WHEN I STEPPED OFF THE ELEVATOR AT BELLTOWN TERRACE and heard the sound of voices coming from inside the unit, I wondered who the company was. Lucy came to the front door to greet me, and so did Alan Dale.
“Andrea Hutchins is here,” he told me, “and so is Jane McCall.”
The way he spoke that latter name implied it was one I should recognize, but I drew a blank. “Who’s she?” I asked.
“Athena’s guardian ad litem,” Alan answered.
I was suitably impressed. “You got that taken care of today?” I asked.
“We got everything done today!” he announced jubilantly, engulfing me in an unexpected bear hug. “There was a cancellation on the judge’s docket, and Andrea was able to get us squeezed in. The permanent legal guardianship is a done deal. Jane will be in charge of looking after Athena’s financial interests here in Washington, and as of now Athena and I are free to pack up and go home.”
Okay, so I’ll admit I was more than a little tired of having company underfoot, but the idea of having Alan and Athena out of my house and life put a sudden clutch in my gut. They couldn’t leave so soon. I wasn’t ready.
“How did that all come about?” I asked.
Alan and I had been walking into the living room as we talked. Athena was in her infant carrier on the floor in front of the window seat. Lucy was stretched out beside her. Andrea Hutchins, the social worker, was seated on the window seat itself along with a stranger, a silver-haired woman of a certain age. I heard the two of them chatting as Alan and I entered the room. The conversation broke off abruptly as the woman I didn’t know rose from her perch and came forward to greet me, hand extended.
“You must be Beau,” she said. “I’m Jane McCall. Ralph Ames happens to be an old friend of mine. Once he brought me into the picture about what’s been going on in this little tyke’s life, I was able to work with Andrea here to expedite a few things. After being stuck here for coming up on two months, I believe Mr. Dale is eager to head home.”
“I am,” Alan agreed with a nod. “My plan is to pack up tomorrow and hit the road first thing Wednesday morning.”
The words that went through my head were, Not so soon. What I asked aloud was, “Driving by yourself?”
“Not exactly,” Alan answered. “Believe it or not, Marge has offered to ride along with us. She’ll catch a plane home once we get home to Jasper. She’s already made arrangements for someone to look after Stubs while she’s gone.”
It was shocking to hear Alan call Harry “Stubs,” but it was hardly surprising. That’s what Marge called her husband. I doubt Alan had a clue that Harry I. Ball was a double amputee.
“Marge will be taking care of Athena while I do the driving,” Alan added.
“How long will it take?” I asked.
“If we can make four hundred miles or so a day, we should arrive in about five days, maybe a little longer. I’ll need to spend some time mapping out hotels where we can stay along the way.”
The idea of spending that many hours and days in a car with Marge Herndon would have made me want to slit my throat. Obviously Alan was made of sterner stuff. In actual fact I’d been worried about that long drive home and had even considered offering to go along myself. Now the problem was solved without my involvement. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Relieved, maybe, but also a little disappointed.
Everyone else resumed their seats while I found one of my own. “Sounds like we’ve had a very busy day,” I said, “me included. I talked to Naomi,” I added for Alan’s benefit. “She knows about me now.”
“What about you?” Jane asked with a frown.
Ralph might have brought her in on the case, but he clearly hadn’t told her everything, so I clued her in. Then I went on to tell everyone involved what all had transpired on my end. When I began explaining about what had come to light concerning Lenora and Suzanne’s underhanded machinations to cut Petey out of his inheritance, Jane produced a tablet and began to take notes. I sent her the contact information for Joe Stallings, Todd Hatcher’s handwriting expert, and for Agnes Mayfield’s attorney, Richard Stockman, as well so she could be in touch with all of them on her own. I also gave her contact information for both Detective Stevenson and Detective Caldwell, although I doubted either of them would be able to discuss their current ongoing investigations. That was the one good thing about my being a civilian. They couldn’t talk about active investigations. I could and did.
Something I didn’t mention in the course of all this was my offer to help Naomi into substance-abuse treatment. Knowing that the twenty-four-hour deadline was gradually ticking down, I’d been keeping an eye on my phone and hoping for a call. So far it was no dice, and I was beginning to lose heart.
An hour or so later, when Jane got up to leave, I walked her to the door. “Thank you for telling me the whole story, Beau. I can see why Ralph wanted me to be appointed as Athena’s guardian ad litem. He was looking for someone with my particular skill set.”
“What skill set is that?” I asked.
“I was a cop once, too, back in the early eighties. I wanted to be one of those female pioneers in law enforcement. My partner and I went on a domestic-violence call. By the time we got there, the woman and her two kids were already dead. We took out the perp, but in the process my partner was shot in the back and permanently disabled. After that I couldn’t do it anymore. I turned in my badge and gun, went back to college, and got a law degree. I’m fierce when it comes to fighting for women and children, most especially children. I’ll be in touch with Mr. Stockman first thing tomorrow morning. If Agnes’s will does indeed specify per stirpes, you can bet that estate sale will be canceled within minutes, and I’ll be looking into that handwriting situation as well. If those real-estate transactions were accomplished by fraudulent means, I should be able to untie that knot.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sure Athena’s interests are in good hands.”
Andrea Hutchins departed shortly after Jane did. Once we realized we’d been left on our own for dinner that night, Alan whipped up some grilled cheese sandwiches. When it was time for Mel’s and my commute-time phone call, I went into the bedroom to talk to her. In order for me to bring her up to date on the day’s activities, our usual half-hour call turned into an hour or more.
“So,” she said when I finished, “it sounds like you’ve told almost everyone about the situation with Naomi and Athena, with the notable exception of the two people who really need to know, Kelly and Scott.”
“You’ve got me there,” I admitted. “That’s next on my list.”
“Get to it, then,” Mel urged, “and let me know how it went when you finish.”
By the time I got off the call with Mel, my ear was burning and the battery in my phone was down to less than 10 percent. I plugged it in and walked away, ostensibly to give it a chance to charge. Halfway across the room, I realized that was all a ruse—a delaying tactic to avoid doing what needed to be done. I went back to the phone, picked it up, and, with the charger still attached, dialed the first number.
My mother always said that the best way to get something done was to tackle the hardest part first. That’s why I called Kelly. I figured she was the one most likely to give me grief about all this.
“Hey,” I said when she answered. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting our tax package ready to go to the accountant. Jeremy took the kids uptown for some ice cream to get them out of my hair.”
Having this challenging conversation without Jeremy and the kids around was exactly what I wanted. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Sure, Dad,” she said, “but this sounds serious. Is something wrong?”
One of the things I’ve learned in AA is that it’s important to take responsibility for what you’ve done—to own it. I had hoped to inject a little good news/bad news–style humor into the situation, but I dropped that idea and told the story straight out—warts and all. Even though Karen and I had been divorced for years before the incident with Jasmine Day occurred, it was nevertheless painful to have to tell my daughter about my hooking up for an irresponsible and drunken one-night stand with someone I barely knew and that as a result I had fathered a child, a daughter, who’d grown up without my ever knowing of her existence. I figured it was better for me to deliver the news now and in person rather than having Kelly’s kids find out the truth years down the line from coming across a previously unknown relative’s profile posted on a public DNA forum.
I’m sure it sometimes comes as a big surprise when kids finally realize that their parents are human after all. Kelly knew enough about my past that she didn’t voice any real shock. Still, she said not a thing while I was telling her the story. In fact, she was so quiet that for a brief moment I thought maybe she’d hung up on me. I had to check my screen to make sure the call was still connected.
“So Alan and Athena are leaving for Texas on Wednesday morning?” Kelly asked when I finished.
“That’s the plan.”
“What about Naomi? Is she going to stay on in Seattle?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could I meet her?” Kelly asked.
“That would be up to the two of you,” I said. “I can give her your contact information. That way if she wants to be in touch, she can. Is that okay?”
“That’s fair,” Kelly said. “Leaving the decision up to her is probably the best idea.” There was a pause after that, before she added, “That could have been me, you know. I could easily have ended up like Naomi. When I ran away from Mom and Dave’s place down in California, if Jeremy had been some other kind of guy, I could have found myself out on the streets and homeless with a baby on the way.”
“Jeremy’s a good guy,” I said, “and I think maybe Petey Mayfield was trying to be a good guy, too.”
“Well,” Kelly finished, “let Naomi know that if she’s interested in being in touch, I’m available.”
“I will,” I said.
In the background I heard the hubbub of Jeremy and the kids coming back into the house. We had finished just in time.
“But, Dad, are you all right?” Kelly asked.
It warmed my heart that my daughter was concerned about me. “It’s been a bit of a shock,” I admitted, “but I’m coping. Thanks for asking.”
“And Mel?” Kelly asked. “How is she with all this?”
Mel and Kelly had formed a closer bond than I ever would have expected.
“She’s okay with it, too,” I told Kelly. “I’m lucky to have two very understanding women in my life—my daughter and my wife.”
“You do know that I’m going to have to tell Jeremy and the kids about this.”
“Of course,” I said. “Trying to keep something like this a secret will end up exploding in all our faces later on. Tell them however much you need to, the sooner the better.”
“Will do, Dad,” she said. “I’ve gotta go. Love you.”
“Thank you—” I began, but she was already gone.
Relieved beyond words that the first conversation was done and wanting to give my overheated ear some time to cool off, I went out into the other room, collected Lucy’s leash, and took her downstairs for a walk. Sam’s grocery cart was parked at the top of the stairway leading down to the fire escape. He and Billy Bob were most likely already tucked in for the night, and I saw no reason to disturb them.
When Lucy and I came back upstairs, Alan and Athena were in the guest room with the TV set humming away. While Lucy went to join them, I collected my partially charged phone, went into the family room, and did the evening’s next-hardest thing—telling my son about his previously unknown half sister.
The truth is, I had thought all along that Scotty would be cool about this—that we could have a man-to-man conversation and both be fine on the other side of it. That didn’t happen. We were most assuredly not fine.
“So you’re telling me that the name you had me run the other day—Naomi Dale, the missing runaway who turns out to be both a druggie and a small-time crook—is actually my sister?” he demanded when I finished.
“Your half sister,” I corrected.
“Surely you can’t expect Cherisse and me to welcome her into the family with open arms and treat her fatherless baby like she’s our baby’s cousin!”
“Athena is your baby’s cousin,” I pointed out, “and the only reason she’s fatherless is due to the fact that Petey Mayfield was murdered. I feel responsible for this child, Scotty—responsible for her and for her mother. I’d like you to be welcoming to them, but I can’t force that issue. What you do or don’t do on that score will be entirely up to you.”
“Good,” Scotty muttered, “let’s keep it that way.”
He hung up on me then, leaving me sitting there holding on to a silent phone and a jagged piece of broken heart.