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At Arms Lenght of a Rose Garden, author, character development, civil rights movement, drama, romance, writing, writting
Chapter 8
Present
I knew so much and so little back then. I remember getting your blackened letter I did all I could to read it, they may be good, but I found some of what you had written. They tried to hide the truth from the world, but it was too hard to hide it from you. So when you came home you didn’t just go away and fade into the populace, no you were a new voice and a new force behind bringing the war to an end. You hated the draft; you thought our government was run by fools. I tried to sway you dear, but how could I ever move you to do other than what you always did. You were a fighter, and you found your fight. You came home with the knowledge you needed, and with it you did what you knew was right. You fought to end the injustice; you fought to stop the killing. You like me did what seemed right, then the world turned around and we saw the truth. Once it was there, they couldn’t hide it, and you showed me what it was like to really fight for what you and I both believed to be right.
August 12th 1967
Ryan leans against his car, waiting for Kate. He sits in the parking lot outside the base, just like she waited for him not two years earlier. He sees her long before she sees him. A smile breaks on his lips as he sees her. She looks up; The Letter starts to play on his car radio as their eyes meet. She moves slowly towards him. He smiles to himself and stands up strait; he walks over to her, their progression slow.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” is all he can muster and he takes her hand and holds it to his heart. They walk together back to his car.
“I didn’t know if you would come.” She says softly as he opens the passenger door for her.
“How could I not?” is his only response as he closes the door and leans down to the open window. “I have waited for almost two years; I can’t wait any longer.” He adds kisses her before he moves around the car, he get in as she speaks.
“Ryan,” she says, “I heard about Loving vs. Virginia.” She looks at him. “Is it true?” she asks as he put the car in gear.
Ryan is silent for a few moments. He shakes within where Kate cannot see. He starts to drive. His voice gone for a few moments, then when it returns he musters up the nerve to speak. “It is true Kate, but just being true doesn’t make it possible.” He manages to say. “I don’t know if it is possible Kate. I just don’t know.”
“Ryan Bartholomew Banks, will you do me the honor of being my husband?” Kate asks.
“Don’t ask me that just yet Kate,” Ryan says, “You’ll ruin the surprise.” He says as they drive. “I had this plan, and you asking me just won’t work.” He adds as he arrives at his parents’ house.
“What Surprise?” Kate asks as he opens her door.
“Come with me, Katherine Rose Johnson, will you do me the greatest honor of being my wife, legal and binding?” he asks as he gets down on one knee and presents her with a ring.
Kate is speechless, words suddenly fail her. She couldn’t even say his name. Just as suddenly her mother appeared with Bethany in the door way to the house. “Come Kate,” Caroline says. “It is time to get you ready for your wedding, if you say yes.” She says.
“Ryan, yes, always, of course, yes.” She says and gets up out of the car to follow her mother into the house. “Ryan how…” she says, but her words fall short as Bethany and Caroline lead her into the house to get her ready for her wedding.
“Mother what is going on?” Kate asks as she is lead to the master bedroom.
“Ryan planned the whole thing,” Bethany says. “He found out when you would be home and he planned the whole thing.”
“Pastor Jones is waiting for us dear.” Caroline says, “Now you can wear my dress, Bethany’s dress, or one of your own choosing, but we only have a few hours dear; and no dear, your father knows nothing of this.”
“I will wear your dress mother, and your veil Bethany, for my mother’s was worn by Julie, and it would mean a lot to me if I could wear yours.”
“I have one dear; Ryan knew how much you like flowers, so he ordered a flower crown for you. I’ll leave you two to it then. I must go make sure everyone is ready.”
“Mother,” Kate says and takes her mother’s hands in hers to get Caroline’s attention. “Mother.” She says again.
“What’s wrong dear?” Caroline asks seeing the tears in her daughter’s eyes.
“I just want to say I’m sorry,” Kate says, “I never meant for this to happen. I never asked for any of it. I never asked to love him.”
“Kate; don’t be afraid, and don’t be sorry. You came home to the man you love, and he gave you his heart. Don’t be sorry for being in love. It is a complicated thing love. It can carry us above the clouds as easily as it can crash us into the ground. Never be sorry for finding such a good man.” Caroline says and looks her daughter in the eyes. “Kate, Ryan is a good man. He will take care of you. He loves you dear, and that is all we can ask for. If that isn’t enough then you were never really in love with him.”
“Mother, I’m just so worried.” Kate says. “I’m afraid of what father will do.”
Caroline takes her daughters shoulders and turns her around to look in the mirror. “Katherine, you must do what is in your heart. Your father is just one man, he is your father and he loves you. He wants you to do what is right, even if he can’t see that it is right.”
Kate turns to face her mother. “Will he kill him?” she asks.
Caroline is silent, then she looks at her daughter. “I don’t know dear, he is not a rational man. I fell in love with him before he left for Germany. He came back and he was different. Just like you are different, but in many ways Kate, he was the same man who left. I just saw what I didn’t see before. I love your father Kate, but I can’t control him. I can no more control him than he can control you. Now change into that gown and let’s have a wedding.”
Kate just looks at her mother.
“Kate you just worry about your wedding, and your future husband, and let me worry about your father.” Caroline says as Bethany arrives at the door with a crown of roses for Kate.
Present
I knew so much about you Kate, and I knew so little. I saw you that day and I was so in love I wanted to share my life with you, more than anything else in the world. I will never forget how you looked when you walked out of the house. I will never forget that Kate, not ever. You Kate, you were my heart, you were my soul, you were my life, and in that moment I knew that nothing would keep us apart. I knew the problems we would face, and the pain we would endure would be more challenging than anything we had faced before. But in that moment Kate I didn’t care, in that moment, I saw you, and the world didn’t matter, just like you had always said it wouldn’t. With you there I was free, I was happy, and I was with you, no matter what the world told us Kate, we had each other, and that was enough, it was always enough.
August 15th 1967
“Ryan” Kate says softly, “I must go get some things from my parents’ house. I must face my father and tell him the truth. I can’t hide from him. Hiding will not make things better. In his case it will likely make it worse.”
Ryan pulls her to him and holds her tight. “Why do I get the feeling like I am going to lose you?” he asks as he lets her go so she can grab a cup of coffee from the counter.
“Don’t worry dear, you will never lose me. I’m not the kind of person who is easily lost.” She says and looks up at him. “Ryan, it is just my father, don’t worry. I’ll be home before you know it.”
“That is why I worry.” He says, “I know what really happened that day on your way home from my house.” He pauses, “I’ve always know Kate. I wasn’t always sure, but I knew, in my heart I knew. What I don’t know is how you ever trusted me after what happened.”
Kate turns to face Ryan with tears in her eyes she looks up at him. “Ryan what David did was…horrific…but what George and my father did is just as horrific. I knew them, and that makes it that much worse. They took from me something I will never get back. But you Ryan, you never ask me for anything. You have never asked me for anything. You have always let me be in control. I’m not afraid of you Ryan because you care about me as a person, and treat me like a person. They treated me like a thing, and still treat me like a thing. That is why I could trust you Ryan. Because I know I am safe with you, and I always will be. That is why I love you.”
“Just promise me you will be careful dear.” Ryan says, “Be back before dark, I just don’t trust these people.”
“You are not the only one.” Kate says, “I’ll see you when you get back from work.” She says and leaves with her purse.
Kate walks up to Magnolia Hill, her heart in her stomach. It has been a year since she has seen the place, her father, or her room. A year for her to deal with the world, and face the truth, a long hard, bloody year and now she stands before the house she once called home and it feels strange to her. The paint is once again chipping away, and the roof needs new shingles, most of the windows should be replaced, and her rose garden needs help. But not from her this time, this time it is up to someone else to mend the broken house, for she is done trying. She walks up to the house and enters. Caroline meets her at the door.
“Kate why are you here?” she asks in a whisper.
“I came to get some things I need. Some things that I feel are important to me. Why should I have called first? Julie doesn’t have to call, why should I?”
“Is that you Kate?” Henry says from the den.
“Yes Henry it is me, why do you care?” she asks. Caroline’s eyes grow large, and she swallows hard. “You know mother,” she whispers, “You could just leave him.”
Caroline says nothing just shakes her head and backs up further then vanishes into the kitchen to get her bearings.
“Katherine?” Henry says. “What brings you here?”
“I need some things from my room.” Kate says and rushes up to her room to reclaim her items she feels she needs. She puts the items in her purse that she always stashed in the floor board. Nothing has been moved. She carefully stores them in her purse before she leaves her room and returns down stairs.
When she reaches the last step Henry exits the den. “You and I must have a talk.” He says.
“I have nothing to say to you.” Kate says as she starts walking to the door.
“Katherine you will listen to me,” he says, “I don’t care if you have nothing to say you will listen.” He says and grabs her wrist. “Katherine, you are my daughter. I love you, and you will listen to me. You owe me that respect.” He says looking her over and analyzing her peasant shirt, bell bottom jeans, and leather vest. “I deserve that from you.”
“You deserve that! I owe you that!” she hollers. “You deserve nothing, and I don’t owe you a damn thing! YOU owe ME more than you can ever deliver! You owe mother, and you owe Ryan in the very least an apology; which I know very well you don’t give out, so no I don’t have to listen and I don’t owe you anything. You lost my respect in ’61, then again in ’63, there is not a damn thing you can do to get it back.”
“I am the reason you are in this world, I am your father.”
“And I don’t care. I am in love father, and it doesn’t matter what you say, or how you say it. I don’t care if you like it. I don’t care, because I love him and he loves me. And there isn’t a god damn thing you can do to change that!”
“You don’t know what love is. You don’t understand it. You are too young to understand love.”
“Too young!” she hollers, “I have just come home from Viet-Nam father. I just got home from patching boys together with inadequate supplies and lack of sleep. I just got home from being shot at, and holding boys in my arms as they died telling me that they didn’t want to. Telling me they were afraid. I lied to them father! I LIED! I told them it would be okay. I told them I would make them better. I said they would be home before they knew it. I know more about life now than I ever did before, and do you know what got me through? Ryan. Yes Ryan, that young man who I love gave me the strength to come home. He gave me the strength to face the world after the horrors I saw, and things I did. I love him father. I don’t know why; I just do. I can’t change that, and I don’t want to. Love is blind father, as blind to color as it is to cruelty. I can no better choose who I love than I can choose who loves you. You are cruel and full of hatred, yet mother loves you. Blinded in her love of you, that she looks past that hatred, but father, I am not so blind in my love for you. But I am blind when it comes to Ryan. He is my husband father. Yes, my husband, and in that aspect of love I am blind, for my heart belongs to him, as his belongs to me; and that father you cannot change, for you cannot alter the love I have for him in my heart.” Kate says and turns to walk to the door.
“You want me to believe that you are married,” Henry says taking his daughter by both arms, “You want me to believe that! I don’t, no one would ever allow you to marry such filth.” He adds and pulls her back into the house.
“Father let me go,” Kate says and tries to pull out of her father’s grasp.
“I am your father, and I will not allow this kind of disobedience. First you join them in Birmingham, then you spend time after school with them, and now you think that it is okay to marry one of them.” Henry says as he pushes her against the china cabinet breaking the glass and scattering dishes. “You are my child Katherine Rose Jones. I will not have you seen with that kind of degradation. I won’t allow it. You are mine Katherine, mine to do with as I please.” He adds and shakes her viciously. “I will not allow you to bring humiliation on this family.” He says and slaps her across the face.
“Henry,” Caroline says from the doorway to the kitchen, “Let her go.”
Kate wrestles free, pain fills her face, and blood streaks her back, head and arms. “I belong to no one father, certainly not you. I am not property, and you do not own me.” Kate says grabs her purse from where it fell and runs from the house to her car. Turns it on, backs out of the driveway and leaves; she doesn’t even look back.
“Caroline,” Henry says facing his wife.
“Henry, I have stood by you for 32 years. I have backed you in every decision you have made. But now you have lost me my daughter; that I cannot support. Henry,” Caroline says moving to the stairs. “You need to think about this, and you need to think hard. Are you willing to lose everything we have? Are you so full of hate that you will destroy your family with it? You need to see that the world is changing, because if you don’t you will lose more than your children, you will lose me. I am not as blind as Kate says I am. I have looked the other way for 32 years, well Henry that ends tonight. Either you change your ways or I leave, I won’t put up with this ever again.” She says sweeping her hand around the room, “You made the mess, now you clean it up.” Caroline says and walks up the stairs, “Don’t bother coming to bed tonight Henry, you aren’t welcome in it.” She adds and closes the door to their room.