Chapter Twenty #2
She wanted to declare that they weren’t her family, that the Kerwyns were, that he was . . . “Well, I did write a letter home, but no one responded.”
“Yeah, your mom was telling me she got a letter,” he said, missing the point. “That was before she got sick.”
Kate didn’t say anything.
“Henry mentioned you, too.” He glanced sideways. “Said he paid you a visit.”
“What did he say?”
“Just that you seemed . . . content . . . I think is how he put it. That he hoped he might yet still have a chance.” Edmund pulled his eyes from the road and looked at her full on now.
Kate remained silent, but her heart was beating hard.
“Does he, Kate?” Edmund shifted into lower gear and rolled the truck to a crawl at a stop sign.
No, Kate suddenly realized. No, she couldn’t.
Being with Edmund again and feeling the way she did for him, like her heart was going to implode at any moment, convinced her that she could never marry without love.
Maybe if she had never known love . . . but she did, and it was torturous.
“No,” she finally answered, trying to keep her voice steady. “No, I can’t marry him.”
“I don’t see why.” Edmund glanced both ways and then pushed the accelerator with his boot. “He’s a very good man.”
“Why does everyone keep telling me that?”
“Well, I don’t know about everyone else,” he said, “but I’m saying it because .
. . because I guess I’d like to see you settled.
Happy. Before I—” He looked out the side window and then back.
“Look, I was going to tell you later, but I suppose now’s as good as any.
I’m thinking of proposing to Mary Crawford. ”
Kate felt a faint flicker of hope. “You aren’t already engaged?”
“Nearly,” he said with a sideways crooked smile.
Kate pressed her lips together so hard it hurt. Had Henry exaggerated for his own gain?
“I’m hopeless at this sort of thing,” Edmund went on. “So, I was hoping that you might . . . that you might help me. You know, put in a good word for me, or think of a romantic way to ask her.”
Kate choked back a new wave of tears and stared out at the stark, leafless landscape.
“You do like Mary, don’t you, Kate? I want you to love her as much as I love you—as a sister, that is. That’s why it would be absolutely perfect if you were to marry Henry. It would be like two siblings marrying two siblings! Then we’d really be family, just as we always imagined.”
Kate’s throat was positively aching. Several moments of silence passed. She should say something right now, but what?
“Can you not say something?” Edmund asked, a little nervously.
What could she possibly say when the only boy—no, man—she had ever loved was about to marry someone else and was asking her to help bring it about?
If Mary were someone that Kate loved and trusted, she might find a way to be happy for him, but she did not feel that way about Mary, or Henry either.
She suspected the Crawfords of something .
. . underhanded? Perhaps that was too strong a word.
Certainly, something disingenuous. Did no one else see this?
She cleared her throat. “I think Mary is a very lucky girl,” she finally managed.
“I knew you liked her!” Edmund exclaimed, his eagerness rewriting her meaning. “I trust your judgement completely. And you know, she reminds me of you in so many ways. The similarity is uncanny, really.”
Kate wanted to scream. Did he really think the two of them were similar? It was maddening! And if he trusted her judgement “completely,” why did he not trust her refusal of Henry?
“But . . . but what about your plan to enlist? Has she come around to your way of thinking?”
“Well, you know,” Edmund said with a little shrug, “guess that can wait. Guess it wouldn’t hurt to wait and see what happens over in Europe.”
“But that’s what you’ve always dreamed of doing, Edmund!”
He paused. “Well, I guess two people have to sometimes sacrifice if they want to be together.”
Kate clenched his handkerchief, irritated by how much Mary Crawford had twisted him around her finger. What was she sacrificing for this relationship?
There were several minutes of silence again before Edmund spoke. “You know,” he said, slowing down to turn onto County E, “there was a time when I thought that perhaps you and I . . .”
She quickly turned, her anger dissipating as a specter of hope rose. She allowed her gaze to linger on all of his features, which had become so familiar and so dear to her—the sharp angle of his jaw, his tiny scar, his dimpled chin.
“Yes?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
“I just thought that . . . that maybe you and me might end up together.” He tried to laugh as he turned into the Kerwyns’ lane, but it died away. “I guess that was just foolish fancy,” he said with an attempt at a smile. “Especially since I’ve met Mary.”
Kate’s lips flattened into a thin line. This was her chance to say something, but what? “Yes . . . yes, I thought there might be something between us, too,” she finally managed.
His brow raised in surprise. “Is that so?” He glanced at her and let his gaze linger. “Well.” His eyes reverted back to the lane as they rounded the bend. “I didn’t realize.”
The Kerwyn farmhouse came into view, then, and as happy and relieved as Kate was to see it, she held her breath, hoping that maybe . . . perhaps . . .
“Well, I guess that’s all in the past now, isn’t it?” He shut off the engine and turned to her again. His tone was light enough, but his face looked . . . a little sad? Regretful?
“Does it . . . does it have to be?” she dared, but she was immediately cut off by shouts from her father, who had appeared on the porch.
“Kate? That you?” he called, making his way across the muddy yard.
Kate swung the door open and slid out, suddenly filled with horrible dread.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!” Mr. Kerwyn embraced her tightly, as if nothing disagreeable had happened between them.
“Come on, girl,” he said, his face deeply etched with worry as he picked up her carpetbag.
“Let’s get you inside.” He tromped through the mud toward the farmhouse.
“Thanks, Ed!” Mr. Kerwyn shouted over his shoulder.
“Yes, thank you, Edmund. I—”
“Come on, Kate! Hurry!” Mr. Kerwyn’s voice boomed again.
“Yer ma’s been asking for you. Doctor was just here.
She ain’t too good, Kate.” He turned around on the porch steps, and Kate read the panic in his face.
“She ain’t too good,” he said in a strangled sort of voice and looked as though he might . . . might cry.
With a bang, Kate slammed the truck door and began to wade through the mud after her father.
She did not have boots on, of course, which made it more difficult.
Was her mother actually dying? What if she didn’t get to say goodbye?
She began to try to run, but it was like trying to wade through molasses.
After only a few paces, one of her shoes got stuck in the ooze, her stockinged foot coming free and landing with a squish.
For a split second, she debated trying to pull the shoe from the mud, but she didn’t want to take the time.
She would come back for it later! She continued her slog until she finally reached the porch and banged inside. She kicked off her other shoe.
“Mom!” she called, running up the stairs. Her father lumbered after her.
Edmund, meanwhile, having retrieved Kate’s shoe from the mud, slipped into the kitchen and sat down to wait.