Kiss Her Goodbye

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  Doing her best to summon an expression of recognition, Kathleen says brightly, “Of course I remember. Saint Brigid’s.”

  When you come right down to it, she doesn’t remember a Deb Duffy, and she can’t recall ever having seen her anywhere other than right here. Which isn’t unusual, given the school’s size and the fact that so many years have gone by . . .

  Or is it?

  Paranoia steals over Kathleen.

  Who is this woman, really?

  Oh, come on. Don’t be ridiculous.

  There’s no reason at all for Kathleen to suspect her of being anything other than an old school chum and an orthodontist’s receptionist. No reason to look her over with a wary eye, wondering if she could possibly have been looking into the kitchen window last night . . .

  Oh, my God, Kathleen, stop it. You’re really losing it. Get a grip.

  Realizing the woman is watching her with an expectant expression and must have said something, Kathleen asks apologetically, “I’m sorry, what was that?”

  “Your insurance card?” Deb’s manner is growing less cheery by the moment. “I need to see it so that I can make a copy.”

  “Oh. Right.” Kathleen fumbles in her bag. “But I think you must already have it on file . . .”

  “We need it each time you come in.”

  Have they always asked for it?

  Kathleen can’t remember. It just seems odd, that’s all. Do they ask the other patients for their cards, too?

  She glances around the waiting room and realizes that it’s less jammed than usual. There are only two other patients, and they’re both adults—a middle-aged woman and an elderly man. They might be here to see the chiropractor who shares the office space. Or they might be posing as patients, but they’re really . . .

  What?

  Contract killers?

  Undercover police officers?

  Kathleen swallows hard, her heart beating like crazy.

  “Um, did you find it?” Deb asks.

  “Oh, sorry . . . here it is.”

  As Kathleen hands the laminated card cross the desk, she tells herself that there’s no connection between the phone calls, the pink bootee, the face out the window, and this woman having access to her personal information. No connection at all. It’s not as though an insurance card would grant her access to a locked house.

  Except that it wasn’t always locked, Kathleen reminds herself yet again.

  Damn it. How could she have been so stupid? All day, she’s been thinking about the many times she left the door unlocked, running out on an errand, or to get the kids at the bus stop, or whenever Sissy comes to clean.

  Anyone could have slipped into the house.

  Well, she won’t do that this week. She’ll never do it again.

  “Here’s your card back.” Deb hands it to Kathleen, along with a clipboard with the insurance paperwork on it. “I’ll just need you to fill this out.”

  “I think you have our information on file?” Kathleen can’t help saying.

  “We need you to fill out a new set of papers each visit.” The woman nods at Curran, who’s taken a seat on the opposite end of the room. “Is he ready? Because we’re running ahead today, so he can go right in.”

  “Oh, that’s . . . that’s great.”

  It’s also highly unusual. In fact, Dr. Deare has never even been on time, much less ahead.

  Again, she fights a flicker of paranoia. What if this whole thing is some kind of elaborate plot? What if Dr. Deare isn’t an orthodontist at all, and Deb isn’t a receptionist? What if Curran walks through that door and she never sees him again?

  Stop it! You have to stop. That’s got to be the most farfetched thing you’ve come up with yet.

  “Curran? Sweetie? The doctor’s waiting for you,” she says, pushing back panic.

  “Okay.”

  She bends to kiss his head as he passes, and he looks up at her in embarrassment and disgust. “Mom!”

  “Sorry.”

  Catching Deb looking at her strangely, she falters, then says, “You know how boys are. They don’t like their moms kissing them goodbye in public.”

  “Actually, I have daughters,” Deb reminds her. Another detail Kathleen couldn’t be bothered to remember.

  Then Deb adds, almost sympathetically, “But they don’t like me to kiss them in public, either. And anyway, your son will be back soon, so . . .”

  So you really didn’t need to kiss him goodbye.

  Feeling foolish, Kathleen says quickly, “Oh, I know he will be.”

  Of course he will be.

  As her son disappears down the corridor behind the desk, Kathleen forces herself to settle into a chair halfway between the two strangers. Neither of them appears to notice her.

  The frantic worry subsides a bit.

  She turns her attention to the clipboard, filling out half the first page before it slips out of her jittery hand and clatters to the floor.

  Both the strangers look up from their magazines.

  Deb, who is standing at the copy machine, calls, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Just clumsy.”

  Clumsy, and scared out of my mind.

  This has to stop. She can’t get through another sleepless night, or another day wondering who knows her secret . . . and how they found out.

  She has to do something.

  But what?

  She has to tell somebody.

  But whom?

  The police are out of the question.

  And Matt . . . well, he’ll be shattered if she tells him the truth. Their family is already hanging in the balance, the tension in the house becoming unbearable.

  If Matt finds out what she did . . .

  Well, he might leave.

  Would she even blame him?

  But if he left, he might take the boys with him. Jen, too. Oh, God, he might take Kathleen’s children away, and she wouldn’t have a chance of getting them back. Not if anyone knew . . .

  No.

  Nobody can know.

  Not even Matt.

  There’s nothing for her to do but hang on a little longer.

  Hang on . . . and pray.

  Quint Matteson’s neighborhood isn’t at all what Jen expected.

  Then again, she reminds herself, she really had no idea what to expect. She only hoped—and this stretch of run-down two-and-three family houses on a treeless block bordering an industrial park is hardly what she hoped for.

  As she makes her way along the uneven, litter-strewn sidewalk, she suddenly has the oddest sensation that she’s being followed.

  She turns her head and catches a glimpse of a figure in a long coat walking along half a block behind her.

  Instantly reminded of that day on the soccer field, she feels sick to her stomach. Is it some psycho killer stalking her?

  Her shoulders tense, she walks a few more steps before she dares to turn her head again.

  Whoever it was is gone.

  Relax, Jen tells herself, exhaling in relief.

  Is it any wonder she’s a nervous wreck? She’s been through hell these past few weeks, and now she’s about to meet her father. She isn’t sure whether she’s looking forward to or dreading whatever lies ahead.

  When she reaches the boxy three-story house fronted by a concrete porch with half its wrought iron railing missing, Jen double-checks the address against the slip of paper in her hand. This is definitely it . . . unless there was a misprint in the phone book. Which, of course, isn’t out of the question.

  She gingerly climbs the steps as a car drives by and honks. She turns to see a teenaged boy leaning out the passenger’s window of a souped-up heap, ogling her.

  He gives a staccato, high-pitched “Ow!” and the car slows. He and the driver make kissing noises at her.

  Jen’s skin crawls. She turns her back, hoping the car will drive on.

  After a few moments, it does, tires screeching down the block.

  She shouldn’t be here. This ha
s to be the wrong address, the wrong neighborhood altogether.

  But there are three doorbells, and a sticker beneath the third one reads Matteson.

  So much for the phone book misprint.

  Well, her father is a musician. He’s probably sacrificed a lot for his art over the years. Or maybe he’s living in this dump because the apartment has good acoustics, or something.

  Whatever.

  She’s here, and she’s going to see him. She’ll judge for herself whether her mother was right about him being a loser.

  She rings the doorbell and waits.

  And waits.

  No answer.

  She rings again.

  Waits.

  Standing on her tiptoes, she peers through the window on the door. She can see a vestibule, a trio of metal mailboxes, and a stairway leading up.

  When she tries the door, the knob turns, to her surprise.

  But that doesn’t mean she should go in. If he were up there, he’d have answered the buzzer, wouldn’t he?

  Unless he didn’t hear it. Maybe it’s not working properly. Would that be surprising, in a place like this?

  Suddenly once again aware of the distinct sensation that somebody is behind her, Jen turns to look back at the street.

  Nobody is there. At least, nobody she can see. Maybe someone is concealed behind a tree, or watching through a window.

  Okay, now she totally has the creeps. She fights the illogical urge to take off running.

  Instead, taking a deep breath, she pushes the door open and takes a step inside.

  For a moment, she stands there in the silent hallway, wondering what she should do next.

  Then, somewhere above, she hears keys rattling, a lock turning, a door banging. Footsteps pound down the stairs before she can react.

  What if it’s him?

  Luckily—or unluckily?—it isn’t.

  It’s a woman—or so she thinks at first glance, judging by the makeup, low-cut top, and short skirt. But as the stranger arrives on the first floor and steps into the glow from the bare bulb overhead, Jen realizes the so-called woman is actually a girl, probably not much older than she is.

  “Hey,” she says, stopping at the foot of the stairs to open the middle mailbox.

  Not hey, as in what are you doing here, but hey, as in hello.

  “Hi.” Jen doesn’t know what to do.

  The girl peers into the box and finds it empty, which obviously isn’t a good thing, judging by the curse word that explodes from her mouth.

  “Sorry,” she says, with a nod at Jen. “But I’m, like, waiting for a check. You know how it is.”

  “Yeah,” Jen agrees, though she has no idea how it is.

  The girl walks toward the door, jangling her keys.

  As she passes, Jen works up the nerve to say, “Excuse me?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Um, do you know Quint Matteson?”

  “You mean the guy who lived upstairs?”

  Lived?

  Okay, so he must have moved out. That’s a good sign. Maybe he got a record deal or something.

  “Yeah, I knew him,” the girl says, peering into Jen’s face in the dim light of the hall.

  For a moment, Jen expects her to say something like You’re the spitting image of him! Are you the daughter he’s been trying to find all these years?

  But she doesn’t say that.

  She says, “Wait, you mean you’re looking for him?”

  “Yeah. Do you know where he went?”

  “You don’t?”

  Jen fights the urge to retort Duh, why would I be asking you if I knew?

  “No,” she says instead, politely. “Do you? I really need to find him.”

  The girl shrugs, wearing an odd expression. “Wow, like I really don’t know how to tell you this, but Quint Matteson’s dead.”

  Kathleen hands the clipboard back to Deb Mahalski. “Sorry it took me so long to fill it out,” she says apologetically.

  “That’s okay. I know these forms can be a pain.” Deb smiles, perhaps having forgiven Kathleen for not remembering her name.

  “So, are you in touch with anybody else from the old days at Saint Brigid’s?” Kathleen asks casually, needing to make sure her misgivings about the woman’s purported role in her past really are just paranoia.

  “Oh, sure.” Deb mentions a few names that are vaguely familiar, but that proves nothing.

  “How about you?” she asks Kathleen. “Who do you keep in touch with?”

  “Do you remember Maeve O’Shea?”

  Deb nods. “She married Greg Hudson, didn’t she? I always thought they were the cutest couple.”

  “Actually, they’re divorced now.”

  “Well, that’s not surprising. He used to cheat on her even back then,” Deb says with a shrug. “Easy come, easy go, right?”

  Uncomfortable with the swing the conversation has taken, Kathleen merely nods.

  “You know what? I think it would be great if we organized a class reunion, don’t you, Katie?”

  God, no. She manages a tight smile.

  Deb goes on, “I was just telling Father Joseph the other day that I would be willing to form a reunion committee.”

  Kathleen’s jaw drops. “Father Joseph?”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t remember Father Joseph?”

  “No, I remember him,” she murmurs, her heart pounding. “I just . . . I haven’t seen him in years. I didn’t know he was still . . .”

  She trails off, her father’s words echoing in her brain.

  Father Joseph was here earlier.

  To think she chalked it up to her father’s senility.

  “Oh, he’s retired from the priesthood, but he’s around,” Deb informs her. “I run into him every now and then. He’s as grouchy as ever, and more opinionated, too, if that’s possible. And he looks exactly the same, but his hair is white. He still wears his robe and collar around town, even though he’s retired. You’d think—”

  “Do you know where he is?” Kathleen hears herself asking. “I’d love to get in touch with him, just to . . . you know. Just to say hello, after all these years.”

  “Sure.” Deb scribbles something on a piece of scrap paper and hands it to Kathleen. “This is the name of the retirement home where he’s living now. He just moved a few months ago. It’s only a few minutes from Woodsbridge, as a matter of fact. Isn’t that a coincidence?”

  Kathleen murmurs that it is, indeed, a coincidence.

  “So, Kathleen, we really should get together and start planning that reunion. What do you say? I’ll give you a ring one day next week so we can talk about it.”

  “Great,” she replies absently, clutching the piece of paper in her trembling fingers.

  Father Joseph.

  She went to him once before, when she had nowhere else to turn.

  Now, after all that’s happened, he’s the last person she wants to face with the truth . . . but, perhaps, once again, the only one she dares to trust.

  He waits until Jen is onboard the bus before he dares to emerge from the shelter of a doorway. He climbs onboard just as the folding doors are about to close, and deposits his change into the fare box.

  The girl is already huddled in a seat halfway back, staring out the window. He sees her wiping at her cheek and realizes she’s crying.

  She doesn’t even glance in his direction as he passes in the aisle, slipping into an empty seat two rows behind her, on the aisle.

  As the bus lurches into motion, he watches her fish in her pocket for a tissue. She wipes her eyes, blows her nose, sniffles.

  He opens his newspaper, pretending to be absorbed in it, but watching her over the top of the page.

  He can see that her whole body is trembling. She’s crying.

  He wonders again what happened in the few minutes she disappeared inside that building. He didn’t dare get any closer than to conceal himself in the shadow of an alleyway a few doors down the street. Not after he saw her turn ar
ound as though she sensed she was being followed.

  Like mother, like daughter, he finds himself thinking, his lips curling into a smile.

  It’s warm on the bus. So warm that he unbuttons his long black overcoat. His head is sweating, and so is his neck beneath his collar.

  Fifteen minutes later, the bus slows. The Cuttington Road stop is just ahead.

  Jen stands up and makes her way up the aisle.

  He follows, careful to stay several steps behind her.

  As he reaches the front of the bus, the driver brakes and he’s forced to grab a pole to steady himself. He loses his grip on his newspaper and it falls to the floor.

  The doors are open. Jen is climbing off.

  He bends to pick up the paper, but the woman in the front seat has already retrieved it for him.

  He offers her a pleasant smile. “Thank you. That was nice of you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she says, and returns the smile as he climbs down the steps. “Have a good day, Father.”

  He gives a pleasant wave. “God bless you.”

  TWELVE

  By Friday, Kathleen still hasn’t heard from Father Joseph. She left two messages with the receptionist at the retirement home, using her maiden name and her cell phone number.

  She left the phone on around the clock, nearly jumping out of her skin the one time it did ring. But it was only Maeve, wanting to meet for coffee.

  Kathleen felt guilty turning down the invitation, especially after Maeve was so wonderful about showing up to surprise Jen with that expensive sweater on her birthday. Still, her instincts are telling her to keep her distance for a while. As much as she needed to confide in somebody, she shouldn’t have told Maeve about Jen’s birth and Quint Matteson.

  Maeve might have once been her closest friend in the world—and all right, technically, she is again—but in some ways, Maeve Hudson might as well be a total stranger. When you come right down to it, Kathleen doesn’t entirely trust her. She never could keep a secret. For all she knows, Maeve could mentioned that Matt isn’t Jen’s father to Erin and it could be all over school by now.

  And if Kathleen spilled one secret, there’s no guarantee that she won’t accidentally slip about the other. Especially when it’s weighing more heavily on her conscience with every passing day.