Free Catch Me When I Fall by Westerhof Patricia Page A

but now he held back. He stuck his hand out toward the other woman. “Beth, right?” She was tall and dark with a prominent nose and a large, attractive mouth.
    â€œNice to meet you,” she said. The words must have come out louder than she intended—she immediately lowered her voice. “Ruthie talks about you a lot. She misses this place.” Beth glanced around curiously. Klaas looked back at Ruthie’s belly. Six months along maybe?
    Alida led them to the kitchen table, not the living room she had prepared. He turned to Beth. She looked . . . Italian? Olive skin and shiny, straight hair that was almost black. “What’s your surname?” he said.
    â€œDekker.”
    â€œDekker? That’s Dutch!”
    â€œYes.” She smiled almost mischievously. “There’re two of us,” she said, looking over at Ruthie, who shook her head ever so slightly.
    Ruthie looked terribly strained. Klaas felt compassion that he thought probably only another father might understand. An urge to fix things, to transform the anguish on her face to relief. It’s fine—no big deal , he wanted to say, the way he did when one of the older daughters—which was it?—had come home weeping from a camping trip, a large dent in the new Honda’s front bumper. But this wasn’t a dented car. He turned to Beth. “Where are you from? Are you related to the Edmonton Dekkers?” Strange to be doing what Alida called Dutch bingo with his lesbian daughter’s partner.
    â€œNo. All my relatives are in Saskatoon—and Holland. But I’ve been living in Calgary for six years. I’m doing a master’s degree in sociology.”
    â€œYou met at university?” Alida asked. Klaas glanced at her. When Ruthie first told them she was gay, Alida had asked Klaas whether they should have steered Ruthie away from a secular university. Should they have made her go to King’s College in Edmonton or Dordt College in Iowa?
    â€œYes. At the Campus Christian Fellowship, actually.” She looked at Ruthie again, smiling widely. Ruthie moved her head in vague acknowledgement.
    â€œReally?” Klaas met Alida’s surprised eyes. Ruthie still attended church?
    â€œYep.” Beth smiled at him. He found himself liking her. Her large features seemed designed to curve into smiles.
    After some tea and defrosted boterkoek , some strained chitchat about the granddaughters and the road conditions along Highway 2, Beth excused herself to use the washroom. “So when are you due?” Alida asked.
    â€œThree months.” Ruthie looked like a barn cat cornered by the grandkids.
    â€œHow did it happen?” Klaas couldn’t help himself.
    Ruthie picked up a spoon and stirred her tea, though she drank it black. Eventually she said, “It was planned. It was—clinical.”
    Artificial insemination then. But where had the sperm come from? He couldn’t ask. The whole thing was abhorrent. Wrong. He looked at Alida, her face tight, her shoulders drawn up. He rose and poured his tea down the sink. “And you’re planning to keep—to raise—this child?”
    â€œYes. With Beth.”
    Alida’s fingers twirled and spun in her lap, knitting without needles or yarn. Klaas’s sigh hurt his chest. “We’re glad to know you’re safe, hon—Ruthie. But nothing has changed.” He looked over at Alida again, and she nodded faintly, her face pale. “We aren’t able to welcome you here as if this is all—fine.” His voice sounded a hundred years old. He felt even older. Defeated, though he was pretty sure he was doing the right thing.
    â€œTime to go,” Ruthie announced with false cheerfulness when Beth returned to the kitchen.
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    During the early summer, when friends and neighbours asked about Ruthie, Klaas and Alida would simply say, “We don’t