Kiss Her Goodbye

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Breathe. That’s it. Breathe. Deep breaths, in and out. You’re okay. Nobody knows. Nobody will ever know unless you tell them . . . and you’ll never tell.

  Gradually, Kathleen becomes aware of the scent of damp earth and dying leaves wrapping around her like a shroud, just as it did on that long ago day. It was autumn then, too. Autumn, but the sky hung low and misty, the ground marshy from a recent rain.

  Today, the sky is blue; the sun shines brightly.

  Today, Kathleen is blessed.

  A shrill ringing suddenly pierces the air.

  Her cell phone.

  Standing on shaky legs, she pulls the phone from her pocket and flips it open. As she does she checks the tiny digital clock in one corner of the screen, wondering if time has escaped her as it tends to do whenever she comes here. Is she late picking up the boys? Is a disgruntled scout leader or harried mom calling with an impatient reminder?

  Noting the time, Kathleen feels momentarily reassured, until she remembers Jen. Jen, babysitting. Jen, lying. Jen . . . in trouble?

  She answers with a wary, “Hello?”

  “You’re going to love me,” Maeve’s voice announces gleefully above the din of background voices and jazzy music.

  Kathleen exhales. “Why am I going to love you?”

  “Because I talked to Sissy and she’ll be at your place first thing in the morning.”

  “That’s great!” She feigns enthusiasm, but the fleeting thought of her daughter has filled her with an inexplicable uneasiness. “What time is first thing?”

  “She said around nine.”

  “That sounds—wait, I have to be at the nursing home to meet with my father’s doctor then. Can you let her in with your key?”

  “Oh. I’ve been meaning to tell you . . . I lost it,” Maeve admits. “It was in my purse and it must have fallen out. I’ve been looking all over the place, but . . .”

  “Terrific. That was our only spare, other than the ones we keep in the doors.”

  The new house has the kind of deadbolts that need a key to lock from the inside. Kathleen insists that they keep the keys in the locks, rather than hiding them nearby, as Matt suggested. She isn’t taking any chances of the kids being trapped in the house in a fire.

  “I’m really sorry, Kath,” Maeve tells her.

  Kathleen shakes her head, thinking some things never change. Maeve always was queen of lost library books and misplaced homework assignments.

  “Okay, tell Sissy I’ll just leave the back door unlocked for her. It’s no big deal. I usually do anyway.”

  “Maeve? Can you hear me?” she asks as static crackles on the other end of the line.

  “Yes, I hear you. You’re leaving the door unlocked.”

  “The back door.”

  “The back door. Got it. Is your address 11 Sarah Crescent, or nine?”

  “Nine.”

  “Okay, great. I have to go. My order’s ready.”

  “Where are you?”

  “One guess.”

  “Starbucks,” Kathleen remembers with a smile. “Where else?”

  “You should have come with me. They have chocolate doughnuts today.”

  “You’re not eating one, are you?” she asks in mock horror.

  “Of course not, but you love them,” Maeve points out as, somewhere behind Kathleen, the groundskeeper’s lawn mower buzzes nearer.

  “Where are you, anyway, Kathleen?”

  “Running errands with the boys,” she lies. “Listen, I’ll see you later. And thanks for the cleaning lady.”

  Kathleen hangs up. More guilt. But she couldn’t tell Maeve the truth about where she is. She doesn’t want to get into the whole cemetery thing with her . . . or anyone. Nobody but Matt even suspects she comes here as often as she does . . . and he doesn’t know why. Not really.

  Brushing leaf fragments from her jeans, Kathleen spots the flowers she cast aside on the ground, still in their florists’ wrapping. She bends to retrieve the bouquet and carefully removes the green tissue paper that hugs the stems. She takes a single red bloom from the bunch, then sets the rest carefully on top of the stone.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

  She presses her lips to the silken petals of the remaining rose and gently lays it on the leaf-strewn grass at her feet.

  Then, once again, she looks at her mother’s gravestone.

  Protective grandmother.

  “Watch over her, Mom,” she says softly before turning and slowly walking away, tears rolling once more down her cheeks.

  Sitting at her desk Wednesday evening, Jen stares absently at the open English textbook before her, thinking not about Renaissance poetry but about Robby.

  He said hi to her when she passed him in the hallway today, flashing her a lazy smile from the radiator where he and his stoner friends like to lean as they linger between classes.

  In that instant, feeling his eyes burning into her, Jen felt something utterly unexpected. Something she usually experiences only around Garth Monroe.

  Okay, but she definitely has no business being attracted to Robby. For one thing, he’s trouble. For another, Erin would be pissed.

  Maybe Jen was imagining that Robby was looking at her longer—and with more interest—than he ever has before.

  And even if she wasn’t imagining it—even if Robby makes a move on her, which he won’t—she’s not about to go out with him. Robby is cute—really cute, in a dark, dangerous kind of way. But he isn’t her type. He’s older, and . . . and he smokes.

  You’re so lame, declares a voice in Jen’s head. This time, it isn’t Erin’s voice, or even Amber’s, but her own. When are you going to stop being such a baby? You’ll never have any fun, and you’ll never grow up if you go around worrying about stuff all the time the way Mom does.

  As though summoned by Jen’s subconscious, there’s a sudden knock on her door, and a familiar voice calls, “Jen? I need to come in.”

  Immediately irked at the invasion, she says, “Go ahead.”

  The door opens and her mother carries a stack of clean laundry into the room. Looking around as she opens a drawer on Jen’s dresser, she says, “Good. At least your room isn’t a mess like your brothers’. It’s going to take me at least an hour to get their toys picked up.”

  Jen shrugs. “So make them do it.”

  “They’re helping, but you know how long it takes them to do anything. They keep arguing.” Mom plops the clean laundry into the drawer and closes it with her hip. “And anyway, it’s past their bedtime.”

  “So? Make them do it tomorrow after school.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got a cleaning lady coming first thing tomorrow.”

  “Isn’t it her job to clean?” Jen asks in the duh tone she knows her mother despises. But she can’t seem to help herself. Mom is getting on her nerves lately, big time.

  “Cut the attitude, Jen. Did you finish your homework?”

  “Almost,” she lies, turning back to the book.

  She can feel her mother’s eyes on her.

  After a moment, Mom says, “We need to talk.”

  Jen doesn’t turn around. “About what?”

  “About you. I’m worried about you, Jen. That’s all. I know it’s not easy to be your age, and I just want to make sure you don’t . . .”

  “Get arrested?” Jen asks when her mother trails off.

  “Or hurt. Or . . . pregnant.”

  Jen’s jaw drops and her cheeks flame. “What do you think I’m doing, Mom? I’m not going to get pregnant. I mean . . .”

  She falls silent, unwilling to confess that she’s such a loser she’s never even kissed anyone.

  Now her mother is standing behind her chair, laying a hand on her shoulder. To Jen’s horror, she feels tears springing to her eyes.

  “I don’t know, Jen. All sorts of things went through my head the other day when you lied. I have no idea whether I can trust you.”

  “You can.” Jen spins around in her chair to face her mother. “
You can trust me. I didn’t mean to lie. It’s just . . . you won’t let me do anything. I feel like a prisoner half the time. I mean, I can’t even babysit?”

  “You know why. You’re being punished.”

  “But . . . That’s so unfair. What’s Mrs. Gattinski supposed to do? Why does she have to be punished? She’s really upset. I had a commitment to her and now I have to break it. What kind of lesson is that supposed to teach me?”

  Mom is silent.

  Then, to Jen’s surprise, she nods. “You’re right. About that, anyway. You do have a commitment. And if there’s anything Dad and I want you to learn, it’s that you need to be responsible.”

  “Well, it seems like you’re trying to do the opposite.”

  Anger flashes in her mother’s eyes. “How responsible is lying and sneaking around behind our backs, Jen?”

  Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

  Too late. She’s crying.

  “I’m sorry.” She sniffles. “I didn’t mean to do it. I’ll never do it again. Just . . . can’t you tell Dad he’s being ridiculous with this grounding thing? I mean . . . a whole month?”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “You will?”

  “Only about the babysitting. And only because you’re right. It’s your commitment, and you should keep it.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ll see what Dad says.”

  “Thanks.”

  Mom bends to kiss the top of Jen’s head.

  Jen is tempted to throw her arms around her mother’s neck and hug her. But something holds her back.

  Instead, she merely says “thanks,” again, and turns back to her book.

  “Don’t stay up too late.”

  “I won’t.”

  Her mother’s footsteps retreat across the rug and the door closes behind her with a quiet click.

  Jen lets out a breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding.

  She’ll call Mrs. Gattinski first thing after school tomorrow and tell her she doesn’t have to call Mom after all. What a relief.

  Jen tries to focus on the John Donne poem she’s supposed to have read and analyzed by tomorrow. Then something buzzes by her ear and she looks up to see a fly flitting almost drunkenly through the air, the way they do when they find their way inside this late in the season.

  She pushes back her chair and walks over to the window to open it, hoping to shoo the fly out.

  Glimpsing her reflection in the glass as she reaches for the sill, she pauses to study herself, trying to see herself as Robby might have today in the hallway. She’s decent looking, she supposes, aside from the freakish white stripe in her eyebrow. Back in Indiana, the kids sometimes called her Skunky when she was younger. Here, nobody does that. But they do stare, sometimes.

  Jen used to try to camouflage it with eyebrow pencil, but that never worked. Once, she combed the pale brow hairs with a dark mascara brush, which worked for a while. But she’s so used to hiding her brow behind her hand that she accidentally smudged it during the day, and she wound up looking even more ridiculous.

  Staring at herself in the window, she notes that you can’t even see the white line in her eyebrow. Not from here, anyway.

  Jen leans closer.

  Not from here, either.

  She leaning toward the window, closer and closer until her face is almost pressed against the glass.

  That’s when she spots the figure standing below, just beyond the pool of yellow light cast by the street lamp overhead.

  Startled, Jen squints into the darkness beyond the window, her heart pounding.

  Somebody is there, watching her.

  Or is he?

  When Jen blinks, the spot is empty.

  Either she was seeing things, or the lurker spotted her and scuttled off into the night.

  Jen spins and hurries toward the door, opening her mouth to call for her father.

  Then she stops short, remembering.

  She can’t tell him. Not after what happened last weekend when she was babysitting. No way will he agree to let her go back to the Gattinskis if she tells him this. He’ll think she’s a baby.

  And maybe she is.

  A big fat baby with an overactive imagination. Why does this keep happening to her? Last week, she was convinced she was being followed home from the Gattinskis for no reason whatsoever. Is she losing her mind?

  But it isn’t just me, she remembers. Erin saw somebody, too. And so did Amber and Rachel. At the soccer game. Or so they said.

  For all Jen knows, Erin was just trying to spook her. But why would she do that? Just to be mean? Not Erin. She’s not like that.

  Slowly, Jen returns to the window and leans against the pane, gazing down into the street below.

  Nobody is there.

  Of course not.

  Nobody ever was, Jen tells herself firmly, reaching within for confidence that refuses to settle as she stares out into the blackness.

  SIX

  Thursday afternoon, Kathleen steps through the unlocked back door to find the house spotless—and empty.

  After setting down several bags from Wegmans and a folder containing her notes from this morning’s meeting with her father’s doctor, she dials Maeve’s cell phone.

  “Kathleen! I was just about to call you. Are you home?”

  “I’m not sure.” Kathleen walks across the shining tile floor in the kitchen. “The address is right, but this place is unrecognizable.”

  “I told you she was good,” Maeve says with a laugh. “Do you want to hire her?”

  “Definitely. I just have to check with Matt.”

  And if last night’s agreeable mood is any indication, her husband will have no problem with it. She fully expected him to argue when she climbed into bed and approached him about letting Jen keep her babysitting job, but to her surprise, he was amenable. So amenable that when she thanked him and rolled over to go to sleep, he rolled alongside her and nuzzled the back of her neck.

  A lackluster marital sex life might not be revived overnight, but they sure came close, Kathleen remembers with a smile.

  “That’s great,” Maeve says, and it takes a moment for Kathleen to realize she’s talking about the cleaning lady.

  “Yeah, she really did do a good job.” Kathleen runs her hands over the polished chrome of the kitchen faucet and inhales the sterile herbal scent of Windex and 409. “When you see her, thank her.”

  “You didn’t see her?”

  “No, I haven’t been home all day. I had to be at the nursing home first thing.”

  “I forgot. How did that go?”

  Kathleen sighs. “The doctor thinks it’s Parkinson’s. They have to do more tests.”

  “That sucks.”

  Used to Maeve’s bluntness—and, after taking hours to digest it, to accept the tentative diagnosis—Kathleen says only, “It does, but he’s close to eighty years old, Maeve. Something’s going to get him sooner or later.”

  “Your mother was a lot younger than he is, wasn’t she?” Maeve asks.

  “Twenty years younger. Why?”

  “I’m still dating Mo. He’s growing on me, but I can’t get over the fact that he’s so old. I think younger men are more my style.”

  “Younger as in our age?”

  “Younger as in younger.” Maeve laughs. “A couple of fraternity boys checked me out at the gym today.”

  “Maeve . . . fraternity boys? That’s just. . .” Kathleen shakes her head, laughing.

  “It’s flattering. Men that age are in their sexual prime, and so are we, Kathleen.”

  Again, Kathleen’s thoughts flit back to last night in bed with Matt. Why don’t they make love more often? Why hasn’t she initiated it lately? She’s been so damned tired, so overwhelmed . . .

  But look at the house now. Spic and span, and Matt said he’s bringing home pizza for dinner. There’s nothing for her to do but put up her feet and wait until the kids get off the bus.

  She thanks Maeve aga
in for the cleaning lady. “Give me her number and I’ll call and ask if she wants to come every week, okay?”

  “I knew you were going to say that. Smart woman.” Maeve gives her the number, then hangs up.

  As Kathleen dials Sissy’s number, she realizes she forgot to ask Maeve how much she charges. Oh, well. How much can it be?

  After four rings, an answering machine picks up.

  “Hi, Sissy, this is Kathleen Carmody. You did a wonderful job cleaning for me today, and I’m wondering if you can come every week? Please give me a call.”

  She leaves her number, then replaces the receiver in its cradle, noticing that the fingerprint smudges have been removed from the wall and light switch nearby. She makes her way through the house, pleased to see that the hardwoods and the windows are gleaming; not a trace of dust anywhere, not even on the leaves of the philodendron in the dining room. In the living room, the magazines are arranged on the coffee table in a perfect arc. The runner on the hall stairs bears vacuum marks, and the second floor smells of furniture polish and bathroom disinfectant. All of the windows are cracked to let fresh air in, and the bedroom and bathroom doors have been left ajar.

  Having grown up in a house where all doors were kept closed, even on empty rooms, Kathleen has found the habit hard to break, to the point where Matt and the kids have adopted it, too.

  Now, she finds herself appreciating the invigorating cross breeze wafting through the upstairs hall, and the light spilling into the usually dark corridor.

  Kathleen pauses in the doorway of Jen’s room, gazing at the ruffled white eyelet coverlet and curtains, the childhood classics lining the bookshelves, the collection of stuffed animals heaped on the bed. The room could belong to a girl a decade younger, she realizes with a pang.

  When they moved, Jen asked if she could get a new bedspread and curtains.

  “But these are almost new,” Kathleen remembers telling her daughter. “I just bought them for you last year.”

  Jen didn’t argue. She never used to argue. Not back then.

  I should have let her pick out her own stuff, Kathleen thinks, stepping into the room and running her hand over the white ruffles at the window. I never asked her what she likes. I just went out to Marshall Field’s and bought these girly things.