Lifelines: Kate's Story (8 page)

“Ah
... look, I—”

“Give
me a chance to prove I can do the job. Please.” Why
was
she thrusting
herself on him? To escape those goals? “Look, I’m sorry if I’m being pushy.”
She searched for honest words short of spilling her guts to a stranger. “I had
a bad night. Of course you don’t—”

“Do
you have a thermos for that coffee?”

K
ate
signaled the man in the cement mixer when concrete rose to the strings. Twenty
feet away, Socrates watched from a bed he’d dug in the dirt. At the other end
of the wall, a young laborer named Jim stood with hands in pockets, staring at
the rising concrete.

“Mac!”
shouted the boy, “It’s full! What should I do now?”

Kate
found a flat stick with a sharp edge and smoothed the concrete’s lumpy surface.
Then she set the bolts he—Mac—had given her, head-down in the jellied concrete.
When the concrete hardened, two-by-six planks would be set over the bolts and
fastened down to anchor the walls to the foundation.

While
the driver of the cement mixer repositioned his chute, Mac gestured for Jim to
smooth the surface of the concrete from his end. Kate worked her way to the
middle, then walked around to the north wall where the mixer waited to begin a
new pour.

At
fourteen, she’d lacked her father’s power and speed hammering nails into studs,
but she’d learned to toe a stud into place and build a wall. She’d celebrated
her fourteenth birthday in Brazil, where her father had contracted a series of
houses on harbor view properties. She remembered the Sunday they finished the
cedar siding on the second house from the end of the road. When their hammers
stopped, the evening air lifted the scent of the sea to them, and she heard
laughter and exotic music from somewhere unseen.

Her
father took her hand securely in his, and they walked out to his battered
pickup truck. They sat in the truck and stared at the almost-finished house for
maybe five minutes before he started the engine.

“If
we took a sail on the harbor,” he said, “we’d be able to see this wall.”

T
he
cement mixer departed and Mac sent his workers home. “You were a help,” he told
Kate, although his frown made her wonder if he thought he should pay her.

“I
enjoyed it.” For a few hours, she’d forgotten the emptiness at home. “Let me
know if I can help again.”

He
didn’t say
any time
. Silly to think he would, because she didn’t belong
on his job. She certainly shouldn’t feel rejected because he hadn’t invited her
for an encore.

Grow
up, Kate. You’re not a girl, aching for approval.

“What
about a cup of your coffee?” When Kate reached for the thermos, Socrates looked
at her with the same disapproval he’d given the concrete-pouring operation.
She’d brought extra cups and she poured Mac one, then herself. She felt the
pleasant sting of abrasion on her hands, overlaid by the clear knowledge that
she didn’t belong here.

He
tossed his coffee off fast.

“I’ll
be going,” she said.

He
handed her the cup. Not a man of words, but he patted Socrates with three
man-dog slaps, and the dog leaned into him.

When
Kate walked away with Socrates setting the too-slow pace, she felt Mac’s gaze
on her back. “Move it, Socrates,” she muttered. “We need to get out of here.”

Go
home, set that third goal.

A
personal relationship goal. Something to do with her mother? With Jennifer? She
felt powerless to change either relationship, but Jennifer, being younger,
should be the easier relationship to work on.

Today
was Saturday, January 12. Jennifer’s birthday.

Kate
had forgotten to send flowers.

She
began to run, but when she looked back, Socrates had plunked his rump on the
gravel road.

“You
stupid dog. Come on!”

They
returned to the house faster than Socrates wanted, slower than Kate needed.
Inside, she grabbed the phone book and flipped through the yellow pages for the
local florist’s number.

“April?
... I need flowers delivered to Seattle today. I—  ... You can’t guarantee it? Can
you give me the name and number of a Seattle florist?”

Five
minutes later Kate had exchanged her credit card number for a birthday
arrangement of delphinium, bells of Ireland, gerberas—whatever they were—and
larkspur. The florist promised delivery by two this afternoon.

Thank
God she’d remembered.

She
dialed Jennifer’s number, listened to four rings, then Jennifer’s recorded
voice. Was Jen out celebrating with a friend?

Kate
self-consciously sang the words of Happy Birthday to her daughter’s machine,
then said, “Hi, honey, it’s Mom. I called to wish you a happy birthday. I’m
sorry I missed you. Have a wonderful day.”

Today
is the first day of your new life. Do something different.

She’d
just called her daughter, pretending she’d remembered Jennifer’s birthday all
along. A deceitful telephone call didn’t qualify as something different.

What
are you avoiding, Kate?

David’s
study.

Then
that’s where you need to go.

Not
yet.

Baby
steps. First the garage. Kate grabbed a handful of plastic bags from the
pantry. She slammed the back door behind her as she went out.

Socrates.
She’d forgotten the damned dog again.

She
turned back and yanked the door open. “Are you coming?”

Bad
daughter. Bad mother. Bad dog mistress. Guilt or not, she couldn’t walk at his
pace. She burst through the side door into the garage, left the door open for
him to follow when he got around to it. Boxes everywhere. She couldn’t set up
anything here without clearing out twenty years of cast-offs.

David’s
books. Clothes. Boxes of files, marked with David’s tidy writing. Research
papers, notes. David’s old 486 computer.

She
walked to the nearest box and unfolded the interlinked flaps that held it
closed. The dishes she’d bought the year they moved into the house. Flowers
painted on stoneware. David didn’t like them, and for Christmas he bought her
pale china with delicate roses woven around the edges. Elegant.

“Recycling
depot,” she muttered. She folded the lid closed and lugged the box of cheap
dishes to the entrance. She should hire someone to haul everything to the
Salvation Army store.

Socrates
appeared at the entrance to the garage and glared at her.

“As
if I’d lost my mind,” she muttered.

Three
boxes of papers from David’s university studies, packed before she met him. She
couldn’t face them today. Last night, at the motel, she’d abandoned both
Socrates and David’s ghost. Free of the weight, she’d slept hours without
interruption. She could run away again, drive south to Bellingham and visit her
mother, ask her about the ten-thousand-dollar check.  Mom, your neighbor
called. She’s worried ... I’m worried ...

If
Jennifer were here, they could share the job, a mother-and-daughter bonding
day. Except Jen didn’t want to be around her mother, and—shit! Stop crying!

For
Christ’s sake, Kate.

Another
pile: stuff to look at later.

Jennifer’s
high school papers: math assignments, an essay about pollution in Puget Sound.
Halfway through Jen's papers, she stopped. A mother had no right to decide the
fate of her child’s possessions. 

By
the time the light in the garage turned pink with day’s end, she’d amassed a
waist-high barrier of boxes at the front of the garage. Monday, she would call
the bookstore and the recycling depot.

Only
one row of boxes left. She turned on the interior garage lights to counteract
growing shadows, felt hungry and couldn’t remember the last time she craved
food.  Just a few more boxes. The northeast corner looked like a good place to
create a pottery studio, but she couldn’t visualize it properly until she
emptied the corner.

Studio
... a good word.

She
had this sorting business down to a science now. She gave Socrates’ head a
dog-pat. She’d forgotten all about him the last couple of hours, and he’d spent
all afternoon patiently watching.

One
after another, she allocated three boxes to recycling: old towels and linen,
packed away the year Jennifer turned twelve and David hired a contractor to
paint the bedrooms and bathroom. She’d wanted to do the painting herself, but
David insisted on a professional.

Just
one more box, a big one. Inside, she found the papers and albums from high
school days. She flipped open the first album and stared at a picture of the
veterinary clinic in Anchorage, walls framed and roof half-shingled. A
sixteen-year-old Kate—her father always called her Katie—sat astride one end of
the peaked roof. Dad faced her from fifteen feet away, also astride. Katie’s
hammer was on the upswing, his idle. Who had taken the picture? Not her mother,
who claimed construction sites were unfit for women.

In
the picture, Dad wore a smile.

They’d
put the roof on in July, two carefree weeks before her accident, a month before
she was discharged from hospital and driven to the airport by her brooding
father.

She
never saw him again. Evelyn claimed Kate’s carelessness destroyed everything.
Kate hadn’t understood then and still couldn’t make sense of it. She’d lost her
father, then Michael, and now David.

She’d
come to terms with Michael—her fault, and after all these years she’d achieved
acceptance and maybe eighty percent self-forgiveness. She didn’t know when she
would find acceptance for David’s early death, but her intellect understood a
faulty heart was no one’s fault. But her father ... all these years and she still
didn’t know why her father sent his family away, and what it had to do with
teenage Katie’s industrial accident.

She’d
been left with the wreckage of her parents’ marriage, her mother’s resentment,
and her own grief for her father. And now, David’s loss. What did it matter
that she wasn’t to blame for this one? However she cut it, the result was the
same. Kate was powerless.

Socrates
shifted to his feet and whimpered.

Kate
closed the album and replaced it in the box. When she stood and walked to the
door, she realized darkness had fallen. She reached for the leash and snapped
it on Socrates collar. He followed silently as she felt her way along the
drive. Away from the garage’s light, the trees on either side emerged in black
against the dimly moonlit sky.

Socrates
whimpered.

When
Kate stopped at the edge of Taylor Road, he walked on and pulled the leash
tight. She caught up and patted his head awkwardly. A sliver of moon
transformed the gravel into a soft gray ribbon. Socrates kept walking, and this
time she matched her pace to his.

“Powerless,”
she said into the dark. “That’s got to change.”

He
shuffled a little faster. Agreement?

“If
I’d killed myself on black ice last night, it would have been suicide—or so
close  God can’t tell the difference.”

Socrates
grunted.

She’d
asked for help last night. God, get me out of this ... and she’d survived the
telephone pole and that big oak tree. So what was she going to do now? Cling to
the wreckage?

She
wanted David back.

Socrates
made a humph sound.

“Don’t
rub it in,” she muttered. “I get the point. All the goals I’ve set are either
professional or solitary. I know I need a relationship goal.”

The
dog stopped and settled his rump on the gravel.

“Rachel
Hardesty and the pottery wheel don’t address the real issue. Rachel is just
plain hard, and the wheel can keep my hands busy, but I need a personal goal.”

Socrates
grunted again.

“It’s
not fucking fair—Don’t look at me like that. So what if I said
fuck
?
I’ve lost everyone who matters, and I want to get somebody back, and shit, I’m
crying again, and we both know David won’t come back.”