After the Rains by Deborah Raney

More terrible than she could have ever imagined.

Ten
    W hen Mom and Daddy came to take her home from the hospital that afternoon, they were still wearing their dress clothes from the funeral.
    “It was a beautiful service, Natalie,” her mother told her. She laid the program from the memorial service on the bed beside Natalie. Sara’s face smiled up at her in living color. Natalie felt a twist in her gut.
    “Don and Maribeth said to give you a hug,” her dad said.
    Natalie didn’t know how to respond, so she said nothing.
    “Well, I’m going to bring the car around,” Daddy said finally. Mom nodded and began to help Natalie get dressed. She still had a nasty bump on her forehead. The incision from her surgery was tender, and every muscle in her body felt stiff and sore.
    But the sharpest pain—the one that was constant and unabating—was in a place deep inside her. A place she didn’t think would ever heal.
    A few minutes later, a nurse was pushing her in a wheelchair out to the waiting car.
    When her father pulled into the garage fifteen minutes later, it felt as though she had been gone from home for months.
    Daddy came around and opened the car door and helped her into the house. Nikki and Noelle were waiting. Natalie felt as if she were on exhibition in a freak show with all of them standing around, watching her shuffle across the room.
    And then she saw Jon, standing behind Nikki, looking grief-stricken and ill at ease.
    “Hey,” he said, lifting a hand in a halfhearted wave.
    Mom had told her that Jon and Nicole had come to visit her that first day in the hospital, but she had no memory of it. Now, seeing the pain in his eyes, seeing how uncomfortable he was in her presence, she wanted toshrivel up and disappear. She couldn’t get one word to come from her mouth.
    Her mother seemed to sense the awkwardness of the moment, and she put an arm around Natalie. “We’d better get you up to bed, honey … Noelle, could you bring Nattie’s bags up, please?”
    Noelle followed them upstairs with her bags, and Mom helped Natalie into bed.
    “Do you need anything out of here?” Noelle asked, holding up a plastic bag of promotional items the hospital had sent home with her.
    It made her heart ache to see her sister’s attentiveness. She didn’t deserve all the comfort and attention she’d been offered. She wanted to tell them, “Just leave me alone. It should have been me who died.” But instead she whispered, “I just want to sleep, okay? Could you guys just close the door when you leave?”
    Mom tucked the covers around her while Noelle hung in the background, a worried look in her eyes.
    “I’m okay, Noelle. Really.” Natalie forced a smile. “Maybe you can bring me some hot chocolate later, okay? When I wake up.”
    That seemed to make her little sister feel better. Mom gave her one last pat on the shoulder, and they left her alone.
    She tried to sleep, but no matter how tightly she squeezed her eyelids shut, a parade of faces marched in front of her—people she could never face again—people who must hate her now for what she’d done to their daughter, their sister, their friend.
    Jon . Sara’s only sibling. Natalie felt sick to her stomach thinking what a big deal she’d made over her silly crush on Jon. Now it looked so trite in comparison. Maribeth and Don . They would never plan a daughter’s wedding, hold her beautiful red-haired babies. She thought of her own grandparents, Grammy and Grandpa Haydon, who were in poor health and certainly didn’t need something like this happening in their lives. And Grandma and Grandpa Camfield and Uncle Jim and Aunt Betsy who had always been so good to her. She had crushed every reason they might have to be proud of her.
    And her father . Nathan Camfield, whose name she bore. The fatherwho had never had a chance to really know her, would now have this badge of shame to carry because of her. All her silly daydreams of making him proud, of being one