Saving Susannah

by Beverly Bird

  He felt her words as though each of them had points, as though they were so much deadly, shattering glass, cutting into him, drawing blood. “I see,” he said carefully.

  “I want to get an apartment here. In Philly. To be close to Susannah.”

  It made all the sense in the world, and none at all. The two-hour drive had not been insurmountable so far, and he’d been making it with one friend or another for days now. Even so, if he thought it was just a simple relocation of her home base for practicality’s sake, he could live with that. But he knew it wasn’t. He knew it with every instinct, each time her eyes tried to slide and hide from his own. She was going to go back behind her walls again. She’d grab some mortar and a trowel and she would start busily putting the bricks back until everything was safe and secure once more. Until she was alone.

  Joe felt his heart explode like thunder—angry, frustrated thunder. “I see,” he said again, his words clipped this time.

  She looked at him. “It only makes sense.”

  “Do you want me to argue with you?” And God, what an effort it took for him to keep his voice flat.

  Yes. “No.”

  “So there’s not much for me to say.”

  “Except whatever you were going to say in the first place.”

  “Doesn’t matter now.”

  It probably didn’t. So why did that hurt so much?

  “I appreciate everything—” she began. And that was all it took.

  “Don’t,” he snarled, turning to her. “Don’t do it, Kimberley. Don’t thank me. Don’t act as though it was a minor inconvenience on my part to have you and your child in my home. To be a part of your life.”

  “You weren’t—”

  “I was. And now you’re trying to push me back, as if I never got close enough to feel your terror!”

  “I’m not doing that,” she insisted.

  “You’re trying to look the other way and pretend that it didn’t happen.”

  “I’m trying to rebuild!” She heard herself and paled, because she realized she was thinking of Dr. Coyle’s analogy again.

  Joe hadn’t meant to touch her. He didn’t dare. The rage and helplessness were so big and alive inside, him—a gnarly animal fighting to get free. He had vowed never to hurt her. He had never laid a hand on anyone in anger. But he had never wanted something so desperately, only to be told that he couldn’t have it, case closed.

  He couldn’t let her leave him.

  He was on his feet in an instant. He found his hands on her arms, just below her shoulders. He lifted her from her chair. He heard her cry out, but the sound seemed to come from a very long way away. It was somewhere on the other side of the roaring of his blood.

  “Haven’t you learned anything?” he demanded furiously.

  Kim stared at him, her throat working. “Don’t do this to me,” she begged. “I never promised you anything, Joe.”

  “You came here hating the world,” he argued, his voice grating. “You hated yourself for being a bunch of things you’re not. You came here hating your family, and anything that ever had anything to do with any of them. I’ve watched you reach out without getting your hand slapped away. I’ve watched you get steady and sure and bloom. I’ve watched you come apart beneath me and give. And now you’re going to stand here and tell me that you’re going to throw all that away and run again?”

  “I didn’t say I was going back to California. I’ll be right here in the city.” Why couldn’t that be enough for him? It was what she needed, she thought again desperately. A protective environment, a safe place, where too much was not asked of her for a while. But he wasn’t going to give it with his blessing. And she needed his blessing, too. She needed it badly.

  “Some distances aren’t measured in miles!” he shouted.

  “Then what do you want me to do?” she cried.

  “Marry me!” And then he heard himself and cursed himself. Because he hadn’t meant to do it like this, so angrily, so desperately. He certainly hadn’t meant to ask her in a way that was almost certain to send her running. But he was all emotion now, and it was volatile.

  Her jaw fell. Not fast, not hard, but slowly, a little more each time her heart boomed. “You’re crazy,” she whispered.

  “We’ve already talked about this.”

  She snapped her mouth shut and began shaking her head. “No. No, we didn’t. We talked of why it was crazy. Why it’s impossible.”

  “We never got to finish before Nathaniel came in and interrupted us.”

  “We finished.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You weren’t even thinking about that when we talked in the barn, not until I mentioned birth control.” The panic, she thought, oh, God, the sheer panic. It was driving with a fury through her blood. She wanted...and she feared. And unlike with her father’s doughnuts, this time she just couldn’t figure out which was stronger.

  “We were talking about an eventuality,” she said wretchedly, trying to explain. “If we...I mean, if I...had to go that... that other route to save Susannah.”

  “So the idea has grown on me,” he stated.

  “Is that supposed to be romantic?”

  “I don’t traipse around with flowers in my hand, Kimberley. But that doesn’t negate what I feel for you.”

  “Then say it, Joe!” she shouted recklessly. “Say whatever it is you came here to say and get it over with!”

  “I love you.”

  Everything washed out of her. She’d provoked him out of temper, and with that she was lost, overwhelmed. Her anger, her panic, even the sweet, sweet hope and relief she was holding on to on Susannah’s behalf sluiced out of her.

  Kim felt her knees give. Joe let go of her and she sank back down into her chair. “Don’t say that,” she croaked out of habit.

  He ignored her. Of course he would ignore her. She might as well tell the wind not to blow. He could be like a pit bull when he got something in his head, she thought, when he thought he had a point to make.

  “I spent four months hating myself as much as you hated yourself when you got here,” he said more quietly. “I believed in some measure that I had killed Sarah. That my baser instincts killed Sarah. And I blamed Hannah, because she was the living proof. I wanted you the first time I saw you, and I hated myself for that, too. Until you wanted me back. Until you gave so fiercely, so ferociously, you rocked my world and everything I thought I knew about myself. Because it was only you. It wasn’t every other woman who came sniffing around my door after Sarah died, because they weren’t strong enough, didn’t understand loss enough, couldn’t heal with me. That’s what we did, Kimberley. We leaned on each other and we healed together. I cradled the baby, and you asked Adam. I needed, and you gave. You needed, I gave.”

  “So we’re friends,” she said. “Maybe we’ll—” It was all she got out before she found herself out of the chair again. He’d hauled her back to her feet.

  “I have never known anyone more stubborn in my entire life!” he said angrily.

  Kim managed a weak attempt at a smile. “It’s a Wallace family trait.”

  He stared into her eyes for a moment, then he crushed his mouth to her own. His tongue swept, and this time he didn’t come up for breath. This time his kiss was relentless, pummeling, bruising and angry. When he finally stopped, they were both breathing hard.

  “That’s not friends,” he said. “Don’t lie to yourself, and damn it, don’t lie to me.”

  She groaned. She wanted to find that place in his arms again where everything was safe. Except she couldn’t have it anymore, because he’d gone and put conditions on it. She backed up. Her legs hit the chair behind her and she bounced off, scooting around him, putting space between them.

  Her eyes were on fire, he thought. At least he had reached her.

  “I can’t do it,” she cried, taking them both by surprise. “I can’t cook on that damned woodstove for the rest of my life, Joe. I won’t eat roast. I can’t slide into your c
ozy, quaint world. I like Chinese food! Don’t you get it? What’s the point in my going back? If I go back to your house, and this last month stretches into two, three, four and we keep sneaking out to the barn, where is it going to go?” That was what terrified her, she realized. It was what terrified her most of all. Tear down. Rebuild. “I’ll tell you where. I’d need you so desperately by then that there’d be no getting out. I’d start listening to the rhythm of the seasons. I’d start wearing ugly dresses. If you want me so much, then let me keep being me. I don’t even recognize myself anymore as it is. I’d lose everything, just as Susannah’s lost all her marrow. And you’ll just keep on trundling out there every morning to your stupid cows without even missing a step.”

  He stared at her, stunned. “Susannah’s marrow was killing her,” he said evenly. “It was not a good thing.”

  His point rang between them as clearly as if he had shouted it: Your old world was killing something inside you, too.

  “It was all I ever had,” she whispered. “I can’t give it up.”

  “Even if what’s built in its place is better?”

  “It’s too much of a risk.” Her eyes flared. “And don’t give me that look. You’re not willing to risk, either.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “No,” she said, trembling. She spun away from him. “‘Marry me’,” she mimicked him. “‘I love you.’ I haven’t heard you mention anything about throwing some clothes in a suitcase and running back to California with me.” She waited. Oh, God, she thought, she was waiting for him to say he’d do it. Was she out of her mind?

  “I can’t do that,” he answered.

  Her breath left her with a painful burst of loss. “Of course riot.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  She looked at him bitterly. “Sure I do. I can tear things down, but you want no part of it.”

  It was true enough to make him lose color. “Kimberley, I can’t. I’m a deacon. And that’s for the rest of my life.”

  “Katya left here!” She shouted it. And as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized that that was what she had been holding on to all along. She’d been clinging to the idea that it was possible for these people to turn their backs on their odd life-styles, to walk away. That the man and the way he lived could be separated. She didn’t necessarily have to love one to love the other. She knew he didn’t totally believe in that meidung thing. He’d sent his elder son to a more lenient gemeide.

  “You said you didn’t always agree with things here!” she cried desperately, hating herself for the plea in her voice.

  He thought he nodded, but he wasn’t sure. His muscles felt as hard and unyielding as oak now. “I...don’t,” he rasped. “Not always. But I took a vow. I promised these people something. That I would always be here. I wouldn’t have done it after Sarah died. She was my reason for staying in Lancaster. Maybe I would have gone back to Berks. But I can’t now. It didn’t happen that way.”

  She made a strangled sound and refused to look at him. “So that’s that, then.”

  He tried again to explain. “I’m not Katya. The settlement couldn’t give her anything back.”

  “So go back to your settlement, then!” she shouted, suddenly furious. “Stop asking me to uproot my whole life, everything I am, when you’re not willing to give a goddamned thing!”

  He couldn’t think, Joe realized. He couldn’t see reason. Nor could she. His blood roared. He wanted to shake her. And in that moment he hated the people who needed him. He had to leave while something was still standing. Before he raged like the bull Nathaniel had accused him of being and destroyed things that couldn’t be set right again.

  “I need to get back to the farm,” he said neutrally.

  She dragged a hand under her eyes. Damn it, she was crying again. She didn’t answer.

  “I’ll try to get over to the phone tonight, to call and see how Susannah is doing,” he continued.

  Kim nodded. He wouldn’t. Or, at least, she hoped he wouldn’t.

  It would be better this way, she thought. Of course it would. She was totally, one hundred percent right about this. They couldn’t keep pretending there was a future between them. There wasn’t. Not unless she tore down the last of her own walls and began again.

  She would wait a few days, hang out here at the hospital as she had been doing, she decided. Then she would quietly ask Jake or Adam to bring whatever clothes and possessions she and Susannah had left in Joe’s home.

  She finally turned to watch him go, leaving her walls intact. The problem was, the place he left her in felt very, very cold.

  She was dozing, her head down on a table in the cafeteria, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Kim snapped awake, her heart leaping, hope flaring.

  It wasn’t Joe.

  “What are you doing here?” she muttered, sitting back in the chair, rubbing her hands over her face. Unwilling to admit that she was disappointed. She glanced at her watch. It was already dinnertime. Somehow, the whole day had gone by. She had no recollection of it, she realized.

  “Taking over the vigil,” Jake answered.

  “It’s going to be a long vigil. Weeks’ worth, until we know anything. Suze doesn’t need someone staring down at her at all times.”

  “Then come home,” he replied.

  She didn’t have a home anymore. That simply, that easily, Kim began sobbing.

  She put her head back down, trying to hide it. But she wasn’t quick enough, and she couldn’t be quiet enough about it anyway. It felt as though everything from the very bottom of her soul was heaving up.

  Maybe it was. It was the parts of herself that were left to her, she realized, those parts she didn’t want to relinquish. It was the little girl who had hidden so very quietly behind a rocking chair while her father raged, praying that he wouldn’t find her. But God hadn’t heard her, and Edward had caught her. There’d been no one to help her. She’d taken his fists, and there’d been no one to save her.

  So she’d learned, and she’d gotten strong. Strong enough to take every blow that came her way, often without flinching or crying out. Strong enough to try to send Jake away that day when he would have intervened. She’d been strong enough to save her unborn child by running. Strong enough to survive once she’d gone. She’d done it, on her own, and she’d learned the hard way that she could rely on herself. As long as she had that, she had everything. It was much, much too late to start leaning on others, to trust them and depend upon them for her strength and sanity. That was far too dangerous to contemplate.

  But Jake had moved. He’d sat first in the chair on the other side of the table, across from her, but she heard the chair scrape back and then he was in the seat beside her. He pulled her head to his shoulder, letting her weep. And she did. For a long time. She did until she felt him move, until she blinked and looked up, and she realized that he’d put his feet up on the chair across from him. He had settled in for the long haul. And she knew then he’d sit like that for as long as it took.

  “Don’t you see how God worked it all out?” he asked finally, his voice musing. “It’s neat, when you think about it. This intricately meshed puzzle.”

  “You don’t believe in God.” She sniffed.

  “Sure I do.”

  “You never did.”

  “I just didn’t think He liked me much.”

  “Maybe He doesn’t.”

  “Well, then, He wouldn’t have sent me Katie.” He thought about that for a moment. “Actually, He dragged me to Katie.”

  She felt his shoulder lift in a shrug.

  “Same difference.”

  “You’re always telling her and Adam not to spout religion,” she said. “I’ve heard you a time or two.”

  “Appearances. I have an image to maintain.”

  Kim couldn’t believe she laughed. Admittedly, it was a soggy sound.

  She needed to move, to put space between them again. But she was so very tired. She let her head drop b
ack to his shoulder.

  “I mean, here I was looking for you through ChildSearch,” Jake continued, “and God zaps you with this thunderbolt and drops you into Joe Lapp’s yard. And all along, there’s your answer in Mariah’s womb. But none of us realized it. Not even me, and I’m undeniably brilliant at seeking and finding answers. None of us even thought about it, when it was right there in front of our noses and Mariah was the size of one of Joe’s cows.”

  She had thought about it, Kim remembered uncomfortably. At first. But then she’d forgotten again. Somehow. “Get to the point, Jake.” She finally dragged herself upright.

  “Well, it’s just that if we had found the solution too soon, none of the rest of this would have had the opportunity to happen. ”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Did Joe send you?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Nope.”

  “Then what’s this all about?” Kim demanded.

  “I guess I have one last thing to give you after all.”

  “What?”

  “A kick in the pants.”

  She jerked back even farther. “No, thanks.”

  “You’re not seeing the big picture here, Kimmie,” he said patiently.

  “So I guess you’re going to focus it,” she snapped.

  “Sure. Be glad to.”

  “That wasn’t a request.”

  “You’re going to hear it anyway.” He paused to take a swig from his coffee, then he passed the paper cup to her. Kim sipped, watching him warily.

  “Time, Kimmie. Time was needed. While you were chasing down all the blood samples in the settlement and getting them analyzed, while I was working on the Internet and whatnot, we all got to know one another again. And you got to know Joe. And Joe got to know you. And now everybody’s one big happy family.”

  “That’s reaching,” she told him.

  “Granted, it’s simplified. But the bottom line is still the same.”

  She was too tired to argue with him. Everything inside her sagged. “That’s just it, Jake. I need more time. And he won’t give it to me.”

  “Sure he will.”

  “No, he—”

  “He just doesn’t want to risk losing you while it’s ticking by.”