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I ended up spending Saturday night sleeping in Derek’s bed, although we stuck to opposite sides of the mattress by tacit agreement. Once my crying jag wore itself out, I had been too exhausted to protest his insistence that I stay. Admittedly, I didn’t really want to sleep alone on the fold-out sofa bed anyway.
Waking up Sunday morning next to my ex-husband was rather awkward, but familiar at the same time. Fortunately, I had slept in my clothes and neither of us had been in any compromising positions when Katherine dashed into the room Sunday morning. After she took note of us occupying the same bed, her eyes bugged out like a cartoon character’s and she’d rushed off as quickly as she’d entered, presumably to either inform her sister or post on Facebook news of this latest development.
The day passed quite pleasantly, the four of us watching television and playing card games. If it weren’t for the uncharacteristic environment, the lingering atmosphere of fear, and the girls’ suspension of their insolent teenage attitudes, the day would have felt like an ordinary lazy weekend spent with family.
The experience reminded me of when Derek and I had still been married, except the girls watched us with a vigilance they’d never shown before we’d separated. Worried about the impression we might make, I refrained from engaging in any displays of affection with Derek, despite his own hand touches and hair stroking as if we were macaque monkeys picking parasites off each other.
Early Monday, Meredith and Katherine won a lengthy debate concerning whether I would drive them to school or they would borrow Derek’s SUV. I capitulated when Meredith pointed out how they would be stranded if I ended up stuck in bumper-to-bumper bridge traffic when it came time to pick them up, both of them waiting at the curb like abduction targets should someone carry out the threats issued Saturday.
Right after the girls snatched Derek’s car keys from his hand, I prepared to leave myself. I rejected Derek’s invitation to enjoy a cup of tea while he drank his morning coffee, choosing instead to take a quick shower while he was otherwise occupied. I didn’t feel comfortable lounging around my ex-husband’s bachelor pad without our daughters present. Neither did I believe that I would feel any more comfortable after he left for work. Once I promised him I would return in time for dinner, I slipped out of his unit.
I drove around with no particular destination in mind. After ample time had passed for the girls to have arrived safely at their schools, I pulled off the road and phoned each of them for verification. They dutifully answered, but their curt replies indicated they didn’t appreciate my calls. Their impertinence momentarily tricked me into believing today might be an ordinary day in our boring lives.
Around ten, I called Charlie to make sure he had survived the weekend with our mother. He assured me he was fine, but said I should meet him for a late lunch after he finished with the contracting job he was working that morning.
Not having anything else to do and nowhere to go, I agreed.
I passed the next few hours at the library, looking up information on how to become a real estate agent and browsing through home listings. But my mind kept wandering toward Larry, and I failed to accomplish much. I was grateful when the lunch hour finally approached, parking on the street outside Charlie’s house twenty minutes early. I spotted Charlie’s truck in the driveway, but considered passing the time in my car so as not to inconvenience him.
The fact that I even needed to question whether I’d be welcome earlier than our scheduled lunch hour saddened me. My uncertainty just served as another reminder of how estranged my sibling and I had become.
I forced myself out of the car five minutes later. “Sorry I’m so early,” I told Charlie when he answered the door. I petted Chip as he jumped in greeting. “This lunch couldn’t arrive fast enough.”
“Forget lunch. I found Kathy Smith,” Charlie announced as I stepped into his house.
I froze, causing Chip to whimper when his head bumped into my immobilized palm. “How did you manage that?” I asked.
“I know somebody who works at the University alumni center,” Charlie boasted. “After I told him Kathy would have graduated sometime in the past few years, he provided me with her most recent home address. I searched it online and ended up locating a phone number for her roommate.”
“She still lives in town?”
“Yeah, over in Ballard somewhere.” Charlie’s face darkened, some of the animation draining from his features.
My pulse quickened. “What, what is it?”
“She’s in the hospital.”
“You mean she’s a patient in a hospital or she works there?” I said, already knowing the answer from the way his eyes had dulled.
“She was in an accident recently,” he said.
My heart stopped beating for a second. “Leticia? Larry?”
Charlie lifted one shoulder, but then shook his head as though to dislodge the thought. “No, I don’t think so. She was sideswiped while riding her bike.”
I pictured Larry’s sedate family sedan stalking a young woman pedaling her way to a volunteer commitment. If Kathy knew about Leticia’s affair with my father—or possibly even figured out the embezzlement scheme—she could be in grave danger.
“She’s at Swedish Medical Center in Ballard,” Charlie said. “I don’t think her injuries are anything serious, just a few broken bones, some internal bleeding, and a concussion or something.”
I stared at Charlie, not sure whether to laugh or cry. What did he qualify as serious? A vegetative coma? Death? Or maybe he was trying to cheer me up by downplaying Kathy’s condition.
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
“I talked to her roommate,” he replied. “I turned on the charm, and she became very chatty.”
“Raoul doesn’t have a problem with you flirting with strange girls?” I said dryly.
“Raoul and I are very secure in our relationship,” he said, beaming.
Charlie’s obvious bliss infused my heart with warmth. Despite all the hardships brought on by his unconventional lifestyle, Charlie had always managed to stay upbeat. It only seemed fitting that he had finally found someone who made him happy.
At least, he had always remained upbeat before our mother started spending nights in his spare bedroom.
I glanced around. “Where’s Mom?”
He gestured down the hall. “She’s taking a nap.”
“How’s she treating you?” I asked, cocking my head in advance sympathy.
He shrugged. “Mom is Mom. You know how she is.”
“That’s not exactly a glowing testament to your weekend together.”
“She actually hasn’t been that bad,” he said, but he sounded as though he expected that to change at any moment. “She even showed Raoul how to cook her famous chicken cacciatore yesterday.”
I raised my eyebrows. “She’s giving Raoul cooking lessons?”
He crooked his lips, as though the idea still seemed foreign to him too. “She said I was a helpless student, so she might as well focus her energy on somebody with promise.”
I laughed. “That sounds like Mom.”
“She’s going to take him to Pike Place Market when he gets off work later.” Charlie lowered his voice. “Apparently she found a subpar cantaloupe in the back of our refrigerator yesterday. She wanted to whisk Raoul out of the house right then to teach him how to properly pick out melons.”
I envisioned giant Raoul palming watermelons in the market. He could probably shoplift several and nobody would be the wiser.
Charlie winked at me. “You know, Raoul and I don’t have much experience with melons.”
I laughed again. “And you’re not afraid he’ll become an expert?”
“Like I said, very secure.” He paused. “Once all this drama dies down, we should have you over for dinner. Preparing a full menu under Mom’s culinary scrutiny will be Raoul’s test.”
“Of cooking or tolerance?” I queried.
Charlie chuckled. “Of our relationship. If he’s willing to put up with that, then I know he is truly devoted to me.” He sobered. “But seriously, I really did enjoy that dinner at your place Saturday.”
I grimaced. “Which part? There were so many highlights to that evening.”
Charlie tilted his head. “You can’t blame yourself for how the night turned out. The next meal will end up better. Trust me.”
“I guess it couldn’t end up much worse,” I conceded.
He grinned. “I’ll tell Raoul to substitute hard liquor for wine next time. Then we won’t need to drink as much before Mom’s stories begin to seem funny.”
I smiled, absently rubbing Chip between the ears as Charlie and I regarded each other. I figured he was remembering the same cherished scenes from our childhood as I was, when we conspired about everything and were never too far apart.
Charlie cleared his throat, tearing his gaze away from mine in order to check the wall clock. “I guess we might as well leave for Swedish.”
“You’re coming too?” I said, surprised by the offer.
He stilled. “If you want the company.”
“I’d love the company,” I assured him. “I just didn’t know you wanted to come.”
Charlie frowned. “You know, there was a time when you would have come right out and said you wanted me to go somewhere with you.”
I nodded slowly, acknowledging his gentle chastisement. “There was a time when you would have mentioned your interest in accompanying me, too.”
“Now we’re always so courteous to each other that our interactions feel unnatural.”
I swallowed. “Sometimes I forget you’re the Charlotte I grew up with,” I confessed. “I know that’s not very liberal-minded of me, but when I look at you . . . I just see a strange man I barely know.”
“I’m still the same person, Bets,” he said quietly.
“I know that,” I said. “In my head, I know that. But in my heart . . .”
His eyes misted. “Sometimes I think the same when I look at you.”
“But I’m still Betsy,” I said, taken aback by his statement. “I’m still female. I haven’t changed at all.”
“You’ve grown up,” he countered. “And we haven’t talked in twenty years. You’re pretty much a stranger to me now too.”
“We talk,” I said, although I understood his meaning perfectly. Our sporadic conversations now were stilted, a far cry from the easy flow of words we’d enjoyed as children.
We fell silent, Chip’s panting the only sound in the house. Neither one of us seemed to know how to proceed.
Charlie finally scratched his nose and said, “Maybe instead of always remembering who we were as kids—me thinking of you as my silly little sister and you trying to fit me in with Charlotte—we can get to know each other as adults instead.” He grinned. “You know, Charlie is pretty cool too.”
I smiled back at him. “I’d like that.”
He stepped forward. I expected him to head outside, but instead he grabbed me in a hug.
I reflexively stiffened, then started to relax as Charlie’s touch brought back old memories. I recalled how Charlotte had comforted me when I’d had nightmares after spying a snake in the yard, and when she’d held me tight and convinced me I was the best person on earth in spite of the cruel taunts some girls in my class threw at me during recess.
Despite how far in the past those distant hugs were and how Charlotte and Charlie differed, this embrace evoked the same sensations of safety and happiness.
I belatedly wrapped my own arms around my brother and closed my eyes, trying not to cry over all the lost time—and the joy of what I’d found again.
* * *
Charlie drove me to Swedish hospital, but waited in the truck while I went inside to talk to Kathy. Sometimes people reacted poorly to Charlie’s somewhat gender-ambiguous appearance, and it seemed best for only one of us to accost the poor girl anyway.
Kathy’s room was easy to find after the desk nurse pointed me in the right direction. I knocked on the indicated door before stepping inside.
“Kathy?” I said.
The young woman on the hospital bed turned to face me, her closed eyes fluttering open. She stared blankly in my general direction for a moment. Then, without warning, she snapped fully awake, jerking against the bed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” I said, holding my palms out.
As Kathy’s wide eyes watched me, I wondered if I had interrupted a nightmare. Or perhaps she had an inkling that her bike accident was intentional and thought I’d come to finish up a botched job.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I told her. I crept toward the bed and lowered myself into a visitor chair, conscious that any sudden movement might cause Kathy to yell for help. “I’m Betsy Holmes. You don’t know me, but you worked with my father, Rick Clapton, a few years ago.”
She blinked a few times, then visibly relaxed. “I remember Rick,” she croaked, sleep distorting her voice.
Kathy didn’t appear to have much strength, so I decided to get to my point. Besides, I felt as though I were committing some offense by being here and might be caught by an enraged nurse at any minute. The sooner I could willingly retreat, the better.
“I think my father may have been having an affair,” I told Kathy.
Surprisingly, she started to smile. It wasn’t a large smile, but that probably had more to do with her injuries than a lack of agreement.
“I was hoping you might know something about that,” I prompted, encouraged by her reaction.
She swallowed, working moisture into her dry mouth. “I don’t know for sure,” she finally managed. “But yes, I came to that conclusion myself.”
My heart rate sped up. It was one thing for my mother’s wild theories to bulldoze everyone in the family, but this impartial girl’s concurrence helped to validate our suspicions.
I leaned forward when Kathy parted her lips, holding my breath as her mouth started to form the words Leticia Robinson.
“A woman named Toni, Toni with an i, used to call for him.”
My lungs constricted, confusion clouding my brain. Toni? What about Leticia? Where had this other woman come from?
“That’s what she said,” Kathy went on, sounding more animated now that she’d had time to fully awaken. “‘This is Toni, Toni with an i,’ she told me every time she called, like that made up her whole name.”
“Toni with an i?” I stammered.
Kathy moved her head against the brace encircling her neck, and I presumed she was trying to nod. “I never met her, but she sounded like a spunky black woman.”
“A spunky black woman?” I sputtered. Had my father been collecting a whole harem of ethnic mistresses unbeknownst to his immediate family?
“She just sounded black.” Kathy bit her lip. “Does that make me seem racist? I can’t tell you why. Her accent or the way she said sandwich or something.”
“Sandwich?”
“She emphasized it differently. Sam-witch. It almost sounded like she was cursing. ‘Tell Rick that lunch today is at noon at the sam-witch shop.’” Kathy ran her tongue across her lips. “I can’t explain. Plus, the only Toni with an i I know is Toni Braxton, so I kind of pictured her whenever this Toni called.”
“Toni Braxton the singer?” I asked, trying to remember what the woman looked like. This conversation had taken a bizarre turn, and I felt dizzy from the effort to keep up.
“The reality star,” Kathy clarified.
I attempted to envision my father with a Toni Braxton look-alike, but Leticia hijacked the mental image, linking arms with the couple. Did Leticia know about Toni, or did my father keep the two women secret from each other as well?
Maybe my father had been involved with both women. Keeping two illicit mistresses and a wife separated from one another would have indubitably commanded most of my father’s attention, leaving him too distracted to notice $300,000 being stolen from right under his nose.
Harold had often observed Leticia and my father leaving for lunch together. Had my father alternated his afternoons between the two women? Or, worse, were there even more mystery women out there whom I hadn’t yet discovered? Perhaps my father had fed sam-witches to a unique woman every day of the week.
“Kathy,” I said, “how did Leticia feel about these lunches my father had with Toni?”
Kathy’s forehead wrinkled. “Leticia Robinson?”
“Yes,” I said. “I take it you knew each other.”
Her face brightened. “Of course I knew Leticia. She was so nice.”
“Did she ever seem bothered by the idea of my father lunching with another woman?”
She frowned. “Another woman?”
“Toni,” I clarified.
“No, I don’t think so,” Kathy said, her face pinched. “She never said anything about it anyway.”
“No weird looks as my father left to meet Toni?” I asked. “No veiled barbs about this woman?”
“Well, I only worked a couple hours in the morning. Usually I left by ten a.m., before lunch rolled around.”
“Even so,” I said, the dreaded expression slipping out before I could choose different words.
“Leticia didn’t have a problem with it, as far as I could tell.” Her eyes widened, the implication of my questions evidently sinking in. “Why, you think Leticia and your father were having an affair too?”
“The thought had occurred to me,” I admitted.
A new energy buzzed around Kathy as though she found the notion of her former coworkers engaged in a clandestine office romance titillating. “They did act rather chummy,” she said. “But I figured they were just friends. Working for such a small company, some attachment only seemed natural. I never saw them do anything inappropriate.”
I considered Kathy’s observation about small companies. “How close were you to the other employees?”
“I got along fine with the three of them, if that’s what you’re asking. Leticia was great. She was very friendly.” Kathy adjusted her pillow. “I always wondered what had happened to her. The police asked me a few questions back when she vanished, but I hadn’t talked to her in a month by that point.”
“So you have no idea where she might be?” I asked.
“I figured she landed a job overseas or somewhere and was too busy getting everything in order to tell anyone right away,” Kathy said. “She was really smart, so I doubt she had any problems finding employment. Harold was pretty talented too, but he kept mostly to himself. He struck me as obsessive.”
“Obsessive?”
“Yeah,” she said. “He stayed very focused on whatever he was working on. He wasn’t big on small talk.”
Other than his inclination to hubba-hubba over attractive women, her image of the man matched the picture I’d put together that day at the coffee shop.
“But I didn’t work full-time like the others, so I never had the chance to chat with them all that much,” Kathy continued. “Besides, I mostly stayed in the administrative office with your father.” She flashed me a little smile. “He was a very nice man.”
“Yes, he was,” I concurred, a dull ache developing in my chest.
Kathy’s eyes shone as she looked at me. “You know, he gave me a ride on his motorcycle once.”
“He did?”
“Yup,” she confirmed. “I had a paper due for one of my classes, and he took me to the campus library after my shift so I could get right to work on it. Otherwise I would have lost an hour riding the bus. I’d never been on a motorcycle before. It was pretty cool.”
Her fond recollection triggered a tightening in my gut. When he had first purchased the motorcycle, I used to worry over how long it would be before he hurt himself riding it. How ironic that he’d been driving the car that fateful night instead.
Kathy’s voice reeled me back to the present. “I was totally depressed when I heard about his accident.” She paused for a moment. “If it makes you feel better, I think your dad only became involved with Toni the year before he died.”
“Why do you think that?”
“For one thing, she never called until a couple months after the company’s one-year anniversary had passed. That’s also when Rick began acting sort of shady. He’d always been so talkative before that, but once he got involved with Toni he became more withdrawn, like he was hiding a big secret from everybody.”
I nodded. Her conclusion tied with my mother’s own suspicions. At least I could take comfort from the fact that my father hadn’t been cheating for a long time, although that small consolation might be offset by the possibility that he had adopted two illicit lovers simultaneously.
Apparently my father hadn’t felt hindered at all by his erectile dysfunction, I thought wryly. Or maybe he had been using Leticia and Toni to help cure his problem, these two women somehow turning him on in a way my mother no longer could. It was also possible the ED commenced only after he’d started up the affairs, his poor body failing from overuse.
I gripped the edge of the chair, speculations over the cause of my father’s ED leaving me unsettled. I had been much happier believing that he and my mother had shared a singular and sexless love.
I faced Kathy. “You don’t happen to know Toni’s last name, do you?”
Kathy shook her head as best she could manage around the neck brace. “I don’t think she ever mentioned it. She was very curt whenever she called. She’d just announce her name and give me a brief message to pass on to Rick.”
Despite my disappointment over only having a first name, the behavior Kathy described made sense for a woman attempting to stay unidentified. Naturally, Toni wouldn’t want to reveal too much about herself or chat up someone who shouldn’t know about her affair.
Kathy regarded me. “What brings all this up now?”
I studied the young woman as I decided how much to tell her. She couldn’t be older than early twenties. Despite her current physical condition, she had an energetic aura. She reminded me of my daughters, who tackled everything with a bit of drama.
It could have been my maternal instinct kicking in, but mentioning lingering spirits and people fleeing car accidents didn’t seem wise. “My mother had a suspicion she didn’t feel comfortable looking into until now,” I finally told her.
“That’s cool,” Kathy said, as if dredging up an affair that a dead man had engaged in four years ago was the most natural pursuit in the world. Perhaps she’d once watched a similarly themed reality-show episode.
Or maybe she just understood difficult mothers.
“Did you ever meet James Cantwell?” I asked.
Her face darkened. “No, but I did talk to him on the phone a few times right before Track-It went kaput. He was a first-class jerk. He’d always treat me like cheap hired help, demanding I put Rick on the line right away like your dad didn’t have anything better to do. Then he’d scream so loudly I could hear him across the room.”
“Could you make out what he was saying?”
“No, but I could tell he was angry.”
I recalled James’s accusation that my father had stolen from him, and my subsequent discovery of Leticia’s embezzlement. How much of either had Kathy picked up on from working in the same office as my father?
“Do you have any idea why he was so angry?” I queried, carefully watching her expression.
Kathy snorted. “He was just this rich hotshot who expected everybody to kowtow to his every whim like we were all his servants.”
“Kathy,” I said slowly, “have you ever heard of Phoenix Microchip?”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “No, why?”
I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could manage. “I think they did business with Track-It. I thought you might have heard of them.”
“If Track-It worked with them I probably filed their paperwork, but I don’t remember.” Her mouth quirked up in a small smile. “Honestly, I didn’t pay much attention when I was filing.”
Kathy didn’t appear to be hiding anything. If she knew about Phoenix Microchip being fraudulent, she either feigned ignorance really well or her bike accident had knocked away all her pertinent knowledge.
My eyes scanned over her body as guilt took hold again. “How did you end up in the hospital?”
She scowled. “Some dipwad wasn’t paying attention when he made a right turn. Slammed right into me while I was riding my bike.”
“Did you see him?” I asked, conjuring up the vision of a sneering Larry.
She shook her head. “The impact knocked me out. I didn’t even know what had happened until I woke up here and my mom told me.”
“Did the driver stop?” My heart ceased beating as I anticipated her answer.
“Yes. He called an ambulance.” She waved at a flower arrangement sitting on a side table. “And he sent me those, so I guess he’s not a total dipwad.”
“So it was an accident?” My dread caused me to practically whisper the question.
Kathy eyed me with a weird expression. “Of course.”
I stared at the floral bouquet, my heart lurching into my throat when I noticed the card poking out. “They’re nice flowers. Do you mind if I take a look?”
“Go ahead.”
I reached over and plucked the card out of its holder. With shaking fingers, I peeled back the tiny envelope flap and pulled out the scrap of paper inside. A generic Get Well Soon was written on the card, a short, to-the-point message unlikely to be produced in court as testimony of the driver’s self-confessed negligence should Kathy decide to sue. Underneath, someone had scrawled William. I flipped the card over in search of additional notations or real estate company logos, but the backside remained blank.
I let out a breath and wedged the card and envelope back into the forked plastic stick. Some of my fears about the driver being Larry dissipated. Of course, Larry could have scribbled the decoy moniker William on a floral card. Given Leticia’s own assumed identity, Larry already had practice fabricating new names to cover up crimes. But if he had plowed into this girl, would he have stopped at the scene and endured the interrogation sure to follow? Maybe, I conceded, if he figured the repercussions invoked by a botched hit-and-run didn’t merit the risk.
Or maybe I was being overly paranoid.
I stood up. “Well, I appreciate you talking to me.” I glanced at Kathy’s sheet-covered body. “Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?”
She smiled, but rejected my offer with a simple, “No, thank you.”
I ducked out of the room. As I navigated through the hospital, two words ran continually through my mind in an endless stream of infidelity and betrayal: Leticia, Toni, Leticia, Toni . . .
On my way through the parking lot, I said a silent prayer that no other mistresses turned up during this investigation.
