Beneath a Southern Sky Read online

  The back door opened, and Nate came out carrying a tray of drinks. He handed Daria a frosty glass of iced tea and took one himself. Natalie came running when she heard the ice tinkling in their glasses.

  “Mommy, I’m thirsty,” she hinted, eyeing the juice box that remained on the tray.

  “I brought you some apple juice,” Nate told her, holding out the container. “Does that sound good?”

  “Yeah!” she crowed, then cocked her head. “Do I hafta stay here with it?”

  Daria looked to Nate.

  “Would you like to take it into the garden?” he asked her.

  She nodded vigorously and scampered across the lawn, disappearing behind the gate to Vera Camfield’s rose garden.

  “Just bring the empty box back,” Daria called after her. “And don’t pick any of Grandma’s flowers!”

  “She’s all right,” Nate reassured her. He watched Natalie run across the lawn. “She’s beautiful, Daria. So beautiful.”

  Her throat tightened. She didn’t know how to respond, so she said nothing.

  They sat sipping iced tea, not looking at each other, an uncomfortable silence between them.

  “What time does your flight leave?” she asked gently.

  He glanced at his watch. “It’s a four-thirty flight. Mom and Dad will be back to pick me up about three.”

  “Oh.” They had such a very few minutes left.

  Jack and Vera had gone to pick up Nate’s sister, Betsy, who would fly with him to Bogotá. Betsy planned to stay there until Nate arranged passage to Timoné. He was going back. It was where he belonged. She tried not to think about him going alone. She was grateful that Betsy would go with him as far as Bogotá.

  They sat in silence for several minutes, and then each spoke the other’s name at the same time.

  Nate laughed. “You go first.”

  “I just want you to know how sorry I am, Nate. For everything. I’m so grateful to you for all you’ve done.”

  He waved her words away. “Don’t, Daria.” He rose and went to stand at the edge of the terrace. “That’s all behind us now,” he said firmly.

  She stood up and went to stand beside him. “Is it, Nate? Can you ever forgive me? Can you ever forgive me for leaving you there? For going on without you?” She started to cry.

  He reached out and touched her arm. “Daria, there was no way you could have known what was happening to me. I know that now. Nothing you could have done would have brought me home a minute sooner.”

  “Maybe not, Nate,” she sniffed, “but if I’d only listened to God, if I hadn’t run ahead of him, it would have saved us all this heartache.”

  He only nodded.

  At the front of the house they heard the blast of a car horn.

  “They’re home,” he said.

  Time was running out. As difficult as it was, she didn’t want them to part with anything unsettled between them. She couldn’t let him leave without making sure he knew. “I’m so very sorry. I hurt you so much, so much.” She struggled for control. “Can you forgive me, Nate?”

  He turned to look at her and nodded slowly.

  She kissed the tips of her fingers and touched them to his cheek. He reached up and put his hand over hers.

  “I have forgiven you, Daria. And I’ll always—” He stopped abruptly and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he took her hand and gently pushed it away, letting his arm drop to his side. “I want to tell Natalie goodbye,” he said finally.

  Her heart started to pound. O dear God…this hurts too much! Over the lump in her throat, she called out, “Nattie!”

  Natalie came running through the garden gate.

  “Nate has to leave now, Nattie. Can you”—she put her fist to her mouth, willed herself not to break down, forced a false cheerfulness into her voice—“can you tell him goodbye?”

  Natalie wrapped her arms around Nate’s legs. “Bye,” she said matter-of-factly.

  Nate stooped to pick her up. He kissed her cheek tenderly. “Bye, sweetie. I love you.”

  “I love you too. Can we come see you in Lumpia?”

  Through tears, Nate and Daria laughed at Natalie’s childish pronunciation of Colombia. “I don’t know, Nattie. It’s a long way away. Maybe…maybe when you’re older. But I’ll see you next time I come back here,” he promised.

  He gave her one last squeeze and set her down. Then he reached out and put a warm hand on Daria’s cheek. “Goodbye, Daria. God be with you.”

  Then he turned and walked away.

  Through a curtain of tears, Daria watched him disappear around the side of the house. As Natalie ran back to the garden to play, Daria collapsed on the bench, sobbing as though her heart would break, yet overwhelmed with gratitude for the gift Nathan Camfield had given her.

  Only one other gift in her life could compare to what this man had done for her and for Natalie. Only one sacrifice in all time and eternity had surpassed the sacrifice Nate had made for them. And as with that heavenly sacrifice, she could never—however many years she had left on earth—be worthy of Nate’s sacrifice.

  But she would love him for it forever.

  Thirty-Six

  Daria checked the biscuits in the oven one last time and went to the refrigerator to get ice for the glasses. Nicole was in one corner of the kitchen, playing contentedly with a set of wooden building blocks. Across the room, Natalie sat in a toddler-sized chair, using the kitchen window seat as a makeshift drawing board. Daria smiled as her elder daughter labored over a colorful drawing, her little tongue echoing each tracing of the crayon. She was becoming quite an artist.

  “Natalie, go out and tell Daddy it’s time for supper.”

  “Not now, Mommy. I hafta finish coloring the horsey’s tail.”

  “Natalie, you don’t talk to Mommy that way,” Daria said firmly. “You can finish your picture after supper. But right now I need you to go get Daddy. And please hurry. The soup is getting cold.”

  Natalie harrumphed and threw her crayon down, but she scooted her chair away from the window seat and headed toward the mud room.

  A few seconds later, Daria heard her gasp from the back porch, “Mommy! Ooh, come look! Hurry!”

  Daria recognized the fresh childlike wonder they so often heard in this little girl’s voice. She dried her hands on an already damp dish-towel and started for the porch. But before she reached the door she heard Cole’s voice.

  “Hey, punkin! What’s all the yelling about?”

  “Look, Daddy! Look at dat sky!”

  “I know. I saw it. Isn’t it pretty?”

  Daria smiled to herself. The awe in Cole’s voice was equally childlike. She leaned to look out the kitchen window and saw that the sunset was indeed stunning. Iridescent strokes of purple and orange were burnished against a velvety blue-grey sky. She went to the doorway and stood in the shadows, watching her husband and daughter. Such love there was between them.

  Cole knelt beside the little girl and pointed to the western horizon. “God painted the sky just for you, Nattie,” he told her, planting a kiss on the curve of her cheek.

  Without a word, Natalie broke from Cole’s embrace, zipped by Daria, and tore through the kitchen to the front door. Cole stepped into the mud room looking to Daria for an explanation.

  “You’ve got me,” she shrugged.

  They heard the front door open, and Natalie’s silvery voice floated in from the east porch. “He didn’t paint dis side yet!” she shouted.

  Cole looked at Daria and at the same instant they burst out laughing. He held his arms open to her and she walked into them, achingly aware that in this simple everyday moment of shared laughter they had turned a corner somehow.

  The past weeks had not been easy, and yet she treasured each day. Like thorns on a rosebush, the pain of all they’d been through was still sharp and real. She ached for Nate, and she missed the easy way things had been between her and Cole before. In an unguarded moment, she would find herself crying and not know fo
r sure which thing she was grieving. Sometimes, when she thought about all that had happened, it seemed impossible that it had actually happened to them. Yet, like the imperceptible unfolding of the rosebud above the thorns, she was taken by surprise to find so much joy mixed in with the sorrow.

  Sometimes she found herself arranging each little moment in her mental scrapbook. Like tiny bits of colored glass in a kaleidoscope, each piece sparkled with its own beauty, but together—reflected again and again—the memories were beautiful beyond words. She turned the pages and enumerated some of the recent moments: Nikki learning to sound out a new word; one single branch on the Bradford pear tree Cole had planted in front of the farmhouse wearing leaves of the most brilliant scarlet and bronze; an overheard exchange between Natalie and Nicole that reminded her of the wonderful bond that sisters share; sitting on the front porch steps with Cole on a day so cool that they were glad to be sipping hot tea from mugs. Even the mugs were special—chunky blue pottery that Kirk and Dorothy Janek had brought back for them from a long-awaited trip to England. All the little details of life seemed so wonderfully significant now, each one to be savored and treasured. She pondered whether it was possible that grief somehow sharpened the senses. Or was it only that she’d begun to realize that life was truly so short, so precious, that one dared not waste a single moment? And yet she was more inclined than ever to spend a day doing almost nothing, simply enjoying the quiet of the house, playing silly games with the girls. Whatever it was, she considered it a gift and was delighted that in the midst of heartache so deep it was a physical pain, she was finding a deeper joy and contentment in life than she’d ever known.

  And at night, in the darkness of their room—with their daughters asleep in the room below theirs—she and Cole held each other with a fresh tenderness after they made love. It was a tenderness that testified not only to their deep love for each other, but of the naked, aching realization of that love’s vulnerability—and of the piercing sacrifice that had allowed it fruition. Yet somehow that knowledge caused them not to look to the past, but toward a future ripe with the completion of redemption. Theirs had been a tangle of circumstances so knotted and gnarled it had seemed too impossible to ever right itself. And yet, through Nate’s love and wisdom—and his terrible sacrifice—God had redeemed their lives.

  Natalie had received a simple letter from Colombia that Daria knew was meant to ease her own mind as much as it was meant to express Nate’s love for his daughter. Still in Cole’s embrace, she looked over his shoulder to the kitchen desk where the letter was tucked in a basket. She didn’t need to open the thin, crisp airmail envelope to remember what it said. The words were etched on her heart, as she knew they would someday be etched upon her daughter’s:

  Dearest Natalie,

  I am back with my Timoné people now, and I am happy to be here. I know I am where God wants me to be. Someday your mommy can tell you about these people and this village where your life began.

  I hope you will always know how much I love you and how precious you are to me. I pray for you every day, as I know your mommy and daddy there in Kansas do, too. God has blessed you with a wonderful home in which to grow up, Natalie. I hope you will never forget how greatly God has blessed you. You are a special girl with so many people who love you, and I know God has great things in store for you. I will write again soon, but for now, remember that I love you with all my heart.

  Keeping you in my prayers,

  Your Daddy Nate

  Daria sighed in Cole’s arms and reached up to caress his face. Life on this earth was so hard sometimes. But if they had learned nothing else, they had learned that after the darkest night, after the most impossible trial, joy comes in the morning. Always.

  Epilogue

  The old boat sliced through the turbid brown water—as it had for nearly three days now—advancing along the river to the slow rhythms of the Colombian rain forest and the lulling putt-putt of its own outboard motor.

  The sun was just dipping below the trees on the western horizon when the coffee-skinned pilot steered into a shallow inlet and maneuvered his craft as close to shore as the tangled undergrowth would allow.

  His passengers, two fair-haired American women—mother and daughter—stepped wearily from the boat and followed the lead of the Colombian, slogging through the murky water to shore. In silence, the small party followed a well-worn trail until they came to a village secluded in the dense tropical forest. All around them, the natives began to emerge from their huts into the clearing, chattering quietly among themselves in their nasal dialect, pointing and gesturing excitedly.

  As they came nearer, the younger woman smiled and greeted several of the native women.

  “Hollio, Miss Natalie,” they returned her greetings. They did not approach her, but stood at a distance, watching.

  Daria Camfield Hunter marveled at her daughter’s easy way with the villagers. She looked about her, trembling, then set her eyes on a point to the north. As though led by an unseen guide, she walked across the clearing and climbed a slight rise to a stand of palms that stood behind a hut set apart from the others.

  Approaching the largest tree, she reached out to touch its rough bark. Her long fingers found the scars of an old carving. Two and a half decades of sun and rain had not erased the deep furrows, and she traced them now as though touching the face of a loved one.

  Natalie Camfield stood respectfully behind her mother, still silent. After a few minutes she put her hand on Daria’s bowed shoulder and spoke softly, nodding toward the head of a trail that led into the forest hills. “I’ll show you where he is buried.”

  Giving the carved epitaph on the tree a final caress, Daria straightened, pushed a strand of faded blond hair from her forehead, and followed. The two climbed the trail for several hundred yards where it turned off into a small clearing. It was obvious that this small plot of the forest was a singular grave site. The mound of earth at the center was overgrown with vines and decorated with the lush flora of the Colombian rain forest, but the freshly turned soil underneath left no doubt that the vegetation covered a fairly recent grave. A cross fashioned of cane and vines had been planted at the head of the mound, and a smooth, flat rock served as a tombstone. On the stone, beneath a name carved out in crisp English letters, other cryptic marks had been chiseled into the surface with a crude instrument.

  “What does it say?” Daria asked.

  Her daughter translated, reverence in her lilting voice.

  “He would like that.” Daria nodded, approving. Smiling sadly, she reached out to touch the smooth, sun-browned hand of her daughter. “Let me stay for a while, just a few minutes and then I’ll be down.”

  “I understand.” Natalie turned and started back down the trail.

  Daria watched as her daughter made her way back down the forest trail, navigating the path as gracefully as a gazelle. Pride welled in her breast. Natalie was a beautiful young woman, her hair as pale as Daria’s had been at that age, bleached white by the Colombian sun; her skin was almost as brown as that of the Timoné people she lived among. But Natalie’s beauty went far deeper than her smooth skin and her flashing hazel-green eyes. She had inherited her giving, energetic, joyful spirit from the two men she called Daddy. No, three men she called Daddy. Daddy Nate. Daddy. Abba, Father.

  This child who belonged to so many had struggled mightily to find her niche in the world. She had borne the pain of having her heart wrenched from one continent to another. She had finally made peace with her story when she realized that both of her earthly fathers loved her deeply, but neither could give her the love her heavenly Father offered. It was then that she had made the decision that broke Cole and Daria’s heart, yet at the same time healed all their hearts.

  In her third year of college, they lost Natalie to Colombia. She came home that Christmas and announced that she had quit school and was going to work with Nathan. They knew this strong-willed child well enough to know that their feeble arguments would
fall on deaf ears. And, too, they trusted that she had been called of God to go. So they had sent her with their blessing. And in losing her, they had found her again. Two years working in Timoné beside Nathan had erased the angst of her teenage years. She had returned to her father the precious relationship he had sacrificed, and for all of them her gift had redeemed the hurt of that dark time in a way they could never have guessed.

  Nathan’s sudden death of an apparent heart attack three months ago had shaken the foundations of Natalie’s faith, but in the end, her resolve to remain in Colombia had only been strengthened.

  Natalie disappeared into the forest and, when Daria could no longer hear her soft footsteps on the trail, she sank to the cool, damp earth beside Nate’s grave and closed her eyes.

  All around her, myriad birds and insects chirped and whirred among the fern fronds and palm leaves. A warm tropical zephyr came in soft gusts as the trees allowed it passage. And in the distance, the river and its trilling streams accompanied in perfect cadence. The song of the rain forest lifted her and carried her back to a time when its clarion notes had been as familiar to her as her own breath.

  A light rain began to fall—a rain she knew visited almost every afternoon. And over the musical staccato of raindrops, she heard a voice from the past, equally familiar, calling her name. She gave herself to the memories one last time, and eternity seemed to be suspended as the rain and her tears became one.

  Minutes passed and the shower ceased as quickly as it had come. When it was over, Daria raked her hand across the damp and pungent earth that covered Nathan’s grave. She scooped up a handful of the rich Colombian soil and let it sift through her fingers. She thought of the carving in the tree near the hut she had shared with a young Nate and realized that this was the second grave where she had mourned him.