Lifelines: Kate's Story (40 page)

Everyone
wanted to make her life horrible, except Noel, her only real friend. She needed
to talk to Noel. But first, she must plan every word. It would be best, she
decided, if he came to her. Best if he found her upset.

She
struggled into the bedroom and changed into her best caftan. Back in the
kitchen, she smoked three more cigarettes. She made a second cup of coffee
then, cooled it, and carried it to the table. Then, finally, Noel knocked on
the back door. Before she answered, she lit another cigarette, puffed hard, and
set it in the ashtray. When she opened the door, she had tears on her face.

“Noel
... oh, dear.” She stepped back, then realized she might fall with nothing to
hang onto, so clung to his arm. “I didn’t know ... it’s not a good time.” She
looked away from him as if to hide her tears.

He
carefully eased them both away from the door. “Eve, what’s wrong? Sit down
right here.” He helped her into her accustomed chair, then sat across from her.
“Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m
so upset with Kate ... so mean ... and your landlady, calling the police like
that.” She didn’t want to lay the police at her daughter’s door, because Noel
might feel the need to talk to Kate. “The police asked so many questions about
you, and Kate’s so—I’m terrified she’ll convince you to abandon me. I couldn’t
get by without my friend, Noel. Without you.”

She
peeked and saw worry and sympathy on his face.

“If
only we could go away. Just get in the motor home and ... Noel, it would be
heaven, if we could just drive away and sit on the beach. Remember how you
talked about the sunset?” She let the tears start again. “Oh, Noel, is there
any way we could go now? This weekend?”

Noel
shifted his chair and held both her hands. “Your daughter—”

“She’s
angry with me.” Evelyn burst into noisy sobs. “So angry. She told me she
doesn’t want to see me. Because I ask her questions, because I worry about her.
It’s less than a year since her husband died, so of course I worry. She’s my
daughter, but she says to mind my own business, to leave her alone. And then
she sends the police. It’s so hard, Noel, and I need to get away so badly. I
need to be with someone who cares about me.”

She
saw confusion on his face. Had she said something wrong?

“Oh,
Noel, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t tell you all this. I just ... I thought ... Noel, I
think you should go. I need to be alone. I shouldn’t have said anything.” She
blinked hard and spilled another tear onto her cheek.

“Evelyn,
I want to help you. I want—the motor home will be ready tomorrow, but—It’s
embarrassing, dear, but I don’t have money for the kind of trip we talked
about.”

She
sat erect. “Money isn’t a problem. Noel, can we go? Please?”

“It’s
not right for me to keep using your money.”

She
lost track of the part she was supposed to be playing, and said wildly, “You
could spend my money if we were married.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that.
She put her hands on the table and pushed to her feet. What now? Should she
pretend it was a joke?

“Evelyn...”
He was going to say no. She could see it in the way his eyes didn’t meet hers.
“Running away is—it’s not the way we should do this. We need to work out things
with your daughter. I need to talk to my landlady. Maybe talk to the police.
There are things you don’t know about me.”

“I
don’t care. Please, I need to go now. We can do everything else later.” These
tears were real, because if Noel wouldn’t take her away, she would be right
here in this kitchen when Kate got back from Han. When she came back, Kate
would know everything. “Can’t we go away? Just for a while? I need to ... Kate’s
out of town for a few days, and when she gets back ... I can’t bear to be here,
waiting, when she comes to the door and knocks, and she’s going to say ... Noel,
please. My legs drove me crazy last night. I couldn’t sleep. Please!”

“Evelyn,
please don’t cry. We’ll leave tomorrow, Saturday. I’ll see if I can pick up the
motor home this afternoon. I’ll need food, supplies, water. You’ll need to
pack. We’ll go for a couple of weeks, give you a real vacation. Is that all
right, Evelyn?”

Perfect.
Absolutely perfect.

When
he left, she balanced on chair, counter, stove, and wall on her way into the
bedroom. Evelyn Stewardson, running away with a man who cared about her. As if
she were a girl again, back when Han said pack your bag and come with me. We’ll
go on a great adventure.

An
adventure with Noel. Two weeks, he said, but she would make sure they never
come back. Elvira Blake and her husband drove down to Mexico every year in that
camper van. That’s where Noel and Evelyn would go. Mexico. Noel would drive and
Evelyn would cook dinners in the kitchenette. An adventure.

K
ate’s panic
sprung to life when Jennifer stopped the car. Twenty feet ahead, the rutted
road twisted around a massive cedar tree. On the point ahead, a lighthouse grew
skyward from a cluster of white buildings. They’d driven to Canada yesterday
and had taken a ferry across to Vancouver Island. Today, it had taken another
five hours to reach this remote lighthouse.

“I’m
nervous,” Kate.

“If
he doesn’t want to see you, we’ll tell him off, then we’ll take a walk,”
suggested Jennifer. “That’s the sort of thing my mother would say.”

Kate
laughed—it was either that, or tears. “Okay, let’s go.”

Once
they passed the cedar tree, the road smoothed. How long had Han lived on this
lighthouse? Did he work here? As they approached, the cluster of buildings
resolved into two houses, what looked like a storage building, and a largish
one-story structure pressed against the lighthouse. As Jennifer parked outside
the open gates, a man emerged from the latter, moving rapidly. Whoever this
was, it wasn’t her father. Kate hadn’t realized until that moment how clearly
she remembered her father’s lumbering walk.

Jennifer
asked, “Is that—”

“No,”
said Kate. She got out of the car and slammed the door.

Together,
they approached the sandy-haired stranger.

“Can
I help you?” Not unfriendly, but he wasn’t offering to show them around the
lighthouse either. Kate wondered how many visitors the lighthouse received.

“Good
morning. I’m looking for Han Stewardson.”

“Harry
and Brenda are away on leave, but Han’s here. Go on back to the senior keeper’s
house—that way, second house. He’ll be in the garden. You’re on holiday, are
you?”

“I
just finished exams,” said Jennifer.

“UW?
I saw your Washington license plates.”

Kate
started to walk along the concrete walk as Jennifer explained that, yes, she
took Fine Arts at the University of Washington. Who were Harry and Brenda? Was
Han a seventy-year-old lighthouse keeper? Didn’t they have some sort of
mandatory retirement for government employees? This had been a bad idea,
walking in on her father with no notice. Surprise visits were dangerous. People
behaved better when they had time to prepare themselves, especially if the
visit was a reunion after decades apart.

The
glaring white walls of the house must have been freshly painted within the last
couple of weeks. The red paint on the stairs looked brilliantly new, too. Kate
passed the rails and walked along the side of the house, where a narrow gravel
path curved between stones. She’d found the garden, but her father wasn’t here.
She turned the corner at the back of the house and stopped.

He
sat in a rocking chair on the veranda.

Kate
touched the side of the house with one hand, supporting herself. Time had
frosted his full head of curly red hair into silver. He wore a red checked
shirt, a mackinaw like the one she remembered hanging on the back door of their
house in Anchorage. He sat in a rocking chair, an open book in his hands.

She
watched his face as he looked up. No sign of recognition.

“Hello?”
he said, and combed his hair back with one of those big hands she remembered so
clearly, squinting as if to clear his vision. His face was darkly-tanned, and
more heavily lined than she remembered. Thirty years; she’d been a teenager
when she left Anchorage, now she was a middle-aged woman. She felt tears
threatening, crazy childish tears. Her father didn’t know her.

“Can
I help you?”

We
just saw the lighthouse and wanted to ... we’re just leaving. I’m leaving ...” A
sound came out, close to tears. Don’t you dare blubber, Kate Stewardson Taylor!
If you cry, I’ll kill you.

She
said, “Don’t you recognize me?” and her voice wobbled as she spoke. Damn you,
Kate. Thirty-three years. Get over it.

“Can’t
read with my glasses on,” he said. He reached into the pocket of his checked
shirt and produced glasses. “Can’t see without them.” His book tumbled to the
deck of the veranda as he settled the glasses in place.

“I’d
better—”

“Katie?
Is it really you, Katie?” His whisper was no louder than the distant caress of
the ocean over its sandy beach, thickened by some accent she didn’t remember.
“Where did you come from?”

“Campbell
River,” she said, naming the last town they’d driven through, then she
corrected, “Madrona Bay.”

“You’re
here.” Apparently, he had no idea what to do about that, and he repeated,
“You’re here.”

“You
sent me away.” She heard anger in her words. She’d planned to be cool, but she
climbed the stairs fast now, her voice rising as she accused, “You sent me
away. You never said a word. I was seventeen years old, and you—you dumped me
like so much garbage.”

He
shook his head, kept shaking it.

“You
never even said good-bye,” she said, but the damned anger was mixed with tears.
She hadn’t searched for him, hadn’t come all this way to cry about another lost
relationship. She’d wanted to get back at least one person she’d lost. What had
she expected, that he would open his arms, love pouring into his face?

She
didn’t tumble into his embrace, and he didn’t reach to hug her. Thirty-three
years divided them; that, and whatever had separated them in the first place.
He grabbed the rocking chair and turned it towards her.

“Sit
down ... I—I’ll get you something to drink.”

“I
don’t need anything.”

“Just
sit down, then.”

“I
don’t want your chair.”

“I’ll
get another.”

“I’ve
got to go.”

“No!”

They
stared at each other, two paces apart on his veranda. Her heart hammered in her
throat, and his face looked frightened. She hadn’t known she was unforgiving
until now, but she felt no sympathy for his discomfort.

“I
made a mistake,” he said, “sending you and your mother away.”

“That’s
a pretty big mistake.”

“I
know that now.”

“You
waited thirty-three years to admit it? If I hadn’t come, would you have waited
another thirty-three?”

“I
wrote.”

“That’s
bullshit. You didn’t write me! You never wrote me.”

“I
did. Four letters.”

She’d
listened to so many lies in her counseling room, and she wanted this to be a
lie, too. She wanted to be angry, stay angry. “Exactly when did you write?”

“You
would have been twenty-five the first time. I knew it was too long, knew you
wouldn’t be living with your mother by then, but I had to write.”

“You
sent the letter to Mom?” He nodded, and she had no reason to believe him,
except that if it was an excuse, surely he would claim to have written her soon
after she went away? “What did you say in the letter?”

She
was going to cry, damn it. She saw his throat spasm and she swallowed in rhythm
with him.

“The
first letter ... I said I was sorry. That I hoped—I wanted to see you.”

She
felt her face break up, her mouth twisting. Then she couldn’t see at all for
the tears. She could only feel ... his arms, around her, pulling her tight.

T
he
light was gone by the time Mac stroked the final coat of preservative on the
veranda rails. He loaded everything into the car, and then stood for a moment
studying the freshly laid turf. The owner wanted a small lawn, encircled by
natural cedar, spruce and madrona trees. A perfect surrounding for the cedar
house. A good place to call home.

Mac
gave Socrates’ head a rub and stood for a moment with the dog’s weight against
his leg. He wondered if Socrates missed Kate, wondered if she’d caught up with
her father in Canada. He’d had time to think now, and was pretty sure he knew
why Kate wouldn’t see him again. Because of her husband, because whatever she’d
said to him last Tuesday night, she wasn’t ready yet.

“So
what do we do?” he asked the dog, and Socrates looked at him with the same
droopy-eyed message he’d been giving ever since Mac picked him up at Kate’s.
“Your mistress is a better conversationalist,” he muttered. “Wait here. I’m
going in for a final inspection.”