Kathryn watched with fascination as tears streamed down Thierry Bouchaule’s cheek. An extravagant private dinner in his room at one of the most expensive hotels in the city turned into opening night at the opera, something for which Kathryn was ill prepared. Bouchaule, naturally, had everything well planned, providing a long black evening gown with jewels and a fur coat for the occasion. It reminded Kathryn of Forrester—branding her with his likes and dislikes—and Bouchaule did not miss the contempt in her eyes.
The doctor was quick to apologize and was more than happy to skip the performance entirely. Kathryn knew skipping the performance would leave them plenty of time for other activities, so, delaying the inevitable for as long as possible, she chose the opera.
The performers were stellar, but the Russian tragedy was not one of her favorites, especially when sung in Italian. The management chose that particular opera for the opener as a tribute to the country’s new ally, the Soviet Union, and she supposed it only fitting for another season in the midst of war.
As they sat in the dark upper balcony, Kathryn’s mind drifted through most of the first and second acts. She was consumed with thoughts of Jenny, their life together, and what she was doing now with Bouchaule, trying to justify it all to herself. She glanced at her assignment, who was utterly lost in the bleak landscape of the Russian opera, and she was struck by his unabashed display of emotion. It brought her back to the present, back to her character, and she marveled at the depth of the curious man beside her.
At the end of the last act, she offered him her flowered handkerchief, which he took without embarrassment and dried his tears.
“Good men brought to ruin by greed and a lust for power,” he announced matter-of-factly, “and always it is the people who suffer.” He stood and held out his hand as the curtain fell.
As open as he had been in broad daylight that afternoon, he was equally as secretive in the evening. They arrived late, entering the auditorium just under the preperformance warning chime, and they left just as the lights went up. His desire to come and go unnoticed was obvious.
“I thought you said you have friends in high places,” Kathryn said as soon as they were settled in the backseat of his chauffeured car.
He smiled. “I have many enemies in high places as well.”
“Then why risk nights like tonight … this afternoon?”
“I do not want you to feel like a criminal, darling.” His eyes swept up her body, admiring her beauty. “You deserve fine things. You deserve the lifestyle in which you have become accustomed.”
Kathryn stared at him. Thierry Bouchaule was a challenging case. He seemed devoid of insecurities, so it was impossible to exploit them, and he was difficult to manipulate because his motives were unclear.
They were both masters of the game, that much was certain, and Kathryn knew the approach she had taken with Forrester and so many of her conquests would not work on Bouchaule. He had seen it all, he had done it all, and he would see right through her.
Doctor Bouchaule would require a delicate balance of truth and deception. She would give him what he wanted, and what remained, if anything, would reveal the truth of his intentions.
“This is not my lifestyle. I lived in a small apartment, just barely making rent when I met Marc. Things of late have been difficult, as you can imagine, and now I share a place with a friend because that is what I can afford. I don’t belong to this world.” She tugged impatiently at her silk-lined fur coat. “This was Marc’s world, your world—a fantasy. I have no use for fantasies or the men who dream them. I just want my life back.”
Bouchaule smiled. “Was tonight not beautiful?”
“Of course.”
“Then let me do this for you, not because I am a man who needs a woman to be like this or that but because I want to give you beautiful evenings and stars on a string.” He eyed the diamonds around her neck and stroked her cheek.
She offered him a reluctant smile. “You make it hard for a girl to resist.”
He leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips. “Precisely.”
“Seriously, Thierry …”
“Were we not being serious?”
Kathryn could see how his charm could get him almost anything, but she was no slouch at getting what she wanted either.
She looked around and then at the back of the driver’s head, like she was uncomfortable with the company. Bouchaule asked him to pull the car around the corner and wait outside.
“These enemies,” Kathryn began. “The men from Chicago?”
The doctor nodded.
“I’ve seen these men in action. They play for keeps. Forrester is proof of that. You can’t expose yourself like this.”
He leaned back with a frustrated exhale. “I have been living here like a caged dog for months. I do not wish the same for you. I want to dance and laugh … I want to be alive again.”
Bouchaule wanted something all right, Kathryn could tell, and it was more than her, more than her blood.
“When you left here you seemed … satisfied. Why have you come back?”
He looked her up and down like she was mad for asking. “I would have thought that obvious.”
“I’m not naïve. You didn’t have to come back here. You could have sent for me. I think you know I would have come.”
“I did not dare presume.”
She turned away from him and stared straight ahead, upping the ante of their game. “I think after what I’ve been through, I deserve the truth.”
They sat in silence like the strangers they were, until, finally, Bouchaule spoke.
“I do need you for my work.”
Kathryn nodded silently as she mindlessly rubbed a seam on her gloved hand and absorbed the blow to her character’s ego and, surprisingly, a bit to her own.
He stilled her hand. “Would you believe me if I said it was more than that?”
She pulled her hand away, still refusing to look at him. “Everyone has lied to me. I’ve been used, threatened—” She shook her head. “It doesn’t seem to matter what I believe.”
His next move should have been to convince her of his devotion, but he merely nodded and folded his hands across his lap. She held her breath, wondering if she had gone too far.
“I have no right to ask,” he began softly, “but will you help me?”
His voice was sincere, absent any hint of manipulation or threat of force, should she refuse. Of course, she had no intention of refusing, sincere or not, not if she wanted answers.
“Are you working against the people who did this to me?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll help you in any way I can.”
“Even if those people are in your own government?”
She looked him in the eyes, the validation of her suspicions stirring up a suppressed rage she barely managed to contain.
“Especially if they are in my own government.”
He nodded and tapped on the window to retrieve the driver. To her surprise, that was the end of their evening. Gone was the suave lover, replaced by a man more serious and businesslike. Kathryn was dropped off at the club, and Bouchaule bid her good night with a polite kiss on the hand.
They arranged to meet again the next evening after her show to get on with their new partnership, but until then, Kathryn was left to contemplate whether her moves had been the right ones or whether she had overestimated her allure and slammed the door on her inside track.
Jenny dreaded arriving at the house and finding the driveway vacant. She’d stayed out late after the double feature because she couldn’t bear to come home to an empty bed and a vivid imagination. Tonight, she was greeted by Kathryn’s car in the drive.
The bedroom light was on, and Jenny was delighted to find Kathryn in bed with a book.
She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees as she pulled them to her chest.
“Hi, cutie, I was worried about you. It’s so late.”
Jenny grinned as she slipped out of her shoes and crawled across the sheets to a waiting kiss. “Sorry.”
“Mm,” Kathryn hummed as their lips parted. “I’ll take another one of those. I missed you tonight.”
Jenny surrendered another kiss and curled up beside her. “I missed you too. I’m so glad you’re here.”
Kathryn put her arm around her. “Me too. What did you do tonight?”
“Double feature at the Colony … chatted up some folks at Joe’s.”
Kathryn’s downturned smile betrayed her regret that Jenny chose a twenty-four-hour diner over her own home just to stay occupied, and she offered a sympathetic squeeze in lieu of the sorry, honey, that Jenny knew was dying to escape.
They had both agreed they were no longer going to apologize for things out of their control, and as promised, each was doing what they had to do to deal with the situation.
“How was the double feature?”
Jenny put her head against Kathryn’s shoulder and cheerfully recounted her evening, leaving out the angst that had distracted her for most of the night, as she struggled with her thoughts and ineffectually tried to reign in her jealousy. All that dissipated the moment she saw Kathryn’s car in the drive. Whatever did or didn’t happen with her assignment, she was home now. She was hers.
Nothing in Kathryn’s adoring eyes gave away the intimate details of her evening, and if any intimate details were to be had, Jenny had to admit, she didn’t want to know.
Ignorance truly was bliss, and for a change, she’d take it, and how.
Kathryn kissed Jenny goodbye as she headed off to work the next morning and watched her walk down the street until she was out of sight. She went to the kitchen and deposited the dishes from breakfast into the sink, then grabbed her jacket and a flashlight and headed out the back door.
Curiosity about the greenhouse led her along the shore of the lake to the woods, where she followed the overgrown path to the derelict building and went inside.
She pulled back the corner of the damp, weathered rug and immediately dropped it, yelping, “Shit!” as she jumped out of the way of a circus of subterranean creepy crawlers darting for the safety of the shadows.
She shook her arm, on the off chance one had found the inside of her sleeve inviting, and uttered a heartfelt, “Blugh,” as she shuddered and shook off the heebie-jeebies.
She braced herself for the mass exodus of insects, then quickly flipped the rug to the side. She was not surprised, nor disappointed, to find the rug had hidden a wooden trapdoor.
“Yes,” she whispered.
The large rectangular door protested with a sorrowful moan as she heaved up on the rusted recessed handle, but it did not resist her efforts. She was energized by the unknown as she peered into the dark hole in the ground, and with a final glance at her sunlit surroundings, she shined her flashlight down the path of the wooden steps and ventured inside.
The boards creaked with every step, and she gave each a test bounce before trusting her weight to it. Halfway down, she ducked her head and scanned the interior with her light. It was a small room, half the size of the greenhouse floor space above, with old brick walls that were mostly obscured by shelving and rusty gardening tools.
A string dangled from a porcelain light fixture to her right, and she tugged on it, only have it break off in her hand. “Swell,” she said, as she reached out with the flashlight and eased some spider webs aside.
She crept deeper into the cellar. It was damp and musty but surprisingly warm, considering the chilly temperature above. She swept her light around the confined space and was disappointed to find it nothing more than an underground potter’s shed. She looked to the hard-packed dirt floor for signs of footprints or a path leading into a wall and then to the ceiling for electrical conduits doing the same, but found nothing but a self-contained room.
Suddenly, a noise from the far corner spun her around, and she looked accusingly down the beam of her flashlight as she slowly approached the sound. There was a pile of burlap bags in the corner, once filled with mulch, if the debris field of shredded bark was any indication, and Kathryn plucked a long crowbar from the wall to investigate.
She slowly extended the iron bar and gingerly lifted a piece of shredded burlap, only to have it come alive, as a family of rats scattered in every direction, including right at her.
She stumbled backward, dropping the flashlight and the crowbar, and let out a high-pitched scream only a bat could love. She found her back plastered to a shelving unit, with her heart beating wildly, and terracotta pots, old cookie tins, and jars filled with nails raining down on her from the shelves above.
“Damn!” she spat, as she put her hand to her chest.
To add insult to injury, one of the junior rats was boldly sniffing at her flashlight beam, casting a menacing shadow on the wall behind it.
She lunged at it and yelled, “Git!” as more pots fell in her wake.
She grabbed the light and quickly scanned the floor for more of the little beasts, and, satisfied she’d shown them, she focused her light on the wreckage from the shelves. She’d fallen into two shelving units, but, curiously, while one unit’s contents had fallen to the floor, its neighbor’s contents were wholly intact and sitting just where she had found them. She reached for one of the pots and found it securely attached to its shelf, as was everything else in the unit.
Kathryn grinned and tugged on the shelving, hoping it would give way to some great mystery. Nothing. She knelt and aimed her light underneath the wooden structure and found it wasn’t touching the ground at all. She stood and pushed on it.
It popped open, revealing a locked wooden door behind it.
She put her hands on her hips and smiled from ear to ear. “Well, well, well.”
Kathryn’s smile and self-congratulation had all but disappeared by the time she stood in the study and stared at the wall to ceiling bookcase she had just emerged from behind.
She’d made quick work of the lock on the wooden door in the cellar of the greenhouse, only to be met with an echoing black hole behind it.
Peering into the darkness with her flashlight, she saw it was a tunnel with a row of single light bulbs hanging from porcelain sockets every ten yards or so along the conduit lining the ceiling. There was an electrical box to her right, and when she threw the switch, she was pleased to see the lights illuminate the plastered brick arch of the tunnel.
The straight passageway seemingly had no end, with each bulb measuring the distance in short patches of light, like a steady stream of Morse code for the hearing impaired. From the mineral stains on the plaster walls, it seemed the tunnel had been there for some time, but the hard-packed dirt floor yielded no clues as to how recently it had been used or by whom.
She ventured inside and counted her strides—four hundred twenty in all—until she came to another locked door, this one metal and a lot older than its updated lock suggested. Her skill with a lock pick wasn’t severely tested, and soon the door gave way to a room. A quick mash of the light switch beside her elbow revealed a laboratory.
She stood in awe of her discovery, like a crusader in the presence of the Holy Grail. She took a few moments to take in her surroundings and then slowly stepped down the few steps into the room.
Every sound she made was magnified as she cautiously pressed on and found herself enveloped by the deathly silence of a tomb long abandoned. The long black lab counters were gray with dust, and brown bottles that once contained chemicals lay empty and discarded beneath a bare cabinet. Filing cabinet drawers lay open mid-yawn, and remnants of their contents littered the floor, the obvious result of a hasty clean out. It was a stark contrast to the shelves and their rows of perfectly aligned glassware standing at attention for a doctor who would never return.
Kathryn was drawn to the corner of the room where a desk looked as though it had been thoroughly relieved of its secrets. She scanned the bookcase above it, and among the medical text books, found well-worn copies of Daniel Ryan’s three-volume medical publication. Perplexed by the obvious frequency of its use, she took the first volume from the shelf and thumbed through it. Each page had a random number written in pencil on the top outside corner, but other than that, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. She pulled down the next volume and the next and found the same thing. She returned them to the shelf and exhaled in exasperation at the lack of information left behind.
She went through the desk, emptying the drawers of their common office clutter, and then she squatted down and shined her flashlight on the underside of the drawers, checking for anything taped beneath them or false bottoms. Nothing.
While she was at eye level with the desk, she directed her light into the mail slots against the wall but again found nothing. She put the office clutter back where she found it and tilted the blank notepads she’d found to the light, to see if any were indented with the former top page’s content. Two were brand new and contained nothing, but the third looked promising. She retrieved a pencil and lightly rubbed the side of the lead across the surface of the top page.
Concentration turned to triumph, as a partial bit of a message emerged. It was a series of numbers separated by periods and spaces. Her eyes grew wide, and she knew exactly what she was looking at and why the volumes were so worn.
“Of course!” she muttered aloud. “How could I have been so blind?”
The Ryan papers were book coded, and she had just held the key in her hands. In fact, she’d had the key for nearly a year, but it never once occurred to her. She pulled Daniel Ryan’s medical publications from the shelf and spread them on the desk. The OSS had the same books, and she couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to them that they were the key.
She tore a sheet of paper from the bottom of the coded pad and wrote the numbers she’d revealed.
The numbers ran on in sets of four, and it was immediately apparent that the last number in each set referred to the volume, as it never exceeded the number three. As per a typical book code, the first number referred to the page, the second number the line, and the third number the word on that line.
She excitedly transcribed the bit of code she could read and shook her head at how obvious the answer seemed now.
Usually, dictionaries or encyclopedias were used as the key to a book code for their abundant word selection, but it made perfect sense for Daniel Ryan to choose his own books, as the terminology would be built in.
She looked at her transcription and was disappointed; the random words meant nothing. She frowned, wondering if the numbers were not in typical book code, and then she looked at the number penciled into the top corner of the volume page and, suddenly, they made sense.
She added the corner number to each number referred to by that page, and lo and behold, it made a sentence.
“Smart, Dr. Ryan. Very smart.”
Anyone with access to his books and any knowledge of codes could have easily broken the coded documents if they guessed the books were the key. Because of this, Daniel Ryan super encrypted his messages by adding the numbers he’d written in the corners, which meant only someone with the books and the numbers in the corners could accurately decode the message. He could change those numbers at any time if need be. The method was foolproof—unless one discovered these books.
She glanced up at the shelf to see several copies of the three volumes, but after checking, none had the special numbers penciled in. She could only assume those books were reserved for whomever he decided to trust with his secret. For Jenny’s sake, she hoped there was only one set that could decipher the code.
My time is short. Reservoir secure. Proceed as planned with, the message said. The rest was too faint to read, but it didn’t matter. She’d found it. She’d found the key. Overcome with a profound sense of relief, she sank into the oak office chair and stared at the three volumes. So much blood spilled over three little books.
She would turn them over to the OSS and it would all be over. No more Bouchaule, which meant no more uncomfortable evenings at home with Jenny trying to pretend they both weren’t hurting. She could finally honor her promise to Jenny about not using sex as a weapon in her assignments for the OSS. She would train their agents, go overseas if she had to, but she would not surrender her body to the cause again. She had changed. Her life had changed.
She waited for the demons to taunt her with memories of the dead and the burden of her debt, but her head was silent, and she suddenly felt very alone.
She looked around the abandoned lab and thought, it was all for nothing in the end. Everything Daniel Ryan had tried so hard to hide was about to be exposed. She would expose it. Suddenly the weight of what she was about to do gave her pause.
She always thought Daniel was concealing something, not giving something to the enemy. If she turned the key over to the OSS, whatever he was hiding would be out there, and if there was something shady going on in the government—and she had her suspicions—the information could wind up in the wrong hands.
She sat back in the creaking chair, torn. It was her job, her duty, to turn in the books. If she turned in the books, she would be free to pursue her life with her family and Jenny. She was an OSS agent, trusted to do the right thing. There really wasn’t anything to think about. But she felt uneasy. What if the right thing was to do nothing?
Men had died to get this key. Men had died to protect it.
She exhaled and weighed the books in her hands. Her head told her to do what she was trained to do, required to do—turn them over without delay. Her gut told her to hold off. What were a few more days? Weeks? Maybe Bouchaule could tell her more about what she was about to unleash.
She nodded and stood up, books in hand. What to do with them now? She didn’t dare leave them. Someone might be back for them.
That gave her pause. Might be back for them.
She looked around at the disheveled lab. Someone had cleaned it out, and she had the feeling it wasn’t Daniel Ryan anticipating his demise. There was no way he would dispose of everything else and leave the books where they could be found, secret lab or not.
Papers and journals had disappeared, experiments were terminated and cleaned up, and from the empty cages in the side room, lab animals removed.
Someone cleaned up after Daniel’s death, which meant someone else knew about the lab—someone living. Her first thought, though fleeting, was Jenny, but that was absurd. She gave her the books freely from the beginning, and she was too stunned by the classified files she saw, too open emotionally, to hide such a thing. She knew her too well. For a moment, Kathryn was reminded of Juliette and how thoroughly deceived she’d been by her. The notion was quickly dismissed, and she got angry at herself for even thinking the situations, or the women, were even remotely alike.
She turned her attention back to the problem at hand—the books. She couldn’t leave them, but she didn’t dare take them elsewhere, for fear they would be discovered. She decided she would hide them someplace close by.
She swept her eyes to the ceiling, with its heavy wooden beams and exposed ductwork, and wondered where exactly on the grounds she was. A steel staircase on the far wall rose to a narrow landing, and she followed it up until it emptied into a slender hallway with a dead end. The inner wall of the hallway had a levered handle on it, so she pulled it, only to have a five-foot section of wall release slightly into another room.
She shouldered her way from the darkened hallway into the light and was dumbfounded to find herself in the study, the beautiful Bosendörfer piano her welcoming host.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered, stunned that the answer had been so close the whole time. She looked at the books in her hand and knew she had to take care of them immediately. Hiding them in a cookie tin and placing it on a shelf with the other tins in the potter’s shed would work. She found a cookie tin the right size in the kitchen and dumped the cookies onto a plate. Garbage can liners would protect the books from dampness, so she securely wrapped the three volumes in the white waxy paper bags and tucked them safely inside the tin.
As she was securing the lid, the doorbell rang, momentarily paralyzing her, as if she were in a glass house and her every move was on display. She quickly recovered and rushed to the study, where she put the cookie tin just inside the door to the lab and leaned on the bookcase until it clicked closed.
She looked around the room to make sure everything was in place and brushed off her slacks before putting on a pleasant face to answer the door.
To her surprise, her smiling niece was standing on the doorstep before her holding the hand of a taxi driver, whose cab was at the curb.
“Steph—”
“Hi!” the little girl chirped and threw her arms open wide.
Kathryn couldn’t help but stoop into the hug with a smile, until her eyes drifted up to the cab driver and she saw that he was the cab driver from the nighttime encounter with the FBI. She released her niece and protectively pulled her behind her back as she straightened to her full height.
“Wait inside, Stephanie.”
“But—”
“Now!”
The girl scurried into the house, and Kathryn shut the door, using all her patience not to slam it. She got in the face of the cabbie, her voice low and angry. “I don’t know what kind of game you people are playing, but I swear, if you—”
The cabbie raised his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. The kid skipped out of the school playground and walked four blocks to a bus stop, where I picked her up.”
“Why would she do that?”
He handed her an index card with her name and address on it.
“She handed me this and told me the wildest tale about why she had to get here. I thought it best to play along.”
Kathryn exhaled, relieved, but still upset. She looked at the man, then the cab, and wondered why there was still a tail on her family.
The man read her concerned face.
“We’re here to keep your family safe, Miss Hammond.”
It disturbed her that the FBI thought it necessary to protect her family, but it assured her she was doing the right thing by distancing herself from them. She nodded, no longer displeased with the surveillance. “Thank you.”
The cabbie nodded and started back to the cab.
“Hey,” Kathryn called after him. “A lot can happen to a little girl in four blocks. Tighten it up.”
He smiled and tipped his hat.
Kathryn watched him drive away and took a deep breath to calm her sudden panic before entering the house to deal with her niece. She didn’t even want to think of what might have happened had the agent not picked her up.
Stephanie stood in the hallway in her navy blue wool coat and matching hat—the picture of innocence—with her hands behind her back, like a little angel. Kathryn stared at her for a few hesitant moments and decided dealing with the adults would be a little easier.
She picked up the telephone.
Stephanie looked at her with trepidation. “Are you calling Mommy?”
“No, I’ll let your dad do that.”
The youngster rushed to her side, grasping her pant leg. “Oh, don’t call Daddy. He’ll be so angry.”
“I’m angry!” Kathryn snapped, momentarily losing her poise.
She wasn’t prepared for the profound hurt in the young girl’s eyes, and she looked away, unable to bear it. “Just … just go sit on the couch.” She pointed toward it.
The rattled aunt got an earful from a worried but relieved father, and she then went into the living room, where she found Stephanie sitting on the couch, crying. She gathered herself, ill-equipped for sensitive chats with children, and stood before her niece.
“Here,” she said gently, as she held out her hand. “Hand me your coat.”
Stephanie sniffled as she stood, wiggled out of her coat, and removed her hat.
Kathryn internally winced at the little girl’s misery as she took the items and draped them over the arm of the sofa and then sat beside her.
“Don’t cry.”
“You’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad … I’m …”
Stephanie’s sad eyes peeked out from below her wrinkled brow, and the tears broke Kathryn’s heart. She took her hand.
“I’m not mad, honey, I was scared for you. What you did was wrong. Do you know that?”
Stephanie nodded.
“But you did it anyway. Why?”
“Daddy said you’re poison ivy and he didn’t want you anywhere near us.”
“He said that to you?”
“No, he thought I was sleeping. But that’s what he told Mommy, and she didn’t fight for you. No one asked me, and I don’t think it’s fair they keep me from you. So I ran away.”
Kathryn squeezed the little girl’s hand. “Running away is not the answer.”
“You ran away.”
Kathryn was stunned that the girl not only knew she had run away but thought it was something to emulate.
“I was wrong to run away, Stephanie. Terribly wrong. I hurt so many people … your Pop Pop, your dad, myself. I lost all those years with you because of it. It’s not the answer, honey, believe me.”
“It’s not fair that I can’t see you.”
“That’s not your mom and dad’s fault. It’s mine.”
Stephanie lifted her eyes, the edges brimming with hurt. “You don’t want to see me?”
“Oh, honey, no.” Kathryn pulled her into a hug and then released her. “That’s not it at all. I love you madly. You know that.”
“Then why, Aunt Kath?”
Kathryn prepared to tread carefully, knowing that no one senses a lie like a child. “Well, it’s complicated.”
Stephanie tilted her head, daring her to hang on to that as an excuse. “I’m nine, not three.”
Kathryn rubbed her forehead and smiled. “Right.”
She paused again as she tried to formulate an explanation that the little girl would accept and understand, but the little girl was anything but little, and the stall did not sit well.
“Mommy says you don’t have to think about the truth.”
Kathryn felt herself being outmaneuvered by a nine-year-old.
“Okay,” she drew out, answering the challenge. “My job may take me away for a while, and I’ve been trying to get used to the idea of not seeing you and your mom and dad, so I stayed away.”
“But if you’re going away, wouldn’t you want to see more of us while you can?”
Kathryn merely blinked at the girl, her logic irreproachable.
“Besides,” Stephanie continued, “that sounds an awful lot like running away, and you just told me that wasn’t the answer.”
“This is different.”
“Why?”
Kathryn suddenly understood why Because I said so was such a popular parental retort. The child expected nothing less than the truth, and Kathryn supposed she deserved the best she could do in that regard.
“Sometimes the more you love someone, the harder it is to say goodbye. I guess I was trying not to love you so much.”
Stephanie frowned, obviously finding her aunt’s reasoning confounding. “Did it work?”
Kathryn smiled, as her foolish logic was exposed. “No.”
“No wonder Daddy’s mad at you.” Stephanie folded her hands across her lap in an annoyed gesture very much like her mother’s. “I think I’m mad at you too.”
Kathryn stared at her for a moment and couldn’t really blame her.
“I’m sorry.”
Without hesitation, Stephanie extended her hand. “I accept your apology.”
Her niece forgave her easily and completely, as only a child could, and Kathryn gladly shook her hand and kissed her cheek.
“Thank you.”
The girl nodded and stared at her shoes.
“Will I ever see you again?”
The question took Kathryn by surprise. “Well, I should hope so.”
Stephanie didn’t move.
Kathryn tilted the little girl’s chin up “Hey, this is just for a little while, honey.”
Stephanie’s doubtful stare made her feel like a liar, as if her niece’s youthful innocence gave her a preternatural ability to see the future and she knew better.
Kathryn had no assurances that the young girl’s doubt was unfounded, and they both stared at each other in silence, lamenting their uncertain future, until Stephanie took pity on her.
“I know you’ll do your best to come back to us, Aunt Kathryn.”
Defensively, Kathryn answered, “Yes, I will.”
Stephanie nodded and regarded her shoes again. “Just in case, I’m glad I met you.”
The child’s resignation stung, and Kathryn realized the impact her decision to distance herself from her family had on the young girl. Children protect themselves, just like adults, something she should have been acutely aware of, but time and well-worn habits had blinded her to her own defense mechanisms, and she hadn’t anticipated Stephanie would employ some of her own.
Kathryn put a comforting hand on her niece’s back, but Stephanie got up from under it and walked to the window.
“When will Daddy be here?”
“Soon.”
Kathryn watched the young girl clasp her hands behind her back, the way her father does when he thinks, and she imagined the child calmly committing her quirky Aunt Kathryn to memory as she filed her next to boring Aunt Clara, who smells funny, and the myriad other disappointments collected in her very young life.
“Daddy’s going to yell a lot.”
Kathryn got up and moved to her side. “Daddy’s just worried and scared, honey. He’s not really angry.”
“Why don’t adults just say what they mean?”
“Sometimes we don’t know how.”
Stephanie crossed her arms. “Well, that’s silly.” She paused. “He’s going to yell a lot.”
Kathryn knelt beside her.
“He just loves you.”
“Then he shouldn’t yell.”
Kathryn smiled and rubbed the little girl’s back.
“You know when you have a bad dream and Mommy and Daddy hold you until you’re not scared anymore?”
Stephanie nodded.
“Well, when your Mom and Dad are worried and scared about you, it’s like a bad dream, and you just have to hold them until they’re not scared anymore. Okay?”
The young girl stared at her for a moment and then nodded enthusiastically and suddenly threw her arms around her neck.
“Tell me when you’re not scared anymore, Aunt Kath.”
Kathryn smiled and put her arms around her niece. “Promise me you won’t ever run away again, and I promise you I won’t be scared.”
Stephanie held her at arm’s length and nodded. “I promise.”
Kathryn held out her little finger. “Pinky swear?”
“Pinky swear.”
“So we’re square?”
Stephanie straightened and raised her chin confidently. “On the level.”
Kathryn pulled her into her arms. “That’s my girl.”
Stephanie squeezed with all her might. “I’m going to miss you.”
“I’m going to miss you too, honey.”
When they separated, Stephanie was rubbing a tear from her eye with the back of her hand.
Kathryn kissed her cheek. “Now, now … none of that.” She stood up and held out her hand. “Come with me, I have something for you.”
She led her niece into the bedroom and took a photo from a silver frame on the vanity.
“I want you to keep this for me.”
Stephanie took the photo and her eyes lit up. It was a black and white photo of her birthday celebration at the club. She’d seen a group photo that had since disappeared from her father’s desk, but this was a close-up of just her and her smiling aunt behind the candle-topped hot fudge sundae she’d been given for dessert.
She held the picture to her heart. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Stephanie greedily tucked it into the large bib pocket of her blue and white checkered jumper dress. “I’m not showing this to anyone, and I promise I’ll take good care of it.”
Kathryn smiled and held out her hand. “I know you will. Come on, how about some cookies?”
“Sure!”
They shared cookies and milk at the kitchen table, and Stephanie seemed to have adjusted well to their impending separation—the resiliency of childhood, Kathryn imagined. The adults, however, were going to be another matter.
Stephanie was standing on a step stool at the kitchen sink drying the dishes passed to her, when a car door slammed. She turned to Kathryn and whispered, “Daddy’s here.”
Kathryn took the dish from her niece’s hand and set it gently on the counter. “I know.”
They solemnly walked hand in hand to the living room, where Kathryn helped Stephanie put on her coat and hat, all the while memorizing every detail about her and trying desperately not to cry.
Clay’s fervent pounding on the door told her everything she needed to know about his state of mind, and she knew this would be her last chance for a peaceful goodbye.
She knelt and attempted to straighten her niece’s coat, but Stephanie dispensed with the emotionally awkward last few moments and hugged her as hard as she could.
“I love you, Aunt Kath.”
Kathryn savored it and didn’t want to let go. “Oh, sweetie, I love you too.”
Clay’s incessant knocking loomed menacingly in the background.
“Kathryn!”
Stephanie gave a final squeeze and pulled back, where she found tears welling in Kathryn’s eyes. “None of that,” she scolded with a pointed finger.
Kathryn wiped away a tear, vowing to be brave for just a few more minutes. “Right.”
The youngster reached out and arranged Kathryn’s hair on her shoulders like she would primp one of her dolls.
“Don’t stay away too long, Aunt Kath. Jenny will miss you too.”
Kathryn had to swallow the heart in her throat before answering. “I won’t.”
Clay tried the doorknob. “Kathryn!”
Kathryn blew out a breath. “Ready, pretty girl?”
Her niece imitated her exhale. “Ready.”
Kathryn went to the door and opened it, almost getting her brother’s fist in her face, as he was caught mid-knock.
The sight of his daughter made him drop to his knees, where he gathered her into his arms. “Stephanie! Oh, thank God you’re safe.”
She barely had time to utter, “I’m fine, Daddy,” before he had her at arm’s length and the predicted yelling began.
“What were you thinking? Huh? What were you thinking?”
“I wanted—”
“Your mother was frantic! What were you thinking?”
Kathryn stepped forward. “Clay …”
“You stay out of this!”
“Answer me! What were—”
“Clay, you’re scaring her.”
“You need to stay out of this!”
“You need to calm down.”
Clay looked at his upset daughter and took a breath. He rubbed her shoulders after he loosened his grasp. “Are you okay?”
Stephanie nodded.
He took her in his arms and rocked her gently. “I’m sorry, baby. Are you okay?”
She nodded again, and as her father picked her up and carried her to the waiting taxi, she threw a helpless glance over her shoulder.
Kathryn reassured her with a wink and a smile, and one was bravely returned.
A few minutes were spent getting Stephanie settled into the backseat, and all appeared fine between father and daughter, but Kathryn bucked up for her brother’s ire as he stood and stalked back up to the house.
“What the hell is she doing here?”
Kathryn fished the address card out of her pocket and handed it to her brother.
“She walked out of the playground at school and handed this to a cab driver.”
“Why the hell would she do that?”
“She thought you were keeping her away from me.”
“That was your decision, Kathryn. Not mine.”
“I told her that. I also told her you weren’t mad at her, just scared, so don’t be too hard on her.”
“Don’t tell me how to raise my kid. She never would have done this before she met you … never! You’re not to see her, or speak to her, or write to her again, do you hear me?”
“Clay—”
“No! I let you into my family, Kathryn, and this is how you repay us?”
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“No, you never mean for anything to happen. One day you’ll learn family isn’t something you throw away because it’s inconvenient.”
Kathryn ground her teeth on the reason for her actions. “I’m not throwing you away. I can’t explain right now, but one day—”
“One day is already too late. I’ll not subject Stephanie to your erratic behavior. Love isn’t something you just turn on and off.”
“I haven’t turned anything off. I love you both dearly, please know that.”
Her brother snorted, effectively throwing her words back in her face.
“Stay away from us,” he spat and turned to leave.
“Clay!”
He reluctantly stopped and looked back.
“Hug me goodbye.”
“Nuts to you.”
“For Stephanie’s sake, don’t make this ugly.”
Her brother looked at the cab and saw his daughter watching intently through the backseat window. He relented and gave his sister a rigid hug, saying, “I’ll never forgive you for hurting her.”
He tried to pull back, but Kathryn held fast.
“She’s going to be fine, Clayton. Just forgive me for hurting you.”
He pushed away with angry tears in his eyes and tore up the address card in his hand, which he then shoved into her midriff.
“I won’t be needing this.”
He stormed back to the taxi, and Kathryn forced a smile for her departing niece. She blew her a kiss as the cab backed out of the drive and stood on the front step, waving until her family was out of sight.
She closed her eyes and stood motionless for a few gut-kicked moments with the pieces of the address card digging into her tightly closed fist. It was every bit the confrontation she envisioned and ten times harder than she imagined to say goodbye. She understood that her brother was doing what he felt was necessary to protect himself and his family, and she would now do what she had to do to protect herself from the pain of losing them.
The pain was a familiar one that started in the pit of her stomach, like a belly full of acid, and then seeped into her heart, where it felt like a fist plunged through her chest, pulling the life from her. Her body was turning to stone and she had to remind herself to breathe.
She’d played this scene before as a teen, when she watched her brother walk away in anger, knowing she may never see him again. She could no more tell him the truth now than she could then. She filled her lungs with air and teetered on unsteady legs, trying to recall her defenses, trying to save herself.
Breathe, she told herself. Breathe and forget it. Breathe and pretend you’ll see them next week.
It didn’t work as well as she remembered. She was too old to convince herself she’d see them again soon, and she knew the pain she felt was a piece of herself dying as she let them go.
She absorbed the blow and straightened. She had given Stephanie the photograph—the only physical reminder she had of her brief reunion with her family—and she knew in time that her memories of them would fade, the pain would sink into the collective quicksand of her blackened soul, and family would be nothing but a dream she once had in a life that, for a brief time, offered her more than she dared hope for. They were an unexpected gift, however fleeting, and she was grateful for it, no matter how painful the loss now.
She couldn’t deny the finality of it all, and she had a tinge of self-pity, until she remembered this was her lot: crime and punishment. Fitting. Jenny was a gift too, and she didn’t know why she was allowed it, but a family was pushing it, and she’d been called out. So be it.
Her world was darker now than when she’d awakened that morning but more familiar than it had been in months. This was the world she knew and expected. The demons were setting up lawn chairs. The show was about to begin.