16. Kane
CHAPTER 16
KANE
“ H ow’d they take it?” Kane asked.
“Oh, various responses,” Taylor said, tossing her purse on the kitchen counter. “They’re not exactly bending over backward to welcome you back to town, but honestly, I think it’s better than what I would have expected if I had known I would be telling people the truth today. A lot of people were at least willing to extend you the grace of believing that you’d probably changed for the better since high school.”
“I guess that’s something,” Kane said with a sigh. The truth was that it hardly mattered to him what a bunch of people he had been to high school with thought. His crime had never been against any of them . “What I’d really like to do is apologize to the Chesterfields,” he admitted. “But I don’t think I could face them after everything that happened.”
“Yeah, that might be tricky,” Taylor said. “Not to say that they’re not kind people. Jeff and Donna Chesterfield are some of the nicest people I know. But it has been hard for them, dealing with the loss of so much of their farm.”
“What happened?” Kane asked, bracing himself. This was the question he had been asking internally since the day of the fire. He’d wanted for a long time to know what had happened after he had left town — what had become of the Chesterfields. But he had never had the courage to try to find out. It was hard to face the truth, to know that there had been very real consequences to the mistake he had made all those years ago.
Taylor looked at him. “Do you want to talk about this?”
“I think I do.”
“Well, they took a second mortgage out on the land, but in recent years they haven’t been able to keep up with the payments,” she said. “There’s been talk for a while about how they might lose the farm. Nobody wants it to happen, of course. Everyone in Miller Creek shops local now — we all buy Chesterfield produce when we can. But even so, it’s tough for them to keep up with the demand, because they had to take so many years to heal up the field that was destroyed in the fire. And that’s not to mention the barn. Jeff’s done as well as he could do, but he’s not as young as he used to be. It’s starting to seem like they might need to sell their land and move to a little apartment in town — which wouldn’t be the end of the world, of course, but they’ve been on that farm all their lives and put their blood, sweat, and tears into it. I think it would crush them to have to leave now.”
Kane felt gutted. “All this because of the fire?”
“Not all,” she assured him. “You can’t take responsibility for all of it. There have been some hard seasons. There have been some dry spells when none of the local farmers could grow anything worth a damn. That played a part. And, of course, Jeff’s age is a factor. If he was a younger man, I think he would have gotten through all this much more easily. So don’t blame yourself too much.”
“Still, he wouldn’t be in this situation if not for me, would he?” Kane asked.
Taylor sighed. “The truth is, we can’t know,” she told him. “It’s probably not a good idea to try to speculate, because we’ll only make ourselves feel worse.”
Kane didn’t think he could feel any worse — but even so, he was touched by the way she had said we, as if the two of them were in this together. They weren’t, and he knew he needed to remember that. This was his problem, not hers, no matter how kind she was being to him about it. But even so, it was wonderful to feel as if there was someone on his side — someone who wanted him to find a way through all this. Someone who might stand beside him if he chose to face the Chesterfields and, if he was very lucky, help him convince them that he wasn’t the worst person who had ever lived.
Although, really, why should they listen to him? Why would anyone who had lived through the things they had want to hear from Kane at this point in their lives? He was sure they would prefer he never showed his face again. He owed them more of an apology than he did anyone else — there was no arguing that fact — but that apology would be the hardest one to make, and it was probably for the best that he just leave them in peace.
Taylor was watching him closely. “If you wanted to talk to Jeff, I’d go with you,” she said. “If you wanted to let him know that you were sorry about what happened.”
“I think he’d probably rather not hear it from me,” Kane said. “What good does me being sorry do him? He can’t pay his mortgage with apologies. So what if I’m sorry? I’m sure he already knows I’m sorry. That wouldn’t do him any good.”
“He still might like to hear it,” Taylor said.
“I doubt it.”
“Well, I think it would do you good to say it.” She walked up to him and put her arms around him gently. “Kane, you’ve lived with this for a long time. If you could set it down…”
“No,” he said. “I don’t deserve that, Taylor. You know I don’t. Not if it means I have to bother Jeff Chesterfield with it again. He should be able to live the rest of his life without me darkening his door again, even if it would help me to be able to talk about what happened. That’s not a problem he should have to solve.”
“You’re right,” Taylor admitted. “But even so… I don’t know, Kane. You’re not the same person you were all those years ago. I think you should be able to get some closure. I think if I were the Chesterfields, I would be willing to offer you that. I would understand that you were only a kid back then.”
“That’s different,” Kane said. “You’ve already decided that you like me. Jeff Chesterfield doesn’t like me, and he shouldn’t. I’m not going to try to win him over. Not after everything.”
Taylor turned away for a moment. Kane felt himself tense up — was she angry with him? Was she offended that he hadn’t taken her suggestion?
But then she turned back, and her eyes were bright with optimism. “What if it wasn’t only for you?” she asked.
Kane frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if you could actually make amends to the Chesterfields? Not just apologize, but actually do something to make it right?”
“I don’t get it. What could I do to make it right?” he asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to help — I’d like to do something for them. But I don’t see how I can. I mean, I’m just a mechanic. I don’t have any money, and it sounds like money is what they need to help them solve this. If I could make some kind of financial contribution, I would. But the only thing I have that’s worth anything is this house, and I’m about to sell that to you.”
“No, I know,” Taylor said. “I’m not suggesting you try to bail the farm out yourself. But what if you organized some kind of fundraiser? Something that could help make up for the money they’ve lost over the years?”
Kane was skeptical. “I still think they’d probably rather I just left them alone.”
“Kane,” Taylor said gently, “I think you’re telling yourself that because it’s the easier answer.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that if you let yourself believe they want you to stay out of their lives, you’ll have an excuse to do that,” she said. “It would be easy to walk away from all this again. It would be harder to stick around and try to make things right. I think you’re trying to avoid facing up to things, even if maybe you don’t realize it. You don’t want to have to look Jeff Chesterfield in the eye and take responsibility. I hate to put it like this, but there’s a part of you that’s still running away from the past.”
Kane wanted to deny it. He wished he could. But there was too much truth in what she was saying.
“You really think this could work?” he asked.
“I think it will,” she said. “And what’s the worst that could happen? You’ll raise some money for the Chesterfields and then get out of their lives again? That won’t hurt anyone. Even if they don’t appreciate it, even if they wish they’d never heard your name again, they’ll have the money and you’ll be gone.”
Kane nodded. It stung a little that she could talk so casually about him leaving. But then, leaving was a part of his plan. Why shouldn’t she say it? It was going to happen. And in the meantime, if he could do something to help the Chesterfields, maybe he should. Maybe that was for the best.
More to the point, he couldn’t stop looking at Taylor’s face. He couldn’t ignore the hopeful look in her eyes, nor could he pretend that he didn’t understand how much this meant to her. He didn’t know exactly why, but for whatever reason, it was clear that she had grown attached to this idea. She wanted this fundraiser to happen, and it seemed to Kane that the best thing he could possibly do now was to go along with it.
But even if he did… “What would we do?” he asked. “How could we possibly raise enough money to be helpful? You already told me that everyone in Miller Creek is doing all they can to help the Chesterfields by prioritizing purchasing their goods. What are we going to do that could possibly make any serious difference? We’d have to raise thousands of dollars, wouldn’t we? I don’t know where we’re going to get that kind of money. So many people would have to get involved, and I just don’t see how we’re going to do that. Miller Creek is too small a town.”
“You’re right,” Taylor mused. “Miller Creek is too small to make much of a difference… but Cedar Rapids isn’t.”
“Cedar Rapids?”
“Whatever we do, we should advertise it there. That way, we can involve a whole lot more people. If we can get Cedar Rapids involved — and maybe Iowa City residents too, even though they’re a bit farther away.”
She was starting to get really excited about the whole thing, Kane saw, and he knew that there was no way he could say no to her now. Even though he still wasn’t convinced that this was the best idea, he couldn’t stand the idea of telling her he wasn’t willing to go along with it. After all, he had asked her for help once, long ago, and she had denied him. Now she was trying to help him. He couldn’t turn that away.
“If you really think it’s a good idea, I’m in,” he said. “But I don’t know what we could do to raise funds that would actually make a difference.”
“We’ll figure something out,” she assured him. “Let me worry about that. The important thing is that we get people to participate, and that it has your name on it, so the Chesterfields know that you wanted to make a difference.”
Kane still thought that putting his name on it was probably the worst thing he could do — much better to raise money for the Chesterfields without them knowing he’d had anything to do with it, so they could retain some sense of mental peace about the whole thing. But he wasn’t going to argue with Taylor. Whatever she had in mind, he knew that the train had already left the station, and the best thing he could do now was to remain on board.