Woman in Blue

by Eileen Goudge

  Suppose Kerrie Ann had been kidnapped … or worse? What if at this very moment she was lying in a ditch somewhere with her throat cut? A fresh surge of panic caused Lindsay’s chest to constrict, and she had to pause for a moment to catch her breath. Please, God …

  They scoured the area. They knocked on doors. They walked up and down streets, calling out Kerrie Ann’s name until they were hoarse. But as twilight gave way to nighttime with still no sign of her, Lindsay’s panic crept over into despair. The night had become a vast ocean that seemed to have swallowed up her sister, and she felt as if she were drowning in it, too.

  “You go wake your mama. I’ll call the police.” Miss Honi made no pretense of being upbeat this time. Lindsay could see that she was scared, too.

  They were heading back across the parking lot when Lindsay caught sight of a black Labrador retriever in the back of a dusty blue pickup parked in front of one of the units. As they neared, the dog let out a yip and began to wag its tail. Some instinct drew Lindsay over to investigate. A wet tongue lashed at her outstretched hand, emboldening her to climb up onto the running board. She peered into the bed, and there, curled asleep on a dirty scrap of blanket, was Kerrie Ann.

  Lindsay felt a rush of relief so intense that the world went a little gray for an instant.

  Then Miss Honi spotted Kerrie Ann, too, and let out a cry. A moment later she was holding her “baby girl” tightly, tears running down her cheeks, ruining her makeup, while Kerrie Ann blinked up at her sleepily, no doubt wondering what all the commotion was about. “I was playing with the doggie. It’s a nice doggie,” she said simply when asked what she’d been doing out here all alone. It was easy to figure out what had happened. She hadn’t had her nap that day, because Miss Honi had taken her to the doctor for her checkup, so she’d grown sleepy and decided to curl up.

  “Didn’t you hear us calling you?” Lindsay cried in exasperation.

  Kerrie Ann shook her head, and Lindsay knew she was telling the truth. Whether she’d been born that way or had merely learned to adapt to Crystal’s comings and goings at odd hours, Kerrie Ann could sleep through anything. It wasn’t uncommon for Lindsay to wake up in the middle of the night and find that her sister had rolled off the couch onto the floor without waking up.

  She knew she should scold her sister for going off like that, but she was so relieved to see her that she didn’t have the heart. Instead they all trooped back to Miss Honi’s, where they polished off the leftover macaroni and cheese from the night before, along with a platter of sausages Miss Honi fried up. When Kerrie Ann had had her fill, she crawled into Miss Honi’s lap in the maroon plush recliner. “Bob Barker,” she announced in her clear, bell-like voice. The Price Is Right was her favorite TV show, and it had just come on. She fell asleep again in the middle of it, oblivious to the scare she’d given them.

  Upstairs, Crystal slept through it all, oblivious as well.

  A few weeks later, when Lindsay arrived at Miss Honi’s after school one day to retrieve Kerrie Ann, there was a strange woman seated on the sofa. “Sugar, this is Mrs. Harmon,” Miss Honi introduced her. She sounded upset. “She’d like a word with you.”

  The woman, short and thin-lipped with bobbed gray hair, explained that she was with Children’s Services. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your mother’s been placed in custody,” she informed Lindsay gently. “I don’t know for how long—the charges are pretty serious.” Later Lindsay would learn that Crystal had been arrested for selling cocaine to an undercover cop. “But I don’t want you to worry. It’s my job to make sure you and your sister are well looked after until … well, for the time being. We have good homes lined up for you both.”

  Lindsay struggled to absorb what the woman was telling her. Crystal in jail? Homes for her and Kerrie Ann? Why would they need homes when they already had one? Her mind was reeling, but she squared her shoulders and, with all the courage she could muster, looked Mrs. Harmon straight in the eye and said politely but firmly, “We’re fine, thank you. We don’t need anyone’s help.” She glanced toward Miss Honi, who gave her an encouraging nod.

  “I’m afraid it’s not up to you. Or me. It’s the law,” Mrs. Harmon said regretfully. “Now, why don’t we go on upstairs and get your things?” She stood up, no doubt expecting Lindsay and her sister to follow.

  But Miss Honi had other ideas. “They ain’t going nowhere. I can look after ’em myself,” she declared. Her hand dropped protectively onto Lindsay’s shoulder. “Why, they practically live here as it is.”

  Mrs. Harmon cast her a dubious look. “Are you a relative?”

  Miss Honi shook her head but didn’t back down. “It don’t make no difference. I couldn’t love these girls any more’n if they was my own flesh and blood. They’ll be just fine here with me until their mama comes home. Ain’t that right, sugar?” she said, smiling down at Lindsay.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s out of the question. We have rules. You have to be licensed.” Mrs. Harmon’s tone grew brisk. “Please, Miss, ah, Love, don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”

  “There ain’t nobody more fit to care for these girls than me,” Miss Honi insisted, digging in her heels. “So if it’s a matter of filling out some form, just show me where to sign.”

  “It’s not as simple as that. For one thing, where would they sleep?” Mrs. Harmon glanced pointedly around the shabby two-room kitchen unit, identical to the one Lindsay and Kerrie Ann lived in upstairs except for the homey touches Miss Honi had added, like the plush recliner and lace doilies on every surface and the glass case in which her angels were displayed, angels of all shapes and sizes that she’d collected through the years, one of which, a delicate ceramic figure with gold-tipped wings, was presently cupped in the palm of Kerrie Ann’s small hand as she sat cross-legged on the carpet, whispering secrets in its ear, seemingly unaware of what was going on.

  “I’ll make room,” said Miss Honi.

  Mrs. Harmon remained firm. “Even if you could, how would you feed and clothe them when—if I may be frank, Miss Love—it looks as if you’re barely subsisting yourself?”

  Miss Honi’s cheeks grew red. “We’d manage. It don’t take money to love a child.”

  In the end there was nothing to be done about it. The law was the law.

  “Nooooooo!” Kerrie Ann wailed when Mrs. Harmon took her by the hand and began tugging her toward the door. She tore loose and darted over to Miss Honi, clinging to her. “I want to stay with you!”

  Lindsay noticed that in all the upset, her little sister had accidentally trampled the angel she’d been playing with; it lay in pieces on the carpet, its head crushed, its wings severed from its body. In the years to come Lindsay couldn’t think about her sister without seeing in her mind that poor, ruined angel.

  But what would haunt her most would be the memory of Kerrie Ann crying out to her when it was time for them to go their separate ways—Lindsay to a foster home in Sparks and Kerrie Ann to one in another part of the state. A three-year-old girl in dirty pink terry shorts and a My Little Pony T-shirt, her face a knot of fear and confusion, her small body straining furiously against the adult arms holding her in check. Lindsay would never forget, either, the panic in her sister’s voice as she begged her big sister not to let them take her.

  It was the last she would see of that little girl.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Los Angeles, California; present day

  “You get off on pawing through ladies’ underwear?” Kerrie Ann sniped.

  The airport security guard glanced sharply up at her before resuming his search of her carry-on bag. She immediately regretted shooting off her mouth. Why go looking for trouble when it was already on your ass like an APB on a stolen car? Here at LAX, of all places. Since 9/11, you couldn’t look crosswise at an airport official without being hauled off and strip-searched. And she was just the kind of person they would do that to. The kind likely to have a warrant out for her arrest or rock stashed in
the lining of her suitcase. The only thing she wasn’t likely to be suspected of was being a terrorist, but only because she was white.

  Not just white but white-white. The kind of white that looked as if it never saw the sun because it was too busy soaking up the fluorescent lighting in some factory. She could almost hear the guard thinking, White trash. And who was she to deny it? Didn’t she deserve to be looked down upon, to be the only one in line to have her bag searched for no apparent reason? It wasn’t just that she looked the part, with her tattoo that snaked up one arm, pink streaks in her reddish-blond hair, and multiple piercings that had been enough to set off the metal detector. She was a world-class fuckup. She’d fucked up so royally, she’d had her kid taken away.

  An invisible fist clenched about her heart at the thought. Annabella, Bella for short. Her six-year-old daughter, who wasn’t hers anymore, at least not according to the state of California. Not until she could demonstrate that she was a fit parent. Seven whole months, and her only contact in all that time the twice-monthly visits supervised by Bella’s caseworker. And with her daughter in a foster home near San Luis Obispo, a three-hour drive each way, the trip alone was an exercise in frustration. Twice, on her way to visit Bella, the engine of her geriatric Ford Falcon had overheated, and once she’d blown a tire, which had eaten away at even those few allotted hours.

  It won’t be this way forever. She clung to that belief as if to a life preserver.

  “All right, you’re good to go.” The guard, a swarthy middle-aged man, his cheeks pitted with old acne scars, zipped up her canvas carryall. But before she could snatch it off the table, he leaned in so they were eye to eye and said in a low, warning voice, “One word of advice, miss. Don’t get cute. You get cute with us, you could find yourself in a whole lot of trouble. Got it?”

  Kerrie Ann bit back a sharp retort. The dude didn’t have anything on her, but he could still fuck with her, and she didn’t want to miss her flight. She shot him a dirty look instead, waiting until she was out of earshot to mutter a few choice words under her breath.

  The delay had put her a few crucial minutes behind schedule, and when she heard the boarding call for Flight 302 to San Francisco, she broke into a run. Why was everything so frigging hard all the time? If she didn’t live all the way out in Simi Valley, if her friend Cammie hadn’t gotten a ticket driving her to the airport, if she hadn’t been singled out at the security check, she might have been one of those people leisurely strolling to their gate, a Starbucks coffee in hand. Instead she was weaving her way down the concourse like OJ’s white Bronco with the cops in pursuit.

  The story of her life. Wasn’t she forever running behind? A busted fan belt or blown sparkplug away from the breakdown lane at all times? At least once a week, she was late getting to work, delayed by car trouble, an appointment with her Legal Aid attorney, or a stop at the clinic where she submitted her weekly urine sample. And while Danny, her boss, wasn’t unsympathetic—one of the advantages of working for someone in the program—she knew he was getting fed up with her excuses. She could hardly blame him, but what more could she do when she was already busting her ass just to stay afloat?

  Would it be any different with the sister she was on her way to meet for the first time? Kerrie Ann had no idea what to expect when she arrived in Blue Moon Bay, and the pit in her stomach yawned at the thought. She hadn’t even known about Lindsay until her attorney, Abel Touissant, had remarked the other day as they were settling into the booth at Denny’s that was his ad hoc office until he could afford a real one. “You didn’t tell me you have a sister.”

  Kerrie Ann stared at him, dumbfounded. “I do?”

  “According to the state of Nevada. One Lindsay Margaret McAllister.” He pulled his laptop from its carrying case, and moments later they were looking at a blurry copy of a scanned document on its screen. He’d gotten hold of her old case file from Washoe County, thinking it might prove useful in her bid to regain custody of Bella. “Says here she went into foster care the same time you did,” he went on, “only the couple who took her in must’ve adopted her because her last name was changed to Bishop in ’83.”

  Kerrie Ann peered at the computer screen, struggling to process this startling revelation. “You mean all this time I had a sister and didn’t even know it? Wow,” she muttered in an awed voice.

  Abel smiled at her. “This could be good for you.”

  Kerrie Ann didn’t know about that. Whether or not it was to her advantage remained to be seen. She slowly shook her head. “I wonder where she is now.”

  “I have an address for her, in California,” he said. “A town called Blue Moon Bay.”

  “It’s somewhere up the coast, isn’t it?”

  “Just south of San Francisco. I vacationed there once as a kid with my folks. Nice place. Not much going on, but the scenery’s awesome, and the people are friendly.” He copied the address and phone number off the computer screen onto a slip of paper and handed it to her.

  Kerrie Ann, in her present state, had no idea what she was going to do with the information, but she was glad her lawyer was taking her case seriously enough to dig up shit like that. Abel Touissant, twenty-four and fresh out of law school, might have come to her through Legal Aid, but he was as smart as any of those fat-cat lawyers with their fancy briefcases and high-rise executive suites. Better yet, he knew what it was to struggle. The eldest son of Haitian immigrants, he’d put himself through school on scholarships and by working nights and weekends. Maybe because of that, he didn’t act like he was better than she; he always treated her as he would any client instead of one merely paying what she could afford.

  “Thanks,” she said, tucking the slip of paper into her purse.

  “You should look her up.”

  “Maybe I will.” Sure, and what would she say? Hi, remember me? Your long-lost sister? If this Lindsay had wanted a relationship with her, wouldn’t she have been the one to get in touch?

  Abel’s brown eyes regarded her thoughtfully. “Seriously,” he said, a bit more forcefully this time.

  Kerrie Ann balked. “How do I know she’d even want to hear from me?”

  “You won’t know unless you look her up.”

  “And what would I say? ‘Hi there. Long time, no see. And by the way, where the fuck have you been all these years?’ Now, there’s an icebreaker for you.” As far as she was concerned, this was just another blank page in a family album that wasn’t exactly a series of Kodak moments. “I don’t even remember my mom. All I know is she died in prison. Hepatitis, I think—something drug-related.” She gave a short, dry laugh. “So I guess I come by it honestly.”

  “Your sister might be able to fill in some of the blanks.”

  Maybe, but the last thing Kerrie Ann needed in her life right now was another complication. Also, niggling at the back of her mind, was the thought What if she doesn’t want anything to do with me? Why should she? Look what a loser I turned out to be.

  Two days later a hard dose of reality from Bella’s caseworker propelled her to take action.

  “The court is acting in your daughter’s best interests. And until such time as you can demonstrate that you’re competent to care for her yourself, she stays put,” Mrs. Silvestre stated in no uncertain terms after Kerrie Ann shot off her mouth in a fit of frustration. “Be patient, Kerrie Ann,” she advised in a less officious tone, closing the file in front of her. “These things take time. A child isn’t a lost pet to simply be handed over.”

  Anger pulsed in Kerrie Ann like the vein throbbing at the base of her throat, but she resisted the urge to let loose with another curse. What purpose would it serve except to prove Mrs. Silvestre’s point? She took a deep breath and said in a controlled voice, “I don’t get it. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to. I’m staying clean. I go to meetings three times a week. I have a job and a place to live. So I don’t get why Bella can’t be with me. She’s only six. She needs her mom.” I need her, Kerrie Ann added silently.

/>   Mrs. Silvestre, a small, bosomy woman with short, layered brown hair who brought to mind a robin with ruffled feathers, smiled at her wearily but not unsympathetically. “You’ve made strides, yes,” she agreed. “But it’s going to take more than a part-time job at Toys ‘R’ Us. And what about your living situation? Has that changed?”

  “No, but I’m working on it,” she said defensively. True, her current living situation wasn’t exactly ideal—her friend Shoshanna was letting Kerrie Ann crash at her apartment until she saved enough money for a place of her own—but it was in a decent enough neighborhood, and her housemate wasn’t a druggie. Meanwhile, Kerrie Ann was setting aside as much of each week’s paycheck as she could. She walked instead of driving whenever possible and subsisted mainly on inexpensive staples like rice and beans. But what did this woman know? Did she have any idea how hard it was to save enough for first and last month’s rent and security? Or how many rentals you had to look at to find something even halfway decent and affordable?

  Clearly not, because Mrs. Silvestre was shaking her head. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to see more than willingness on your part, Kerrie Ann. Which I don’t think is unreasonable considering the state of neglect your daughter was in when …”

  Kerrie Ann tuned out the rest, not wanting to be reminded of what was still fresh in her mind. Could this woman heap any more shame on her than she already had on herself? Some days she was so filled with self-loathing that she could barely look at herself in the mirror. On those days, the only thing that kept her sane and sober was her twelve-step meetings, where she could at least derive some comfort from the shared experiences of others. Yes, she had only herself to blame. No one had put a gun to her head. But according to the Big Book, she’d been powerless in the grip of her disease. Powerless, too, where Jeremiah was concerned. Would she have gone down that road if she hadn’t wanted so desperately to be a part of his life? If she hadn’t felt that by refusing to get high with him she’d be cutting herself off from him in some way?