. With each vain attempt, his hope dwindled. For the third time in his life, he’d lost the woman he loved. He’d once have thought the past two times had tempered the steel within him. Not so now. Celia’s betrayal years ago and, far worse, Mama’s death, had compromised his strength, weakened it, and now he felt he just might break. But he couldn’t. He had children who were also hurting and who needed his care. He needed to focus what little energy he possessed on them.

  And so he ceased his desperate pursuit of Katherine May King.

  That’s when the town intervened.

  Over the course of that Saturday, an idea was born, conceived through numerous conversations between Miss Jessie and Celia. I knew at least the main points of Celia’s story. I had not known that Miss Jessie nearly left Bradleyville herself when she was twenty-four, walking away from Lee. She had turned around only by the grace of God.

  Like Pastor Beekins had preached, God can turn our mistakes from the past into good. I’d clung to that belief for myself over the last few months. Now I would see it put to the test.

  Amidst our sadness, Greg’s presence pulled our family through that Saturday. He spent the day at our house, doing everything he could to help. He took time with Robert—played computer games with him, sat in his room and asked one question after another about softball, which Robert gladly answered. Greg watched TV with Clarissa and listened in awe to her tale of punching Alma Sue in the nose. When she got the notion to bake cookies, Greg aimed a pleading expression my way. What did he know about baking? Clarissa got him into an apron, which she thought hysterically funny, and the three of us made cookies together. The heavenly smell brought Robert out of his room, and we all sat around the table making pigs of ourselves while Greg told us about his tour.

  Daddy wandered in from the garage, which he’d suddenly decided needed some cleaning out. While I heated some soup for him and made a salad, Greg engaged him in conversation, asking him about the banking business, about growing up in Bradleyville. Anything to try and get his mind off Katherine. Daddy, in turn, asked him about the LuvRush tour and how did Greg keep up with his studies, and what challenges the group faced next.

  They got to know each other more that day than they had in all the previous months put together.

  In the evening, we gathered around the television. Daddy focused sightlessly on the screen. One week from now was to have been his wedding night. The thought churned in my head like stormy waters. I squeezed Greg’s hand, anchoring myself only by his strength.

  Sunday morning, Daddy decided not to go to church. “I don’t want to face people right now,” he told me privately. “I just don’t want to deal with the questions and everything else. You take the kids and go.”

  Although I hated to think of him alone in the house, part of me felt glad he would not be in church. What bad timing for him to lay eyes on Danny Cander for the first time in nearly twenty years. I knew that old rivalry had long since died. All the same, he represented more unpleasant memories Daddy did not need.

  Before the service, Celia hugged me hard the way she’d done the day before, when I’d picked up Greg at her parents’ house. I thought Danny a strikingly handsome man, but in a far different way than his brother. Danny’s hair was light brown, and his eyes were the greenest I’d ever seen.

  “How are you all today?” Celia whispered.

  “Daddy’s really tryin’, but he’s not doin’ too well.”

  Miss Jessie joined us, and she and Celia exchanged a look. Miss Jessie ran her fingers over my hair. “We’ll talk after the service, okay?”

  “Honey, honey.” Mrs. B shuffled over to rest her fingers on my shoulder. “Chil’, I’ve been prayin’ so much for your family. That Katherine May. I’d just like to strangle her.”

  One by one, it seemed as though every person in that sanctuary asked about Daddy, many with eyes misted for Katherine and him. Even my friends, who’d been dying to see Greg again now that they knew who he was, merely greeted him quietly, then turned to see how I was doing. Folks hugged the Kings, women clutching Miss Connie’s hand as they spoke of how they’d been praying. I felt a rush of guilt, watching Katherine’s parents. So worried over my own daddy, I’d forgotten how much they had to be hurting, losing Derek and now Katherine.

  Derek.

  I sought Greg’s eyes, a sudden lump in my throat. They gazed back at me, full of love and trust.

  I herded Robert and Clarissa into the pew with the Matthews family. Clarissa just had to sit on the other side of Greg. Pastor Beekins preached a muted sermon. I tried to sing the hymns, but the words caught in my throat. Just before the benediction, Pastor sent up a special prayer for Daddy and Katherine, for us and the Kings. The moment before he prepared to dismiss the congregation, an amazing thing happened. Celia Cander stood up.

  “I’d like to say something,” she announced. And in her own pew, Miss Jessie also silently stood.

  You have to remember the independent, fighting spirit that has always described Bradleyville. The way it was founded—settled in the middle of nowhere by Celia’s great-granddad, an upstart Christian man with the dream of building a Christian town. The way its people have stuck together for almost one hundred years. Bradleyville folk built the town, ran the town, took care of the town. And the town took care of its own.

  “Except for perhaps the young people here, you all know my story.” Celia’s fingers worked a tissue, and in that action, I saw the courage it took for her to speak so freely. “I fled this town in a weak moment, and it cost me seventeen years with the man who is now my husband. Seventeen years. I don’t want that for Katherine. And . . .” She balled the tissue, nails pressing it into her palm. “Bobby’s been through enough.”

  She looked to Miss Jessie, suddenly helpless.

  “I tried to leave, too.” Miss Jessie took up the speech. “Many years before Celia was grown. Now, I’m not as stubborn as Celia, mind you.” Lee snorted. She gave him a look as the congregation tittered. “Well, I’m not. Only took me a little over three hours to come back. And I’ve been stuck with this man ever since.” Her husband aimed an innocent lo
ok at the ceiling. “Thank God. But it seems to me that each time, this returnin’ business gets harder. Me at three hours, Celia at seventeen years, and now Katherine. She called me yesterday, talked to me for quite a while. And I can tell you somethin’; I know my niece. She won’t come back at all.”

  Miss Jessie’s eyes traveled over the congregation. “Unless we give her a little help.”

  Reaction buzzed through the pews. Katherine’s mama lowered her head, mouth trembling. Mrs. B breathed an “amen.”

  Miss Jessie lifted her chin with determination. “So I say we do some-thin’ rather unprecedented, even for Bradleyville. I say we go after her.”

  My mouth fell open. Church or not, my hand scrambled automatically to find Greg’s as the buzz through our sanctuary grew louder. Clarissa leaned over Greg to whisper to me, her eyes wide. “Jackie—”

  “Ssh.”

  Jason King pulled slowly, almost painfully, to his feet. Everyone fell silent. He gripped his wife’s shoulder. “It’s true. I don’t think she’ll come back. It’s not that she doesn’t want to. It’s just that, with all that’s happened, Katherine’s not thinkin’ straight. Plus, she’s forgotten what God has done for her. She’s fallen back into bad habits, lettin’ the past pull at her, and she’s runnin’ scared. Katherine’s overlookin’ how much she really loves Bobby and his family, and even this town. So—what I’m tryin’ to say is, I agree with Jessie.”

  Folks all began talking at once, throwing out questions. How? When? What could they possibly do?

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Pastor Beekins held up a hand. “All right, now. Jessie, tell us your plan.”

  “We know where she’s stayin’,” Miss Jessie told the congregation. “It’s a long drive, I realize that. By the time we got there and came back, it would be late. But today is our chance; tomorrow we all go to work. And the longer we wait, the further Katherine’s head’s goin’ to turn from here. Who knows how long she’ll even stay in Lexington.”