Part 24 (1/2)
”No. Not anything useful.”
”Why don't you go ahead and tell me, huh? I'm much more objective than you are.”
He took a breath. She was right. ”There's some significant history between the girls but it's obviously complicated. When I started to ask about their history, using all of my brilliant detective skills, she mentally moved away from me. That's when I lost her. She was fine talking about Emma coming back here, needing a job, getting over a bad marriage-generic on the bad, no details-but when I asked what their relations.h.i.+p was like when they were young, she shut down. Oh-and she thinks Emma might be seeing her brother.”
”She doesn't know?” George asked.
”Not for sure, I guess. How firm is that?”
”Every night.”
”How do you know?” he asked.
”The only conversations they have are about what's for dinner and when will you be here.”
Logan thought Adam Kerrigan was getting a lot luckier than he was. ”I don't get it,” he said. ”They're one nice big happy family. I saw Riley and Emma today, working through a tense situation, supportive of each other, friendly. The brother and the mother obviously like her. But Riley's smart. She's scary smart. You think she knows something and doesn't want her family mixed up in it?”
”Possible,” George said. ”If you don't have anything interesting to tell me, I'm going to kiss the kids and hit the sack. Bruno's on s.h.i.+ft.”
Bruno was not his real name. Mr. Universe's real name was John.
”Good. Don't call me anymore.”
”You know it's probably a good thing you didn't get laid...”
”Shows what you know. That's almost never a good thing.”
”Oh, I can think of a ton of circ.u.mstances when getting laid would be a really bad-”
He hung up on her.
Chapter Sixteen.
Emma received her second phone call from Bethany two days after the first, again while she was driving home from work. She learned that Bethany's mother had died from a freakishly terrible case of the flu almost two years ago. She got sick, then got sicker, was admitted to the hospital then to the ICU. It was the kind of thing that usually happened to the extremely frail, chronically ill or elderly, but it got Danielle Christensen, taking her life in a week. The family was, understandably, wrecked by it.
Then Olaf Christensen brought home a woman he had worked with for a long time, a CPA in his import-export company. There were many such businesses in the port city, the Bay Area, and the Christensens' was successful. Danielle had only been gone a couple of months, but it seemed to help him a great deal to be seeing this woman. Liz was forty and had never married, had no children and before six months had pa.s.sed, they were married. Everyone loved her-she was good at her job, active in her church, popular at work, laughed a lot and showered attention on Bethany's father. But she never laughed with Bethany, only with Bethany's father and other adults.
Before they even married, Bethany's stepmother was taking over the house. She fired the cleaning lady who'd been with them for years and hired Riley's company. She made every meal or ordered something she could pick up on the way home or booked reservations. The once comfortably lived-in house became spotless and sterile. Danielle's clothes were moved to a guest room closet and chest of drawers, then little by little they moved back to the master bedroom. The family pictures were removed. Liz said, ”They're certainly not helping our situation, these constant reminders.” Bethany was told to clean her room to Liz's specifications and if she didn't, Liz went in her room, put things away and tidied up. In order to keep Liz out of her room, Bethany followed the instructions. When Bethany just wouldn't stop acting depressed, Liz found her a therapist.
”I heard her saying I should be put in a hospital or boarding school but my dad didn't agree. Maybe I should. I would be away from them.”
Bethany told Emma she took a bunch of drugs from Liz's medicine chest and had to have her stomach pumped last Christmas.
Emma gasped. ”Oh, sweetheart, how terrifying! Please tell me you'll never do that again!”
”No, I won't. It was horrid. It turns out Liz doesn't have any good drugs,” Bethany said.
”Well, I guess that's a point in her favor,” Emma said. ”I know Christmas is hard, Bethany, but if you start to feel terrible will you please tell a school counselor? Or teacher? Or someone?”
”I could try, but I think I'm just going to ask my dad and Liz if I can be a foreign exchange student. My dad wants everything to be all right. But I think Liz would be happy to see me go.”
”Do you have pictures of your mother?” Emma asked. ”Pictures you can look at to give you comfort?”
”I have some in my drawer.”
”Bethany, what about your grandparents?”
”My grandma is in a.s.sisted living. She was so good but when my mom died... She just got so old, so fast.”
”And what about your friends from school?”
”I have friends at school, but they don't want to hang out anymore. I think I make them sad or something. And Liz makes them nervous. She's too much.”
Emma was almost surprised to hear the sound of her own laughter. ”Okay, I wasn't going to tell you this but I have a stepmother. And she's too much, too.”
”No way,” Bethany said.
”Rosemary. I remember when my adviser in high school told me I was so lucky to have a mother like Rosemary who was strict and made sure my homework was done and had a strong set of values. She said I'd appreciate it someday. Rosemary was kind of scary. Her smile was fake, if you know what I mean.”
”I know what you mean,” Bethany said. ”My stepmother doesn't like me. She pretends in front of my dad, but it's not real. Sometimes I can hear her complaining and crying to him, saying I don't appreciate her. Maybe it's just because she's not anything like my mother, I don't know. It's like we don't live in the same house anymore.”
”Tell me about your mother,” Emma said.
”She was so sweet. Not that she couldn't get mad-she chased me with a mop once, yelling her head off. But she couldn't catch me and then she laughed her head off. She was kind of messy. She left her clothes on the closet floor all the time and our cleaning lady, Mary, she used to grumble and mutter and complain and my mother would laugh and say, ”Come on, Mary! I'm such great job security!” But my mother could cook and bake! The house always smelled great. And she loved to go to my school things. She worked at my dad's company, too, but she'd take off to help at school, to go on field trips, to watch my concerts and programs and stuff. And she used to...” Bethany's voice slowed and stopped. Emma could tell she was crying. ”We used to get in bed together and talk and rub each other's backs and heads and laugh and fall asleep in a pile.”
Emma struggled to find her own voice. ”I love your mother,” she finally said.
”Thank you for saying that because I believe you, and you don't even know her. I wish I could be with her.”
”She's with you in your heart and I believe she's watching over you. You're going to be like her, you know. Maybe not tomorrow or next week, but you're going to have a great life and make your house smell like great things are baking and laugh with your children and fall asleep in a pile. You will, Bethany. I grew up and moved away from my stepmother and you'll move away from yours.”
”Did you move away and have a great life?”
Emma bit her lip. It wasn't really a lie if she thought about where she was now. ”Yes, I have a lovely life. A happy life.”
”Cleaning houses?”
”Yes. And meeting wonderful people.”
When they hung up, Emma drove the rest of the way home, crying all the way. Was she helping by taking these calls from this poor, grief-stricken, lonely girl?
She remembered when her life was at a point like that, when she'd lost her father, when she was just sixteen. But she had Riley. And Riley hadn't been afraid to hang out.
The twenty-third of December fell on Friday and that was the day Penny and her girlfriends chose for their little Christmas party. The girls had decided that everyone would bring substantial hors d'oeuvres and Marilyn agreed to make two desserts. They were going to have a c.o.c.ktail party and ornament exchange.
Earlier in the week Emma had helped Penny bring in her tree and put her decorations up. She brought another centerpiece and wine; her wrapped presents were under Penny's tree. She'd been looking forward to this holiday for weeks, her first Christmas as a free woman. And especially her evening with the girls, Penny, Susan, Dorothy and Marilyn. But all the while, it was hard for her to shake off Bethany's call.