Kristine started to cry as she blubbered out the story. When the last words tumbled out, she said, “It’s not that I want the money. If it isn’t mine, I don’t want it. How can I make this right?”
“Who says you have to make it right, Mom? Where is that written? You had nothing to do with what happened hundreds of years ago. Who says you have to take responsibility for what happened?”
“I say so. It was my family. How can I live with myself if I don’t do something about it? I made a deal with Jackson Valarian. It’s only right that I abide by that deal. I suppose I thought he might find out things, like some of our family were horse thieves or something like that. I never for one minute thought about anything like this.”
“What can you do, Mom?”
“Tomorrow, he is going to show me everything. This is something I need to see in black-and-white with my own eyes. I don’t have a clear picture in my head of all the things he said. I’ll take that tea now, Cala, if you don’t mind. Thanks for stopping in.”
“I’ll get the tea. Why don’t you get into bed and, if you don’t mind, I’d like to sleep with you tonight. Do you remember that time in Italy when I had tonsillitis really bad and you slept in my bed with me? Dad was working that night, so you said it was all right. He would have said tough little soldiers didn’t need their mommies for a little thing like a sore throat. I felt so much better with you there.”
“Was it only one night, Cala?” Kristine whispered.
“Yeah, but that’s okay.”
Kristine wanted to cry at the sadness in her daughter’s voice. “I’m so sorry, Cala.”
“I know, Mom. I am, too. I’ll be right back. Gracie and Slick are on the bed waiting for you.”
Kristine stripped down and slipped into a sleep shirt. She was cuddling with the dogs when Cala returned with two cups of tea on a tray.
“Mom,” Cala finally said, breaking the silence, “I can stay on here if you need me. I have this feeling you want to dive into the records and bring this to some kind of conclusion. I’m no vet, but I can certainly learn how to take care of the pups. Pete can show me what has to be done.”
Kristine’s eyes sparked. “What about your job, honey?”
“I like the job, but there are other jobs. I don’t like California the way Mike does. He more or less talked me into it. It was easier to go than it was to argue with him. I’d really like to stay on, but only if you need me. I’m kind of getting used to this old house. It must have been wonderful growing up here.”
“I’d like very much for you to stay on, but only if you’re sure. Pete does most of the veterinary work. I deal with the prospective owners and the paperwork when I’m not playing with the pups. It’s so hard to give them up. I do an exhaustive background check on all clients. You are going to get attached to the pups and cry when they leave. Can you handle that?”
“Probably not, but I will try my best. Knowing they’re going to good homes will make it right for me. I think I’ll like working with Pete. He’s nice. Really nice. I like him, Mom.”
“I won’t be able to pay you much, Cala.”
“As long as the room and board is free, I can handle it. Is it a deal then?”
“It’s a deal.”
Cala whooped her pleasure as she hugged her mother.
Kristine closed her eyes. Nothing ever felt as good as this hug from her daughter. Her heart soared.
Cala must have felt it, too, for she nestled against her mother, sighing happily.
“Mom, Mike called while you were out. He said the guy I had the hassle with dropped the charges against me.”
“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful. That must be a worry off your mind.”
“It is. California is just too fast-track for me. Mike loves it, though. This is going to work for both of us.”
“Tell me,” Kristine teased, “what does really, really like mean in regard to Pete?”
Cala giggled. Kristine couldn’t ever remember hearing her daughter giggle. Thank you, God, thank you.
“It means he asked me out Saturday night. He said he’ll come up, pick some flowers on the way, knock on the door, and take my arm and walk me to the car. If, and this is the big if, you say it’s okay. He’s a little nervous about taking me out. Something about mixing business with pleasure. You like him, don’t you, Mom?”
“What’s not to like? I offered to make him a partner. That alone should tell you something.”
“We just hit it off right away. I think he likes me.”
“I think he does, too.”
“Mom, do you want to talk about Dad?”
“Not really. I’m getting on with my life. Sometimes I dream about him. Those dreams aren’t pleasant. I have to start thinking about filing for a divorce. I thought about having your father declared legally dead, but I don’t think I can do that. I keep telling myself I’m going to do it, then something stops me. I guess a part of my heart will always belong to your dad. I know that isn’t something you wanted to hear.”
“No, but I understand. I do, Mom. I wonder where he is and what he’s doing. Do you think he ever wonders about us?”
The word no exploded from Kristine’s mouth like a gunshot.
Cala giggled again. “That’s kind of my thinking, too. His loss, Mom.”
It was Kristine’s turn to hug her daughter. “You got that right, honey. I think we should go to sleep now. Tomorrow is going to be ... I don’t know what it’s going to be, but it’s going to either make or break me.”
“Want to share about Woodie?”
“Yes, but not tonight.”
“How is he in the sack, Mom?”
Kristine was about to pretend outrage. Instead she laughed. This was, after all, the nineties. “Best I ever had.”
Cala bounced on the bed, laughing her head off. “I always wondered if there was life after forty. Now I have my answer. My money is on you, Mom,” Cala said. “I’ll take Slick on my side, and you take Gracie on your side. We’re finally sharing, Mom.”
“Good night, Cala.”
“Night, Mom.”
Gracie and Slick barked at the same moment.
“Good night, Gracie and Slick.” Kristine smiled in the darkness.
“wool.”
“Woof.”
Kristine swung her legs over the side of the bed, careful not to wake her sleeping daughter. “Shhh,” she said to the rambunctious dogs as she set them on the floor. She smiled as they raced for the hallway and stairs to their doggy door and the barn. Pete would bring them up for breakfast.
She looked so young, so vulnerable, this sleeping daughter of hers. A fierce protectiveness she’d never felt before washed through Kristine as she watched her daughter’s even breathing. “Someday, you’re going to pay for this, Logan Kelly, just the way I’m paying. Neither one of us deserves our kids. I’m going to try and make my end of it right. It might take me the rest of my life, but I’m going to do it. Cala was right. You’re the loser, not us. Never us,” she whispered.
The breakfast dishes soaking, Kristine cleaned off the kitchen table, her thoughts in a turmoil as Cala and Pete, the two Yorkies on their heels, made their way to the barn.
Jackson Valarian, his hair on end, his eyes red-rimmed and full of grit, stared at her as he tried to figure out what he wanted to say. Finally, he blurted, “You aren’t going to let me do the story, are you?”
“That’s not true, Jack. I will let you do it, but I can’t give you a definite time frame. I didn’t expect . . . what I mean is ... I can’t just sweep this under the rug. If my family and Logan’s did all those things you say they did, then I have to make an attempt to set it right. I don’t even know where to start. How do you go back two hundred years and try to right a wrong? I don’t know the answer. I can tell you one thing, Jack. In my heart and soul, I believe my parents were ignorant of all this. I don’t think those trunks we found in the attic were ever opened. I don’t know about what you found in the Kellys’ attic. It’s possible there was a mi
stake somewhere along the way.”
“It’s in black-and-white, Mrs. Kelly.”
“My parents didn’t like my husband. I didn’t know that until a few years ago. If both our ancestors were involved in this ugly thing, don’t you think one set of parents would have said something?”
“People don’t talk about ugly things like that. It was and probably still is the mentality of ‘that was then, this is now.’ Saying ‘what can I do about it’ is taking the easy way out. Obviously, that’s not what you have in mind. I’d like to help you. You’re going to need another set of legs and more eyes than you can come up with. I’m willing to put my life on hold to help you with this as long as I get the story. We could be looking at a Pulitzer or a Nobel Peace Prize.”
“I’m not interested in awards or prizes,” Kristine said.
“No, but I am. Listen, I might be young, but this is burning in my gut. I want to do it. If you let me stay here, I’ll do all the legwork. I have a small amount of savings. I’ll contribute to the food bill. I’ll shovel snow in the winter and carry in firewood. I’ll do whatever you want. I have a computer in my apartment. I’ll bring it here, and we can start to track the financials together. We’ll be writing hundreds, maybe thousands of letters. This is not something you can do alone, Mrs. Kelly.”
“I regret the day I met you, Jack.”
Jack sat down on one of the dining room chairs. He finger-combed his hair, his eyes tired and weary as he stared at Kristine. “I understand how you feel. I can’t walk away from this. That’s not the kind of person I am. I don’t think you’re that kind of person, either. If we’re lucky, together, we might be able to make some of this come out right. I’ll give a hundred percent, Mrs. Kelly. Are you prepared to do the same?”
“Yes, I guess I am. How old did you say you are?”
“Twenty-six. Right now I feel like I’m a hundred and six. Is it a deal?”
Kristine held out her hand. “It’s a deal, Jack. I think you can call me Kristine from here on in.”
Jack pumped Kristine’s hand vigorously. “You won’t regret this, Kristine. My mother always taught me that if you do the right things in life, God will smile on you when you get to heaven.”
“You’re going to take your turn doing dishes and cooking. You have to do your own laundry and change your bed yourself. You can sleep in Mike’s room. If he comes home, you sleep in Tyler’s room. If they both come home, you either sleep on the floor or the couch. Keep your savings. You’re going to need gas money. What about your job?”
“This is more important than my job right now.”
“One other thing, Jack. We’re going to keep regular hours here. That means we go to bed around eleven or twelve. We eat three times a day and walk to the Kelly farm for our exercise.”
“That’s five miles! Each way!”
“Invest in a good pair of running shoes,” Kristine snapped. “Now, let’s get to it! Just out of curiosity, how long do you think this will take us?”
Jack mumbled something indistinguishable.
“What was that again?”
“Years.”
“YEARS!”
He found his voice. “This isn’t going to be one of those Mickey Mouse productions. We’re going to be dealing with people’s lives. When it’s time for you to come into your major inheritance, we should be wrapping this up.”
“Over four years! Are you saying this is going to take us more than four years? I’ll be fifty years old! You’ll be thirty-one!” Kristine’s voice was so strangled-sounding, she ran to the kitchen for a drink of water.
Light-headed with Jackson’s words, Kristine leaned against the kitchen sink. More than four years! Woodie would never wait that long for her. Woodie wanted to get on with his life. A life that was set to include her. A life where they both would live happily ever after. Where was she going to get the time to file for a divorce, carve Logan Kelly out of her heart once and for all, if she committed to this project with Jack? Not to mention the brand-new relationship she was experiencing with her daughter. “What about my business?” she wailed loud enough for Jack to hear. “Dammit, Jackson Valarian, I’m going to need the business to live.”
“I know, Kristine. I’ll help in any way I can. This is the right thing to do, Mrs.... Kristine.”
Kristine closed her eyes. A vision of a child being torn from its mother’s arms flashed behind her lids. “I know,” she whispered. “I know.”
PART III
Nairobi, Kenya 1995
11
He was a twelve-year-old kid again, hiding in the alcove near the attic stairs. A place where no one ever looked for him, especially his mother, who had crippling arthritis and never ventured to the second or third floors. He’d played here since he was a wobbly toddler and allowed to use the stairs. It was his own personal hideout, where he could play with things he wasn’t supposed to, and then later a place where he could avoid doing homework and chores. A special place where he kept the piles of National Geographies he snitched from the school library, a place where he could dream his special dream and gaze at pictures of bare-breasted African women.
The books were old, tattered, and they smelled, but he didn’t care. Someday when he was rich and famous he was going to go to Africa, the land of the sun. He would travel every inch of the land, ride on elephants, and make friends with all the wild animals the way his idol Tarzan did in the movies. Maybe he would be a tour guide for rich people. They would be so grateful for his expertise and knowledge they would reward him handsomely with rare gems and stacks and stacks of money. That’s how he would get rich. He’d wear one of those hats with the little holes in it and a safari suit with pockets all over the place. Maybe he’d learn to smoke a pipe and pretend he looked like Dr. Livingstone. The natives would love and respect him. All the women and girls would be bare-breasted, their titties bouncing as they wiggled their rear ends for his benefit just so he would smile at them. Maybe he would marry one of them. Maybe he would marry a girl for every day of the week. Maybe they would walk around naked all day. He’d get brown as a berry.
If he saved his money from now until he was twenty-one, he wondered if he would have enough to go to Kenya’s Utalii College, where he would learn to speak Swahili or Kikuyu.
It was 1957. Logan leaned back against the pile of blankets that covered his little nest. He pawed through the pile of National Geographics, until he found the one he wanted. His two favorite places in the whole world; Kenya and Tanganyika. He closed his eyes as he started on his safari. He took a deep breath as he envisioned the snowcapped mountains, the cavernous valleys, the vast deserts, and the lush forests with sparkling lakes and vibrant waterfalls. He stepped aside as a parade of sleek cats—lions, leopards, cheetahs—and elephants headed toward a water hole. When he had his fill, he opened his eyes and sniffed, imagining he could smell the pungent jungle and the overpowering scent of luscious blooms of every color of the rainbow. Life was full of warm, golden sunshine, and the air carried the scent of a thousand bottles of perfume.
He would be a king.
Logan rummaged beneath the blankets and pillows to find the ceremonial robe his mother had made for him two years ago for a Halloween party. It was beautiful burgundy velvet with faux ermine down the front and around the collar. It felt regal as did the papier-mâché crown and scepter at his side.
Logan squeezed his eyes shut a second time. Where to visit this time, the Serengeti or Mount Kilimanjaro? He leaned back, his crown askew as he watched a family of cheetahs cross the road to get away from an elephant charge. The trees in the distance moved as a group of giraffe raced after the cheetahs to get away from the stampeding elephants. He stepped backwards only to realize what he thought was a clump of bushes was a pride of lions. Moving farther back, his eyes on the thundering elephants, he leaned against a rock and was jolted forward for his effort by a rhino scrambling to move deeper into the bush. And all about him was the overpowering scent of jasmine.
H
is heart racing, Logan’s eyes snapped open when he heard his mother calling his name from the front porch. Didn’t she care that he was in Africa, the place of his dreams? Kings shouldn’t have to take out trash, mow the lawn, and shovel snow. When you were a king, your loyal subjects did all those things. He leaned back into his nest. He wanted to see the peacocks and the native dance that were next on his agenda. He didn’t want to go to the barn for the milk, didn’t want to carry in firewood for the wood-burning stove his mother preferred to cook on. Nor did he want to set the table or do his homework.
“Logannnn!”
The boy sighed as he removed his crown and robe. He piled his magazines neatly in the corner, the scepter on top of them.
Angry that his dream had been interrupted, Logan stomped his way down the stairs and out to the front porch.
“Where were you, Logan? I’ve been calling you for the past ten minutes.”
“Africa,” he muttered as he made his way to the barn. “I’m going to go there someday, you just wait and see. I’m going to be rich and famous and the animals will love me and all the people will bow their heads when I walk by. They’re going to be afraid of me, but they will respect me too. You just wait and see,” he continued to mutter.
Kathleen Kelly stared after her son. Logan was such a strange child. On more than one occasion she wondered if there had been a mixup at the hospital.
Why in the name of all that was holy would a child of twelve want to go to Africa, where all those savages lived?
Today was one of the days when she totally believed there had been a mixup at the hospital the day her son was born. How, why, where, when did Logan become so obsessed with that faraway land? She should know the answer, but she didn’t. Neither did his father or his teachers. Maybe he was a spawn of ... of ... something. She shivered in the late-afternoon sunshine.
The offices were plush, elegant, stopping just short of being embarrassing to those walking through the doors for the first time. No expense had been spared on the rich furnishings. The man seated behind the ornate desk looked just as plush, just as elegant as the elaborate furnishings.
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