Mom glanced down at the envelope. “I think that’s a pretty safe assumption. But I hope that I’ve taught you that money isn’t everything, Kate. There’s such a thing as giving of yourself when someone needs you. Time, attention, sympathy…”
She finished the last of the wine in her glass before continuing. “I was always closer to my dad than I was to Mother, but I needed her really badly after the accident. I lost my father and I lost my twin. I barely got a chance to say good-bye to Dad—and Prudence was just gone. No good-bye, nothing. I felt so alone. We both suffered the same loss, but Mother closed herself up in her bedroom and I hardly saw her. She came out for the funeral and then went right back into the bedroom.”
Mom ran her finger thoughtfully around the edge of the empty glass. “Maybe that’s why I was drawn to your dad. Harry was the first person I ever knew who understood that kind of loss.”
Both of my dad’s parents were killed in an auto accident when he was only five; he was lucky to have survived the crash himself. No one I loved had ever died, and both Mom and Dad had always been there, physically, when I really needed them. But I could definitely sympathize with feeling alone. After each of the “panic attacks,” I felt as though no one understood what I was going through. I was furious that Mom and even Dad tried to dismiss them as normal and explainable events, when I knew without a doubt that they most definitely were not.
“I’ve always believed,” Mom continued, “that a mother should worry first about her child, not about her own needs. But I probably don’t always put that into practice as well as I should, either. And… I don’t want you to look back twenty years from now and be as angry at me as I am with her.
“I don’t want to live with my mother and I don’t want her money. But,” she added, “you’ll be an adult soon, and you’re old enough to decide for yourself. I won’t stop you from seeing her if that’s what you want. You and your dad can work out the rest of it. Does that sound fair?”
I nodded. I had been expecting her to mull things over for days or even weeks, and was surprised to actually have a decision. “You want to split a dessert?”
She smiled. “No way, kiddo. I want my own. I need something big and gooey, with lots and lots of chocolate.”
2
“You’re late, young lady.” Dad shoved a bowl of vegetables into my arms the second I walked in the door. “We’re going to have to hustle to get the jambalaya ready before Sara arrives. The knife is on the table. Chop-chop.”
I rolled my eyes at the lousy pun, even though I really don’t mind them. If Dad is making bad jokes, it means he’s in a good mood.
We both like to cook, but on school nights there’s rarely time for more than soup and sandwiches. On Sundays, however, we go all out. Usually Dad’s girlfriend, Sara, joins us to sample whatever gastronomic experiment is on tap for the week. Unfortunately, the kitchen isn’t really designed for anything more adventurous than microwave pizza. There’s barely room at the counter for one person, let alone two. So I sat at the kitchen table chopping the “holy trinity” of Creole cuisine—bell peppers, celery, and onions—while Dad stood at the sink doing his share of the prep work.
The envelope with Katherine’s will was on the far side of the small table so that it wouldn’t get spattered as I chopped the vegetables. I glanced over at Dad as I pushed the last bits of celery into the bowl. “Mom said to tell you hello. So did Katherine.”
Dad’s smile twisted a bit. “Ouch. How deep am I in it this time?”
I grinned and began slicing the pepper into narrow ribbons. “About chin-deep, I’d say. Katherine said that you helped her find a realtor.”
“I gave her the website of someone that Sara knows and said he might be okay. That’s hardly aiding and abetting the enemy.” He returned to the ham he was chopping. “So is she going to buy a place here?”
“She’s already bought it. Walking distance from Briar Hill, so it must be pretty close by. I thought you knew.”
He chuckled. “No. I think Katherine decided that my life might be easier if I knew less rather than more about her plans. But I will say I’m happy she’s back.” His eyes, the same deep green as my own, darkened. “How is she?”
“You know she’s sick, then?”
“Yeah. She told me in her last email. Really sad. I’ve always liked Katherine, despite your mom’s feelings about her.”
I stacked the thin strips of green pepper and turned them around to start dicing. “To look at her, you wouldn’t think she was dying. Her hair is super short—she said it was from the treatments. I can’t remember what she looked like before, though, except for some really old photos.” I paused for a moment. “Did you tell her about my… panic attacks… or was that Mom?”
“Um… that was me. I hope that’s okay? She emailed me a while back and asked how you were doing. I was worried about you and I wondered if maybe your mom went through something like that when she was your age. I guess I could have asked your mom directly, but getting that sort of information out of Deborah is like pulling teeth.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I just wondered. Did she tell you about the will?”
“No. Didn’t know there was a will. Is she trying to get your mom to take money again?”
“Well, not exactly.” I slid the diced peppers into the bowl with the back of the knife and started on the onions. “Katherine says she’s leaving everything to me, including the big house she just bought. A lot of other stuff, too. And unless Mom has a serious change of heart, I think you’re going to need to be executor or guardian of a trust or something like that.”
Dad narrowly missed slicing his forefinger. He set the knife down carefully on the cutting board and pulled up the other chair, wiping his hands on the dish towel. “A trust?” I handed him the envelope, and he was silent for a moment as he glanced through the legal documents. “I didn’t even know Katherine had enough money to buy a house, especially around here. I thought maybe she’d be looking at a townhome or something. Sara’s friend owes me a beer—hell, a six-pack—for sending him that commission.”
“There’s more,” I said. “Katherine wants me to move in with her—well, Mom, too, but I think she knew what her answer would be. She knows I’m here part of the week and with Mom the other, so she said if Mom said no, she would ask you instead.”
“That’s a condition of the will?”
“No. But I want to do it.”
Dad looked at me for a long moment. “Are you sure, Katie? I doubt the next few months will be easy ones for your grandmother. And this may sound a little cold, but the closer you get to her, the more it will hurt when she’s gone. I mean, I care about Katherine, but my first consideration has to be you.”
“I know, Dad. But I think she’s lonely.” I considered mentioning the medallion to him, but I wasn’t sure he would believe me. He wouldn’t think I was lying, but he might start worrying about whether I had a screw loose. And even though she hadn’t sworn me to secrecy or anything, it seemed like a breach of faith to talk about what I had seen with anyone else before Katherine had a chance to tell me more. “I want to get to know her. Before it’s too late…”
He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “What does your mom say?”
“Mom won’t move in with her, even on a part-time basis. But other than that, she says it’s up to us. And you could stay here on the days I’m with Mom so that you can spend some nights with Sara…” Dad’s face turned a deep shade of red and I mentally kicked myself. I’d realized months ago that Sara stayed over on the nights I was with Mom, but that probably wasn’t the smoothest way of letting him know that I knew.
“Um. Right.” He stood up and went back to the cutting board. “I think I should have a chat with your mom before we discuss this further. Since I’m in chin-deep already, I’d like to avoid making things worse. But if she’s really okay with this and you’re sure it’s what you want…”
Once the jambalaya was bubbling fragrantly on a back burner, Dad picked up his cell phone and the will and went into the bedroom. I pulled my astronomy book out of my backpack and tried to read the assignment, but concentrating wasn’t easy. I kept expecting to hear raised voices coming from the bedroom—although that was probably silly since Dad never yelled, and it would be pretty hard to hear Mom over his cell even if she was screaming at the top of her lungs.
I had just gotten up to give the pot a stir when Dad returned. He handed me the will and a small scrap of paper, on which he’d jotted a phone number.
“That went better than I expected. Your mom seems kind of… subdued, I guess. And she says this decision is up to us… just leave her out of it as much as possible. The only time she got angry was when I suggested that she might want to think about spending some time with Katherine. She told me to mind my own business. Not in polite terms, either.”
He pulled the plates from one of the small overhead cabinets—a complicated process that required him to first move the cereal bowls and a small colander. “Sara will be here any minute. Why don’t we all have dinner and then you can call your grandmother with the news? I just hope she bought a place with a nice big kitchen.”
I was up well before dawn on Monday, with much more energy than I usually have in the early mornings. I showered and dressed, and then tapped on Dad’s door. He was awake, but he didn’t look happy about it. “You need to hurry, Dad, or we’ll be late.”
He yawned and stumbled toward the shower. “Patience, grasshopper. It’s a five-minute walk.”
When I called her with the news the night before, Katherine gave me directions to the house and asked if we would stop by for a quick breakfast before school. “I know it won’t give us much time to talk—really talk. I just want to see you. I’m so happy you’re going to be staying here. And I want you to meet Connor—and Daphne, too, of course.”
I didn’t have a chance to ask who Daphne was before she hung up, but I found out the second that Dad and I walked through the front door of the huge greystone house. A large Irish setter jumped up, placed both paws on my shoulders, and gave me a long, wet slurp on the side of my face. She had big dark eyes and little specks of gray on her auburn muzzle.
“Daphne, you beast, get down! You’ll knock Kate over!” Katherine laughed as she pulled at the dog’s collar. “I hope you aren’t afraid of dogs, dear. She’s really a sweetheart—just doesn’t think before she leaps. Did she hurt you?”
“No, she’s beautiful! She’s so light for such a big dog.”
“Yes, well, she’s mostly fur. And she’s a bit overexcited, I’m afraid. She’s been cooped up in a kennel while we were moving in. She’s so happy to have a whole new house and yard to explore that she’s acting like a pup again.”