Light at the River’s Edge

By K. L. Kemp

Young Katie Whitaker is a master at keeping things hidden in darkness until her entire life is shrouded in turmoil—and leads her to the brink of suicide. Traveling away from her home in the Midwest to the Fuller Ranch in the scenic Smith River Valley of Montana, she struggles to find a bit of peace and hope and the strength and courage to overcome the torments that plague her.

But Katie’s secrets grow restless and more ominous until they collide, threatening her soul and her very existence. Now Katie must find a reason and the fortitude to keep living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984553898

Book preview

Light at

The River’s Edge

K. L. Kemp

Copyright © 2018 by K. L. Kemp.

Library of Congress Control Number:     2018911114

ISBN:                  Hardcover                        978-1-9845-5388-1

                            Softcover                          978-1-9845-5390-4

                            eBook                               978-1-9845-5389-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/27/2018

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Contents

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Bibliography

DEDICATION

For my Grandmother—Florence Lorenz Revis. Summer days at her side in the farmhouse porch swing have left me filled with love and a soul full of images, characters, and stories for a lifetime. This book is dedicated to her.

And to grandmothers everywhere who share stories of days long ago and far away to adoring grandchildren eager for their wisdom, ice tea, and cookies.

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.

—Robert Louis Stevenson

ONE

Katie Whitaker would be shamed and embarrassed if anyone called her a liar, yet that was exactly what she was, having learned the art of deception from those closest to her. She didn’t know if her journey of lies began in her mother’s apartment over Duffy’s Speed Queen Public Laundromat or in the series of foster homes or in the corner of her grandmother’s bedroom where she slept for so many years. The end of her journey to the truth lurched forward the spring her brother died.

In 1963 while Americans mourned the passing of Patsy Cline, while they flocked to theaters to see Hitchcock’s new movie The Birds or stayed home to watch a new TV show called General Hospital, and while they complained that gasoline was now an outrageous thirty-two cents a gallon, Katie did nothing more than finish her junior year of high school, watching the spring rains turn the town of Teetersburg into a sea of mud.

She wanted that spring to be different from most days of her existence. Except for the late December night her mother died in a fire, after which Katie and her older brother, Ryan, went to live with their grandmother Bernice, always called Gram, her life slipped into an interminable numbness and grew unbearably dull.

In the cramped, wood-shingled bungalow at 823 Rose Avenue, in the company of Gram, Katie waited day by day and hour by hour to grow up and to distance herself from the discontent of her life. She grew weary of waiting and became convinced her condition would never change, so she plotted to do the only thing within her power to alter her life.

She set a course to kill herself.

She wrote and rewrote notes and lists of how to achieve her goal. The slow-flowing Pike River meandered through the middle of Teetersburg. Katie knew that the writer Virginia Woolf had drowned herself in a river, but Katie cringed at all that muddy water in her lungs and in her ears. She read of Anna Karenina who threw herself under a train, and she knew exactly when the westbound Burlington Northern train ran south of town during Gram’s early morning movies on her television. The heavy-collared guard dogs around the towers of the abandoned Olney Oil Refinery scared her. A classmate’s mother bought a carton of cigarettes, mixed a pitcher of martinis, and settled comfortably into the back seat of her idling Chevrolet in a locked garage last Thanksgiving morning. But Gram had no car and had never driven, and the garage was securely locked.

Still, Katie studied to find the ideal way to end her life. Death would be her great change, her great giver of relief.

She hadn’t anticipated modifying her plans until that late April afternoon when two policemen came to the front door.

Mrs. Whitaker? We’re looking for an Irene Whitaker, a potbellied, dark-haired policeman asked as he patted the butt of his gun.

Katie studied him through the locked screen door. That was my mother. She’s been dead a long time.

A thinner but not much taller blond cop stepped out from behind his partner. His voice was too forced, too friendly. We are looking for someone to talk to about a Ryan Whitaker. Who would that be? he asked.

Katie’s eyes widened, and she stifled a small smile. Wait here. She had long suspected the cops would come looking for Ryan someday. She turned to Gram, sitting by an unwashed window, staring out at an empty bird feeder. The police are here, wanting to talk about Ryan.

Gram searched the sky for birds that weren’t there.

Gram, there are cops at the door, Katie raised her voice and told her again. Gram waved her hand, holding her off for another minute.

Katie marched between Gram and the window. Cops. Asking about Ryan.

Gram leaned closer to the wide windowsill choked with tissues, pills, arthritis cream, and her lucky charms.

With a dramatized groan, Gram went to the door.

What is it you want with my Ryan? she snapped at the officers. She disliked being interrupted when a cardinal was about to appear.

The taller blond cop adjusted his belt. It’s about Ryan Whitaker, ma’am. May we come in?

No, you may not. You got something to ask, ask it. This here screen door won’t block your questions. Gram straightened up as much as she could though her days of standing straight were almost over.

No questions, ma’am. May we come in, please?

I’m the old one here. Are you hard of hearing? I said no, Gram repeated.

The short cop grew impatient. Open the door.

Gram sputtered, If you ain’t got questions, why are you wasting your time here?

The tall cop flattened the palm of his right hand on the screen door as if it were something soft and precious. There’s been a shooting over on Sixteenth Street. We’re here to tell you about it. He patted the doorknob as he talked, coaxing it to open.

Gram fumbled and unlocked the door with great effort. She appeared suddenly tired. Katie, you go in the kitchen now. Pour us something cold to drink, she ordered. The only cold drink they ever had to fix was ice tea. Gram drank the stuff by the gallon.

Katie did as she was told and brought a tray with filled glasses into the front room where the blond officer had pulled up a small side chair and sat close to Gram’s window. Gram rarely sat anywhere else. As the short cop, his belly hanging over his belt, paced by the front door, his partner leaned in close to Gram.

It seems a gentleman had a problem with your Ryan at a place called Goodley’s Garage. We’re not sure what happened. Two bullets found a target in your Ryan.

Tell me what hospital he’s in. St. Mary’s, I hope, not that terrible Mercy place. Gram’s voice was low.

I’m sorry, Mrs. Whitaker. There’s no need for a hospital.

Katie’s hands flew up in front of her face. Her fists clenched so tight her fingernails dug into her palms. Strangely, Katie delighted in the pain in her hands.

Gram froze as on a long winter night. Her foot stopped tapping the floor, her chest stopped moving, and her hand sunk itself into her breast. Her small body sucked all the air from the room and then bellowed loud and long one grieving caterwaul after another. The dark-haired cop shuffled his feet and patted his holster; the other cop took it all in stride. Another outcry and the remaining air in the room was sucked into Gram’s lungs before the next anguished howl. The tall clock in the entry ticked away the minutes as her great chokings gave way to breast-heaving sobs.

Katie’s mother and now her brother were both dead. Father was unknown. Her father was never in her life, and both her mother and Gram refused to talk about him. Katie couldn’t recall seeing him, even in a picture. What a family I’ve got, Katie wailed inside. She had shed tears for a father she never knew; she had shed tears for years for her mother. There were no tears now. There were no tears for Ryan. She doubted there would ever be any for him. She could mourn the loss of her family, but she couldn’t mourn the loss of Ryan. He cheated her. He died before she did.

She took the tray of ice teas and ran back to the kitchen and threw the glasses into the sink. Shattered one of them against the porcelain.

Gram instructed Katie as she left with the police to identify Ryan’s body, Stay here in the house. Gram’s sobbing had stopped, but she struggled to breathe.

Teetersburg was full of the unemployed and the elderly, and it didn’t take long for the news of Ryan’s death to travel up and down Rose Avenue.

Katie turned off Gram’s radio, and for the next two hours, she sat alone in stillness, doing nothing more than staring at her feet. As hard as she tried to think of anything, her mind remained blank.

As afternoon light faded to a purple gloom, Mrs. Polling from next door arrived with a casserole of creamy tuna and potatoes, setting her casserole on the wooden kitchen table under the window by the back door. We don’t know what else to do, so we bring food. This here is to help out a wee bit. I’ll bet others are cooking and baking and will be here later. Tradition, you know. I’ll help straighten up a little if you like, do some dusting, clean up a little. She picked up a piece of broken glass from the sink. My goodness, I’m fussing about a clean house when it is you I should be concerned about.

Glass! Katie missed her chance. With Gram out of the house, she could have cut her wrists with a shard and bled to death. Everyone would think she was simply overcome with the death of Ryan to suspect anything else. But she was too angry with Ryan dying first that cutting her wrist didn’t occur to her. Yes, make sure poor little Katie doesn’t slash her wrists in her moment of grief, Katie whispered to herself.

Mrs. Polling reached out her hand to touch Katie’s cheek, but Katie jerked her head back. Gram was the only one allowed to touch Katie; it had been that way for years.

Mrs. Polling raised both hands over her head, her flabby upper arms swung out of the sleeves of her cotton dress printed with now-faded daises and sunflowers. It is you who are desperately tormented and troubled at this time. It is you who need help and consolation. Her voice grew louder. O mighty power in Heaven, hasten to this poor helpless little child. Let a sea of forgiveness rise up and sweep away this soul to the peaceful shore of happiness and bliss. Her arms reached for the heavens, swaying back and forth. May the mighty wind of your gracious breath blow across the face of this tormented child in her desperate hour of desolation and neediness. The volume of prayers hurt Katie’s ears, but Mrs. Polling was just getting started.

Katie looked around for an escape, and she began mimicking the wails and torments of Gram. She tried her best to drown out the voice of her neighbor.

Mrs. Polling never missed a beat. Cleave unto your bountiful bosom this face of innocence and bring her forgiveness and love from the castle of everlasting joy and happiness.

Katie wailed harder, sobbed harder and louder. She screamed.

Mrs. Polling fell to her knees on the kitchen floor, one palm bracing herself against the metal sink cabinet, her other palm over her head, scouring the heavens for divine retribution.

Katie gave up and ran to the bedroom that she shared with Gram and slammed the door behind her. She wailed again a few times, only not so loud. Mrs. Polling kept up her pleadings from the kitchen, begging for a vast array of things to help all mankind from falling into seething pits of eternal darkness. Katie moaned and changed her wails to sobs and to a few moans and finally a few giggles. Her brother was newly dead, and her neighbor was overcome with the hopeless future of all mankind? Mrs. Polling had no idea what Katie’s pains were and how deep they ran. She had lied to everyone for years about her deepest troubles. Gram didn’t know; no one but Katie knew.

Alone on her small cot in the corner, Katie’s thoughts drifted back to the night she and Ryan came to live with Gram—back to when they had finally found a place safe and secure, a home for the rest of their lives.

* * * * *

That first day living with Gram, Katie discovered a funny little closet off the kitchen that Gram called a butler’s pantry. She was starry-eyed that Gram once had a butler and dreamed of the day he would reappear. The pantry had a small square window high above a built-in cabinet of five clunky drawers. One drawer held clothes and personal things of a brother-in-law who came to visit twenty-one years ago but took sick and died shortly after his arrival. Gram couldn’t get rid of his things, saying it would rip all his memories from her heart. The bottom drawer was stuck shut. Gram shook her head and insisted she couldn’t remember what was stored there. Above the drawers was a flat space big enough for seven-year-old Katie to climb up into. It was the only spot in the house that was truly Katie’s.

That first time Katie climbed above the drawers, she made the place hers. Her perch came to include an odd assortment of pillows, a faded rose blanket, and a wooden apple crate for a dozen or so library books. Her small library grew by two books each Christmas—one from Gram, one from Ryan.

The square window gave a view of the garage, missing a few of its bricks, and a patch of almost-blue sky. Katie loved climbing up into her spot during a storm. She’d fluff her pillows, pull the blanket to her shoulders, and delight in hearing rain on the roof and the wind blowing through the neighbor’s trees. Thunder and lightning entertained her as storms raged at just the other side of the cracked windowpane.

Her perch kept her away from drafty winter floors. In the summer, her spot was stifling hot, even with the little square window propped open with a stick.

One summer, Ryan found a discarded electric fan in the alley and tinkered with it until it worked with only a slight clinking noise. It was not pretty and never ran fast, but Katie enjoyed its cooling breeze as she read her books. Ryan stretched new extension cords over the kitchen sink and over the refrigerator to the nearest plug-in. The fan’s on-off switch didn’t work, and Katie had to plug the fan in before she climbed to her retreat. Ryan insisted he earned money for the cords by doing errands for people in the neighborhood, but Gram didn’t believe him and accused him of stealing them. The cords stayed, but Ryan and Gram never trusted each other after that.

Gram took them to church on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings where worldliness of any sort was frowned upon. Girls there all wore their hair the same: three inches past the shoulder, parted in the middle, no bangs, curls, or fancy hairpins. Unlike the other girls, Katie did not bind her breasts as she grew older. Gram considered it unhealthy, and Katie was free to be her natural size. There wasn’t much there to hide anyway. People thought she was much taller than she really was, for she always was a little too thin, even as she grew up. She spent her time hiding from the sun, thus her dark hair contrasted too sharply with her pale skin.

Gram was pleased that Katie invited a few friends to the house, but after each visit, Gram complained for days about the noise they made and about the clutter in the house she could no longer keep spotless. The visits dwindled away, and Katie’s only companionship was found in her books.

* * * * *

Now, alone in the bedroom, Katie forgot about Mrs. Polling and her prayers and could only think of her reading spot. Katie had stopped climbing above the drawers in the pantry about two years ago though the pillows, blanket, and books were still there. She grew too big for the space, and she conceded that she was too old to be doing such a thing. Now with Ryan dead and Gram gone to claim his body, she longed more than ever for the security and comfort of the only place she truly felt secure.

Darkness had long settled over Teetersburg by the time Gram came home. She sat for a while, talking and listening to Mrs. Poole, the last person from Gram’s church to visit with food. Mrs. Poole always did the talking, and everyone else did the listening, never the other way around. If she ever pretended to listen while you talked, you knew she only thought about what she was going to say next. Last words in hushed tones and Mrs. Poole left Gram and Katie alone in the house.

I’m going to bed now. That was Gram’s cue for Katie to leave the bedroom. Even though they shared the same bedroom, Gram insisted on modesty. One of them left whenever the other changed her clothes.

Gram had never been a big woman, and to Katie, she appeared much smaller tonight. Her steps were shorter than usual as she went to her side of the room. Sitting on the edge of her thin mattress, she sank down into a small lump. This was a woman who once had a husband, raised a daughter, and attended the baptisms of her grandchildren. Now she was only a small clump of flesh, seemingly without bones for support. Katie took a freshly washed nightgown from the dresser and laid it in Gram’s lap. As Katie shut the door behind her, Gram remained sitting, small, unmoving in the paltry circle of light from her nightstand, stroking the freshness of her crisp, clean gown, and crying.

That night, as Gram changed into her nightgown, Katie reached into her pantry reading spot. From behind her crate of books, she pulled a crumpled paper bag and clutched it to her chest. Just checking, she told herself as she pulled out her rope with a noose at one end.

It comforted her that her rope was still there.

From that night on, Katie slept on the sofa in the living room. With Ryan gone, she could have claimed his bedroom and finally have a room of her own—at last, a room where she could be alone. But it was Ryan’s room and always would be. She couldn’t bear to enter it.

Ryan’s memorial service was a small gathering of Gram’s church friends and two school friends of Katie. The church provided flowers and organ music. Five of Ryan’s friends came but refused to sit. They grouped themselves behind the last pew near the door. Ryan was to be cremated, so there was no viewing of his body.

After the service, Mrs. Poole and Gram’s pastor came to the bungalow and talked to Gram for three hours in subdued tones before leaving. Katie wondered why they kept looking at her, but they wouldn’t say anything and talked only to Gram.

No one prayed over her now. No one noticed that she had never shed a tear for Ryan. There was no one there to comfort, to ask questions. There was only a hangman’s noose, coiled tightly in a brown paper bag, accepting Katie just as she was.

TWO

Gram’s pastor and Mrs. Poole came to Rose Avenue on a bright Sunday afternoon the week after Ryan’s service and brought his ashes. Gram placed the simple white ceramic urn in the center of the corner china cabinet. Gram’s pastor was formally called Pastor James, but Katie thought him bland and stupid. She refused to dignify him by using his proper name.

Mrs. Poole carefully positioned herself down on the green velour sofa and turned to Gram. You know, Bernice, this is the right thing to do.

No, I don’t know it’s right. It just seems wrong, Gram asserted.

Mrs. Poole peered out from under her hat. No matter the weather, the time of year, the occasion, indoors and out, she wore a wide-brimmed hat pulled down low so that you could only see one eye piercing out at you. Other families in the church have taken my advice and have done this same thing, and it worked out well for everyone. It’s good for the kids. Works wonders with them.

Gram called out, Katie, come here, please. I know you are hiding in the kitchen. You better come and be a part of this here conversation.

Katie took a deep breath from where she stood near the kitchen door, tugged at a chair, and sat down close to Gram.

Mrs. Poole grabbed Gram’s right hand and shook it. This is your decision, not hers.

Gram jerked her hand back from Mrs. Poole’s grip and turned to Katie. Mrs. Poole and Pastor James think you should go away, Katie. They think you might be better off if you were someplace else.

Katie was stunned. What! Go away? she shouted. She never liked the pastor and liked Mrs. Poole even less. Now her dislike was embedded in stone.

Pastor James smiled and explained, We don’t want you to go away forever. We merely want to give you the opportunity to visit someplace else this summer.

Just for a little while and hope I never come back? Katie’s toes clenched firm in her shoes. Her stomach tightened.

Mrs. Poole grimaced, adjusted her hat, and took charge of the conversation. Child, do not talk to your elders like that. Let’s all calm down and start at the beginning. She pulled a large notebook from her side and opened it on her lap.

Our church, the First Avenue Independent Evangelical, has connections with a splendid program called American Horizons. It helps young people find jobs for the summer, that’s all. It connects youngsters with families who need or want someone like you to come live with them for the summer. You stay in a delightful exciting place, meet wonderful new people, have an adventure in the sun, and come home in the fall. She sounded like she was selling vacation beachfront property on late night television. We choose a family for you from this book and make a few phone calls, and the church makes all the arrangements.

Sending Katie away sounded as simple as buying a quart of milk.

Pastor James chimed in, The families are all investigated and registered with the local authorities, and if you like, someone from American Horizons will stop by from time to time to check on Katie just to make sure everything is fine.

Mrs. Poole scowled at him for stealing her spotlight. It is not factory work or manual labor. For young ladies like Katie here …

Katie’s eyes widened. Mrs. Poole always referred to Katie as a child; now suddenly she was a young lady?

The best jobs are called mother’s helpers. You help take care of their children, perform housework for the summer, do as you are told, and that’s all. Bernice, you just sign these papers, and off she goes. As if everything was settled, Mrs. Poole thrust a handful of forms onto Gram’s lap.

How could they do this? No one had asked Katie if she wanted to go anywhere. No one had asked what she thought. Could they do this without her consent? Katie had spent many days longing to grow up. But if that meant turning out like Mrs. Poole or the pastor, she wanted no part of it.

Mrs. Poole continued, The family gives you room and board and pays you a little money. You should save it and send it back to your grandmother. She has taken care of you all these years since that so-called mother of yours died. It is about time you began to repay her.

Despite her mother’s faults, Katie resented being reminded about her mother, especially by Mrs. Poole. She jumped up to leave and started for the kitchen. She needed her rope now more than ever.

Without raising her head, Gram continued staring at the floorboards under