The Keepers Book Two of the Holding Kate Series (10 page)

“In classical physics, the past is assumed to exist as a definite series of events, but according to quantum physics, the past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities. Even the universe as a whole has no single past or history.”  ~
Hawking & Mlodinow, 
Scientific American
, October 2010.

PLEASANTLY EXHAUSTED AND
eager to be with our wives, we parked Donnie’s Jeep at First Cabin and bolted toward our respective homes.

“See ya, Corey!” Donnie called over his shoulder as he crossed toward the boathouse, bag in hand.

“Later.” I ran onto the porch and rushed into the cabin. It creaked, dark and empty.

I took my bag to my bedroom to find the bed made and no sign of Kate or her family. They were probably having breakfast at the diner. I decided to go into town and join them.

I stepped out onto the porch and saw Donnie exit the boat house.

“Is Mel over there?” he called.

“No, I was just gonna head into the village to see if they were there.”

“Let’s go.” We hopped in the small cart and sped into the village, impatient to find the girls.

People milled around, spilling over the walkways and into the streets. Families poured out of every shop. We drove slowly by the big windows of Ermadean’s Diner, but caught no sight of our group. Circling the Staying Well, we watched families pressing their handprints and names into commemorative stones. The village burst with reunions, but we couldn’t find our girls or any sight of our clan.

“Let’s go to the old cabin and see if anyone is there.” Donnie veered the cart down the hill.

We pulled up in front of the cabin that we had originally been assigned to, but it sat inordinately quiet. Usually some sign of life rang from it, but upon entering the cabin, I noted the lights were out and not even a dish in the sink to indicate anyone had been there.

“Maybe they’re all visiting with parents somewhere?” Donnie suggested without any conviction.

“Something’s wrong.” I turned and ran down the steps and up the hill to the Administration Mansion. Kim emerged from the front door and paused on the steps with her face contorted in grief. She saw me and gasped.

“Corey! You have to go, now,” she said.

Donnie arrived in the golf cart, and Kim dragged us into Mama Ty’s office.

“Mama Ty, they’re back!”

“Heavens, Mr. Chastain, where have you been? We have scoured three counties and two states looking for you!”

“What has happened?” My heart raced and my palms broke into a slick of perspiration.

“Kate.”

I staggered. “Kate, what?”

“Kate needs you, dear.”

I held my breath waiting for the words to fly from her mouth and pierce my heart.

“Kate’s family has been killed in a car crash.”

My ears were roaring. Kate’s alive. Kate’s not hurt. My heart spiked. Then the dread of what Mama Ty said and what it meant sliced through me. Kate hurt beyond reason. She probably wanted to die with them, and I was not there.

“The rest of the Keepers are with her. They flew out with her immediately. The Chartreuse team left early this morning to go to the funeral. I comp’d the expenses. I didn’t think you would mind.”

“When is it?”

“Today, at 3 PM. I took the liberty of making your travel arrangements and packed both of you a bag. She picked up two black duffle bags and held them out to Donnie and me. I assumed you would want to be with her.”

I couldn’t breathe. The pain that Kate must be suffering lodged in my chest, an unholy thing. I stepped forward and hugged Mama Ty. The village administrator had thought of everything. She needed a raise.

“Thank you. For everything.”

A helicopter flew in from the east, its chopping sounds ricocheted off of the surrounding hills.

“That will be your ride, Mr. Chastain. The jet took the others before dawn, so the chopper will take you all the way there. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Cell phone.”

“It’s in your bag. I programmed Kate’s cell number for you.”
I nodded, numbly.

“Go now, you’ll barely make it in time as it is.”

Donnie and I ran for the chopper, climbed in, and nodded to the pilot. He took off immediately and we lifted away in a spiral. Mama Ty and Kim stood on the front porch shielding their eyes as we turned and headed south.

We had to refuel three times and each time seemed to eat up precious moments that I could be with Kate. Donnie pressed his lips together, strangely silent most of the ride. While we changed into our dress clothes at the small airport strip during the last refuel, Donnie finally spoke.

“Corey, I don’t understand how this is all happening. How can the village afford to send thirteen people on a jet plane and rent a private helicopter to get to your wife’s family funeral?”

I let out a huff as we left the hangar and strode out onto the tarmac. The helicopter wasn’t a rental. The company owned the chopper.

“I mean, I’m glad that we can all be there for Kate.”

“I guess I should tell you.” The chopper revved up and so did my sense of urgency. “Hey, let’s go.”

We ran to the helicopter, crawled inside, and the pilot whisked us away before we had our seat belts fastened. Donnie didn’t ask again and I didn’t volunteer the information. I think he chalked it up to stuff on my mind.

I had called Kate four times since we left the village, when we first got on the chopper, and at each fueling. We couldn’t hear over the blades of the chopper so we mostly texted back and forth. Her texts were one or two word replies and she sounded bad at the refueling stops. She was not doing well. She couldn’t seem to force words out.

Finally she texted, “Just get here.”

I watched the clock tick by on the phone and felt we were never going to get there. Donnie slept most of the ride. At 2:45, the pilot squawked in my ear, and asked where I wanted him to set down. I told him to get as close to the First Presbyterian church as he possibly could.

He consulted the other end of the radio and finally came back over the headphones. “There is a pad two blocks away.”

I ground my teeth together and texted Kate that we were very close. She didn’t respond.

We raced down five stories of the hospital where the helicopter landed and ran two blocks over to the church. We skidded to a stop at the front door, straightened our ties, smoothed our hair and entered the large arched front doors of the terracotta brick colonial styled building.

The music played a somber hymn and the seats were already full. Donnie spotted Mel and went to sit with her. I found the assistant funeral director, and he took me to Kate.

I walked into the formal family room and found her curled up in Trip’s lap, spasms shook her with each hitched breath. His eyes met mine and an unspoken challenge struck me. For a moment, I felt separate and other as I watched my best friend comfort my wife. I didn’t think he would relinquish her. But that fleeting thought seeped away as my heart broke for Kate. I knelt down in front of them.

“Kate, darling,” I whispered. She turned bleary eyes to me, hollowed out with sorrow. No recognition registered on her face, just intense sadness. Deep inside a world of grief, Kate existed with the other lost ones. Ghosts of family memories haunted the halls where she walked. Nothing real remained.

“Excuse me.”

I wrenched my attention from Kate’s face to see who would interfere. Kate’s dad frowned down at me. I recognized him from her jump experience.

“Mr. Wilson,” I stood and held out my hand. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

“Who are you, young man?”

“I’m Kate’s…uh…boyfriend.” The word stuck like cotton in my mouth. I couldn’t say what I truly meant to her, lover, husband, soul mate, thousand-year companion.

“Boyfriend?” He snapped his eyes to Trip, who just happened to be kissing Kate on the forehead at that moment.

She pressed into his chest seeking strength, solace.

“Yes, sir.”

He took me by the arm and dragged me to the door. “Listen, I don’t know what you think you are to Kate, but she has lost everything, everyone, and a silly crush isn’t going to help her right now. You meander in here at the last minute, seconds before the service starts and think you can what? Console her?”

He pointed over to Trip. “Young man, she has a boyfriend, right there, a real man who has been here with her every moment for the last two days. He has never left her side. She has never left his embrace. I don’t think any little date you have been on with her can compete with that. So thank you for coming to offer your condolences, I’m sure there is a seat for you in the back somewhere.” He opened the door and handed me out, then slammed the door in my face.

I didn’t know what to do. Kate needed me. Should I make a scene, storm back in there and claim my wife out of Trip’s possessive arms? No, not the time to do that, Kate seemed beyond the ability to recognize who held her. The way she clung to him reminded me of our last moments together. She had been desperate for me to stay, but put on a brave face.

What would happen if she came back to reality and found me missing? That made my decision. I opened the door and quietly stole into the room. The family lined up to go into the service. I slipped into line beside Kate and took her hand. Trip reluctantly released her but she grabbed at his hand, demanding he come with her.

She slowly scanned up to my face and a tiny flash of recognition registered before she returned to the world of ghosts and shadows. We walked into the large cathedral from a side door and four caskets lined up side by side sent a jolt through me. Flowers covered every space of wall and floor around them. My heart sank. Kate’s trembling progressed to a shudder and her legs gave way. Trip and I both held on tightly. Kate’s father, lost in his own grief, stared at the small silver casket.

Jimmy. Kate’s little brother.

“No,” Kate whispered. “No.” Her body wracked with anguish. Trip quickly wiped tears from his face, and I glanced away.

My jump family sat midway in the auditorium. Sorrow elongated their faces. We settled into the pew. Trip and I sat on either side of Kate. Her father gave me a scathing look, then drew a path from Kate’s hand clinging to mine to Kate’s other hand wrapped in Trip’s large paw.

He looked back up as the minister took the podium.

A marathon of heart wrenching moments, the service progressed. The line-up of caskets raked through the mind, violating all sense of rightness. A very present assault to the senses of the violence of loss they represented. Four loved ones gone in a moment. Wrong. So very wrong.

My own parents died that way, suddenly. I’d flown to Italy to attend their funeral two years ago. They were practically strangers to me, though. We weren’t close. A nanny and staff raised me while they jetted around the world. So I couldn’t imagine how Kate felt. She, her mom, and brother were very tight. Grammy and Pops were iconic in her life.

I knew them intimately, though we had never met. Kate talked about them extensively in our pink clouds. She adored little Jimmy, felt protective of her mom, and cherished by her grandparents. Scanning the row of caskets, the hideous representation of the grief she bore, I determined to get her the best therapist and mental health care available. We were going to get through this. Together.

When the service ended, the funeral director opened the caskets and allowed the guests to walk by to view the bodies. One casket remained closed, Kate’s grandfather, his body too mangled to make viewable.

The funeral guests filed by the caskets, then out, and they closed the doors. Only family and Trip remained.

Kate’s dad stood up and approached me. “We will talk,” he growled. He took the elbow of his new wife, and they approached the smallest casket. Kate turned a confused expression to me, and I kissed her brow. We started at the other end with Kate shakily supported between us. Kate stopped at her grandfather’s casket and placed her cheek on the cool bronze metal.

“Pops? Pops?” she whimpered and ran her hands along the smooth surface. “Pops.” Her voice mutated on the last word. It deepened and yawned out of her, dredging raw sorrow up into her throat.

My soul ripped out of me to hear her so distraught. I would have done anything to trade places with her to take her agony into myself and hide it from her. I kept a hand on her arm and another around her waist, willing her pain to move into me.

We inched to the open casket of her grandmother. Kate lost it when she saw her. “Grammy, oh no.” Her knees buckled, and Trip and I steadied her. She calmed enough to lean forward over her grandmother. Shaking hands reached out and smoothed the lapels of her rose colored jacket. “I love you, Grammy.”

She patted the stiff mottled hands, then jerked her hands away and pressed her palms together. “I met the Beautiful One, Grammy. He is everything you said. I wanted to talk to you about him, but now I’ll never have that chance.” She bent over the body as sobs wracked her slight frame. Trip and I both closed in to support her between us.