Chapter Forty 

Even though the air was still very cold, the sun was out, and Kily stepped down from the bus feeling better than she had in the entire last week. With her new way of thinking she no longer cared about what Dawson thought. Kily walked the short distance to the house and plopped her school books down on the sofa as she headed into the kitchen. Standing with her head inside the open refrigerator door Kily surveyed the contents for a tasty snack. The ringing of the telephone forced her to close the door and she reached for the receiver which was hanging from the opposite wall.

Hello, Kily said. "Kily"? she heard the familiar voice on the other end. "Yes," she said, trying to place the voice. "Kily, it’s me Jacob". Kily almost dropped the phone. "Jacob, oh Jacob, did you get my letters"? "Yes, I have been trying to get some money together so I can come down, Kily", Jacob told her, " I miss you so much Kily". Kily was silent for a moment and she felt tears fill her eyes, he said he missed her, she wanted to believe him, she wanted to be needed and she wanted to taken away to a different life, one that made her feel like she belonged somewhere. They talked for a long time and Jacob told her many times that he loved her and wanted a life with her, he apologized for things he had done and promised that his heart belonged to her. Kily felt her heart soften as his words penetrated her mind and she succumbed to the belief that with Jacob her world would be complete. Finally, the operator broke in and told Jacob he needed to deposit more money to continue the conversation. Jacob put in the last of his change and told Kily he would be down in three days. They hung up repeating I love you’s to each other and Kily felt truly happy. Now she had to find a way to talk to mother about Jacob. She was sure that mother was not going to be happy about having him come to the house.

Initially, mother was angry and stated in no uncertain terms that Jacob was not allowed in her house under any circumstances. Mother told Kily to call Jacob and tell him he was not allowed to come down. Kily explained that Jacob didn’t have a telephone and had called from the pay phone, so Kily had no way to get a hold of him. Mother looked suspiciously at Kily, and Kily knew that she thought it had been deliberately planned that way. Kily knew there was no way to explain that she had just been so happy to talk to Jacob that she simply hadn’t thought about how she could get a hold of him once he hung up.

Mother thought about it for a long time and finally said, "well, I guess there’s nothing I can do about it at this point, but don’t think I am happy about this Kily". "I know," Kily said. For the next two days Kily could think about nothing else but Jacob.

Kily stood at her bedroom window. It was after midnight and still she could not sleep. Her eyes searched the night sky and she smiled, tomorrow Jacob will be here, she thought to herself. She was lost in thought about what it would be like to see him again when she heard a man’s soft voice come from behind her, "I will find you", it said, and she felt strong arms embrace her. The embrace made her feel as if she had been on a long journey and had finally come home. Her eyes closed involuntarily and she submitted to the embrace. Within seconds her eyes flew open and she turned abruptly to see who was standing behind her. Her eyes searched the room but she found no one there. Her body shook, fear washed over her mind, and the hair on her arms stood on end. "Hello" she said hesitantly. There was only silence in the room. "What was that"! She said with fear. She moved cautiously across the room and flipped the light switch, the room filled with light and her eyes scanned carefully. There was nothing out of place and no one in the room but her. She looked under the bed and in the closet but still found no one. She paced the room, she could still feel the loving arms that had held her. It was an actual physical touch that left her longing desperately for its return. "I will find you," the soft voice had said. "Who will find me?" She whispered, "What was that," she said again bewildered. Kily paced the room trying to figure out what had happened, "maybe it was Jacob?" She finally concluded, he had told her he loved her and he was actually coming all the way down to Ashland just to see her. "Maybe it was to show me that things will be ok and that Jacob really does love me," Kily reasoned to herself when she had exhausted all other possibilities for what had just happened. With an exhausted mind, Kily finally crawled beneath the sheets and forced herself to close her eyes. "Maybe if I lay very still the voice will come again," she whispered. Kily lay still for a long time and finally sleep came to carry her away into the dream world.

Kily spent all of the third day pacing and peeking out the window. Every time she heard a car go by she wondered if it was Jacob. "Darn," she kept repeating, she hadn’t even thought to ask what time he thought he would get there! Late in the afternoon, Jacob called to get directions to the house. Mother had her very stern look on and said very little. Kily was so nervous she was shaking all over. Fifteen minutes later Jacob arrived. Mother left the two alone for a few minutes and then said they needed to sit down and be ready to answer some questions. Before mother got to far with her questions, Jacob said, "excuse me, I don’t mean to sound rude, but I love your daughter and I want to marry her, if she’ll have me." Kily gasped and sat frozen. Mother exclaimed " WHAT! Now you listen here she’s only fifteen!" The two bantered back and forth, Kily sat very still to shocked to think. Finally, she heard Jacob saying, " no matter what, I love Kily, and I will wait for her for the next three years if I have to but nothing is going to stop me from seeing her as much as I can possibly manage it during that time!" Mother sat quiet for so long, Kily didn’t know what to do. Finally, mother stared at Kily and said, " I don’t know what to do with you, if I say no, you’ll probably run away again". She was silent again, then said, " I think I would rather know where you are than worry if you’re dead in a ditch somewhere. I don’t like it, but I will give my permission, if that’s what you truly want Kily". Of all the things that happened Kily had not expected this! "Yes, yes," Kily stammered out. Mother spoke for a long time with Jacob, she was brutally honest about what she expected from him in taking care of Kily. Jacob assured mother that he would not let her down.

A date was set, arrangements were made for a small wedding at the home of one of mother’s friends and Kily moved through a dream world full of excitement. She was to be married. She would be going back to Portland to live. She and Jacob would get their own little place and life would be like a fairy tale. The soft voice and embrace she had felt in her room crept into her mind throughout her busy days and when it did Kily found herself hesitating. She longed for the embrace again but it did not come, only the memory of it haunted her. She reasoned it away and attributed it to her coming marriage to Jacob.

Kily stood at the counter with the application for a marriage license before her. She felt embarrassed and unsure of how to proceed. Jacob stood next to her completing a form of his own and was busy reading through the questions. Jacob had made another trip to Ashland so they could apply for their marriage license and have a meeting with a minister that one of mother’s friends had suggested could perform the ceremony. Mother had agreed to drive Kily and Jacob to the court house to apply for their license to wed and had agreed to give Jacob a ride to the bus station when they were done. "I don’t know what to put here?" Kily whispered to herself. She glanced around the room. Court clerks were busy helping others who were there to apply for various licenses and mother sat quietly on a backless wooden bench. Her back was against the wall and she stared up at the ceiling lost in thought. Kily gathered up her papers and took a seat next to mother. "I don’t know what to put here," she told mother. Mother blinked several times and brought her gaze down to stare at Kily. "Where?" she asked. "Here," Kily whispered hoping no one would over hear her. Kily pointed to the question, "they want to know my full legal name," she whispered to mother. Mother stared at Kily, "for heaven’s sake Kily, just write your name down," she said with slight irritation. Kily stared at her mother and finally said, "what IS my full legal name?" Mother just looked at Kily and didn’t say anything for a few seconds, "Your name is exactly what it is now, Kily," mother said with more irritation in her voice. Kily was confused. The name she used now was the one step father had given her. It wasn’t the one she had used before. "I don’t understand," Kily said as she stared at her mother, "The name I have now is the same one step father told us to use shortly after we came up here?" "Yes," mother told her and then said nothing more. "But if the name I have now is my legal name, then does that mean the name I had before was one that was made up?" Kily asked her thoroughly confused. "Why do you always have to ask so many questions Kily!" mother exclaimed. "You’re always turning things into big deals, the question is simple! It wants to know your name, simply put down the name you have now," she said. The tone in mother’s voice was becoming more and more irritated and Kily was afraid they would enter into an argument. "I just don’t understand, and you are the only one I know to ask," Kily whispered. Mother gave an exasperated sigh, and Kily simply said, "Okay, okay." Kily felt frustrated by mother’s reaction. Her relationship with mother had been very strained since coming home and Kily desperately just wanted to have things be calm and happy. "I’m getting married to Jacob in just a few short weeks, I just need to keep things calm until then," she told herself. Kily wrote her name on the paper and hoped that the name she wrote was indeed her true legal name. Her mind wandered as she completed the rest of the form and she tried to make sense out of such a simple thing like her name. She knew she had used a different name when they had lived on the ranch and she knew that step father had told her and Selene to use the name she currently used only after they moved up to Oregon. She had assumed that the name she had now was one that step father had made up. "How can this be my true name, when step father gave it to us when he was on the run?" she thought. "And if this is my true name, then why would I have lived so long with a different name when we lived on the ranch?" The confusion in Kily’s mind was so distracting she had to read each question over several times just to answer them. Jacob paced back and forth behind her and periodically hissed for her to hurry up. Once he stepped up to her back and said, "Don’t you know how to read?" Her embarrassment at being so slow to complete the form mingled with her intense confusion and Kily found herself holding back tears at a time when she should have been the happiest. Kily finally completed her form, then she and Jacob both signed several other forms and finally mother drove them to the bus station. Kily was silent on the way home and mother remained engrossed in her driving. "Mother," Kily said hesitantly. "Yes," mother said as she turned a corner. "Can’t I just ask you some questions, about my name, and maybe some other stuff that I don’t understand?" Mother sighed and Kily watched as she tipped her head down and pursed her lips. Kily knew that look and had seen it many times. It was the look that always foretold that Kily was stepping over an invisible boundary that had been officially declared taboo. "I told you Kily, you ask too many questions. Questions that don’t need to be answered. I am not going to discuss this with you, Kily, so just drop it!" Kily silently watched mother continue to drive the car. Mother did look irritated and Kily knew from experience that if she pushed she and mother would end up in an argument that would take days to recover from. Kily sighed and turned her gaze out the passenger window. "A whole day ruined now, just because she asked the wrong question at the wrong time." Kily leaned her forehead against the window and wished for time to hurry up. "Just think about how nice things will be once you’re married," she told herself.

Kily heard lots of comments about her upcoming wedding. Even though she continued to practice erasing personal history and she was very careful not to ask what anyone thought, it seemed as if people just could not help but share their opinions anyway. Of course, the first thing Kily heard people whispering was, "is she pregnant?" Even though Kily could hear them talking amongst themselves she never volunteered an answer. But, thinking about pregnancy, led Kily to another thought. Just what was she supposed to do on her wedding night? She had no clue how that was supposed to work. She had seen in movies that the bride always went into the bathroom and emerged in a flowing night gown. From that point the scene always cut away, so Kily had no idea what she was supposed to do after that. Not wanting to ask anyone’s opinion about it, Kily determined that she would go into the bathroom and put on her nightgown. After that she would have to play it by ear and hope she didn’t do something that made her look foolish.

Lots of mothers friends had their opinions too. Many said Kily was too young, the marriage would never work, people actually bet that it wouldn’t last a year before Kily would be back home. They also said Kily wasn’t grown up enough, what were the plans for a place to live, did Jacob have a good enough job. These comments and questions came in waves as well as many more that Kily chose not to respond to. Rather than feel hurt, Kily found that they only made her feel challenged. She became determined to show these people that her marriage would be a good one, she would be a good wife, and her marriage would last for many, many years, in spite of what they all thought.

Jacob’s family came down from Portland for the wedding. Kily and Branda stayed up all night catching up on all the events since Kily had been sent back home. Kily had been nervous about Branda’s reaction to finding out that she was a runaway and not eighteen, but Branda assured Kily that she and the rest of the family didn’t care about that. She told Kily that they had all loved Kily and were very glad that she and Jacob were really going to be married after all. Jacob’s family invited the bride and groom to stay with them in Portland until they could get on their feet and Kily was ecstatic to be going back to Portland.

copyright 2006