A couple weeks after Irene and I got home from Bible school, I received an email that quite literally changed my life. All the subject line said was, “Virtually on my Knees and Begging You Please.” I might have passed it off as spam had I not recognized the sender name. Nial LeFevre.
My heart skipped one beat, and then another. Nial LeFevre was the guy from Bible school who’d tried to get a seat at my table several times, to no avail. I’d thought of him as childish and silly, just trying to get close to the prettiest girl in the bunch, but maybe it went deeper than that.
I couldn’t open the email. Heart pounding so hard my teeth hurt, I ran and got my mom. She started smiling as soon as I told her I’d gotten a very strange email. “Well, go ahead and open it, Kate!” Of course, she knew about it already. Few Mennonite guys dare to ask a girl out without first consulting her parents.
And I could think of no other meaning behind that subject line.
“Dear Miss Hershberger,” the email started, and I knew right then what my answer was going to be. Nial LeFevre, the cutest guy at Bible school, even by Maddie’s standards, was asking me out.
And out I was going to go.
I went through the motions, of course, of talking to my parents, even my dad, about him. They were both thrilled, and I saw a strange light in my dad’s eyes that I’d never before seen in relation to me. Maybe I’d finally found a way of pleasing him, even if it meant eventually getting out of his life.
“How do you say his last name?” my mom asked, grinning like a little girl. “Lafever?”
“Lafev,” I stuttered, pairing it with my name in my mind. Kate LeFevre. It was almost up there on a level with Madeleine Proctor.
Maddie. Everything inside me screamed at me to talk to her about it before I accepted. But I’d finally found a way to escape her. If I couldn’t undo my own chains, Nial certainly could, and would. It was only a matter of time.
I decided to keep it a secret from Maddie and everyone else at church until Nial could come out for a visit. He lived back in Kentucky, but it’d been whispered around at Bible school that he had more money than he knew what to do with. And now he’d chosen me to spend it on.
I was on such a crazy high I couldn’t believe it. I’d never felt anything like it in the world. I didn’t even know the guy, but already I felt myself falling in love with him. Here was the prince who would rescue me from the drudgery of my home life and the chains of my social life.
Nial LeFevre.
Leah and Irene were nearly as ecstatic as me. Stefan had gotten married years before; it was about time romance visited our family again.
“He’s got the coolest accent,” Irene told me. She’d actually talked to him a few times.
“When are you going to tell him yes?” Leah wondered, her eyes sparkling. She was already thirty, and though several guys had asked her out, she’d never accepted. I didn’t know all the reasons why not, but a dreadful fear of marrying someone who’d turn out like our dad resided in the hearts of all us girls.
“As soon as I can figure out the best way to say it,” I mused. Then I couldn’t keep from laughing. “Can you guys believe this? Nial LeFevre asked me out!”
Pretty soon we were all laughing as Leah and Irene came up with outlandish replies for me to consider. We stayed awake that night till midnight, even though Leah had to teach school the next day.
“Don’t tell Lane,” I reminded Leah when she left in the morning.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” she said, “but Nial’d better come out soon. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep it quiet!”
If she was bursting, I was more so. I avoided Maddie with the diligence of a busy ant, always making sure I had someone else to talk to, somewhere else to be. If she noticed, she didn’t seem to care. She had Meghan and Clara and Nina, after all.
The most amazing thing was, I didn’t care anymore either. She could have them. She could have all the friends in the world. She could be the brightest star in the sky. I simply didn’t care. I knew for a fact that she’d never been asked out. We’d discussed it once.
I’d called and wanted to come over and hang out, and she’d just written a poem. “It’s not to anybody or about anybody,” she made sure I knew. “It’s just kind of fun to think about what it’d be like to have someone love you but not be in love with them. Or maybe you were in love with them, you just couldn’t admit it to yourself.”
And then she read it to me. The soft cadence of her voice, the mournful rhythm of the words, nearly made me weep. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t written to anyone in particular. I wanted to ask if she was sure it wasn’t to Justin, but I wasn’t quite brave enough.
“Remember” by Lane Proctor
Remember, my love, I don’t love you.
These tears are not falling for you.
My heart isn’t breaking for sorrow.
It’s breaking for all that we knew.
Remember, my love, I don’t love you.
I just love the things that you do.
My fantasy’s never been wasted
With dreaming and longing for you.
Remember, my love, I don’t love you.
Though I smile every time I see you.
The feelings within are conflicted.
But I’ve not been waiting for you.
Remember, my love, I don’t love you.
I could lie, but you’d still know the truth.
We never could make it together.
I’m too dark, too different from you.
Remember, my love, I don’t love you.
But there’s times that I really want to.
And tonight I just wish you were closer.
It’s a wish that will never come true.
Remember, my love, I don’t love you.
I just hope the same’s true for you.
Else the sadness you feel when I leave you
Might turn me around back to you.
“It’s beautiful, Lane,” I whispered when she was through. “But so sad.”
“I know, right?” She was smiling, but a hint of sadness tinged her green eyes. “You know what Method acting is, right? Where the actors really feel whatever they’re trying to portray? Well, I’ve been trying Method writing. I don’t know if there is such a thing, but if there is, I just did it.”
We’d talked about having boyfriends then, and about never being asked. She couldn’t wait for the day a guy would come calling; I dreaded it. And here it’d happened to me first.
I didn’t have long to wait before he came out to see me. The hour-long drive to the airport with Leah and Irene giggling beside me was surreal. I kept expecting to wake up and find it all a very nice dream, but one with no ties to reality.
Then he was there, standing in front of me with his carry-on in hand and a huge smile on his face. “Hey, Kate.”
I was so nervous I could hardly get his name out, and even when I did, I’m sure he couldn’t understand it. But he didn’t need to. He introduced himself formally to my parents and Leah, since I couldn’t seem to remember my manners.
From the instant he shook her hand, my mom was in love with him. Nial LeFevre could do no wrong in her eyes. And he liked her as well. Even my dad he got along with.
“He’s a good man, Kate,” my dad told me seriously that night after Nial had gone to my uncle’s place to spend the night. I wondered if he was wishing he’d been a better man himself, a better husband, a better father.
I couldn’t hate him right then though. In fact, I never hated him again. I started to stand up for him when anyone mentioned the abuse. I even complimented him sometimes. The many ways he’d hurt me didn’t matter anymore. He’d given his blessing to me and the man who would free me, and I could never begrudge the one who allowed Nial to pursue me.
Nial had arrived on a Friday night, and we spent the next day going hiking with my family. I secretly dreaded the time when I would have to be alone with him. I didn’t know him at all, and just because he was suddenly my boyfriend didn’t mean I knew how to treat him or what to do with him.
As it turned out, we didn’t go on an official date that time around. We ate supper that night around our family table and then took off to a sister church for a Gospel Echoes concert. That was the first time Nial and I appeared in public together. I spent a rather uncomfortable evening, unable to rid myself of the flush in my cheeks no matter how much cold water I splashed on them.
“He’s so nice,” Irene whispered to me as we walked out to the car after church. “Nothing like Justin or Damian.”
I glowed.
Then it was Sunday and time to face all the people who knew me. What would they think when I walked into church at the side of this strapping young man from back east? I surprised myself by being able to keep my color down, but I felt everyone staring. It came as a shock to them all.
All but Maddie.
Her aunt had attended the same concert that Nial and I had, and she’d called Maddie’s mom and wondered if they knew I was dating. The first opportunity she got, which didn’t come until after church was over, Maddie grabbed me in a fierce hug and whispered, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, Kate! What’s his name? Where’s he from? When did he ask? Do you like him? How long is he staying?”
I had to listen with everything I had to catch the baldest hint of envy in her words. For the first time in our lives, the tables were turned. Madeleine Proctor was jealous of me. In that moment, I had everything I’d ever wanted, everything and more.
But I hugged her back, remembering all the times she’d tried to console me, and murmured, “His name is Nial.”
Other people came by the droves to meet him, but Maddie stayed near me the whole time. Whenever I was free for a minute, she commanded my attention and fired more questions at me. For once she didn’t seem eager to get back to the Miller girls.
I’d finally found a way to ensnare her, but it’d come too late. I didn’t care anymore.
Damian came over to meet Nial, too. Watching him talk to Nial, I could almost imagine he was a gentleman, someone who’d been nice to me all my life. It amazed me how having a boyfriend changed people’s opinions of me. That Sunday in church I discovered I had friends. Unfortunately, now that I didn’t need them, they appeared.
It was all Nial, of course. Everyone was just curious. The curiosity would fade, and so would my popularity, but I enjoyed it while it was there. Nial LeFevre became my sun that weekend. As long as I could be near him, I was happy and warm and safe. I didn’t need anything else to fulfill me, not even Maddie.
In fact, I almost felt sorry for Maddie. She wasn’t dating, after all, and she was older than me, brighter than me, better than me.
But Nial LeFevre changed all that. I was still younger than Maddie, but I was having an experience she’d never had, and that made me feel older. I could still never hope to shine as brightly as Maddie did, but as long as Nial was around, I could reflect his radiance, and coupled with my own, it was nearly blinding. And even though more people probably thought Maddie was better than me, the one person who mattered didn’t.
“Nial LeFevre,” I whispered under my breath as I went to sleep that night. “Thank you for changing my world.”