14. Kate
They had not slept, but they had survived. In fact, Kate decided, they’d had fun…until they just wanted to sleep and couldn’t.
The Rock Hill rental had come through the storm with almost nothing to show for it. A long, loud night, the wind testing every seam of the roof, the lights flickering and holding, and then, sometime past three, the worst of it pulling north and the roar settling down.
During that, Kate had tried to sleep but mostly listened to her daughter not sleeping in the other twin bed, the two of them awake in the dark, occasionally talking but mostly just waiting it out.
Now the window was gray with early light, and Emma’s voice came across the gap between the beds, soft and scratchy with the long night.
“Mom. You awake?”
“I’m awake.”
“Did you sleep at all?”
“A little, not much. You?”
“Not really.” Emma rolled onto her side to face her, and the gray light caught the shape of her tangled coppery hair, the quilt pulled to her chin.
She could just see her over the nightstand, where the Bible Seamus gave her sat, a little worn at the corners now in a way that Kate had noticed and not remarked on. “That was kind of scary.”
“It was. And it’s over, and we’re fine, and the house is fine.”
“Is the Summer House fine?”
“We don’t know yet,” Kate said, glancing at the phone that had already lit up, as she’d exchanged texts since five with Eli. “We’ll know today.”
Emma was quiet a moment. Outside, a bird Kate could not identify had started up, undeterred, as though nothing at all had happened.
“A bird survived,” Kate said. “That’s a good sign.”
“Like Noah’s Ark,” Emma muttered, pushing up to go to the window.
She didn’t really think that happened, did she? Another look at that already worn Bible told Kate she very well might.
“Yikes, it’s a mess out there,” Emma said, pressing into the glass. “Oh, there’s a tree halfway out of the ground and branches everywhere.”
Kate shuddered. “I hope the Summer House is okay,” she whispered. “It means everything to Eli.”
“And Eli means everything to you,” Emma countered.
Kate gave her a shaky smile. “Not everything, Em. You and Matt are first and always will be.”
Emma turned from the window and walked to Kate’s small bed, perching on the end. She looked young and fresh, more like ten—at least to Kate’s maternal eyes—than seventeen.
“He does, though, Mom. You love him. He loves you. I could see it, especially when he said every word you used for Scattergories was acceptable. I mean, ‘stranger’s feet’ for things at a beach that start with S?”
“I knew everyone else would say sand and I needed that point.” Laughing, Kate pulled the comforter higher and eyed her daughter. “You’re okay with that, I take it? Not the answer, the man.”
“Very much so. I think he’s awesome and really good for you.”
She nodded because there was no way to argue that. “But, you know, we have…the issue.”
“The God thing.”
Kate stared up at the white ceiling of a stranger’s house and tried to think of how to answer that. “You know I made a deal with him to look into it, to research it.”
“My idea, if we’re being real.”
“He told me that,” she said. “And I did, Em. I’ve been studying since Tessa’s wedding. I read the gospels. I read the history. I read the people who argue about it for a living, the serious ones, famous ones, and some I’d never heard of.”
“And?”
“And I started off expecting to find nothing and instead I found a great deal. Enough that I can look at the world now, at a cell, at the sheer impossible elegance of how a living thing is put together, and say there is something behind it. Some intelligence. I can go that far. I didn’t think I’d be able to and I can. ”
“That’s great, Mom.” She leaned closer. “I got there fast, but I think it’s an important first step.”
“But it’s going to be my only step,” she said, looking at Emma to see if she followed.
“That makes you agnostic, I think,” Emma said. “It’s…vague but not atheist. He has to see that as a good thing.”
“But not good enough,” Kate argued. “He needs me to believe a specific thing. That a particular man, two thousand years ago, was God. And I’m not…” She closed her eyes and dug for the most straightforward words she could find. “I’m not getting there.”
“Yet.”
“Ever,” Kate corrected. “I’ve gone as far as the road goes, for me, and it stops short of where he was hoping I’d arrive. And I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know if it’s enough for us to be…an us.”
Emma leaned into the early morning light and considered her mother with an expression Kate could not entirely read, but it was thoughtful, a little tender, and somehow older than it had any business being.
“Okay,” Emma said. “But you don’t have to have it all figured out today.”
“Em—”
“No, listen. I’ve heard people say that. The exact thing you just said. There are people—a lot of them—who say, I believe in God, I just can’t wrap my head around the Jesus part. That’s a normal place to be, Mom. It’s practically a whole category of person.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I’ve seen it. People talk about it.” Emma made the vague gesture that Kate had learned most likely meant TikTok or some other social media that was about as dependable as dirt.
“This girl I follow did a whole thing about it. She said she sat in the believing-in-God part for like a year before the rest of it caught up to her.”
But nothing was going to catch up to Kate.
“Has it caught up to you?” Kate asked, her voice sounding tenuous, as if she was afraid of the answer. Probably because she was.
“It’s getting there,” she admitted with a smile. “Eli says I don’t have a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice!” Kate sat up, wishing she could be less emotional on this subject, but it was hard.
Emma shrugged. “He said, ‘Once the hounds of heaven are after you, there’s no escaping. Jesus has you.’ That really stuck with me. That and the fact that He’ll leave ninety-nine sheep to get one. And that one is me. Could be you.”
Kate closed her eyes, not sure if she was more upset at the idea of hounds chasing either one of them or Eli and Emma having all these religious conversations. When did they take place?
“Listen, I know I’m a kid, but can I give you some advice?”
Kate looked at her and nodded.
“You always think things have to be a decision, Mom. You think everything’s a test and you either pass it or you don’t. But maybe this one isn’t a test. Maybe you just stay where you are, in the part you can do, and you don’t panic, and you let the rest of it come find you.”
“The hounds, you mean.”
“They might.” Emma grinned. “But really, don’t try to figure it all out. It’ll become crystal clear and you’ll know.”
“But there’s no proof, Emma.”
“And, you know, that’s where I think you’re wrong.” Emma put a hand on the comforter, landing on Kate’s leg underneath. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, okay?”
She winced, knowing that no one ever took anything the right way when it started with that sentence. “What?”
“Don’t break up with Eli over this.”
Kate stared at her.
“I mean it,” Emma said, and her voice had gone quiet and not as wise as it had been. “I know that’s none of my business. But I see you with him. I see how he is with you and everyone. He’s good, Mom. He’s so good I’m kind of embarrassed for Dad, you know?”
Kate had to laugh softly. “Yeah, he does beat Jeffrey in every department.” Her eyes widened. “I did not say that and if you say I did, I’ll deny it.”
Emma giggled. “You’ve been very good about never dissing Dad. But Eli? I don’t know. He’s cool and I really, really don’t want the Jesus thing to end it for you two. I think if you just stay where you are, it’ll work out.”
“I’m not planning on ending anything,” she said softly.
“Good.”
Kate leaned closer to make the next point, one that was really bothering her. “I just don’t understand why, if this Jesus is real, He didn’t figure out a way to make it completely obvious so everyone could know. I don’t get why it has to be so hard, Em.”
Emma smiled as she stood up. “He did make it obvious. You just don’t see it. Also, I smell coffee. Are we done?”
Well, she was still a teenager and the coffee smelled great. Kate nodded. “Yeah. I love you.”
“Come down quick because Jonah’s not here and Vivien isn’t much in the kitchen. Make us a frittata?”
“Did you forget your Pop-Tarts?” Kate teased.
“No, but you know, people change.” She opened the door and peeked over her shoulder. “Even you, Mom.”
With that, she disappeared out the door.
Kate lay alone a moment longer and let her daughter’s words settle. Yes, people change. But…not that much.
Downstairs, the house was vibrating with post-Norman giddiness, the TV finally quiet, but the people especially loud. Vivien had made coffee and Kate quietly took over the stove and started on the eggs and pancakes she knew would be a hit.
While they worked, Kate took an inventory of the room.
Tessa sat on the arm of the sofa with Olive in her lap, while the wee child told a rambling story about the wind that nobody could understand and everybody encouraged.
Dusty’s attention was split between Olive and the window as he surveyed the damage, no doubt wondering what his own home looked like this morning.
Meredith and Connor came in to help, mostly laughing between themselves, but it was obvious to anyone that their work friendship had escalated to something more. There were long looks, casual but intentional touches, and a palpable connection that felt quite right.
Peter stood by the kitchen door with a phone to his ear and alert, listening stillness. Vivien took him a coffee, staying close to hear whatever he was learning on the phone.
“Where’s Eli?” Kate asked Meredith as she poured her own cup.
“He went outside to talk to Doug Fenton from Lakeside,” Meredith said. “He’s getting a report on how the half-built houses did.”
“Stir these eggs for me, Mer?” Kate said, handing her a wooden spoon. “I’m going to check on him.”