Lifelines: Kate's Story (30 page)

Socrates’
pen stood empty.

Where
were they?

She
circled the house again, driven by the fear and hatred in Alain’s eyes. She’d
been so certain he loved her, and she’d adored him with desperation. He’d
turned everything to a lie, and Jennifer didn’t know where to go, what to do.
She ended at her car, fell into the open door, shoved her key into the
ignition, but didn’t start the engine. She cried then, because she had nowhere
to go. No one in the world gave a damn about her. No one to hold her, tell her
everything will be all right. Oh, God, Mom!

She
dropped her head onto her arms and sobbed over the steering wheel. Why didn’t
someone come to help her? If Dad were here, he’d say ... he’d say ...

Jennifer
Gwendolyn Taylor, what good do you imagine tears will do? Dry up and fix the
problem.

His
voice didn’t dry her tears, but now she heard her own sobs as a plea for
someone to come and kiss her better. If her mother heard, she would feel guilty
that she hadn’t been here when Jennifer needed her.

The
thought silenced her as her father’s remembered voice could not, and she
climbed back out of the car. Her mother’s car in the drive testified that Kate
hadn’t gone far. She’d taken the dog with her, probably for a walk, and would
return soon. Despite the storm of tears Jennifer had sent onto the Sunday
evening air, she did not want her mother to find her in tears.

What
if Kate turned up with someone else? Grandmother, for instance? The thought of
her grandma witnessing Jennifer’s wimpy tears sent her rushing to the front
door. She needed a bathroom, cold water on her cheeks. She needed to make
herself presentable to whoever might be walking with her mother.

Jennifer
hated the thought of facing anyone but her mother; then, abruptly, she hated
even the thought of facing Kate. She would get inside, shower away the signs of
distress and hide in her bedroom. Of course, Kate would know Jennifer had come
home as soon as she spotted the Mercedes, but if she found her in bed asleep ...

She
found the spare key under the barbecue where it had lived as long as Jennifer
could remember. It jammed in the lock when she tried to open the door, as if to
tell her that even the house didn’t welcome her. She gritted her teeth and
fought the immovable lock until she remembered that the door swelled each
spring, and refused to unlock unless the supplicant lifted the handle while
turning the key.

Given
the correct formula, the lock released and the door swung open.

She
stepped inside and felt instantly reassured. Nothing had changed. The living
room welcomed her, two easy chairs still bracketed the fireplace, and the sofa
she’d lounged on as a teenager waited in its customary place. She moved at
once, not to the sofa, but to the easy chair where her father sat when he
wasn’t working on his book.

Dad’s
book.

For
the first time since her father’s death, she wondered urgently what had
happened to his book about the history of Madrona Bay. Kate had made that
ridiculous statement at the funeral, promising to finish the book. But it
wasn’t Kate’s book; she’d never really understood its importance—not the way
Jennifer and her father had. He’d loved the twists and turns of Northwest
history, agonized over historical veracity. How often had she lounged on the
sofa with her homework while her father talked about the responsibility of the
historian to be true to the facts, while molding historical people into an
irresistible tale. Her mother’s murmured suggestions always seemed to Jennifer
to originate from her bias as a therapist.

But
David, why did Jason McAllister devote his life to the destruction of Brendon
Simons? No matter how imperfectly they understand their own behavior, people
act for a reason. You need to show McAllister’s motivation, or no one will
believe your version of history.

Jennifer
had seen her father’s irritation at her mother’s demand that history’s players
be motivated, while Kate seemed oblivious to his reaction. Or had she known how
criticism unsettled him, but offered it anyway? How could her father be so
angry with her mother his eyes flashed active dislike, yet at other times he stared
at her with tender love?

She
tried to remember Alain’s love, his tender eyes, but Wendy haunted her. The way
Wendy Trudeau’s steps had grown unsteady after Jennifer blasted her life into
shit, yet Jennifer had fooled herself that the other woman’s apparent calmness
meant she felt nothing.

Wendy’s
eyes would haunt her forever.

She
launched herself out of her father’s chair and fumbled in the cabinet under the
open log stairway. The booze in Dad’s whiskey decanter was probably older than
Methuselah, because Kate hated the taste of alcohol.

Mom?
Where are you?

The
whiskey burned her throat.

Once,
when she was a restless twelve-year-old with a persistent influenza fever,
she’d tiptoed down the stairs late at night. She’d stopped on the third step
from the top, and stared down into the living room. Her father sat right there,
in his chair, holding her mother in his lap. At first Jennifer couldn’t make
sense of their tangled bodies. She saw the back of her father’s head, and his
hand tangled in his own hair. But it wasn’t his hand.

She’d
called their names, probably whining with her misery. There’d been a moment
when she thought they didn’t hear, then they’d separated into recognizable
mother and father. Dad had carried her to bed, and Mom brought apple juice and
comfort.

Now
the memory shifted, and she understood she’d been the furthest thing from their
minds. Her mother’s hand had been restless in her father’s hair. Her sprawled
legs had emerged from his lap wantonly abandoned. His hands ... one behind her
back, but memory reconstructed their tangle of bodies and Jennifer understood
his other hand must have been intimately ... right there ... and the sounds.
Jennifer had forgotten the sounds.

God.

She
launched herself out of the living room and through the corridor to the
kitchen. Her parents had been making out in the living room. If Jennifer had
interrupted them a moment later, her mother would have had an orgasm right
there in the living room. It might not have been the first time either

Of
course it wouldn’t be the first time. Grow up, Jennifer. Your parents had sex.
Is it such a shock to know they enjoyed it?

The
memory had suddenly grown too much like the sensual desperation of her
couplings with Alain. She didn’t know how to face her mother, knowing they
shared ... lust? Womanhood?

Damn
you, Jennifer. You’ve no business wallowing in infantile resentments of your
parents’ sexuality, when Wendy lies in a coma because of your lies.
Wendy could
be dead by now, and Jennifer would always know why Alain’s wife lost her
illusions and her husband and her life.

She
should call the hospital. She needed to know.

First,
she needed another drink. She poured the glass higher this time, drank the
firewater like medicine. Dizziness attacked as she drained the last of it,
coughing at the heat in her throat. Then the coughs grew gut-deep and
threatened to eject the booze from her stomach in a bitter ejaculate of bile
and alcohol.

She
ran to the kitchen and turned on the tap, drinking cold water from the stream.
The water simmered in her stomach, but it stayed down with the alcohol. Mom
would be home soon. She would call the hospital, so that Jennifer didn’t need
to ask the question, or listen for the answer. Jennifer could sit on the sofa
with a blanket around her, because Kate would cover her and hug her. She would
bring soup to comfort, then she’d tell Jennifer to sleep.

Kate
would make any calls that needed to be made.

Oh,
God, Alain ...

Too
much whiskey. If she didn’t eat, she’d be sick.

She
opened the fridge and tried to focus on food. The bowl covered with plastic
looked like stew. A bottle of soy milk stood in the door rack, but Dad hated
soy milk.

Eggs.
Yogurt. Nothing worth eating. Better to wait until her mother got home. She
would be back soon, and she would find something good for Jennifer. Kate always
knew exactly what Jennifer needed.

Jennifer
walked back to the living room. Dad wasn’t here, but his whiskey decanter stood
at the edge of the coffee table. Odd, because he always put it away after
pouring a drink. An empty glass, too. Hadn’t he poured his nightly glass yet?

Jennifer
used to ask to taste it, and once he gave her one small taste. Kate had said
don’t, but Jennifer said just a small taste, and David poured it, but she said
yuck, it’s awful.

She
stood in front of the coffee table and carefully poured amber liquid from the
decanter to the glass. She tried to get exactly the amount Dad poured, about an
inch. Silly, though, to pour one inch, then another when the first was gone.
Why not pour two in the first place?

Then
the whiskey sloshed over the edge of the glass, and Jennifer stared at the
mess. Inefficient to use a glass at all. She picked up the crystal decanter. It
fit her hand perfectly. She poured the liquid into her throat, surprised when
it didn’t burn. She could drink it down just like Coca Cola ... things go better
with Coke.

Alain
should be here. He’d promised, hadn’t he? Promised to love forever and ever.
Yes ... promised.

Somehow,
Jennifer found herself at the bottom of the stairs. Upstairs, her bed, too far.
She gripped the decanter and stumbled on the edge of the braided rug. Rug ... her
father bought it for Christmas ... which year? When Jennifer turned thirteen?
Fourteen?

Walls
... floor shifted like a house of horrors. World spun around and around ... don’t
know ... better get ... you’re drunk ... stupid drunk. Don’t drop Dad’s decanter. If
it breaks, he’d be mad. Very bad girl. Jennifer. Get to your room ... up ... up the
stairs. Don’t break decanter. Cupboard. Yes.

Dizzy
feels so good. Doesn’t hurt, dizzy ... right down here. Just sleep right here and
everything will be all right. Don’t worry, Jennifer, everything will be fine ...

The
dark woke her, black without relief, no sound or color. She rolled to her side,
but blindness throbbed behind her forehead. She turned her attention to the
pain and it grew to consume her head, her neck, and her shoulders.

When
she sank back, the sensation slowly shrank to a sharp injury behind her eyes.
Still blind. She closed her eyes and the world grew red and filled with black
shapes, the territory of nightmares. She lay on something marginally softer
than bare floor. Her hands moved ... carpet. She hadn’t lost her sense of touch,
but why was she flat on her back on an unknown carpet?

She’d
come home. Mother’s car outside in the drive ... no Kate, no Socrates. She’d
paced the house, sat in the living room ... drank her father’s whiskey. Passed
out. She struggled to a sitting position, legs straight in front of her on the
floor. Her head screamed ... oh, her head!

Drunk.
She’d swilled back so much whiskey she was blind drunk.

She
could see shapes in the dark now. A bed ... her parents’ bed. Drapes closed;
that’s why she’d gone blind. In the spring, her mother closed the drapes
against the brilliant morning sun.

Jennifer
managed to stand and stumble to the window. She pulled the familiar drawstring
and the vertical blinds chattered out of the way. Moonlight, trees but no
colors. No streetlights, because this was Taylor Road, not Seattle. She’d
stolen her father’s whiskey and passed out on her parents’ bedroom floor. The
wall felt cool under her hand.

She
winced before she threw the light switch. She shielded her eyes from painful
light and staggered into the bathroom. Another brutal light. Medicine cabinet;
the first bottle she grabbed was an old prescription for her father. Dad’s
abscessed tooth had upset the household for two days before he called the
dentist for an emergency visit.

Two
pills left. Gratefully, she tipped one out and swallowed it with water. She
brushed her teeth then, using her own toothbrush, still in the little glass
they’d used for toothpaste and toothbrushes ever since Jennifer could remember.
In the mirror, she looked awful, a red-eyed drunk in her parents’ bathroom. She
needed a shower, and gallons of coffee.

In
the shower, the hot pounding water soothed her headache. Afterwards, clean and
dry, she wrapped herself in her mother’s terry bathrobe and padded barefoot
into the kitchen to make coffee. She would take her coffee into her father’s
study, where no disturbing memories of parents could turn sexual on her. Her
father’s study would be reassuringly academic and trustworthy. How often had
she sat on the love seat by the window and read a book, permitted in David’s
sanctum so long as she didn’t speak? She could picture her father now, his lips
pressed together in concentration as he tapped on the computer keys. Sometimes,
when he left her alone, she walked along his bookcase and touched the books
with her hands, felt their rightness. When she was small, her father had
ordered her never to touch those tomes of history. Later, as a teenager, she’d
learned to share his interest in history. Now she was a woman and, once she had
her coffee, she would walk along the shelves of his precious books, and she
would select his favorite.

It
bothered her not to know his favorite, but she would know once she walked along
the bookcases and touched the spines with her hands. She would find the one
with the greatest wear, and sit with it on the love seat ...

No,
she would sit in his big leather chair in front of the computer, and she would
open the book, and she’d feel safe and the world would be simple for just a
little while again.

She
drank the first sip of her coffee standing in the kitchen. Her headache had
faded, obeying the drug in her bloodstream. Where was her mother? The kitchen
clock said four in the morning, and Kate’s car stood outside on the drive.
Socrates ... could Socrates have been hurt?