Running Barefoot

“Josie! I thought you were with him…You’re okay! Are you okay? Kasey…his car! You’re here? How?” He was looking at me and rubbing his hands up and down my arms with tears running down his face, then holding me and pushing me away again as he tried to explain about the accident and how he thought I was with Kasey.

You know how you feel in a really scary dream? How you sometimes wake up and you’re almost paralyzed for a minute? You can’t feel your legs or your arms and you are hot and cold all at once? I remember standing there looking at my brother, his face taking turns contorting with joy at my safety and despair at my loss. The blood slowed in my veins, and my fingers went numb. Meanwhile, Kasey lay along the side of the road as the birds chirped in the blue skies of a flawless May morning. Understanding suddenly dawned.

“You left him there? You left him there?” My voice rose in an uncharacteristic shriek that clanged in my head. I turned and ran from the house, still in my swimsuit and shorts, no shoes on my feet. I was a strong runner and I ran full out down the road, my brother yelling “Josie! Josie! Wait!” behind me. And then yelling, “Dad!....Dad!...Help me!....Dad!” as he cried for my dad, who must have been out with the horses.

I ran and felt nothing but an all-consuming rage that Johnny had been standing in our kitchen talking while Kasey was somewhere hurt. I’d run about a half mile before Dad and Johnny caught up to me. They’d jumped in Old Brown, our ancient farm truck, because it was out by the corral where Johnny had found my dad and the keys were in the ignition. Johnny was behind the wheel, and it was probably a good thing because if he’d tried to stop me, I would have scratched out his eyes. My dad was strong and I’d inherited my long runner’s legs from him. As Johnny slowed, my dad slid out the passenger door and matched his steps to mine. Wrapping his big arms around me, he brought me down like a rodeo calf in the tall weeds along the side of the road.

“Josie!” He’d said roughly. “Josie stop! Honey! I’ll take you to him! Stop it now! You’ll get there faster if you go in the truck!” I’d been kicking and bucking, trying to cut loose of him.

As his words registered, I stopped fighting and looked up him, both of us breathing hard. My dad was one of those men with a craggy, suntanned, rancher’s face. Mom used to say he was her very own John Wayne. His speaking voice was loud and rough, and he rode my brothers hard growing up, but he was a big marshmallow once you got past the bark. I’d seen his eyes tear up a thousand times, and we all teased him about it. But when I looked up into his face and saw the devastation in his eyes and the tears on his cheeks, my anger became a rush of terrible fear.

“Honey - I don’t think he made it,” his voice caught as he held back a sob. “Johnny said he was gone. He came home to call the ambulance - he thought you were trapped in the car, honey.”

“No!” I started fighting in earnest, and my dad rose and pulled me up in his arms, holding me and crying and struggling to fold both of us into the truck. “I’ll take you to him…I’ll take you, honey, just hold on...”

They’d taken me to him but wouldn’t let me out of the truck. A highway patrol officer had arrived at the accident, and he’d covered Kasey up with some kind of sheet or tarp. My dad wrapped his legs and arms around me to hold me back as Johnny brought Old Brown to a stop and jumped out, running to the officer. It was one of the Carter boys, all grown up and official in his police uniform - dark glasses and all. He was five or six years older than me, but he’d grown up in Levan, too. I’d known him all my life, but at that moment I couldn’t think of his name. He put his arm on Johnny’s shaking shoulders as they walked to where Kasey was covered. He knelt and gently pulled back the sheet just a little bit and Johnny nodded in response to something he said. I caught the briefest glimpse of Kasey’s curly head. I heard Johnny say Kasey’s name, and I put my head down on my dad’s lap and wept.

After his funeral, Kasey was buried in Levan Cemetery next to his Grandpa Judd who had passed away when Kasey was ten. Kasey had loved his grandpa and would have liked that, but I secretly wished he could be buried next to my mom, that in his death I could claim him, that he could be numbered with my family, as I would now never be numbered among his. The anger I felt towards God kept me distracted from my grief for a while. I had suffered my quota already-it wasn’t fair that He should take two people from me. It was someone else’s turn. I fumed at Him. Even when I tried to pray for strength and understanding, I found myself too angry to finish, and would leave my knees in fury.

Underneath the anger there was also a question. In sorrow, I found myself asking Him, “Why was Kasey given to me, God, if You were only going to take him away?” It seemed so cruel, and the God I knew was not that God. It was the first time in my life I questioned His love for me.

The date I was supposed to marry Kasey came, and Tara came and got me, keeping me busy for the day. But when night descended, I found myself in my room fingering my mother’s wedding dress, the dress that would have become mine that very day had Kasey lived. It was simple in style, high-waisted and long sleeved. It looked very Jane Austen to me, and I had loved it all my life. My mother had stored it carefully, and it was almost as white as the day she wore it.

I had a picture of her in this dress, looking up at my dad with the most serene smile on her face. She held yellow roses in her bouquet and wore a flowered wreath in her hair. Her hair was a rich, heavy brown, and it hung down almost to her waist. I didn’t have her coloring, but my wide eyes and my heart shaped face were hers, as well as my slightly fuller top lip, which gave my mouth a Betty Boop effect. Dad had affectionately called us Boop and Boop Two when Mom was alive. She and my dad looked so young and happy. The picture had caught my dad with his eyes closed, but somehow that just made me love the picture more, like he was counting his blessings at that moment, eyes closed in profound gratitude.