Winter Break
Kate seamlessly slipped back into farm life when she returned home for Christmas.
She woke up to darkness, bundled in layers, tugged on her barn coat and boots, and clomped through the fog to the chicken coop.
Since first grade, she’d tended to the family’s flock.
All the Hutchins children helped maintain the farm, her mother assigning every child a task when they came of age.
Kate preferred the chickens over the family dairy business, though she’d milked her fair share of cows and helped deliver more than one calf.
She longed for her in the frost, not much different from the coolness between them since the camping trip. Like so many times before, they never fully addressed the blurred boundaries of that night.
“I’m sorry about the tent,” Abby said at the next practice.
“We don’t have to talk about it.” Kate shook her head and repeated the phrase she told herself whenever she thought she might spiral into panic. “I was disoriented from the night before.”
Abby nodded. “Right. I was mostly asleep.” She bit her lip. “We’re good though?”
“Of course.”
After that, the only time they allowed each other a glimpse away from practice or studying was at the blue house, with their friends between them.
Abby didn’t flirt, didn’t wink, didn’t make any pointed jokes that might rouse Kate’s temper, and did everything else at a respectable distance.
It left Kate wondering which was worse—this new, sterile, safe version of them or facing the consequences of what she wanted.
She white-knuckled her way through Christmas with the secret, the danger, lurking inside.
And while she successfully hid it, she suffered just as deeply.
She didn’t dare say Abby’s name, let alone call and risk someone eavesdropping on one of their conversations, finding her overly joyous, flirtatious, the pieces aligning to reveal the truth.
She sent a few texts instead, then hid her phone away, surviving off rations.
A few days before New Year’s, her father, Ray, drove them to the baseball field.
The same field she’d spent her childhood longing to play on instead of watching from the stands while he coached.
Kate still enjoyed the alone time with him—a rarity as the middle of seven.
She credited him for always finding small ways to make her feel seen.
“It’s a blessed day to play God’s game.” Ray smiled at her, the same way he did his players. He said the phrase so often that after twenty years Eastern Washington Bible College painted it on the home dugout.
He lugged out a few buckets of balls, set up behind a net at the pitcher’s mound, and tossed Kate batting practice.
She swung with abandon. She didn’t care about form.
She simply unleashed. The last months of her hitting slump lingered, in fact, only seemed to worsen with her guilt, but away from Insley, she let herself go.
“Watch that back shoulder, Katie. Good.” Ray’s mild, patient instruction didn’t distract her. She nodded along, adjusted, and roped another ball. “Don’t forget the hips. Perfect.”
She crushed at least fifty softballs, sending the neon spheres to the frozen outfield. When they ran out, Ray pitched her baseballs, and Kate chopped at those too. By the end of the session, she shivered under a sheen of cold sweat.
“So much for a slump.” Ray threw an arm around her on the walk back to his truck.
“It’s easier out here.” Kate sighed.
“It’s the same everywhere,” Ray said as he tapped her forehead. “Remember, ‘It’s 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.’ ”
He chuckled at the Yogi Berra wisdom he’d quoted hundreds of times, and Kate laughed too. But on the ride home, the respite receded. The secret knotted her throat so tight she nearly choked.
“What’s on your mind, Katie?” Ray asked.
She met his eyes, duplicates of her own. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “We haven’t had much time to talk.”
Kate assured herself he wasn’t referring to her secret, even though she almost wished he would. Here, alone in his truck where they’d had countless talks about God and softball and life, she decided to untangle the cord if only to breathe. “I’ve been a little confused lately.”
“About what?
She wrung her hands as yellow farmland rolled by her window. “My friend Mick has a girlfriend.” Kate hated the stereotypical “friend with a problem” angle, but it was at least truthful. “They’re really happy together. I’m having a hard time understanding why it’s wrong.”
Ray nodded. He spoke with the solemn, methodical assuredness of a preacher. “Have you turned to scripture?”
“Yes.”
“And what has that told you?”
Kate bit her lip. “That it’s unnatural.”
“It’s sin.”
“But so much of that is in the Old Testament. Some biblical scholars believe the interpretation from the original Greek in the New Testament doesn’t completely line up—”
“It’s God’s word.” Ray frowned. “This is why I worry about you and law school.”
Kate’s gaze widened. “What?”
“I worry you’ll turn away from scripture, from the church, and seek answers outside of God. You’re confused because you’re doing that now.”
“I thought it’s okay to have questions. You’ve always said that.”
“Well, this question has a clear answer.”
“It’s not a sin. It’s part of her. It’s who she loves.” Kate’s pulse filled her ears.
“Just because it makes someone happy doesn’t make it okay in the eyes of the Church.” Ray narrowed his brow. “Is there another reason this has you so worked up?”
Kate shook her head. “No.”
He patted her shoulder. She nearly jerked away, crushed, despite predicting this response. Something in her na?vely hoped he wouldn’t be the one to let her down.
“Pray on it,” he said. “And pray for your friend.”
The next day, as if doubling down, Ray chose a reading to emphasize his point at breakfast. “ ‘The Creator made them male and female and said for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ ”
Kate’s mother, Beth, beamed at her, but she wouldn’t understand why until later. Instead, she fidgeted under Ray’s gaze, convinced that he knew the truth.
That’s why she dawdled in the chicken coop as snow flurried on New Year’s Eve. When she finished tending to the chickens, she joined her brothers with the cows and horses. She filled troughs and distributed hay, avoiding the house as long as possible.
They finished their chores ahead of the incoming storm, hauling extra wood on their way back. Kate stomped chicken shit and mud from her boots before entering the kitchen, where a surprise awaited. A surprise of the most unwelcome sort.
“Morning, Katie.” Blake grinned from where he sat with her parents at the table.
“Blake.” Kate barely had enough sense to hug him back when he embraced her. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought we could ring in the New Year together.” He pecked her slackened lips.
Ray and Beth, who rarely allowed suitors at the house, nodded happily. She ran a hand down Blake’s broad chest, confirming reality. With her parents glowing behind him, she understood this was it. This was the danger lurking at home.
“I’m happy you’re here.” Kate didn’t even sound like herself. She raked fingers through her tangled hair. “I should clean up. I smell like manure.”
Blake smiled. “I’ll wait out here.”
She scrubbed viciously in the shower, contemplated her phone when she got out, willing a text or a call from Abby, pleading for a sign. But it didn’t come. She spent the afternoon at Blake’s side, cringing every time her mother or sisters flashed her a knowing smile, like she’d won the lottery.
At dinner, he held her hand beneath the table, the massive Hutchins clan in attendance.
Kate’s phone rang with a call from Abby, but she ignored it.
After dessert, they watched the countdown to midnight.
Despite the late hour, everyone stayed, hovering as if excited to mark the New Year, but that wasn’t what they lingered for.
When the ball dropped and fireworks popped, Blake got down on a knee with a ring.
“Katherine Ruth Hutchins, will you marry me?”
Kate’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She knew it was Abby and as she stared at the diamond, she couldn’t shake how desperately she wanted to answer.
She confronted one of life’s magic moments and only thought of one person.
Not the one in front of her. The one that long ago dug a hole in her heart and nested there.
She wasn’t Abby’s and Abby wasn’t hers, but Kate already belonged to her. Too much to belong to another.
“Kate?” Blake whispered.
Her chin quivered. She just had to say yes. Say yes and claim her ticket out. Say yes and end the confusion. Accept being locked out, take her seat in the stands. A reasonable second choice. Say yes and make every person in the room happy. Every person except her.
“I need a minute.” Kate staggered backward.
Blake followed her into the kitchen and grabbed her arm. “Kate, come on.”
“I told you I don’t want to get married.” She hyperventilated. “I want to wait until…”
“After law school,” he finished. “That’s three years from now!”
Kate pulled away. “I’m sorry. This isn’t what I want.”
Her parents appeared behind him in the kitchen’s entryway. Her mother covered her face, tears brimming in her eyes. Kate charged out the back door, into the snow, and Blake ran after her.
“What about what I want?” he asked. “Please, Katie. I want to marry you, but three years is too long to wait.”
Kate turned and met him under a fluorescent floodlight, sneakers sinking into the snow. Delicate flakes of frost floated onto her lashes and melted on her sweater.
“Why? Why does it matter if we’re together?” she asked. When he raised his eyebrows, her sympathy retreated. “I’m not getting married just so we can have sex.”
“Don’t say that. It’s not why I’m proposing.”
“Then what’s the rush?”