If Anything Should Happen

by Bonnie Hearn Hill

  ‘She wrote me one,’ I said. ‘If anything happened to her, she wanted me to have it.’

  ‘Shit.’

  I sank deeper into the seat, and then forced myself to stiffen my back and sit tall. That’s the way my mom would handle this, and it was the way I had to handle it now.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know anything about any letter,’ he said, in a voice so thin with dishonesty that I almost felt embarrassed for him.

  ‘She said it was in her wall safe,’ I told him.

  ‘She had a wall safe?’

  The curiosity filling his voice sounded too tense to be idle. I knew right then that I had to get to that safe before he did.

  ‘Maybe I didn’t understand,’ I said. ‘Maybe it was a post office box.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, in the voice of a stranger. ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  Something was wrong. From the moment I’d mentioned the letter, his tone had changed. Farley always kidded me about my so-called photographic memory. Just then I used it and saw my father’s expression and heard his voice every time he tried to lie. He was lousy at it then and now. My mom was dead. I couldn’t change that, and I couldn’t even take the time to grieve. What I did have to do was get on the first available plane and fly back to Seattle. She wanted me to have that letter, and nothing was going to stand in my way, not even my own tears blurring my drive to the airport. Not even my own father.

  TWO

  My mom’s death was like her life, orderly and, yes, secretive. On my way to the airport, her attorney called me. His name was Matthew Breckenridge, and according to him, I was the executor of Elaine Carter-Doyle’s estate, as he called it. Her ashes and burial were paid for, he told me, and her obituary written. He spoke in a soft funeral-home voice as tears ran down my face, and I wondered why this stranger knew so much more about the details of my mother’s death than I did.

  I reminded myself that she had been the strongest woman I’d ever known. Few strived as hard as she had to be perfect, first as a fitness instructor at one of the Gold’s Gyms, later as the owner of that gym. The only reason I had majored in communication studies with a minor in computer science at Sac State was to show her that I could be successful with a ‘real education’, as she called it. She’d only had a short community-college experience, which had been interrupted by my birth. After I left for my internship and she opened her fourth gym in her home town of Seattle, I had hoped we could reach some unspoken peace between us. I would never be as perfect as she. Yet my mother needed to acknowledge that I – at least part of me – was my father’s daughter, and I could come across well on the air.

  So, yes, I wanted her approval, even now that I knew she was dead. Maybe I’d find it in her condo, off Seattle’s Vine and Third. Now I had to get there before Mick did, and something about our conversation, something that hadn’t been said, convinced me he would be going there too.

  On the plane, I wondered if I was just being paranoid. Had Mick known about the letter? And now he knew that I did, would he really try to find it before I could? I’d sensed something wrong with his voice on the phone, though, and I wasn’t about to take any chances.

  I landed in Seattle that night, my eyes burning with grief and lack of sleep. I ached from shoulders to skull and couldn’t turn my head without pain. Only when the cab driver asked me if I had luggage did I realize I’d left without as much as a toothbrush.

  When we arrived at Mom’s place, I looked out the window through the glass doors of the condo and saw what looked like a shouting match. A uniformed female security guard was arguing with a short, wiry man who seemed to be holding his own.

  I sank back into the seat of the cab and then made myself open the door. I’d recognize the beat-up yellow suede jacket anywhere. Mick didn’t just wear it; he resided in it. I got out of the cab and walked up to him.

  ‘I’m her husband,’ he shouted to the guard, a short but muscular young woman.

  ‘Ex-husband,’ I corrected him.

  He turned, as sharply as if I’d fired a gun. ‘Kit?’ It was too dark for me to see more than a hint of guilt in his features.

  ‘I thought you were staying in Vegas until the memorial service,’ I said.

  ‘Changed my mind.’ He glanced back at the guard. ‘Considering.’

  ‘I have a key,’ I said.

  ‘Then let’s get inside.’

  I didn’t move, and neither did the guard. ‘Would Mom really want you in there?’

  ‘I’ve been in there plenty.’

  ‘When?’

  He paused. Mighty Mick wasn’t much of a liar. That was another trait I must have inherited from him. I watched his face and waited.

  ‘Last year. Christmas.’

  ‘I was here last year at Christmas,’ I said.

  ‘You came Christmas Eve.’ He backed away from the security guard, toward the entrance, as he spoke. ‘I came the day before. Elaine let me stay.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘In the guest room.’ His voice dropped. ‘Come on, Kit. Let’s talk about it inside.’

  We climbed the winding black iron staircase. Outside the door to her condo, I couldn’t believe that my mom wouldn’t be waiting on the other side of it, that she never would be again.

  ‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ I said.

  ‘I sure as hell can’t.’ He frowned at the door, then back at me. ‘Why don’t we stay at a hotel? We can come back tomorrow and get whatever you need.’

  It was a good idea, I knew, but there was something I had to do first, and I couldn’t do it with that hound dog gaze on me. ‘I don’t know any hotels here. Could you call around?’

  ‘If that’s what you want. Sure, I can do that.’ He knew I was trying to get rid of him, and he didn’t like it.

  I moved away from the door, and he followed my lead. ‘Do you know where the roof deck is?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘We’ve been up there. I mean, Elaine and me. We were up there a few times.’

  ‘Would you mind making your calls up there?’ I asked. ‘I’ll meet you in a few minutes.’

  He hesitated and looked back at the door. ‘Do you really have to go in there right now?’

  ‘Please,’ I said.

  He stared at me hard and finally nodded. ‘OK, then. But hurry.’

  The moment he was gone, I let myself in. The first sensation was the rainwater scent that I now realized was my mom’s. She lined her drawers with it and sprayed it in the air. I’d always thought of it as a light fragrance, but now it was almost a presence. Her presence.

  I knew where the safe was, inside the closet of the master bedroom, and I knew the combination. I opened the door, and before I flicked on the light, a garment wafted across my face, so airy it could have been a ghost. I grabbed for it, and it turned into insubstantial silk. Her bathrobe. As I stood there among the clothes she’d never wear again, I had to repeat to myself that this was what she wanted me to do, what she’d asked me to do. If anything should happen to me …

  I reached into the safe and pulled out a smooth, hard envelope with my name printed on it. She’d made it easy for me. I turned off the closet light, stepped out into the bedroom, and removed the single handwritten sheet of white paper.

  Dear Kit,

  Know that I have loved you, even before you were born. For years, I imagined how you would look, how you would feel in my arms. And when there was a chance that you weren’t going to be my daughter, I moved heaven and earth to make it happen.

  It was too soon for this, but I knew I had to keep reading.

  Your first word was, ‘Mama,’ your second and third words, too. I scooped you up and ran into the house, telling Mick that our daughter could talk. He was different then, back when he was still at the top of his radio career. He cried. We both cried. You giggled and said it again. ‘Mama.’ I’d never felt so much joy and never felt like such a fraud.

  This is what you need to know, Kit. I am not your biolo
gical mother.

  Not my mother? I tried to look away from the thin-as-veins blue ink scrawling out a truth I couldn’t imagine or accept. But there it was. First I felt confusion. Then anger. Then the need to keep reading, keep learning.

  I’m sorry I couldn’t just say it to you. I am not your biological mother. The woman who gave birth to you is Kendra Trafton.

  I read the name again. Kendra Trafton. Yet I felt no connection.

  She is single and lives outside of Tucson, in Buckeye, Arizona. I always planned on telling you, but then Mick and I split up, and there was always a reason I couldn’t. Now, it may be too late.

  I want you to know that the happiest moments of my life have been because of you. You were a miracle beyond what I could have ever imagined, and you forced me to be a much better person than I would have been without you. Maybe that’s what any mother would say about her daughter. But in this case, I owe you something. I owe you a biological mother. I’m sorry it took me so long.

  She left no signature. No initials. Nothing. That piece of paper in my hand felt unfinished, as if she had planned to add more to it before death had stopped her.

  I read it again, unable to make the words real. Still, I felt the truth in them and knew what I was reading was more real than the life I had led until now. I left the room, locked up the condo, and then took the elevator to the roof deck.

  ‘It’s about time,’ Mick said. ‘I made our reservations.’

  I stood trembling at the railing.

  Mick stepped next to me, as if attempting to see what I saw, trying to understand. ‘Kit, what is it?’

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Don’t make me the bad guy, Kit. We need to talk.’

  ‘You want to talk? Why now? We’ve never discussed anything except format, air sound, and radio.’

  ‘Judging from your success, we must have had some good conversations.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you aren’t my real father?’

  He stiffened, as if I’d shot him. ‘Who the hell defines real these days?’

  ‘Kendra Trafton,’ I said. ‘Is that real enough for you?’

  ‘How do you know about Kendra?’ The color drained from his face and left him looking older and drawn. I didn’t like watching it, but I was the one who’d been lied to.

  ‘Mom’s letter.’ I looked down and realized I was clutching it in both hands. ‘It’s all here. I know I’m not your daughter, and I know Mom wasn’t my mother.’

  ‘She was more mother to you than anyone could have been.’ He backed away from me, as if wounded. ‘Elaine wanted you more than anything. You’ll never know what she went through to get you.’

  I walked closer to him, away from the railing, trying to read him, to understand. ‘You came here to destroy the letter, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s crazy. I didn’t even know about it.’

  ‘I told you about it on the phone. Nothing can make you leave your work. What I told you about the letter did.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  I hadn’t expected that. Nor had I expected the dropped voice or the mournful eyes.

  ‘I hoped I could get here before you found it.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ Tears threatened again. All I could think was that everything in my life had been a lie.

  ‘I only wanted to see what was in it.’ He patted my shoulder, as if I were a pet dog. ‘I wouldn’t have destroyed it. I wanted to read what was in it before you did.’

  ‘Why? What did you think it would say?’

  He looked away. ‘I don’t know. I just wanted to protect you.’

  ‘Protect me from what?’ I demanded. ‘The truth?’

  ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘Get one thing straight right now. I never wanted to keep the truth from you, not ever. And I paid a price for it, too.’ Something in his voice terrified me, but I couldn’t turn away from him.

  ‘What price?’ I asked.

  ‘My marriage, Kit.’

  And then I knew. I could see it glistening in his eyes. ‘You got divorced because of me?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Still, he nodded. ‘I never stopped loving her, but it wasn’t enough. She didn’t want to tell you, and I knew you had to know. She wanted this perfect little life for you, a make-believe life.’

  My lip began to tremble. ‘But you kept quiet about it too.’

  ‘Quiet as I could. She kept saying she’d tell you when the time was right.’

  ‘When was that going to be?’ I demanded. ‘I’m twenty-six years old.’

  ‘Twenty-five.’

  ‘Twenty-six in December, Mick. You knew she wasn’t going to tell me, not ever.’

  ‘That’s what we fought about.’ He stared out at the night, and I felt almost a sense of relief coming from him. Not from me, though. ‘Kit, honey, she didn’t just want that perfect life for you. She wanted it for herself.’

  ‘And that included not telling a child she was adopted?’

  ‘Elaine needed perfection.’ He squeezed my shoulder, as if to say he knew how little he offered me. ‘She wanted it more than was good for any of us.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘It goes back a long way. I knew that when I married her, but I also thought we’d be good for each other. I loved her so much. I still can’t believe she’s gone.’

  So my parents, the people I’d been raised to believe were my parents, hadn’t hated each other all of these years. They’d loved each other and broken up because of me, because they couldn’t agree on whether or not they should tell me I was adopted.

  ‘Oh, Kit, I’m sorry.’ Mick put out his arms.

  Still holding the letter, I stumbled into them and buried my sobs against his shoulder.

  THREE

  Rat-a-tat roar.

  Rat-a-tat roar.

  Part drum, part gun, its music followed her everywhere. Rena Pace was used to it by now. In a way, they had a pact, the nail gun and her. As long as she could hear it, she knew her husband, Dale, was working, not sneaking around trying to spy on her, or, just as bad, chatting up Bryn in their store.

  She walked out back, and the heat sucked the breath out of her. Dale was standing on top of the tin shed, his face blistering with color, like meat frying.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Nothing, honey. I just wanted to tell you I need to drive into Tucson. I’m supposed to help Kendra out at her shop this afternoon.’

  He made a face and waved her away.

  She couldn’t hear what he said, but she could guess. ‘She’s paying me, Dale.’

  ‘Who’s going to cook dinner?’ he yelled down.

  ‘I’ll be back way before then,’ she said, but he had already reached for his tools again.

  Rat-a-tat roar.

  Rat-a-tat roar.

  Back inside the store, she picked up a couple of bottles of strawberry soda from the cooler. Even with the gas prices climbing, people kept filling their tanks, the way the hooked still bought their cigarettes.

  Bryn Coulter turned from where she’d been counting out change for a gas customer and stopped when she saw Rena come in. She was what Rena’s dad would have called fluff, with hair so thick and shiny that calling it blond was like calling the moon yellow.

  ‘I’m going over to Tucson.’ Rena pressed the cool bottle against the back of her neck.

  ‘Helping that Injun with her witchcraft again?’ She drawled it out with just enough disrespect and a slow up-and-down look to make Rena feel old and stupid.

  Bryn’s jeans were frayed at the top and barely cleared her pubic area. What would happen if she reached up for something, and they slipped? That was probably the question meant to burn in the minds of every man who looked at her, Dale especially.

  Rena slammed both bottles on the counter. ‘I don’t allow any race talk in here. Now, give me a bag for these.’

  Bryn took her time reaching behind the counter. ‘Question is, I guess, what does Dale allow in
here?’ She blinked those secretive gray cat eyes and rocked back and forth on her platform sandals.

  ‘My husband respects my wishes in here as he does at home.’ She pressed her palms on to the scarred counter and went face-to-face with her. ‘When you get older, you’ll understand.’

  Bryn slid a brown bag over the counter and didn’t look away. ‘I’m old enough, don’t you think?’

  ‘Wonder what your daddy would say about that.’ Rena snatched the bag, put the bottles inside, and headed for the door.

  ‘You leave my daddy out of this,’ Bryn shouted from behind her. All of a sudden, she didn’t sound as sure of herself.

  ‘I’ll leave him out of it, ’til he needs to be brought in.’ Rena reached the door, wondering if she was being mean because Dale had been mean to her. It didn’t matter right then, though, with her blood still boiling so hard that it burned as harsh as one of Dale’s slaps. ‘Just so you know,’ she said, looking back, half-in, half-out of the open door. ‘This is my place. I hire and I fire, so don’t you ever again call Kendra Trafton an Injun or a witch.’ The door swung shut behind her before she could hear what Bryn said back.

  She was still cursing Bryn and her jeans when she parked on Fourth Street and entered The Smudge Shop, part of a tiny collective of healers.

  Two women stood chatting over the candle collection in the west part of the store. Five older women and three men – tourists, for sure – carried on sniffing the scented soaps for sale. The whole store smelled like vanilla and freshly mown hay.

  At the glass counter, Kendra was bent over a series of short, brittle-looking sticks. A chamois-colored shirt draped over her black tank top hid her height and her large build. Her ponytail was dusky gray except for the widow’s peak in front, which was still a vibrant black. A witchy contrast. No wonder Bryn was afraid of her. And Rena knew that was all the bad-mouthing amounted to in the end: just fear.

  Kendra looked up as she drew closer. So many years. How had Kendra spent them? How had she spent them? Dale and his nail gun? The store? It had been different before her folks died, different when Daniel had still been at home. They’d shared some pretty good times back before Dale got mean.