by CJ Simpson
“You okay?” Daniel asked Kat, looking at her with deep sadness. She was visibly shaken and on the verge of hyperventilating.
Tears popped from her eyes as Kat realized what could have happened had Daniel not been there. She buried her face in his chest and began to wail. They stood there as Daniel rested his chin on top of Kat’s head, holding her and stroking her hair. It wasn’t until after the police arrived when Daniel slowly extricated himself from her.
When Kat and Daniel gave their statements, one of the officers removed a wallet from the man’s back pocket to check for identification.
“Darryl Baker. You know him?” The officer looked at Kat.
“Oh my God!” Kat gasped, her hand covering her mouth. Daniel raised his eyebrows at her reaction. “Yes, I know him—I mean, I know who he is.” She quickly explained to the officer that Darryl was a student in her online class who cheated on his assignments. He had been very upset to learn that he could be expelled as a result of her reporting him to Academic Affairs.
“He wouldn’t back off. He wouldn’t accept that I was obligated by university policy to report his actions. He kept sending me emails saying that his job promotion hinged on getting his degree. He begged me to reconsider.”
It was clear now to Kat that Darryl wasn’t her rapist. His driver’s license revealed that he lived quite a distance from her. It was just a case of a disgruntled student who wanted to confront his former teacher, but somehow in the process, he lost focus of his life when he began drinking. Unfortunately, he lost his family and now, probably his freedom.
The police found a pocketknife with Darryl’s initials near the area of the struggle. Even though he missed Kat when he swiped at her, he would be formally charged with aggravated assault. His threatening nature and bodily force against Kat warranted the felony charges. More formal charges would be added later. Additionally, he would be charged with public intoxication. Beer cans were found littered in the back seat of his car. His vehicle would be towed from the parking lot the following day.
Kat declined medical attention as she wasn’t hurt, just mostly shaken up. She had minor scratches and bruises but otherwise she had managed to calm down.
It took both of the responding officers to lift Darryl into the back seat of their cruiser. When the police left, Kat looked at Daniel somberly and said softly, “I don’t know how to thank you. It seems as though you’re always rescuing me.”
Daniel shook his head as if his heroic actions meant nothing to him. “Are you going to be all right driving home?”
“I—I was hoping we could talk.”
“I’m not so sure now is a good time, Kat. You just had a bit of a scare.”
Kat thought about this for a moment before answering. “You’re probably right.” She glanced at the man she cared deeply about and wondered why there seemed to be a wall between them lately. As she studied his face, she was unable to determine where their relationship stood.
Sighing, she slipped into her car and rolled the window down. Daniel hadn’t moved as he wanted to make sure she was safely secured in her car before returning inside.
“Thanks again.” Kat offered a small wave as she started the car. Daniel nodded and turned back in the direction of the church.
Kat bit her lip as she pondered her next move. Actually, you know what? Now is a good time, she muttered to herself, turning off the ignition. I came here to talk to him and that’s what I’m going to do. She got out again, locked her doors, and jogged to the entrance. She noticed Daniel hadn’t locked the door this time. Perhaps this was a sign from God. She stepped inside and strolled down the hallway.
As she swung the double doors that opened into the sanctuary, she saw Daniel sitting in the sound booth. A small toolbox sat open in his lap as he made adjustments to the sound board. He didn’t appear surprised to see her standing there.
“And I’ve been told I was stubborn.” Daniel remarked, shaking his head.
Kat didn’t say anything. Instead, she slowly walked to the back of the sanctuary and focused on a portrait that was mounted on the wall next to the sound booth. It was titled, The Lamp of the Body and in the picture, a lamp sat on a table, brightly light. Below it, a plaque contained a verse from Luke 11:33-36 that read:
33 “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. 35 See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. 36 Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.”
“Powerful stuff, isn’t it?” Daniel remarked, plugging a cable into the sound board. He adjusted the sliders and lightly tapped a nearby microphone with his finger. No audio could be heard.
“Look, hear me out.” Kat began, holding her palms up. “I know what you told me before, but I’m not imagining things here. We’ve had some really good conversations and you’ve helped me through some of the toughest times in my life and now it seems like there’s this wall between us.”
Daniel selected a tiny screwdriver from his toolkit and began unscrewing the cover of the sound board. He avoided eye contact with Kat as he continued to work. Kat refused to let this go until she got some answers from him.
“Will you look at me, please?” she demanded, staring at Daniel. She inched closer to the sound booth.
Daniel raised his head and leaned back in his chair. He was well aware of the friction between them. “I’m listening.”
“What happened between us? Did I do something to upset you?” Her eyes pleaded for an explanation.
Daniel gave her his full attention. “No, you didn’t. I just got a little uncomfortable when we were talking about Tyler’s father. It brought up some painful reminders of my childhood.”
Kat nodded. “I think I get that. In fact, it’s all I’ve been thinking about since that day at the park.” She paused, recalling the advice Mary had given her.
“I talked to my sister about telling Tyler the truth about his father someday, when he’s older, of course. She gave me some things to think about and I can see that what I’ve been telling him about Michael may not be in his best interest.”
Daniel put a hand on his chest and leaned forward in his chair. “From personal experience, I believe he would be better off knowing the truth. Nobody said it was going to be easy, you can count on that.”
Kat looked shyly at Daniel. “What about us?”
“You don’t give up, do you?”
“No, I don’t. And this time, I’d like an answer.”
Daniel sighed. “It’s like I told you before. I just don’t think it would work between us.” He looked down at his hands, avoiding her eyes again.
“Why do you think it won’t work?” Kat leaned against the wall and waited for a response. “Daniel, I think you know how much I care about you. I didn’t imagine what happened between us that day you found Tyler after he went missing.” They had shared a tender moment together and neither one of them had forgotten it.
“No, you didn’t imagine it.” Daniel was quiet as he set the toolbox on the floor. He remembered their first kiss very well.
“Do you share those same feelings?” Kat whispered.
He looked up at her and thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. It hurt him to see the pain in her eyes, the confusion. It hurt him to know that things could never work between them. After what he had done to her? No, it would never work.
“Yes, I do. I care about you very deeply.” He had never lied to her and wasn’t about to lie to her now. But he had to make her understand somehow that they would never have a romantic relationship, ever.
“Then what is it?” she prodded. “Daniel, what’s holding you back?”
A full minute pa
ssed before Daniel answered. His eyes suddenly became bright with tears as he choked on his words. “Because it was me, Kat! It was me in your apartment that night.” He dropped his head between his knees and began to sob. His shoulders shook as he rocked his body back and forth.
Kat gaped at him in disbelief as she absorbed the meaning of his words. She backed away slowly as she tried to process the information she just heard. Daniel was the one who raped her? No!
Gasping for air, Daniel raised his head and looked at Kat. Tears streamed down his face as he sat there trembling. Kat stood a good distance away, frozen in her spot, her eyes wide with distrust.
“I—I was a drug user back then. Both Jenny and I were addicted to meth. We were all shooting up the night before our wedding was supposed to take place. Our friends threw us one big party, so everybody was there. After a couple of hours or so, I ended up leaving. I don’t remember why or where I went, probably to score more drugs, but when I came back, it—it seemed like everybody went crazy. There were orgies and before I realized what was happening, I found Jenny in bed with my brother.”
Kat remained guarded at her post, vividly remembering how her rapist had mistakenly assumed she was Jenny. She scrutinized Daniel very carefully as she wanted to hear this. She wanted to know the chain of events that led to her rape. She needed to know what happened.
Daniel began to wheeze as he struggled for words. He hung his head to get his breathing under control before continuing.
“At first, they didn’t even see me standing there. They were doing it right out in the open in front of everybody and they didn’t care. In fact, they laughed and suggested I join them.” Daniel spat with disgust. He took a deep breath, his hands beginning to shake. His face became flushed with anger as he recalled the events of that evening.
“I—I felt so betrayed. I remember I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I drove home to my apartment and—” He abruptly paused to look at Kat. “I lived on the north side of The Commons.”
Kat remained stoic. The north side was a mirror image of the south side where she used to live.
“I couldn’t deal with what had just happened, so I went out looking to score. I drove into the bowels of the city and got my hands on some heroin. I did all of it right then and there on the streets, not caring if I died.”
Daniel dropped his head and sobbed openly. This was the moment Kat was waiting for. This was the moment when she would find out how it all came about. Her heart rate began to accelerate.
After blowing his nose, Daniel went on. “I don’t remember driving back to The Commons but I remember believing I was at Jenny’s place. She had the same apartment number you did, but I was so messed up on drugs that I didn’t realize I was on the south side.”
Kat maintained her distance as she eyed Daniel suspiciously. So far what he said seemed to make sense. However, she knew the worst was yet to come.
“I had a key to her place and when I tried to unlock your door, obviously I couldn’t get in. In my state of mind, I assumed she used the deadbolt.” A hidden deadbolt was installed from inside the apartment for added security and could not be seen from the outside.
“I—I walked around back and tried the door there. Of course the key didn’t work there, either. So I smashed the window to get in. Once I got in, I tripped over your couch. It never once dawned on me that I was in the wrong apartment. Jenny didn’t have a couch by that window.”
Daniel began to dry heave. He grabbed the small wastebasket that sat in the corner of the sound booth and leaned over it. His body shook and he heaved again, but nothing came out.
Kat filled in the blanks of what happened next. Daniel assumed she was Jenny. He had screamed at her and called her names and then he had raped her.
She broke her stance and slowly sank into a pew, her eyes never leaving Daniel. He was wheezing horribly and sobbing uncontrollably. Kat couldn’t ever recall a moment when she saw a man cry like that. A tear slid slowly down her cheek as she watched the broken man before her hang his head in deep shame. He repeated over and over how sorry he was and how he would never forgive himself for hurting her the way he did. She watched as he rocked himself back and forth, gasping for air and sniveling.
Then, momentary relief washed over body, soothing her soul and lessening her pain. For some reason, she wasn’t afraid of him and had no explanation for it. Her gaze moved to the portrait of The Lamp, and as she studied it, the light seemed to brighten considerably. She blinked, believing her eyes had tricked her, but the light remained unchanged.
Kat’s eyes darted back to Daniel as he raised his face. His face blotchy and his eyes swollen, he resumed his confession. “Two days later I woke up in my apartment. I don’t remember what happened after—afterwards, but I must’ve found my way back home. I was still wearing the clothes I wore to the party.”
He blew his nose and cleared his throat. “Everything came flooding back to me then. It took me a week to find the courage to go see you and apologize for what I did, even if it meant going to jail. When I got there, a cleaning lady was inside your apartment. She said you had moved out.”
Kat spoke for the first time since Daniel’s admission of guilt. “Did you follow me here?”
“What?”
“Did you follow me here?” she screamed.
Startled, Daniel’s body twitched. “No! I—I was transferred here about a year ago.” He was visibly shaken by Kat’s outburst but that offered her little comfort.
Something else nagged at Kat. She couldn’t quite place it, but it had to do with Daniel’s appearance that night.
“How long were you on drugs?” she inquired.
“About two years.” As if reading her thoughts, he explained that meth users typically lose a lot of weight in a short period of time and their facial appearances undergo drastic changes. He suddenly realized his former appearance was quite similar to Darryl Baker’s. Kat’s reaction made perfect sense.
“After what I did, I—I knew I had to clean up my act. I shaved off my beard, got my hair cut and checked myself into rehab. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, but I followed the program to get clean. I regained the weight I’d lost and I never touched the stuff again.”
“What happened to your brother and Jenny?”
Daniel looked up at the ceiling and swallowed hard. “She moved in with him.”
No wonder he wanted nothing to do with his brother. Kat stared at him with mixed feelings. A part of her felt sorry for him, sorry for the life he had led as a child, and sorry for what his drug addiction did to him. The man she once cared for deeply was now a stranger to her, and that hurt her more than anything. She was beginning to understand why Daniel kept his distance from her.
“The rehab place I went to had a three-month program, so I basically lived there. I had moved out of my apartment before I checked in. When I got out, I had a new place lined up on the other side of the city. I didn’t want to run into Jenny or my brother. I didn’t want to see any of them. I didn’t want to be around that life style anymore.”
She recalled their first meeting at the church during Vacation Bible School week when they had collided. She also recalled how he made no effort to get close to her. It wasn’t until when Tyler ran away that things had changed between them.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you any more than I already have.” Daniel looked at her for a second then rubbed his eyes. “When I saw you at the church for the first time, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I couldn’t believe it was you.”
“Were you ever going to tell me it was you all along?” Kat wanted to know.
“I thought about it many times.” Daniel answered honestly. “There never seemed to be the right time, and then we started getting closer, and I—” Fresh tears sprang from his eyes as he found the courage to face Kat.
“I’m—I’m so sorry, Kat. Oh God, you have no idea how sorry I am!” Daniel’s voice cracked as he slid of
f of his chair and onto the floor.
Kat observed the wretched man huddled in the sound booth. He looked small and defeated, his dispirited body spent and his soul wracked with pain from carrying all that guilt. Then a new realization befell her.
Daniel is Tyler’s father! Oh, God!
She quickly stood up and stared at Daniel, her heart racing again. His forehead leaned against the table next to the sound board as Kat watched him suffer. His shoulders trembled and he was silently crying.
She turned and ran out of the sanctuary back to the entrance of the church. When she stepped outside, she inhaled sharply as she looked up at the heavens. The stars were no longer in sight and the sky was blacker than ever before.
Kat got into her car and sat there for a long time, astounded by everything that had transpired that evening. His insistence that she tell Tyler about his birth father was starting to make sense now. She glanced at her cell phone and saw that it was well past two o’clock in the morning. She had no messages but she knew Mary was probably worried about her. She had to get home right away.
Chapter 34
When Kat pulled into her driveway, she saw that Mary had left the kitchen light on for her. The fact that her sister was here gave Kat much comfort. The fact that Daniel was Tyler’s father changed everything. The fact that she needed her sister more than anything was evident to her. She needed her advice on where to go from here.
Troubled by her thoughts, Kat quietly entered her house. She found Mary asleep on the couch, covered with an afghan their mother had made for Kat years ago. She wore a nightgown and held an open book against her chest. It was obvious she had waited up for Kat. A reading lamp that sat on the end table was still on.
Kat went directly upstairs to check on Tyler. He was sound asleep with one arm wrapped around Froggy. In the other hand, he clutched his favorite matchbox car. His face revealed a small smile and she guessed that he was probably dreaming about his cars.