It all seemed so strange to Kendra. Saint Jamie, of the split personality. One moment threatening someone’s life for not turning over drugs to Rosario, the next trying to figure out the cause of her daughter’s nausea.
“I’ll finish and be there in a minute,” Jamie told Kendra.
Kendra snapped. In the split second before she grabbed her sister’s cell phone and hurled it into the undergrowth, she realized she was angry at a lot of people, most notably the man who had gunned her down in a parking lot, a man with a list of arrests for drug offenses as well as car theft. A man who had changed the course of her life.
“Don’t you think I’m smarter than that? I heard enough of this phone call and another one to know what you’re up to. And you will not spend another moment on my property selling drugs or whatever part you’re playing in the drug scene now! I’ve tried to ignore it. I’ve tried to stay out of it for the sake of your girls. But no more, Jamie! My God, you’re as bad as Riva.”
Jamie’s complexion was pale in the moonlight, but her eyes blazed. “Shouldn’t you check out what you think you heard?”
“I know what I heard.”
“Funny, as a little girl I remember you telling me never to believe my ears—that I’d be less disappointed that way.”
“So what would I have discovered if I’d asked you to explain yourself?”
“That the woman on the other end of the phone was an outpatient in a drug treatment program, and I’m her caseworker. Her name’s Trudy. She’s relapsing. Our director, Ron Rosario, told me to cut her loose, that she’s not ready to quit using for good, but I’m bullheaded, because I used to be right where she is. She told me yesterday she’d bought some stuff on the street and planned to sell it for more money. Even so, I thought I could save her.”
Kendra knew what she’d heard. “Rosario will turn her over to the big boys?”
“Yeah, Kendra, the cops. She’ll go to jail, and when Rosario finds out she’s selling, he’ll be the one to turn her in. Trudy knew if she got caught she’d go down. It’s the only deal we’ll make in the program. We’re the final stop, the last hope, and we make sure everybody knows it when they sign on.”
Kendra wanted to believe her, but at the same time she was leery. She was also beginning to worry that she, not her sister, had screwed up. “Then why didn’t you just tell me what was up?”
Jamie was silent.
“You thought I should just trust you?” Kendra demanded. “Despite all signs to the contrary? You’re a virtual stranger, Jamie. You walked out ten years ago. You threatened to disappear forever if I tried to find you. You didn’t even tell me about Alison. What was I supposed to think?”
“I’m going to check on my daughter. Then we’ll finish this. In the meantime, if you have a flashlight, you can find my phone. I’m not rich yet, and I can tell you that helping addicts put their lives back together doesn’t pay nearly as much as I used to make out on the street.”
Kendra watched her sister stalk back to the house. Jamie was furious, and if she was telling the truth, Kendra could understand.
If
she was telling the truth.
Kendra still couldn’t believe her sister. Suspicion was a job hazard, as well as a trait that had been instilled one lie at a time by their mother. And she was running on adrenaline. Her hands were shaking; her heart was pounding too fast. She went to the bushes where the phone had landed and stood at the edge. She had no idea what might be lurking there. With a sigh, she parted the closest ones and began to search.
A few minutes later, with neither snakebite nor rabies to show for her trouble, she located the phone. But she wasn’t done. As she had searched, she’d made up her mind. The night was dark, but with the moonlight and a diffuse glow from the porch, there was enough light for her to locate the buttons. She found Call History and pushed “send” to reconnect with Jamie’s last caller.
A woman who sounded young and out of breath answered and didn’t give her time to speak. “Jamie, my God, what happened? I thought you gave up on me. I’m sorry. My life’s a mess. I know it is. Don’t abandon me. I’ve got to make it this time. I know it’s my last chance to get clean. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix what I’ve done.”
Kendra didn’t know what to say. She spoke at last. “Look, this isn’t Jamie. It’s her sister. Jamie’s little girl is sick, but she’s going to call you in a while. Hang in there.”
The woman began to sob. Kendra closed the phone.
She was staring up at the stars when Jamie came back.
“Hannah’s sound asleep,” Jamie said.
Kendra held out the phone. “She’s waiting for you to call her.”
“Trudy called again? You talked to her?”
“No. I called her.”
Jamie took the phone. “And?”
“You’re telling the truth.”
“How nice I passed your test.”
“‘Sorry’ doesn’t begin to cut it, does it?”
“Since I got here, I’ve tried to tell you in a lot of different ways that I’m sorry for my sorry little life. It doesn’t seem to have made much of an impression.”
The day had tired Kendra; the anger had tired her more. Her head felt too heavy for her neck. “Call Trudy. I’ll be in the bedroom. Come find me when you’re ready.”
While she waited, Kendra took a shower. As she stood under the water, she remembered the many nights during her childhood when getting Jamie showered had been her responsibility. They were only ten years apart, but Jamie was the closest thing to a child she would ever have. And ever since Jamie’s arrival, she had treated her sister like a child, a naughty child who had to be observed, controlled and punished. A child who was going to disappoint her yet again.
She hadn’t wanted to let go of the little girl she’d loved more than anyone in the world. She had been afraid to see the woman.
Kendra was dressed in a long nightgown when Jamie came in.
“Is Trudy going to be okay?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe tossing the phone in the bushes was a good thing. She thought I’d finally abandoned her. I’m the only person who hasn’t, and she knows it. She says she’s flushing the drugs and attending a meeting.”
“Meeting?”
“Narcotics Anonymous. I called her sponsor, and he promised to pick her up and make sure she goes. He’s going to watch her flush the drugs so I can make sure that’s true. But I have to get back to Michigan. I want to get her in our residential program for another stint, and it won’t be easy. Rosario’s not nearly as squishy as I am.”
“Are you going back to help, or are you going back to get away from me?”
Jamie sat on the bed, and Kendra joined her. “Both,” Jamie said.
“I can’t believe I blew things this badly.”
“You’re human. You have a lot you can honestly hold against me.”
“But I’m your sister. I practically raised you.”
“That’s where we have a problem. You feel responsible for me. And you’re not. You were never my mother. You were a kid, too.”
Kendra wondered when she had last felt like a kid.
“We were both victims,” Jamie said.
“It’s just been so long. Then you show up claiming you want to take care of me. Not much in the way of explanation for all those years away—”
“You want to hear the explanation?”
Kendra wasn’t sure anymore.
“I guess I need to tell you anyway. After Brooklyn, I fell about as low as I could and not die from it,” Jamie said. “Drugs, booze, sleeping around, selling drugs, selling my body.”
Kendra’s eyes closed. “Jamie…”
“You have no idea what you can do when drugs are the only thing that fill that huge void called life. Once I found myself in a strange house in upstate New York, dumping somebody’s treasures into a plastic trash bag. It was like I came to for a moment and I couldn’t figure out how I had gotten there. I looked inside the bag, and I saw jewelry and what was obviously an incredibly valuable coin collection. Even photographs in sterling frames. I took out one of the photos, clearly old and probably priceless. I still remember it. Two little boys in sailor suits with a schnauzer on the bench between them. And I knew that somebody was going to feel awful about losing that photo. The thing is, I don’t remember anything else from that day. I’m sure I just put the frame back in the bag and continued stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down.”
“You must have been desperate.”
“I was arrested. Hannah’s father was appointed to represent me. Larry’s really not a bad guy. He got me off on a ridiculous technicality and tried to straighten me out. Once the charges were dropped, I conned him into bed, thinking he’d be good for a few weeks of food and lodging while I hustled more drugs. Getting pregnant was nobody’s idea. Larry was up front about not wanting to be a father, and he warned me against trying to be a mother.”
“But you had Hannah anyway?”
“I went into treatment the day I saw those two lines forming on the test-kit strip. I was pretty far gone, but not so far gone I didn’t realize my choices. I could have drugs, or I could have the baby. Larry agreed to pay for the program, but he told me if I failed, he’d make sure I went home from the hospital alone. Luckily, I didn’t.”
Kendra mulled over the story. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“So you could take care of me? I knew better, Ken. Nobody could rescue me except me. Hannah was a hundred percent healthy when she was born. I won’t tell you I didn’t try to score drugs in the treatment center, because I did. Lucky for everybody, I failed. By the time I got out, I was on recovery road. I still walk it. It’ll never be easy.”
“Hannah’s six, Jamie.”
Jamie traced a line of stitching on the old Lover’s Knot quilt that Kendra had brought to her bedroom for safekeeping. “And where have I been? Afraid to let you know how low I sank, and afraid I’d relapse. I had to prove myself. I needed to be sure I was standing on my own feet.” She looked up. “And you know what? After tonight, I’d say that was wise.”
Tears filled Kendra’s eyes. “You didn’t give me a lot to go on. How was I supposed to know?”
“I realize that. But I didn’t want to go into my sordid past, not right away. I wanted you to get to know me again and trust what you saw. Then I was going to tell you about the drugs and rehab and my commitment to this program. Every single person on our staff is an addict. Rosario served ten years in prison for dealing.”
“I wish you’d told me sooner.”
“Maybe I should have, but I came to help you. I thought it would be the right way, the right time, to start a new relationship. And here’s the thing I figured out. You don’t want
anybody’s
help. You’ve been the big sis too long. You can’t let go and let anybody else pitch in. So you found a reason to keep me at arm’s length. If I’d been anyone else, wouldn’t you just have confronted me and asked what was going on?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Maybe it’s not the whole story, but it’s part of it. I hope we can be equals someday.” Jamie covered Kendra’s hand. “It’s all out in the open now. We’ll let it sit there, and maybe someday soon, we’ll try again.”
Kendra turned her hand palm up and caught her sister’s. “You’d better mean that.”
“Just once in your life, try believing what you hear.”
I
saac arrived home on Saturday night to find his trip to Philadelphia had been cancelled. His cell phone had been out of range; he supposed he would have to choose another provider if he was going to continue to visit Kendra. He wasn’t sure how he felt about his needlessly early departure.
Sunday morning, he woke up in a room that echoed with silence to a day with nothing planned. With nothing better to do, he decided to stop by the office to get a stack of documents to work on. At breakfast, he scanned the
Post
, sorry as he did that there was nothing with Kendra’s byline. She took her talent for granted, but he had always felt lucky to be married to a woman with both brains and insight.
The drive to ACRE was easy, except for the occasional knots of churchgoers. He watched mothers shepherding children into stone and brick buildings that had stood for decades, even centuries. As a child, he had spent his Sunday mornings at whatever church his father decided they would frequent. As an adult, he hadn’t even been willing to walk into one to marry his wife. He and Kendra had been married on the banks of the Potomac by a justice of the peace.
At his desk, he spent an hour answering e-mail, then gathered up his papers. On the way out, he retrieved a can of cat food that was one of a dozen residing in his desk. The chewed-up ginger tabby hadn’t exactly become a friend, but he accepted Isaac’s offerings as if they were his due. Isaac supposed coming into the office had been as much about feeding the cat as anything.
Usually the cat came out when Isaac called. He never came close, but he made himself known. Today there was no sign of him. Isaac knew better than to be concerned. The cat was a veteran of city streets. Perhaps the pickings here had diminished in proportion to successful hunting. The old guy had probably found a better alley, or was simply making his daily rounds.
He decided to open the can and leave it behind the Dumpster where the cat seemed to hang out. That way, if he returned, the food would be waiting—if some other critter didn’t get it first. Tomorrow he would check again and bring another can. If the cat wasn’t back in the next few days, Isaac would give the food to Craig, ACRE’s vice president of marketing, whose partner John fostered cats for a local rescue operation.
The alley wasn’t the most pleasant place to spend a Sunday morning. The odors from the Dumpster suggested more than leftover coffee grounds and stale pastries. Rainbow oil slicks adorned last week’s puddles. A frustrated artist had sprayed graffiti on the brick wall but needed help with spelling. Isaac picked his way between parked cars and over concrete barriers. He didn’t see the cat until he bent over to shove the can behind the Dumpster.
The tabby was sprawled crookedly in a position no cat would willingly choose. Isaac’s stomach knotted. He was sure the animal was dead—until he opened his eyes. The cat managed one pathetic screech that warned Isaac to keep his distance.
Isaac backed away. He didn’t know how the tabby had managed to drag himself to shelter. For that matter, he didn’t know how this wily alley resident hadn’t dodged the car that hit him. He wondered if someone had purposely run him down.
The cat didn’t have long to live—Isaac could see that—and moving him would surely finish the job. Sometimes it was kinder to let nature take its course. Isaac had done what he could, maybe too much. If he hadn’t fed the cat, maybe he would have moved to a safer place.
“What in the hell do I do with you?” He realized he had spoken out loud.
The cat opened his eyes again. They were glazed with pain, but Isaac thought he saw something behind them, and it wasn’t resignation.
“You’ll scratch me into a million pieces, won’t you?” But even as he asked the question, Isaac was taking off the ACRE sweatshirt he’d zipped over his T-shirt.
The cat didn’t move as he approached. With just a few feet to go, Isaac pulled out his cell phone and called information.
The gray-haired vet at the emergency clinic was experienced and kind. From the looks of him, he had saved the lives of thousands of animals and ended the lives of more than he wanted. He sedated Isaac’s sweatshirt-bound prisoner immediately, then shook his head over the cat’s multiple injuries.
When the exam was over he shook it again. “He’s a stray?”
“The proverbial alley cat,” Isaac said. “We need to put him down.”
Isaac had expected to hear this. But the confirmation finished tying the knot in his belly. “He doesn’t have a chance?”
The vet removed his stethoscope. “Maybe, with a lot of care. We’d have to do emergency surgery. There’d be at least a week of hospitalization while he heals, then a lot of care at home. That is, if he’d let you take care of him.” His gaze flicked to the scratches on Isaac’s arms. “You’ll need a tetanus shot. Did he bite you, too?”
“He has a lot of energy for a dying cat.”
“If he was someone’s beloved pet, trying to save him would make sense. But he’s not.”
Isaac knew the right answer. By bringing the cat here, he had saved the poor guy hours of misery. He was sedated now. He simply wouldn’t wake up. The vet was kind; he would do it immediately and make sure the cat didn’t suffer.
“What will the treatment cost?” he asked instead.
“Thousands. And what will you have to show for it when he’s healed? If he makes it, that is. What will you do with him?”
“How old is he, do you think?”
“I’m guessing two or so.”
“I thought he was a lot older.”
“Don’t let age make your decision. This cat’s lived nine lives already.”
Isaac couldn’t believe they were still having the conversation. “You’ve told me everything you responsibly should. Now, if you were me, what would you do?”
The vet was silent. Then he sighed. “If he doesn’t make it through alive, I’ll donate my fee for the surgery. Will that help?”
Isaac was embarrassed he couldn’t seem to let go. “This is crazy. I could send that money overseas and feed a batch of hungry children.”
“You can do that, as well. All creatures great and small…”
Isaac felt the knot slowly coming untied. “Where do I sign?”
Kendra had never been much of a churchgoer. Nominally she was Catholic. The Delacroix grandparents had made sure she and Jamie were baptized, then washed their hands of their daughter’s children, duty done. Kendra was fairly certain they’d found limited interaction with Riva was easiest. That way they couldn’t witness closely the damage she wrought.
Riva avoided Mass even more efficiently than she avoided mothering her children. There was no First Communion, no lessons in catechism, no holy day celebrations. Kendra’s real religious education came early in her career, when she served a stint on the religion section of a medium-size daily and learned too much about the issues and scandals of religious life.
Once she became dissatisfied with her marriage, life’s unanswered questions loomed larger, and she’d searched for a church that would help make sense of them. She’d been surprised to find sustenance at the Shenandoah Community Church where Sam Kinkade was minister.
Early on Sunday morning, she waved goodbye to Jamie and the girls, and when the resulting silence made the house almost unbearable, she knew the time had arrived to make her first Sunday morning appearance since the shooting. She’d made friends here, and she wanted to renew those bonds.
The parking lot was crowded, but she pulled into a space in the farthest corner and took her time getting to the front door. She was greeted by strangers, but Elisa saw her almost immediately. She came over to hug Kendra and ask her to sit in her pew.
A choir from an African-Methodist church in D.C. was visiting, and they performed a rousing gospel medley that had the mostly white SCC congregation on their feet applauding by the end. Sam’s sermon on racial justice was nearly as exuberant and well received.
Once the sermon ended, Kendra was greeted warmly. Helen spotted her just as she and Cissy were leaving the church, a squirming Reese imprisoned on Cissy’s hip. Kendra took Helen’s hands and leaned over to kiss her cheek. Helen harrumphed.
“When are you going to visit me?” Kendra asked. “I was thinking this afternoon, ’less you got other ideas or better ways to spend your time?”
“I’ll be glad for the company.”
Helen frowned. “This quiet life’s not setting too well?”
Kendra realized her mistake. “No, I’m fine.”
“’Cause we always need more quilters in the bee, and that’s a fact.”
The SCC Bee met weekly on Wednesday mornings. The women were delightful, but Kendra wasn’t a quilter.
“You don’t want me.” She pulled a long, sad face. “I’m hopeless.”
“No chance of that.”
Kendra tried to change the subject. “I’ll look forward to seeing you this afternoon.”
“You think we’re finished with that other conversation, but we just started.” Helen left for the door, and Cissy, who was trying to untangle Reese’s fist from her hair, aimed a sympathetic smile in Kendra’s direction.
A man spoke somewhere behind her. “She’s up to no good, isn’t she.”
Kendra turned to find Sam. “She thinks I’ll be joining your quilting bee.”
“You’re doomed. Words I don’t often say, by the way.”
She smiled, the first natural, easy smile of the day. “She’s met her match.”
“You wouldn’t care to make a bet, would you?”
“Cash beat you to it.”
He took her arm and steered her out of traffic and into a quiet corner.
“So how are you feeling?”
“A little stronger every day.” She told him about her work in Leah’s garden. “I’m doing better, but I’m preparing to limp for the rest of my life.”
“I imagine you remind yourself every day that limping, under the circumstances, is a blessing.” He smiled at her cautious nod. “And I imagine that kind of Pollyanna wisdom isn’t helping as much as you’d like.”
“I’m not asking myself why this happened to me. That’s where you come in, right?”
“Sometimes.”
“And what do you say when you’re asked?”
“That I’ve never known a good parent who put a child in harm’s way just to make a point. People attribute acts to God that a normal father would be arrested for.”
“But bad things happen.”
“Good parents can’t protect children at all times and in all places. But they can give them the tools they need to move forward through adversity or accept the inevitable with grace.”
She thought this was one of those simple explanations it might take a million incarnations to understand. It also brought Jamie to mind. In a few sentences, she told Sam about Jamie’s reappearance in her life.
“So let me get this straight,” he said when she’d finished. “She disappeared for all those years, and you knew she’d been into some pretty heavy stuff. And you didn’t accept her without a qualm?” He paused. “Welcome to the human race.”
She was trying to figure out how to answer that when he continued. “But we’re not going to let you off that easily. I hear you saying that part of the reason you didn’t want to trust her was that you might have to admit you need her.”
Sam was too good at this. It was true that the only time recently she had admitted she needed somebody, he’d failed her.
“You’re thinking about Isaac, aren’t you.” He made a casual assessment of the space around them and saw no one was approaching. “If things had turned out differently the night you were shot, let’s say you’d gotten your pills, gone home, taken them and crawled into bed, would you still be angry with him?”
“I’m trying to figure things out. I’m not angry.”
“Of course you are. He failed you. It’s in your voice, in the way you’re holding your head, the way you’re gripping your purse.”
She relaxed her fingers. The head seemed locked in position. “He didn’t fail me. He was playing by the rules we made.”
“Apparently you think the rules need to be changed. Have you told him?”
She searched for an answer that didn’t involve laying her soul bare to a husband who had shown no signs of wanting to see it. “I’m not very good at doing that.”
Sam’s expression softened. “Isaac may pay the closest possible attention to everything you do, and he may care a great deal. But if he doesn’t think that’s important, then why would he risk letting you know?”
When she didn’t answer, he went on. “Here’s the great thing about marriage. It only takes one person to change it. Change, not fix, of course, but sometimes change is the first step in that direction. You’ve changed what you want out of your marriage, but now you have to let Isaac know. Unless you’re sure it’s too late.”
Was she sure? She didn’t think so. But was she courageous enough to tell her husband the things she could so easily tell Sam? Because if Isaac really wasn’t interested, if he was too busy to pay attention to her concerns, then her marriage really would be over.
She glanced past Sam’s shoulder and saw with some relief that a group of men was bearing down on them. “I have to give this some serious thought.”
“No platitudes on this end. This may not turn out the way you want it to. You need to be prepared. And if it does turn out well, you need to be prepared for that, too. You really aren’t used to needing someone else. It’s going to take some serious adjustment.”
She thought of her sister, on the highway back to Michigan. “Then I’ll adjust.”
“I’ll see you next Sunday?”
“I think you’ll be seeing a lot of me. I
need
this place.”
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “That’s a good start.”
Helen arrived at about three, carrying a discount store shopping bag. On the porch, she thrust it in Kendra’s direction with complete lack of ceremony. “Something for you. Call it a housewarming present.”
Kendra pulled a quilt from the bag and shook it out. It was a log cabin in scrappy earth tones—browns, beiges, grays and olive. The large center squares were a sunny gold, and the light and dark halves of each block had been laid out to resemble furrows. Best of all, names were penned in the center squares. Kendra recognized the names of the SCC quilters she’d met.
She cleared her throat, which felt as if it were suddenly stuffed with quilt batting. “I don’t know what to say. It’s just so beautiful. And perfect.”