Tears dripped down her cheeks when she placed her gift, a complete desk set and a card, on the corner of the blanket. She sat down squaw fashion. Her fingers itched to turn on the phonograph to play the birthday song. She wiped her eyes, feeling suddenly silly and childish. Were they right? Was she wrong?
“I don’t seem to belong here anymore, Daddy,” she murmured. “Dr. Tennison says I’m holding on too tight. He thinks I’m not stable, that I can’t handle life without you in the background. He’s wrong. I can. I know you’re going to come home. I know it. When you know something, feel it like I do, you can’t buckle under and say what they want you to say. Mom’s right, though, ten years is a very long time. Sometimes I feel myself almost giving up, and then I remember your promise.
“I’ve tried so hard to be the kind of daughter who will make you proud when you do come home. I make the honor roll each period. I’m a straight A student. I keep my room neat and tidy because I know how neat you like things. I don’t know what else to do anymore except to pray and hope. That will never change.
“Mom is ... Mom has a date this evening. She said it’s not a real date, just a friendship thing. She’s never really lied to us before. This is ... I think this is the first step for both Mom and Ellie in letting go. That’s what Dr. Tennison calls it, letting go. I’m not ready to do that, Dad, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.
“I can’t wait to leave here, to be on my own. I think I feel like you did when you left. You told me it was going to be a big wonderful adventure and something you dreamed of all your life. That’s how I feel. So, Dad,” she said, turning on the phonograph, “happy birthday.”
Betsy drank her root beer in two gulps. She blew out the ten candles she’d lighted, licked at the frosting with her finger. When the song was finished, she bundled up the record player, the gift, and the blanket and glass, and carried them into the house. She threw the cake in the trash. “I won’t forget,” she whispered.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Kate wondered if it was possible for the mirror to lie. She leaned closer to stare at herself with clinical interest. Lately she hadn’t paid much attention to her looks, preferring simply to wash her face, cream it, and leave it alone. It was Ellie, who adored makeup, who’d taught her how to enhance her best features. Now she applied eye shadow, dabbed at the tips of her thick lashes, and rubbed a dot of rouge on her cheekbones. She finished with a glistening coral lipstick that somehow, mysteriously, Ellie said, made her eyes sparkle. She wore earrings, too, tiny pearl drops that seemed to bring a warm glow to her cheeks, a glow that had nothing to do with the rouge.
A month ago she’d gotten a fashionable haircut and had preened when the beautician, a man, said, “Do you have any idea how many women would kill for curly hair like yours?” Then he’d gone on to say she looked like a woman of the eighties, whatever that meant.
She was twirling under a spritz of cologne when Betsy entered the room. “Mom, I’m sorry. I don’t know what made me carry on like that. I won’t do it again. Is that the perfume Ellie and I gave you for Christmas?”
“No, this is something I picked up at Conrad’s last month. They were giving out samples and I decided to buy a bottle. I like to alternate.” She didn’t want to tell Betsy that the scent the girls had bought her reminded her of the vanilla and lemon she used to douse herself with. For one second her husband’s face flashed before her.
“Do you like it, Betsy?”
“I can’t get over how you look,” Betsy said, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Is that a new dress you’re wearing?”
“As a matter of fact it is. I’m going to wear it to the company dinner next week. The salesgirl said it looked good on me. Do you think so, honey?” Kate asked anxiously.
Again Betsy avoided answering directly. “If this is just a dinner with a friend, why don’t you wear your seersucker suit and that white piqué blouse? I think you have too much perfume on, too. You never used to dress this way.”
“What way is that?”
“Sexy. You look sexy,” Betsy mumbled.
“You sure do,” Ellie chirped from the open doorway. She whistled softly. “If Charlie Clark is just a friend, maybe he’ll introduce you to someone who . . . you know, will be more than a friend.”
“You are absolutely disgusting, Ellie,” Betsy snapped. “Mother is married. Married women don’t fool around.”
“Get off your high horse, Betsy. I was teasing Mom. But you never know. What are you going to do if he wants to kiss you good night? You have my permission,” Ellie said, sticking her tongue out at her sister.
“You really do condone this, don’t you?” Betsy spat at her sister.
“Can’t you send her away to some special school where they have kids just like her, Mom?” Ellie said. “She’s not real. She’s like a stupid cop. She monitors all of us, and you know what? She writes it all down so she can tell Daddy if he ever comes home.”
“You sneak, you read my diary. You miserable little sneak!” Betsy shrilled.
“Get off it, sister dear, I did no such thing. Is it my fault you talk in your sleep? You gonna blame that on me, too? Listen, I can’t wait to get out of that room and into one of my own. Why don’t you go weed your flowers or plant yourself six feet down. You’d make wonderful fertilizer.” Ellie turned to her mother. “Don’t let her make you feel guilty, Mom. She thrives on that because she’s stupid. You look real pretty, and Charlie Clark, whoever he is, is one lucky guy to be taking you to dinner. Be home by twelve,” she trilled, to her sister’s horror.
“Twelve! If you’re leaving at six . . .” Betsy trailed off. Her eyes flashed dangerously.
Kate’s heart fluttered. She had to do something about this child of hers. Lord, where had she gone wrong? “Betsy, you have to stop taking everything so seriously. Ellie needles you and you fall for it every single time. Sweetheart, I’m sorry about today, but I just don’t want to be depressed anymore. I want sunshine in my life. I don’t want to upset you, Betsy, but I must get on with my life. I will always love your father, that will never change. But we can’t live in the past, it simply isn’t healthy.”
“He is coming back, Mother,” Betsy said quietly.
“I pray that he does, but until I see him walk through the door, I can’t live my life on hope. I plan to involve myself in several groups and organizations, make friends and go out more. I’m even thinking about starting my own business. And I could use a little more support from you.”
“I know Dad is coming back. What’s he going to think when he finds out how you’ve changed? When he sees the way Ellie decks herself out and the way she’s chasing boys? What is he going to think?”
Kate straightened her shoulders. “I don’t know what he would think, and right now I don’t care. When and if he appears we’ll deal with it, but not before.”
“You’re not the same anymore,” Betsy said coldly.
“No, I guess I’m not, but I would like you to think about something. If your father does come back, he’s not going to be the same man you remember. He’ll be changed, too. You’ve changed, so has Ellie. You’re seventeen, ready for college. He has no idea what you’re like now. If he’s alive, he’s thinking of you and Ellie as his little girls. Please, don’t keep blinding yourself to facts.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Betsy snapped.
Kate sighed. She felt like taking off her clothes and crawling into bed. Betsy always managed to make her feel ashamed and guilty. “If I did have the answers to everything, I’d damn well package them and sell them at a discount. Every time I make advances in my life, you somehow try to make me slide backward. I wish . . .”
Betsy’s eyes flashed. “What, Mother? That it was time for me to leave for college?”
God in heaven, that’s exactly what she was thinking. “I don’t care to discuss this anymore, Betsy. And the next time we’re in each other’s company, I damn well better hear a change in your voice and see a smile on your
face or you won’t be going away to school, you’ll be attending the community college. You think about that this evening. You’re dismissed.”
Alone, Kate sank to the edge of the bed. She’d handled Betsy all wrong. Why was Ellie so ... so normal, and Betsy so ... Patrick, where the hell are you? Why am I being forced to go through this? She’s just like you. I don’t know what to do for her, what to say to her. We go over the same things, day after day and we manage to slide backward each time. I hate to say this, but I don’t like our daughter very much these days. She was right, I can’t wait till she leaves for school. I’m sorry, Patrick, that I’m not doing a better job. I try so hard. This dinner tonight means nothing, I’m not being disloyal. I’m not cheating on you. Our daughter called me a tramp. Oh, Patrick, where are you?
“Mom, your . . . friend is here. Oooooh, he’s a ... hunk,” Ellie hissed from the doorway. “He told me to call him Charlie.” She rolled her eyes and gave a thumb’s-up salute. Kate laughed. “Remember, in by midnight, and don’t do any of those awful things you tell me not to do when I go out. C’mon, get going!” She hugged her, a silly smile on her face.
Kate laughed. “Okay, okay!” Her eyes thanked her daughter.
When the front door had closed behind her mother, Ellie stalked down the hall to the bedroom she shared with her sister. She bounded into the room and grabbed hold of Betsy’s hair. “You are a miserable, stinking bitch and I hate your stinking guts. You take all the life out of Mom. You just damn well suck it right out of her. Would it have killed you to be nice to her, to have gone downstairs to meet that guy? You know what?” she said, yanking at Betsy’s curly hair. “I hope Dad does come back, because I’m going to tell him what you’ve done to this family. God, I can’t wait till you leave. Promise me you won’t come back for the holidays.” She gave her sister’s hair another vicious yank. “Della said to tell you dinner is ready. I for one hope you choke on your food.” She stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Betsy stared at the closed door, her expression blank. From under her pillow she withdrew her diary and a banana. She dated the pages and wrote, “Happy Birthday, Daddy.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Comrade.” The single word speared through Patrick’s body. He really was in Russia. How he’d gotten here, he had no idea. He remembered being shoved onto a plane, remembered the prick of a needle. And now this. This, he decided a moment later, was worse than being in Vietnam. He’d always hated the cold.
They were speaking to him in English. He responded by giving his name, rank, and serial number. Then he said, “The rules of the Geneva—”
He was on the floor, clutching his ribs and screaming in agony. He thought about punctured lungs, shattered spleens, before he blacked out. When he came to, he felt something hanging over his eyes. Tentatively he reached up and felt a needle-thin icicle hanging from his eyebrow. He started to shake with pain and cold, welcomed the sight of the needle and the oblivion it would bring. They weren’t ready for the needle yet; first they would torment and torture him. His battered ribs were just a teaser.
He retreated to a warmer, safer place, a place where he was free to do whatever he wanted, and what he wanted to do this very minute was climb into an airplane and fly into the heavens.
“I have enough,” he said happily. “Forty dollars, enough for both of us for an hour. I know it’s just a crop duster, but it has wings, and the pilot said he’d let me take the controls. If you don’t want to go, Kate, I can fly for two hours.”
“Oh, Patrick, you saved so long for this, you go. I’ll stay here and watch. I brought a book with me to read. I’ll wave to you when you get up in the air.”
He didn’t mean for his voice to sound so relieved when he said, “Are you sure? This was supposed to be our day. We talked about it for months. Are you just being nice?”
“Sure I’m being nice.” Kate giggled. “You’ll have two whole hours, Patrick. I brought three dollars with me. After you land, we can go get some hamburgers and french fries and you can tell me all about it, how it felt. I’ll like that better. Besides, I might get sick up high. Remember everything so you can tell me about it.”
Later, when they were snug in a booth in the Linden soda parlor, he said, “It was everything I thought it would be.”
“Did you feel like a bird? Weren’t you afraid?” Kate asked.
“Heck no, I wasn’t afraid. I felt better than a bird. You know what, Kate? I felt like God. Just like God. Listen, we have to hurry or my father will beat the be-jesus out of me. If either one of our parents ever finds out we rode our bikes this far, we’ll never be allowed to leave the house again.”
He pedaled faster, right down to the swimming hole, where it was warm and sunny; a paper sack full of egg salad sandwiches for him and the guys. Kate might show up, so he’d brought one for her, too. All his buddies knew Kate was his girl. Well, sort of his girl. Bill Duke had a girl, too, and so did Buck Inhabinet.
He was on his bike again, pedaling and finishing the last of his egg salad sandwich, the best sandwich he’d ever eaten. He’d put little seeds in it, the ones his mother used to use. It put zip into the egg salad. He tossed away the wax paper, braked his bike, and pedaled backward to pick up the paper and stuff it into his pocket.
Kate was ahead of him; he could see her saddle shoes sparkling in the sun. Bill and Buck were bringing up the rear.
Without knowing how he got there, he was suddenly at the senior prom, awkwardly trying to lead Kate on the dance floor.
“Oooooh, isn’t the gym beautiful, Patrick?”
“Sure is. Boy, do you smell good. You smell like those flowers in front of your house.”
Kate giggled. “That’s because I stuck some of them down my ... bra.”
“Will you let me look later?”
“No!”
He groaned. “Come on, Kate, you let me feel you sometimes.”
“Feeling is different than looking. The answer is no, Patrick.”
“Let’s get some soda pop and go outside. Bob has some cigarettes. We’re all going to smoke.”
“Well, I’m not. You shouldn’t, either.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t do what everyone else does. I like you because you aren’t a copycat. You’re special.”
“What makes me special?”
“You’re going to be a pilot someday. That makes you special. You’re real smart, the smartest boy in the whole school. In the yearbook they said you would be the most successful. I believe that.”
He preened. “They said that because it’s true. I’m going to fly all over the world, and when I come home, you’ll meet me at the door and have a big chocolate cake waiting in the middle of the table. Lots and lots of frosting. You’ll always wait for me, won’t you, Kate?”
“That’s a silly question. Of course I’ll wait for you. I’m going to be the best wife and mother in the whole world.”
“It’s important to be the best. Mothers and wives don’t have to be the best. Just men. You know what I mean.”
He was pedaling again, faster than ever. He wanted to be the first to arrive at O’Malley’s barn for the last hayride of the season. His plan was to hide in the straw in the wagon and whoop and shout when the others arrived to wonder where he was. He wasn’t going to be a kid anymore after tonight. He propped up his bike out of sight and headed for the wagon. The fresh straw felt warm and prickly and smelled earthy. He inhaled deeply, lay down in the straw, and thought about Kate.
Kate was warm and soft and smelled good. Kate smiled all the time, did what he wanted when he wanted. Except she wouldn’t have sex with him.
Kate was part of his life, would always be part of his life. She was his. Everyone said so. For a moment he wondered what would happen if he told the guys he wanted to give her back. Their eyes would bug out of their heads. You didn’t give someone like Kate back. And who would he give her back to, Din Radson? No, Kate was his forever and ever. They were going t
o get married someday and have lots of little Kates and Patricks.
He looked back over his shoulder and then at the sterile corridor he was standing in. He looked around wildly, expecting to see Bill and Buck. Kate, where was Kate? He had to find Kate, ask her what was going on. He shivered. He’d never been so cold in his life.
“Captain Starr, is this your daughter?” He was shaking, shivering, unable to get warm. He could barely see the paper his interrogator was holding up in front of him. He couldn’t even nod, his neck was too cold to move. He was numb. Where was he?
Then he remembered.
The voice sounded as cold as he felt. He listened to the words, tried to make sense of them.
“She’s dead. Your family was killed in an auto crash. You have no family anymore. You are going to live and die here. You will never return to your home, so you might as well tell us what we want to know.”
Kate had promised she would always wait for him. Kate never broke a promise. They were trying to wear him down. How damn stupid they were. Didn’t they know all they had to do was give him one of their needles and he’d spill his guts? He muttered his name, rank, and his serial number.
The blow caught him over the left ear. He felt something pop inside his head. “Fuck you!”
“I hate it when you swear like that, Patrick,” Kate said. “Now, are we going to the park or not? It’s such a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. I packed some sandwiches. . . .”
CHAPTER NINE
The months whizzed by, and before Kate knew it, it was time for Betsy to leave for college. Her two trunks had been sent ahead the week before, and all that was left to do now was carry her two large suitcases to the car and drive her to the airport. The good-byes were going to be awful, Kate thought. I’m going to cry like a ninny, the way I did the day I took her to kindergarten.
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