Chapter
21
"Shall we
say grace now?" Harold asked. Brian and Jackie bowed their heads. Katelyn
quickly did the same and listened as Harold said a short prayer. When he said
"Amen", Katelyn raised her head and glanced around the table. She was
suddenly overcome with emotion. The scene in front of her looked like a page
from a book. There was a family, happy and smiling, sitting at a table filled
with delicious looking food.
Katelyn
vaguely remembered sitting like this at her own house, eating as a whole
family. But that had been many years ago, when she was only a little girl. In
the few years before her father died, he had been very busy with his job, and
they rarely ate together like this. And after her father died, Janet barely
cooked dinner. She went out to bars to eat and drink after work, leaving
Katelyn to make her own dinner.
"Are you
okay, Katelyn?" Brian asked, interrupting her thoughts.
"Uh,
yeah, I'm fine," Katelyn said.
Harold picked
up the plate of buns and passed it around the table, followed by the hotdogs
and all the side dishes. Katelyn took a helping of everything . It was all
wonderful.
"You are
a great cook!" Katelyn told Jackie during the meal.
"Why, thank you," Jackie said, smiling at her.
After the
meal, Jackie got up and started to clear the table. Brian helped. Katelyn
carried her dishes to the dishwasher and started to help cleaning up, but
Jackie stopped her.
"Oh,
honey, you don't need to help. Let Bri get that," she said.
"Oh no,
it's fine. I don't mind cleaning up," Katelyn insisted.
After they had
cleaned up the meal, they went in the living room together. Harold sat in a big
armchair and turned on the news. Brian and Katelyn sat on the couch together.
Jackie came and sat down next to Katelyn. She looked at her cheek, which was
bruised and swollen looking.
"Oh,
honey, that bruise on your cheek looks terrible," Jackie said,
sympathetically. "Does it hurt?"
Katelyn
shrugged. "It's a little tender, but not too bad," she replied.
"Do you
want ice for it or anything?" Jackie asked.
"No,
that's okay," Katelyn said.
"Does you
mother do this kind of thing to you often?" Jackie asked, looking very
concerned.
"Yeah,"
Katelyn answered hesitantly. "She gets drunk a lot, and so she doesn't
really know what she's doing."
Jackie looked
stricken. "You poor thing," she said. "I can't even imagine how
awful that must be. Just remember, you're safe here, and you are welcome to
stay as long as you need to."
"Thank
you," Katelyn said softly. She gazed into Jackie's kind blue eyes, so much
like Brian's. She wished her own mother could be like Brian's mother, so gentle
and loving. But she knew that that wish would never come true.
***
