Kiss Her Goodbye

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  In the end, Jen’s initial grief for Robby has been overshadowed by her sorrow over Erin’s death. Her sorrow—and her fright. She came so close to being a victim herself. She was viciously stabbed in the stomach and the neck; in the brutal struggle her right leg was broken and her left arm was fractured. Her face was bruised and swollen. Nobody would give her a mirror in the hospital, but she could see the shock on the faces of her classmates and the teachers who showed up to visit her in the hospital.

  They were all so nice to her—so concerned and sympathetic.

  The teachers didn’t bring her any assignments to do. They told her not to worry about it; that she would have a tutor when she got back home so that she could catch up.

  A lot of kids sent cards.

  Even Garth Monroe. He sent a funny Shoebox one, and inside, he wrote I’m sorry about Erin.

  Yeah.

  Everybody is sorry about Erin.

  Everybody wants to know what happened that night.

  Everybody . . . including Jen.

  She doesn’t remember.

  Dr. Calvert, the psychiatrist she’s been seeing for the past few weeks in the hospital, says the trauma caused her memory blanks. Nobody knows when or if Jen’s memory will return.

  She hopes it never does.

  The last thing she remembers is cleaning the bathroom after tucking the twins into bed. Purple toothpaste in the sink. Water on the floor. And then . . .

  Nothing.

  Nothing until she woke up in the hospital.

  The police said a bad man attacked her and Erin. A bad man who also happened to be a priest Mom used to know.

  The police said Jen fought him off. They said she stabbed him in self-defense.

  They say Jen killed him.

  I killed him.

  I killed someone.

  “Jen?” Her mother is still knocking. “Can I come in?”

  “Whatever,” Jen says to the wall.

  Mom opens the door. Her footsteps pad across the new beige rug.

  They had Jen’s room redecorated while she was in the hospital, as a surprise.

  It was a surprise.

  An unwelcome one.

  The walls are orange, like Erin’s walls.

  Every time Jen looks at them, she thinks of Erin.

  “I brought you some hot chocolate,” Mom says. “And some cookies, just for you. Shortbread cut-outs. They’re still warm from the oven.”

  Jen turns to see a plate on her night stand, beside a steaming mug of hot chocolate. The cookies are cut in Christmas shapes: a tree, a stocking, a star. Mom decorated them with sugar sprinkles.

  “Thanks,” she murmurs.

  She isn’t hungry. Not even for cookies.

  Nostalgia sweeps over her as her mother kisses her head and, after a moment’s hesitation, walks back toward the door.

  Back in Indiana, Jen used to help Mom make shortbread cut-outs. They’re the perfect cookie; the recipe doesn’t even call for eggs—just butter, sugar, flour.

  Jen loves to bake, but it’s hard with her allergy. Mom has always said it’s creative chemistry to tinker with cake and cookie recipes to make them egg-free. And there are other things they can make, like shortbread, gelatin, fruit desserts. Homemade cherry crisp is one of Jen’s favorites. And pies—they used to make pies all the time.

  Mom taught Jen how to roll out crust between two sheets of waxed paper cut to the exact size of the pie plate, how to flute the crust or crimp it.

  Closing her eyes, she can still see the old kitchen, its white laminate counters dusted with flour and littered with dough scraps, stained with cherry juice and strewn with apple peels.

  Apple peels.

  She gasps.

  “What is it, Jen?” Her mother is back beside her instantly.

  “Nothing, I just . . .”

  What was it?

  Something about apple peels. Apples.

  But the fleeting image flitted into her brain and then out again before she could grasp its significance.

  All Jen knows is that an inexplicable terror has suddenly gripped her—a terror so real that she fears for her life . . . even though she knows the man who threatened it is gone for good. Gone because . . .

  I killed him.

  Why does she find that so impossible to believe?

  Why does it feel so wrong?

  Because I’ve never killed anything. Not even a spider.

  But she killed a man?

  It must be true, if that’s what they’re telling her.

  She has nothing to go by but what she’s been told. Nothing . . . unless her memory comes back.

  Apples. Apples. Apples.

  What about apples? Why can’t she remember?

  And what will happen if she does?

  Lucy chose a different spot for their meeting this time. A different spot, and a different means of communicating with John.

  She didn’t dare send another letter. She can’t risk having anything in writing.

  So she summoned her courage, and she called the number she hasn’t called in years. She dialed it from memory, wondering if it was still the same, wondering what she would say if Deirdre picked up, or if an answering machine did.

  She’ll never forget her relief when John’s voice was the one that answered—or his obvious dismay when he realized it was her.

  “Have you seen the news?” she asked him.

  He said that he hadn’t, but she didn’t believe him. She still doesn’t. How can anybody live in the Buffalo metropolitan area and not know what happened to Erin Hudson, to Father Joseph, to Jen Carmody?

  But John said that he hadn’t heard, and when she told him, he was silent.

  “We need to see each other, John,” Lucy told him guardly. “We need to talk about this in person.”

  “I can’t, Lucy.”

  “You have to, John. I need you. She needs you. Us. She needs us. And we owe her this much. Somebody tried to kill her. Whoever it is, they’re still out there.”

  “I can’t deal with this now, Lucy—”

  “You have to.”

  “Not now. Not . . . yet. Just give me some time, okay? I need to figure out some things.”

  She gave him time.

  She gave him a few weeks.

  Then she worked up the nerve to call him again, and he answered again. Reluctantly, he agreed to meet her.

  Now here she is, waiting in a remote corner of sprawling Delaware Park on this stormy December morning. The sky is layered with charcoal-shaded snow clouds rolling in from the west, over the lake. The wind gusts and swirls with fat white flakes.

  She looks over her shoulder, making sure the park is as deserted as it seems. Not a soul in sight.

  Reassured, yet shivering inside her seasons-old wool winter coat, Lucy wishes she had foreseen the possibility of inclement weather. She should have selected some other spot, an indoor spot. But she couldn’t change the meeting once it was set; John made her promise she wouldn’t call him again.

  What if he doesn’t show up?

  He has to. It’s that simple.

  She needs him now. He’s the only one she can turn to, now that Father Joseph is gone.

  Tears spring to Lucy’s eyes.

  She turns her face heavenward, blinking away the tears and the snowflakes that alight on her lashes.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

  The media has cast him as a murderer rather than a hero. Nobody, outside of John, will ever know the real reason the elderly priest was outside the house where the girls were babysitting that night. Nobody will ever know he was guarding her with his life, bent on being her savior to the end. Nobody will know . . . unless Lucy tells.

  And she’ll never tell.

  The phone is ringing when Kathleen returns to the kitchen, where the remnants of this morning’s cookie-baking clutter the countertop and sink.

  She glances at the window as she hunts around the countertop for the cordless phone.

&
nbsp; God, she misses the Caller ID box. Matt keeps saying he’ll replace it, but he hasn’t gotten around to it yet.

  These days, Kathleen doesn’t feel like talking to anybody unless it’s urgent. Which it very well might be this time.

  It’s snowing harder out there. Maybe the school is calling to say there’ll be an early dismissal.

  She dismisses that idea as quickly as it occurs to her. The forecast calls for only a foot of accumulation by midnight, and a few more inches by morning. That’s a relatively measly storm by local standards; certainly no reason to close the schools.

  Maybe it’s Deb Mahalski. She keeps calling and leaving messages with Matt about rescheduling Curran’s November checkup. Kathleen couldn’t keep the appointment, knowing Deb would be full of questions about Father Joseph and her daughter’s role in the shocking crime.

  The phone rings again.

  Kathleen decides not to pick it up. She doesn’t want to talk to Deb Mahalski.

  But what if it’s her father? She hasn’t heard from him yet today.

  Or maybe it’s the nursing home calling to say he’s escaped again. It happened twice last week.

  She picks up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Kathleen? How is she?”

  It’s Matt, calling from work for the third time this morning. He’s been doing that the past few days, ever since Jen came home from the hospital.

  “She’s still in bed. I was just up there.”

  “Is she sleeping?”

  “Resting.”

  “But not sleeping?”

  “No.” Impatience sends her pacing across the kitchen and back again.

  “Did she eat anything?”

  “Not really.”

  “She needs to eat.”

  “I know she needs to eat, Matt. I know how to take care of—” She breaks off.

  My daughter.

  She can’t say it.

  Not to Matt. Not anymore.

  All things considered, he took the news better than she’d have expected . . . or so it seems, in retrospect. When she told him, Jen’s life was hanging in the balance. Nothing else really mattered at the time.

  It wasn’t until the next morning, when their daughter’s condition was stabilized and they were in the hospital cafeteria getting coffee, that Matt dared to bring up the devastating secret she had revealed in that frantic moment.

  She told him the whole story. When she was finished, they agreed that they would never tell another living soul. There was no reason to do so. Nobody would ever have to know—not even the police. It wouldn’t change anything.

  They’ve been walking on eggshells ever since, tiptoeing around each other’s emotions and moods, doing whatever is necessary to get their children—all three of them—through this traumatic time. Both Curran and Riley have had chronic nightmares since that Friday evening in Niagara Falls; one or both of them ends up in bed with Matt and Kathleen most nights.

  At first, they tried to protect their sons from the truth about what had happened to their sister and to Erin. But it was no use. The other kids were talking. In the end, Kathleen and Matt told them that a bad man tried to hurt Jen, but that he can’t hurt anybody ever again.

  “I’m going to try to come home early this afternoon,” Matt is saying. “The snow is really starting to come down. I figure things will be quiet around here and I bet everyone will cut out early.”

  “This is Buffalo, Matt. It’s winter. The snow doesn’t put a stop to anything. People just deal with it.”

  After a pause, Matt says tersely, “Yeah. Well, I guess I’ll just deal with it then.”

  “Good idea.”

  She sounds like a bitch. She can’t help it. She doesn’t want him to come home early. It’s easier when he’s not here.

  Whenever he’s around, she catches him looking at her with an expression of . . .

  Not disappointment, exactly.

  Not resentment, either. Not entirely.

  She doesn’t know what it is, but whenever she sees that look in his eyes, she feels sick inside. She doesn’t want to face it again so soon.

  “I’ll call later.” Matt’s tone is curt. He hangs up without waiting for her reply.

  Kathleen stands holding the phone, gazing out at the snow. The ground is carpeted now; bare tree limbs and the cedar rails of the boys’ swing set are fringed with lush ice crystals.

  Suddenly, the house feels overheated and eerily still. Seized by claustrophobic restlessness, Kathleen longs to be outside, breathing the winter fresh air, listening to the familiar, quiet sifting sound in the trees as the world is dusted in white.

  Her thoughts turn to the last winter she spent here in Buffalo, when she was dating Quint Matteson—if that’s what you could call it. Dating. Hah.

  In the hospital, Jen told her that she tried to find him—that one of his neighbors told her he was dead.

  Kathleen wasn’t surprised. She wanted to tell Jen that it doesn’t matter. That Quint Matteson is nothing to her anyway; no relation. But she couldn’t say that. She just held her daughter while she unwittingly cried for her so-called father.

  “Can you find out where he’s buried, Mom?” Jen begged. “So that we can visit his grave?”

  “Sure,” Kathleen promised reluctantly. “I’ll find out.”

  Another cemetery. Another grave to visit.

  She hasn’t been to Saint Brigid’s cemetery since the day of Erin’s funeral. She wants to go back, really she does. She just can’t bring herself to do it yet.

  Eventually, though, she’ll venture back through the familiar stone gateposts of Saint Brigid’s Cemetery. And when she does, she’ll lay flowers at Erin’s grave, a stone’s throw from her mother’s . . . and on the opposite side of the cemetery from where Father Joseph lies beside his own mother.

  To think that she was going to confess her darkest secrets to him . . .

  To think that he already knew. At least, about Jen.

  She still doesn’t know how he figured it out, or why he did what he did. None of it makes sense. But Kathleen can’t accept that his stalking of Jen was random, as the police have assumed.

  The detective in charge of the case told her the old priest might have been mentally ill, that he must have just snapped.

  Kathleen is troubled, still, by questions that have no answers, and probably never will.

  What about the baby she heard crying in the night?

  What about the lone red rose on her mother’s grave? Why did Father Joseph put it there? It was Detective Brodowiaz who told her about it, saying the owner of the florist shop near Saint Brigid’s had come forward when the case exploded in the media. It turned out the priest had frequently come into the shop for a single red rose to lay at somebody’s grave. The owner didn’t know whose.

  Kathleen did.

  But she didn’t tell the detective.

  The last thing she wanted was for the police to start sniffing around her own past . . . or Mollie Gallagher’s grave.

  There’s another nagging question, one even more pressing than the others.

  Where did the pink bootee come from?

  The more she mulls over that particular angle, the more convinced she becomes that there might be a logical explanation. Father Joseph must have found the stray bootee on the steps of Saint Brigid’s after that fateful November night.

  The night when Kathleen, mourning her own dead infant, found a baby girl abandoned on the doorstep of the church. Pinned to her pink crocheted blanket was a note that read Please take care of my baby.

  And so Kathleen did.

  Lucy watches John trudging toward her through a curtain of squalling snow. Even from this distance, he looks older than he did when she saw him a few weeks ago. Older, and wearier. His shoulders are hunched beneath his down coat; his gait is heavy.

  He comes closer, and she wonders why he isn’t wearing gloves or a hat; why his feet are clad in loafers. It’s as though he’s oblivious to the snow that’s clinging to his ha
ir and his eyebrows, almost camouflaging the stripe of white hair so like his daughter’s.

  Their daughter’s.

  Lucy named her Margaret, after the blessed saint to whom she had prayed for years. It was Father Joseph who told her about Margaret the Barefooted, who relied on prayer to help her survive years of abuse at the hands of her husband.

  If it weren’t for that peculiar birthmark in her eyebrow, Henry might have believed Margaret was his own child when she was born.

  Lucy had promised her husband almost a year before giving birth that she was no longer seeing the man Henry had come to loathe. And she wasn’t. She had already told John goodbye. There was just that one night . . .

  Just one sinful night when they found their way into each other’s arms one last time.

  That was all it took.

  When Lucy found herself pregnant, Henry called it a new beginning for them.

  For nine months, with the baby growing in her womb, Lucy waited in anticipation, in dread. She rocked, she knitted, she prayed. She prayed that she was carrying her husband’s child . . . though she longed with all her heart for it to be John’s.

  When the baby was born, she knew instantly. The little girl was the very image of Lucy’s married lover, birthmark and all. Not only had God refused to answer her prayers, he had cursed the baby with blatant testimony to her parents’ adultery.

  Cursed her . . . or blessed her?

  If it weren’t for that birthmark, Lucy might never have recognized her daughter on television a few months ago.

  It was the birthmark that jumped out at her, but beyond that, even, Margaret’s face was the spitting image of John’s.

  Still, Lucy clung to a shred of doubt, unable to convince herself that her child might still be alive.

  That was when she called Father Joseph. Years had passed since Lucy confessed her sins to the priest, but he hadn’t forgotten her. He hadn’t forgotten her extramarital affair that had resulted in a baby girl—a baby girl who lived only a few weeks after Lucy gave up custody.

  Father Joseph had comforted her in her bereavement, had been there for her when nobody else was. And when he retired from the priesthood, he told Lucy to call upon him if she ever needed him again.