I STARED AROUND THE ROOM, MY MIND REFUSING TO process the messages my eyes were sending it. The cards, the stuffed animals, the flowers—all of it had been stripped from the walls and the tops of the furniture. I moved back to check the number, but I was in the right place. A wave of panic washed over me, and I gripped the doorframe for support.
My God! I thought. Not Kimmie, too! Not on the same day.
I whirled away toward the elevators, frantically scanning the empty hallways. Where the hell was everybody? Finally I spotted a nurse stepping from a room a few doors down. She looked up as I skidded to a halt in front of her.
“Can I help—?” she began, but I cut her off.
“Kimmie Eastman. Where is she?”
“Oh, the little girl in 416?”
“Yes. What happened to her?”
Her face clouded, and I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. “Dr. Eastman took her home. Are you a relative?”
“I’m a good friend of her mother,” I lied. “You know about Joline’s accident?”
She nodded. “So much trouble, and they’re just a wonderful family. Dr. Eastman dotes on that girl.”
Joline didn’t think so, but I let it slide. “Is she that much better?” I asked and got a sad shake of the head from the pudgy nurse.
“No, I think the doctor just wants to make her comfortable. Without a donor . . .”
The trembling inside me felt as if it might shake me apart. “He’s taken her home to die?”
“Now, now,” the nurse said, patting my arm. “There’s always hope. We’re all praying for that little girl. She won a lot of hearts while she was with us.”
I managed to mumble “Thank you” before I turned away, the tears so close to the surface I wasn’t certain I could contain them. The elevator was packed, and I chewed on my lip until I was finally disgorged on the main floor. I walked, unseeing, to the parking lot and slid into the front seat of the Jaguar.
And there I wept. For Kimmie Eastman and for her mother.
When the storm had passed, I blew my nose and started the car. I shook my head. I was being weak and self-indulgent. I told myself it wasn’t too late for Kimmie. I would find her aunts, and one of them would be a match. Kimmie would get her transplant, and she’d be fine. If Lavinia was right and there was a merciful God in heaven, that’s exactly how things would play out.
I realized I would have sold my soul for a cigarette and tried to swallow down the longing. Out on the highway, I drove recklessly, whipping in and out of the three lanes of 278 clogged with lunchtime traffic. The powerful Jag responded, and I almost wished for a flashing blue light behind me. My sadness had, as usual, hardened into anger, and I wouldn’t have minded being pulled over by some rookie deputy on whom I could vent my pent-up anxiety and fear.
By the time I skidded to a halt in the semicircular drive in front of Presqu’isle, I had myself under control. Sort of. I climbed the sixteen steps and paused on the verandah to stare back down the Avenue of Oaks. The ancient, stately trees bowed under the wind off St. Helena Sound, the Spanish moss swaying in time to the gusts. The few houses scattered along its dirt expanse lay hidden from view by the huge oaks, and I could almost imagine a smart carriage, pulled by high-stepping, matched horses, rolling toward the mansion, neighbors come to call on the ladies of Presqu’isle. I knew my occasional nostalgia for those days was silly romanticism, but sometimes it just seemed as if life must have been a whole lot simpler then. At least for my ancestors. I was certain Joline and Jerry Eastman’s forebears would have had an entirely different take on things. I forced Kimmie’s sweet face and my ridiculous fantasies out of my head as I pushed open the front door.
I could smell the soup from the entryway. “It’s me,” I called and walked down the hall into the kitchen.
Lavinia stood at the sink, her back to me. She stopped humming, a hymn I couldn’t identify, and turned. “Oh, good, honey. I just now set your soup to warm on the stove. You sit right down there, and I’ll get it for you. I’ve got some biscuits, too. Can’t have soup without biscuits.”
I let her familiar chatter roll over me and dropped into my usual place at the scarred oak table. “Thanks,” I said, my mind far away. “Sorry I didn’t make it on time.”
“Oh, don’t fret about that, child. We don’t keep to our usual schedule these days. We eat when your father’s hungry, regardless of what the clock says.”
I shook off my gloom and managed a smile. “How is he?”
Lavinia set the steaming bowl and a basket of her famous sweet potato biscuits in front of me, along with cutlery and a linen napkin. “Kettle’s about to come back up to a boil. We’ll have tea in just a minute.”
I set to work on my lunch, and it took me a moment to realize she had evaded my question. I paused with the spoon halfway to my mouth. “Is something wrong with the Judge?”
Lavinia took the chair opposite me and folded her hands on the table. “I don’t exactly know how to answer that, Bay. I think his health is okay. At least, he’s takin’ his medicine and not grumbling too much about it. His appetite’s good.” Her face puckered into a frown. “But he’s got something preyin’ on his mind. I’ve asked him a dozen times about it, and he just waves me off. You know how he does when he thinks I’m picking at him too hard.” She jumped as the kettle whistled. “I’ll get the tea.”
My spoon scraped against the bottom of the empty bowl. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. I waited until Lavinia had set down the cups and saucers and resumed her seat before I spoke.
“I found something in his papers,” I said, the decision to open the subject seeming to have made itself. “When I was looking for the medical power of attorney.”
I waited, but she continued to stare into her cup.
“It was his obituary. Apparently he wrote it up himself some time ago. Only his date of death was left blank.”
A glimmer of a smile touched her lips. “I remember when he did that. I thought it was morbid and told him so, but he insisted he didn’t want a bunch of flowery nonsense written about him by some hack reporter. ‘Just the facts,’ he said, like that old TV program that they rerun sometimes.”
“Dragnet,” I said without thinking, as if this was part of the Judge’s and my quotation contest. “Jack Webb. Sergeant Friday.” I mentally gave myself two points.
Lavinia sipped her tea, and finally her eyes met mine. “I’m sorry you had to see it, especially when he was so sick.” Her hand reached across to pat mine. “But your father’s got some years left in him, don’t you fret about that. It’ll be a good while before you have to worry about sending that notice to the newspapers.”
So she didn’t know what was in it. About Julia. About my sister.
I drank my own tea to cover my confusion. Should I tell her? Was it my place to? Before I could make up my mind, Lavinia spoke again.
“No, it’s something else. I don’t mind saying it has me worried. And he won’t tell me the first thing about it. You ask him, child. See if you can help put whatever it is to rest.”
“Okay, I’ll try.” I rose and pushed back my chair. “Is he still awake?”
It lifted my spirits tremendously when she laughed. “Oh, he’ll be awake. He’s taken to watching soap operas, of all things. He’ll likely shut off the TV the minute you step in the room, but don’t let him fool you.”
I answered her smile. “Soap operas? Good Lord!”
I tried to hold on to the lightened mood as I moved down the hallway, but I could feel the trembling starting up again just below my breastbone. If I thought about it too much, I’d lose my nerve. I pushed open the door to my father’s study-turned-bedroom and caught a glimpse of a redheaded woman locked in the embrace of a swarthy guy whose black hair fairly glistened under the stage lights. “Daddy? It’s me.” A moment later I heard the click as the television snapped off.
“Guiding Light or The Young and the Restless?” I asked and heard his snort. “Don’t try to deny it, Your Honor. You’re busted.”
I moved around to face him and had to smile at the guilty look on his face.
“Nonsense, of course,” he said with a slight harrumph. “But it passes the time.”
“How are you feeling?” I took one of the wing chairs that flanked the empty fireplace.
“I’m eighty-damn years old, and I’ve been stuck in a wheelchair since God was a teenager. How do you think I feel?”
“That must be where I learned it.”
“Learned what?”
“To answer a question with another question,” I said, smiling. “It drives Red crazy.”
“You and Redmond doing all right now?”
I had no idea where the calm that descended over me had come from, but I silently blessed it. “We’re fine. I found your obituary the night you sent me to get your medical power of attorney. It wasn’t sealed. Did you mean for me to read it?”
Only his years in the courtroom, both in front of and behind the bench, allowed him to conceal the turmoil my question was causing him. Only a child who had worshipped her father, who had studied every nuance of facial expression and gesture, would have recognized his disquiet. I waited a long time for him to speak.
“I . . . I thought you might. It’s been in there for years.”
“Didn’t you worry that I might stumble on it accidentally? Or that Lavinia would?”
“I considered the possibility.” The lawyer was back. I could tell not only by the precision of his answer but by the lifting of his strong chin as well.
“And?”
“It was a calculated risk.”
“But you always intended me to know at some point, right?” I could feel the anger creeping into my voice. “Even if it wasn’t until after you were dead? When I couldn’t ask questions, and you wouldn’t be forced to come up with answers?”
I watched my blows land, and the once massive shoulders slumped. He didn’t speak. I drew in a deep breath and forced myself to relax.
“So,” I said, “I have a sister.”
“Half sister,” my father said, his eyes fastened on the bay window and the small whitecaps the wind was kicking up on the Sound. “Technically.”
At least he hadn’t denied it. I tried to catch his gaze, but he stubbornly refused to look at me.
“And what? That’s it? For God’s sake, Daddy, who is she? Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Not for certain.” He finally focused his clear gray eyes on my face. “In fact, I’d be much obliged if you could find her.”