Kate and her mother had taken little comfort in their conversation with the police, save for the exercise of now having their concerns on file. Lydia lamented that she hadn’t looked out the window and tried to get a number off the car. “Can’t you just call around to the rental places until you find which one rented to him?” she had asked while the report was being taken.
The female officer had been sympathetic but firm in her response that they not only didn’t have the manpower but also lacked the justification to do that. “The best I can tell you is to just be cautious and to notify us if he makes any contact that you feel is of a threatening nature.” She also dissuaded them from doing anything that could be construed as trying to purposely hide Jimmy from his father. “It will be up to the courts to work out the custody or visitation issues but until that happens you ladies need to play everything as straight and above-board as possible.”
It was John who accompanied Lydia to school to drop off Jimmy and explain the situation to Susan and Gabrielle. “Nothing’s going to happen to your little man on our watch,” Susan assured them.
For Kate, there was at least one bright spot in that Yvette had forgotten to call and tell her that the office was being repainted Monday afternoon and so she’d only be able to work in it for the first part of the day. With Cliff out of town for the morning, she wasn’t going to be under as bright a spotlight as she’d anticipated. Girded with resolve to maintain her focus, Kate hunkered down to the task of learning her new responsibilities.
She was on the phone with John just before the painters came when Yvette brought her the mail. “Now are you going to be wanting me to open everything for you and staple the envelopes to the backs of the letters?” she asked. Kate’s predecessor, she explained, had always been very secretive and never wanted her to open anything. Yvette voiced her opinion that it only went to prove he was doing something shady. “And, of course, anything addressed directly to Cliff,” she said, “I’m not supposed to touch at all.”
“Since it doesn’t look like very much,” Kate observed, “I’ll just go ahead and do it for today. We can work out some kind of system later on after I get settled in.”
Yvette seemed satisfied with that and ambled back out to her desk.
Kate reached for the plastic letter opener, glancing briefly at her new surroundings. It had been so long since she’d worked in an actual office instead of at home that she’d have to give some thought to decorating it. Maybe some large framed prints from Pier One, she mused. And plants. This place could use some greenery to spiff it up.
And then there was the matter of her desk. Except for a computer monitor, a phone, and a box of office supplies Yvette had scared up for her, the surface was devoid of personality. Pictures, Kate thought. And in her mind’s eye, she fondly imagined a happy collection of photographs of Jimmy and John and her mom and—
She stopped just short of thinking the word “wedding”. Day at a time, she told herself. It’s not as if he’s even asked me.
She reached for the next envelope, noting in surprise that it bore her name. Word does travel fast in this town, she thought, amused that everything she’d opened so far had either been addressed to the man who previously occupied her chair or simply said the words “Gazette Editor”.
The return address was a local law firm.
The contents, though amicable on the surface, affirmed her worst fears.
She’d been reluctant to call John back and tell him about it, justifying that she was already taking enough of his time. Yet when she got home and showed the correspondence to her mother, the very first thing the latter did was ask whether she’d told him about it.
“What I don’t understand,” Kate said, “is how Luke could even afford a lawyer.”
Though the name of the law firm meant nothing to either of them, what was particularly unsettling was that the correspondence had been sent to the newspaper instead of to the house. Kate quietly thanked her lucky stars that Yvette hadn’t opened it first and peppered her with intrusive questions about what it all meant.
Lydia reminded her that Luke had said he’d just flown in from the West coast. “So, he couldn’t have known about your job, much less hired somebody last week to mail the letter for it to arrive on a Monday.”
The timing was all wrong and it was driving Kate crazy to think he may have been spying on them.
“I suppose I shouldn’t have done it,” her mother confessed, “but I spent this morning calling around to area motels.” She shook her head. “He must have registered under another name because nobody’s got any record of him.” In response to her daughter’s puzzled look, Lydia sheepishly replied that she’d watched enough episodes of Murder, She Wrote to know motel clerks would tell you practically anything if you convincingly pretended to be somebody else on the phone. “I told them I was his mother,” she said, “and explained he was on a trip and I couldn’t remember where he’d told me he was staying.” Unfortunately and with regret, she related no one had heard of him.
Kate voiced the alternative that he was sleeping in his car.
“And whoever he hired wouldn’t know this about him?” Lydia said in disgust.
“Who knows why people do things sometimes?” Kate replied, reminded of how many times she’d read about lawyers representing dirtbags in high profile murder cases and wondering what possessed them to plead for their freedom. “Maybe it’s just another job to this guy. As long as the check clears, he probably doesn’t even care.”
“You can’t put off calling him back,” John advised that evening as he read the contents of the attorney’s letter. “If nothing else, it’ll help you get a feel for what they’re planning to go for.”
“Shouldn’t I get a lawyer first?” Kate asked, overwhelmed by the thought of yet another expense she hadn’t seen coming. In the back of her mind, there still hovered what John had said earlier about the possibility of Luke wanting to be paid to go away. Whether it went to court or was settled outside of it, it was a sure bet that resolution wouldn’t come cheap.
They were sitting outside watching Jimmy and Mr. Ollie watching the tree. John had brought over a yardstick and a magic marker so that Jimmy could learn to associate his tree’s growth with the color marks and the numbers on the ruler. Now and then, Jimmy would suddenly clap his hands, point at the yardstick, and toss Mr. Ollie up in the air.
“What are you thinking?” John quietly asked when he caught Kate in an extended pause of contemplation.
“Kodak moment,” she replied. “I want to always remember us just like this.” She indicated the letter that John had set down on the patio table. “For the first time in his life, Jimmy’s finally got a chance to have everything Cassy wanted for him but could never have given him. If Luke wins and takes this away.”
“Which he won’t.”
“Which he could if we can’t afford to fight him.”
“Well, for what it’s worth,” he offered, “I’m going to call Mitch first thing in the morning and see if he has any ideas. Maybe Mindy, too. She used to clerk for a judge who did a lot of divorce cases. Maybe there’s something we just haven’t thought of.”
His smile reached the depths of his eyes and Kate took comfort in his nearness. There was so much more that she wanted from him right now and yet she couldn’t allow herself to completely relax until everything with Luke was behind them.
“I’ve missed you,” she murmured. He lightly touched his fingertips to her lips to keep her from saying anything more.
“I know, honey. I’ve missed you, too.”
Sleep was impossible for Kate that night. At least twice she’d gotten up to check on Jimmy, mindful of the pressing need to reassure herself no one had taken him. Down the hall, she thought she heard the faint sounds of a movie playing and realized that her mother was having just as hard a time. She had almost tapped on the door to ask if she should make them some tea, then thought better of it. Any conversation they might have would cover the same frustrating ground they’d been on since Sunday.
And so she turned instead to the two remaining boxes of Cassy’s possessions.
Overall, there’d been few clothes to speak of that could be donated to charity. Nor would the shirts and pants that were Jimmy’s have much use left in them considering that he was already exhibiting healthy signs of growing. She smiled in remembrance of John’s promise to make the three of them his “world-famous” hot Belgian waffles with vanilla ice cream the next time they came over.
She pulled out an envelope full of loose snapshots, noting in dismay that several of them were pictures of Cassy and Luke in happier times. Happier times. Now there’s a misnomer, she thought, wondering how her sister could have known as little as a single day of bliss with someone as irresponsible and hot-headed as Luke.
There were several of Luke by himself and Luke with his bandmates. Kate’s initial impulse was to vent her anger and rip them into a million pieces over the wastebasket. The only thing that stopped her was the unsettling speculation that someday Jimmy might want to have them. Though it seemed unlikely Luke would ever mature and clean up his act, he had nevertheless fathered a child, a child who might be curious about what he looked like or what kind of clothes he’d worn. Certainly, she and Cassy had had no shortage of laughs when they were young girls and thought their parents’ hairstyles and prom pictures were the funniest stuff they’d ever seen. Someday maybe you’ll be good for the same thing, Luke. A lot of stupid laughs.
It was the odd assemblage of knickknacks that Kate had the hardest time trying to decide whether she should toss or keep. However small or silly, they were items that had meaning only to Cassy. Kate’s heart broke in silence as she tried to will them into talking to her and telling her their respective stories. I should keep these for Jimmy, she rationalized, though it was closer to the truth to say that she wanted to keep them for herself so she’d have something, anything, that her sister had once held dear.
It was nearly 3:30 in the morning as she got to the bottom of the remaining box and found another large envelope containing letters, postcards, and, to Kate’s anguished surprise, every birthday and holiday card her sister had probably ever received. She glanced briefly at the backs of several of the postcards. Un-dated cheery greetings from friends who dotted their I’s with hearts and told her to come and visit “sooooooon”. Had Cassy ever made any of those trips, Kate wondered. Or was she already too absorbed in trying to reform Luke and live the American Dream?
She sifted through some of the birthday cards and recognized her mother’s handwriting among them. Two of them specifically mentioned a check that was enclosed. All of them were signed “with love”. None of them included Luke’s name on either the envelope or in the salutation.
Kate hesitated over the small stack of letters. Whoever had written to her sister had done so with the honest expectation that she would be the only one to ever read the contents. It would be a violation of trust and privacy to open them now, she thought, and yet she couldn’t deny her curiosity and desperation to know who had taken the time to put their chatty news down on paper and put a stamp on it. Did anyone even write letters anymore? She’d once remarked to Dee that sending emails these days was like writing on air; unless you purposely printed out a hard copy, whatever information was conveyed could evaporate as if it had never existed, leaving a receiver to rely solely on his or own memory.
She looked at the clock again, annoyed that if she stayed up much longer, she’d be totally punchy and functionally useless for the new day ahead. With a sigh, she put the letters on the nightstand. They’d just have to wait until later.