She seemed surprised. “Did my dad give it to you?”
“It was posted online,” I said. The theme of the contest was “A Book That Shaped Me,” and Katherine wrote about one that took place in Afghanistan, before the Taliban, and how the main character was once at school, and then a day later—once the Taliban was in—she was no longer able to go. Katherine did a nice job of juxtaposing this situation to America, where education is free and available to all.
“Thanks for checking it out,” she said.
“What genre is your favorite?”
“Mostly historical fiction,” she said.
“Anything depressing,” Joe added, “war, poverty, the Holocaust.”
Kate smirked at her father. “True, I like reading about kids in tough situations.” She went on to tell me about a Newbery award winner she had just read, about a boy from Sudan who became a refugee after rebels ripped through his village, and another book—an MLK Literary Arts award winner—about a young girl torn from her village and forced onto a slave ship, where she was sold to a cruel master in Virginia. “I also loved another book about a girl who had cerebral palsy and couldn’t communicate, but inside she was brilliant.”
Katherine Santelli was thoughtful, articulate, and so far, not at all acting like a teenager. There was no eye rolling, no “whatevers” or “yeah rights.” Talking to her was like talking with an adult, but then again, as I thought back, I was the same way. I had had an easier time relating to adults than teenagers, when I was Kate’s age. When the waitress came, I said, “I don’t know if you like clam chowder, but it’s really good here.”
Katherine loved clam chowder and ordered a bowl, as did Joe and I.
After a few bites, Katherine said, “Do you mind if I say this is the best clam chowder ever?”
“I don’t mind at all,” I said. “Because I’m in total agreement.”
For dinner, Katherine ordered the grilled shrimp over wild rice, I chose the crab cakes, and Joe got the snapper. We passed on dessert. “There’s a place right down the road,” I said. “The chocolate soufflé is worth the wait.”
While the soufflé cooked, Joe and I sipped coffee and Katherine enjoyed a hot cocoa with whipped cream. “My dad told me about the work you’re doing in India,” she said. “When I grow up, that’s the kind of work I want to do. I want to help people. Somehow.”
“I believe you,” I said, “after listening to you talk about your reading. You certainly have the heart and the mind for it.”
At the end of the night, we said our good-byes. “Thanks so much for meeting me,” I said. “It was really nice talking with you.”
Katherine took an awkward step forward and then stuck out her hand. I took it in mine and then decided to be brave. I pulled her in for a quick hug. “Good luck tomorrow!”
She looked at her dad, and then at me. Hesitantly she said, “Do you want to come?”
“Would you?” Joe said.
“I’d love to,” I said.
That night, I lay in bed with my phone, texting Joe. She’s amazing.
I worry so much about her, he wrote.
Me: She’s perfect exactly how she is.
Joe: But she doesn’t fit in.
Someday, I typed, but couldn’t finish my thought. Wasn’t my life an anthem to “someday”?
The next morning, I left my town house and walked to the King Street Metro station. The morning was brisk and cool yet sunny. By the time I hit the station, I had already shed my jacket and scarf. I rarely rode the Metro, and this morning, on such a quiet day with low ridership, I relished the thrum of the car zipping over the tracks. At the Smithsonian station, I disembarked. Once on the National Mall, I walked toward Fourteenth Street. Joe and Katherine were approaching our meeting spot, coming from the opposite direction. The book festival was setting up, giant white tents spanning ten blocks. We found the location where Katherine would be awarded her prize.
The ceremony was lovely. As a finalist, Katherine was called up onstage. She posed for a photo with the director of the contest, as well as the editor of the KidsPost for the Washington Post. Afterward, we spent some time in the tent, which was set up like a bookstore. While Katherine browsed, Joe and I held hands, and the electricity between us—our want for one another, especially during this weekend, when we couldn’t be alone—jolted shocks through my limbs. After checking that Katherine was absorbed in a book at one of the tables, I leaned into Joe, put my mouth on his neck. Risk-averse Missy Fletcher had the urge to make out with her boyfriend, right then and there.
“I’m going to need to see you again, soon,” Joe whispered into my ear, kissing the top of it, sliding his fingers along my neck and into my hair. “You’re killing me.”
The following weekend, Joe returned to Virginia to see me. He knocked on my door, and when I opened it, we rushed to each other. We were frenzied, clawing at each other. Stripped of our clothing, disrobed of any pretense, we slipped into bed. I kissed his gorgeous neck, ran my fingers over the marine tattoo on the crest of his hip. He rose to sit on the edge of the bed and removed his prosthetic half leg. I turned away to give him privacy, but it didn’t matter because Joe’s missing limb meant nothing to me in terms of my love for him. I ached for his loss, but not for mine.
Then I felt Joe’s body next to mine, his chest against my back, his arms around me. I turned so that we were face-to-face. I closed my eyes and I was there again, at the beachside hotel, the first time Joe and I made love. Then I opened my eyes, and I was here and so was he. I no longer needed to fantasize. Joe was in my bed, loving me.
Later, we slept, wrapped in arms of animal warmth. When we awoke, it was three in the morning. A thin stream of light slanted through from the bathroom night-light.
“What are you doing to me?” I asked, tracing my finger along the ridge of his cheekbone.
“Loving you,” he said.
“For how long?”
“I’ve always loved you,” he said.
“But will you love me forever?”
“I’m no longer a guy who makes promises,” he said. “Life has shown me that even the most heartfelt promises can break.”
“If you don’t promise me forever,” I said, kissing his mouth, “what will I believe in?”
“In yourself,” he said, kissing me back. “Believe in yourself, Missy Fletcher.”
Later, with Joe’s head on my lap, I drew maps on his back, an elegy to our past, a sonnet to this moment in our present, a ballad of love never forgotten. We knew enough to respect time and space in this moment, were aware that the air and light around us would forever be the touchstones we’d rely upon to remember it. We were optimistic, yes, but we were wary, too, enough to know that a moment like this might never come again. As archivists of our love, it was our job to carve etchings of it on our souls.
PART THREE
DAUGHTER
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
The next week, sitting at my desk at Fletcher Financial, I slipped into the cozy sweater of nostalgia, remembering Dad and five-year-old me and our Saturday morning routine. How the two of us climbed the steps up to the office, me holding my McDonald’s breakfast in one hand and the Holly Hobbie doll that Mom had given me in the other. There, Dad would take my doll from me and hand me the big copper key, and his titanic hand would guide my miniature one as I inserted it and strained to turn it. Then the sense of delight when the lock clicked and the door swung wide—an Alice in Wonderland entry into the enchanted space—draping me with the familiar scents of worn leather, musty files, and mahogany. Dad’s office, his space—the coveted, comfortable, cavernous clubhouse he loved so much. A space I learned to love because I knew it was the portal to bring me close to Dad.
The phone rang, knocking me from my daydream.
“Ms. Fletcher, please,” the formal voice said.
“Speaking.”
> “Ms. Fletcher, this is Marcus Arnold, Director of Giving at the One by One Foundation.”
My heart thundered. Mrs. Longworth’s charity. I flipped open my binder to the tab marked “One by One.” By now I knew much about this sizable philanthropic organization that issued so many grants to NGOs and individuals. They had been operational since the early ’70s with the mission of helping the socioeconomically marginalized children of the world become self-reliant.
“Yes?”
“We are in receipt of your grant application and are interested in learning more about your project in India.”
“Wonderful,” I said.
“We know this is short notice, but the board would like you and your partner, Reina Shephard, to present next Tuesday, at our monthly appropriations meeting. Would you be willing to come to Chicago to meet with us?”
Next Tuesday. Suddenly, I was tasting metal. I wasn’t exactly sure of Reina’s whereabouts and hated to schedule her without first connecting, but I had to say yes. Reina would make it work, I reasoned. She’d get here.
“Yes, definitely!”
Mr. Arnold spent the next five minutes apprising me of the protocol. How we would be called in when it was our turn to present, how there would be a projector for our use, should we need to plug in a laptop. He explained that the board would expect a bound copy of our proposal with all of the financials clearly delineated. I jotted down all of this information.
I sucked in a few deep breaths, looked at my notes. I could do this. I had six days to prepare for this meeting. Already I could picture my PowerPoint presentation, my neat graphs and charts, the net worth statements with pie charts. This was right up my alley. Preparation was my forte. And stunningly magnetic Reina would do the speaking. We could pull this off.
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much.”
“I’ll e-mail you the specifics,” he said. “See you in a week.”
When I hung up, I walked to the mirror on my wall and looked into my eyes. “You can do this!” I would do this. I might die in the process, but there was no doubt I had started something that needed to be finished.
I called Reina and hit FaceTime, something I never did. When she answered and her cheerful face greeted me, I said, “Guess what? Guess who wants to meet with us?”
Reina screamed, hooted, and hollered for the next five minutes. “You have got to be kidding me!” she kept saying. “Oh, this is good; this is so good.”
When I told Reina that the presentation was scheduled for next Tuesday, that she would need to meet me in Chicago, her face fell. “Miss, hate to tell you, but I’ll be in Spain.”
A marble lodged in my throat. “Are you serious?”
“I can’t get out of it at this late notice,” she said. “UNICEF conference, and I’m leading a session.”
“I’ll reschedule,” I scrambled. “Let me call him back, and see when the next appropriations meeting is—”
“Missy, no. You’ll do it yourself, and you’ll be fabulous,” Reina said. “This is your thing—the numbers, the details. You’ll nail this baby.”
“Reina, I can’t,” I said. “I can’t make the presentation.”
“You can, and you will.” Not a centimeter of wiggle room.
“You sound like my father.”
“Missy, I know how much you loved your father—but enough with it! You’re not him, and he’s not here, and you’re entirely perfect just as you are. You will present how you present, not how he presented. You will do this, and you’ll be great.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, knocking my head against the wall.
When I hung up with Reina, I called Joe and, in his usual optimism, he said, “I knew you’d do it. I knew you’d take the world by storm. How can I help?”
“Will you go with me?”
The next five days I kept my head down and plodded through the numbers. Reina did her part, e-mailing me ten times a day. She knew the region so well, the conditions of the children from her work with UNICEF. In our opening paragraphs, she wrote of the quarter of a million children in New Delhi who live in slums or on the streets. These children did not go to school. The literacy rate was only 33 percent. For our objective, Reina wrote: “To identify known orphans, to educate them while tending to their basic needs of food, shelter, and protection from victimization.”
Under the section headed “How we will proceed,” she explained how we would partner with an existing NGO whose mandate was to work on issues affecting the urban and rural poor, with a specialized focus on children. Reina went on to include non-orphan girls, as well.
Reina spoke of the fathers: how it was they who were called upon to care for their daughters, to ensure their fair treatment, their rights; how their own poverty had most likely led them to keep the daughters at home, rather than send them to school. Part of our outreach would be to the fathers, to educate them about their future as well as their daughters’, should the girls remain unschooled.
For my part, I created a financial report detailing the costs of the school. Tuition, books, uniforms, extracurricular activities. Reports, audits, office needs. Electricity, construction, janitorial. Vehicle use, faculty salaries.
For our scope, I wrote that our school would open to forty girls, the twenty-two orphans currently living in Rohtak, plus eighteen others. Class sizes would be segregated by age: the youngest girls to age seven, the girls aged eight to twelve, and the girls beyond the age of twelve. We would hire three teachers, each responsible for her educational curriculum as well as a hefty program of singing, dancing, and making art. So many of these girls had been robbed of a joyful childhood. We were determined to restore a portion of this. They would learn while they played.
The days passed and the adrenaline pulsing through me kept me focused until finally only two days remained before I would meet with the One by One Foundation and convince them to give us a grant.
Joe called. “You’re ready! You’ll be great!”
Jenny called. “I was cleaning out one of your dad’s drawers,” she said. “I came across a handwritten quote. ‘In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.’ Pretty appropriate, huh?”
Then Monday came and kicked through my door with its jackboot. No amount of Dad’s affirmations could free me from my doom.
Joe was scheduled to drive down from Jersey tomorrow, but I needed him tonight. I stared in the mirror and attempted to steady myself against the dotted mirages that flashed before me. Who the hell did I think I was? Missy Fletcher, who had one skill—managing money—was going to miraculously morph into an oratorical genius? I was going to stride forth in my power suit with my PowerPoint and PowerBar and deliver to this committee a presentation that would leave them shaking their heads, wiping their eyes, and looking for their checkbook? That was your father, you idiot.
I was in mid-heave when the phone rang.
I sobered up immediately. I couldn’t say why. In a matter of seconds, my sticky skin dried, my heaves subsided, and my mind arranged itself back to normalcy.
Something was wrong.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
I had heard people speak of premonitions, of a twin feeling a twinge when her sibling was hurt, a mother stopping dead in her tracks when she sensed her little one was in danger. The ring of the phone was like that. Spooky. Eerie. It was Joe.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“We’re just getting home from the ER.”
“What?” I shrieked. “The ER?”
Joe sighed, let out a moan of frustration.
My heart punched at the walls of my chest. I needed to know, but didn’t want to know. If I knew, it would be real. I forced my mind to think of something common: Jake sprained his wrist. Olivia had a raging ear infection. But in my heart of hearts, I knew it was Katherine. At-risk Katherine. The girl who wanted to be invisible.
> “What happened?” I asked, and then held my breath and waited for the earth to shatter.
“Kate,” he said, and this one word alone produced bile in my throat because Katherine hurting herself had been on my mind for some time now. “She was in the bathroom tonight. After a few minutes, I knocked on the door to check on her. She wouldn’t open up.”
“Why?”
“‘Open up!’ I yelled through the door, pounding on it with my fist.”
“Joe,” I begged. “Please tell me she’s okay.”
“She wouldn’t open it, so I busted it down. She was in the corner like a cat rolled into a ball, crying quietly. When I peeled her off the floor, she shielded her arm. I pried it into the light. There were burn marks inside her arm.”
“Joe,” I cried.
“She had lit matches—many matches—and pressed them into her arm.”
“Joe,” I wept, pressing my forearm into my stomach. “What did she say about it?”
“She said the pain, the physical pain, hurt less than how she was hurting inside. She just wanted a distraction.” Joe’s voice broke, and he started to cry. I had heard him cry only once. When his grandfather passed away, a good seventeen years ago.
“She’s asleep now,” he said, a gauzy calm lacing his midnight voice, the sound of a guy who had spent the last three hours in a hospital room.
“Joe,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“My kid’s in pain, Missy,” Joe said, and then lost it—waterfall lost it. He sobbed, and all I could do was cry on my end of the line.
After a while, he pulled it together like guys do, kind of yelled and punched at the bed, I imagined. “Enough!” he said to himself. “Listen, Miss, I can’t tell you how horrible I feel about leaving you in the lurch, but I don’t think there’s any way I can go with you tomorrow.”
“Oh, please!” I said. “That’s so unimportant! The only thing that matters is Katherine. The only thing that matters. I’ll just cancel the meeting, try to reschedule it. Can I come up to Jersey and see you guys?”
The Light of Hidden Flowers Page 26
