In the shadow of truth, p.29
In the Shadow of Truth, page 29
“It’s okay, Smitty.” He moved out of the way, and she raised her chin, and her guard. “Clay.”
“Kathryn.”
“Aren’t you on the wrong side of town?”
Kathryn’s older brother stared her up and down, and Jenny could physically feel the animosity between them.
Clayton Hammond was the masculine mirror of his sister: the same dark hair, the same strong jaw, the same piercing blue eyes, though his peered out from behind wire-rimmed glasses. He had a broad build and stood just over his sister in height. It occurred to Jenny that Smitty was brave to step in front of him, especially when he seemed so determined. It would soon be apparent why.
* * *
“Dad’s sick. He’s in Memorial. I just came from there.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“He’s been sick for a while. He didn’t want me to tell you.”
Kathryn leaned on the bar and feigned interest in a cocktail napkin.
“Then why are you here?”
“He’s dying, Kath.”
She lifted her eyes.
“Cancer,” he said.
She never thought it would matter, but she felt something at the news. She passed it off as sympathy for her brother, who would soon lose the father he loved. She softened her stance. “That’s tough, Clayton. I’m truly sorry.”
The softening of her brother’s glare signaled that her words had awakened a long, dormant bond between them. She was a mere teenager when last they spoke, and she recalled words like obstinate and irrational hurled at her like daggers. His lanky baby sister had blossomed into a mature adult, and she assumed he expected her attitude had matured as well. He stepped closer.
“Sorry enough to see him?”
“We haven’t seen each other in over ten years. There’s no reason to start now.”
She saw her brother bite down on his disappointment but not on his rising anger. Whatever infinitesimal progress they’d made was quickly stamped out.
“He’s dying, Kathryn. He’s your father. You at least owe him a goodbye.”
She couldn’t contain her dismissive smirk. “I don’t owe him anything.”
“Bullshit!” Clayton’s voice echoed through the hushed space. He looked around, aware that his shout had drawn the attention of everyone in the club. He moved even closer and lowered his voice to continue his point.
“He gave you life. Made sure you were fed and clothed and had a roof over your head. When you took off after Mom died, you broke his heart. It was bad enough we lost her, but we lost you too. We were a family, Kathryn. You destroyed that.”
Truths, lies, and blame were swimming in her head, but in the end, she said nothing. There was nothing to say. Her father would be dead soon, and she supposed she’d never see her brother again. She’d lived more of her life without a family than she had with one, and she’d long ago accepted that would be the way of it. Her silence, however, did not please her irate sibling.
“You’re the same selfish bitch you’ve always been. Why don’t you think of someone other than yourself for a change? Look at you—” He looked around the room with disdain. “Hanging around with hoodlums and mobsters. You think wearing fancy clothes and working in a fancy club changes what you are? You’re nothing more than a high-priced whore, Kathryn, and everyone knows it. I live in this town too, you know. You’re a disgrace to the family name, and I thank God Mom’s not around to see it.”
Kathryn casually leaned on the bar again.
“I guess you’ve got me pegged.”
Several musicians had risen to their feet with scowls on their faces, and Dominic stood with his hands on his hips at the entry to his office. Kathryn imagined Smitty digging his fingers into Jenny’s shoulders to keep her from lunging at the man.
Her brother took note of the small army of defenders and knew it was time to leave—the club, and his sister’s life. “You disgust me.”
Kathryn watched her brother stalk away and decided that was not the way to end things. “Clay!”
He stopped at the end of the bar and turned with his jaw set in anger. Kathryn went to him and softened her demeanor, hoping to repair some of the damage done. She had nothing against her brother and sympathized with his frustration and pain.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Clayton. I mean it.” She practically choked out, “And tell Dad I’m sorry too.”
“Tell him yourself.” He fished a small piece of paper from his pocket and slapped it onto the bar. “Here’s the number if you get a backbone. Don’t wait too long.”
He stormed out of the club, leaving the front door swinging wildly and the entire room holding their collective breath.
Jenny was quickly at her side. “That son of a—”
“It’s not his fault.”
“The things he said to you, Kat.”
“Skip it. It doesn’t matter.” She took the note from the bar and put it in her pocket.
Jenny followed her back into the main section of the club. “Are you going to see your father?”
“I wouldn’t know what to say.”
She cleared her throat and headed to the stage, where everyone looked at her sideways.
No one moved as she picked up her sheet music from the floor and took her place, front and center.
“All right, boys … train wreck’s over. Let’s get back to it.”
The bandleader put a sympathetic hand on her arm. “Listen, honey, let’s take a break, hm?”
“I don’t need a break.”
“I do. We’re short a clarinet. I’ve got to rework this.”
She nodded and handed him the sheet music. She left the stage, and, with a tilt of her head, motioned for Jenny to follow her to her dressing room. Once there, she made a drink and plopped down into the large wingback chair, happy to get out from under everyone’s curious stares.
Jenny sat on the bed beside the chair. “You okay?”
Kathryn took a drink while she sorted that out. She was torn emotionally. She understood her brother’s attitude, but her mixed feelings about her father perplexed her. She had left him behind years ago, yet now, at the end of his life, she felt the need to reach out, not to forgive, but to somehow reconcile the past—hers and his—and in doing so, give them both peace.
She put down her drink. “I wouldn’t know what to say to him.”
Jenny took her hand and leaned in. “The question is, do you have something to say? Once they’re gone, they’re gone. You don’t want unsaid things hanging over your head. Believe me.”
“I know that.”
Jenny sat back. “Given how I feel about my family right now, I guess that advice sounds a little hypocritical.”
Kathryn smiled. Their situations were nothing alike. “Nonsense.”
“Memorial is close by. I’ll go with you, if you’d like.”
Kathryn thought about the reality of it. “I don’t want to see him. I can’t.”
“Okay.”
Her hand closed around the number she hadn’t even realized she’d taken from her pocket. When she hesitantly reached for the telephone, Jenny got up to leave.
“I’ll be outside.”
Kathryn looked up, slightly panicked. “Stay. Please.”
Jenny sat while Kathryn apprehensively curled her fingers around the black handset.
“What should I say?”
“When you hear his voice, you’ll know.”
Kathryn was skeptical, but she put the handset to her ear and exhaled as she stretched the tension from her neck. Her hand trembled when she raised it to dial, and she made a fist and then shook it out.
“Jackson Hammond’s room, please.” Kathryn stared at the floor and nervously fingered the phone cord, words dancing in her head, but not a sentence to be found. She had an overwhelming urge to hang up, and almost did, when a woman finally answered.
“Hello?”
It took her by surprise. The thought that her father may have remarried or had a girlfriend never occurred to her. “Is this Jack Hammond’s room?”
“Yes, ma’am. One moment, please. Mr. Hammond—”
Probably a nurse, she reasoned, and the distraction, though brief, was a welcome one.
“Yes?”
The voice caught her off guard. It was her father all right, but even with only one word spoken, he sounded frail and smaller than she remembered. It made her feel pity and didn’t bring her any closer to something to say.
“Hi, Dad.” Her voice was small and frail as well.
Silence greeted her from the other end of the line, and she imagined her father had about as much to say as she did, which was nothing. She heard an exhale of breath.
“Kathy,” he said gently, almost like a prayer. “How’s my girl?”
She could hear his smile and words filled with hope, like a ghost from the past trying to resurrect a life long dead. She was returned briefly to a time when they were a family, in a home filled with love and carefree days. It was a painful memory in the face of reality, and it made her want to back away from the telephone. She tightened her grip on the receiver and held her ground.
“I’m fine.” She paused, still searching for something to say. “I guess I don’t have to ask how you are.”
“Poetic justice, don’t you think?”
She found she bore him no ill will, least of all a slow, painful death. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“I made my bed.”
An uncomfortable silence ensued, and Kathryn could feel her heart begin a panicked rhythm as her mind struggled against memories threatening to make her feel regret. She would not regret leaving her family behind—she could not. It was a pain she had no room for. She had to remind herself, this was the man who killed her mother.
“Say—” He cleared his throat. “You know, you did real well for yourself. Your mother would have been proud.”
Kathryn frowned. How dare the murderer invoke her memory! “I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“I’m proud of you,” he went on, ignoring her angry reply.
It made her take the receiver away from her ear, not wanting to hear anymore. Just the thought of him on the other end of the line, trying to make up for depriving her of a mother, made her feel sick.
Jenny put her hand on her knee. Kathryn worked her jaw and tightened her death grip on the handset, hovering dangerously close to the cradle. When Kathryn sought Jenny’s eyes, Jenny whispered, “Last chance.”
So many emotions went through Kathryn’s head, but in the end, she knew Jenny was right. It was her last chance, because she certainly wasn’t going to go through this again. She put the receiver to her ear and sat up straight. “Listen, I’m sure this is as uncomfortable for you as it is for me, but I wanted you to know—”
“Your brother just waltzed in,” her father abruptly interrupted. “Good hearing from you.” She heard him pass the phone. “Your sister.”
That wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t finished. “No. Dad … Dad!”
“Kathryn?” her brother said, genuinely surprised.
“Put Dad back on, please, Clay.”
She heard him offer the receiver. “Dad, here—”
“No, no, no.”
“Dad, yes.”
“No!” came the final stern declaration.
“Sorry, sis, it’s a no go.”
“Well, tell him … tell him …” She exhaled wearily. “Forget it.” What did she want to say after all this time? Did it really matter anymore? To her? To him?
Her brother cupped his hand around the receiver. “Thanks for making the effort, Kath. I know it meant a lot to him.” He paused. “And to me.”
She couldn’t control her need to lash out. Who were these people, thinking they could just fall back into her life and heart after so many years? “I didn’t do it for him or for you. I did it for me. I’m selfish, remember?”
“Fine. I deserve that, but don’t be sore at Dad. He’s sick. He just doesn’t want to talk right now.”
“Don’t tell me how to feel about that man, and for God’s sake, don’t make excuses for him!”
“There’s some emotion,” her brother remarked sarcastically. “I was wondering if anyone was alive in there.”
She just barely cut off a fuck you, but she recognized a trace of his biting humor in the remark and decided there had been enough ugliness between them. Her brother was an innocent bystander, after all. She extinguished her short fuse and slowly counted to three to calm down.
“I’ve done all I’m going to do, Clay.”
“Then you’ve done all you’re going to do.”
His comment fell somewhere in between absolution and condemnation, and Kathryn didn’t know how to respond. It would probably be the last conversation she’d have with her brother, and such an ambiguous exit line would be fitting. She was about to hang up when he spoke, his voice softer.
“Listen, about before. The things I said. I didn’t mean it. But you were just standing there like a statue, and just as cold … it made me furious. I just wanted to get a rise out of you.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
He chuckled. “No need. I eventually got my rise.”
Kathryn nodded. She sensed he knew they’d never have a relationship and that this was the end. He would never forgive her for breaking up their family, and she would never tell him the truth. They had only the formality of parting left between them.
“So long, Kathryn.”
“Goodbye, Clay.”
* * *
Jenny was dumbfounded by Kathryn’s ability to channel her emotions. When she hung up the phone with her brother, she consigned her interrupted message to her father in a letter, which she sealed in an envelope and then called to have it delivered with a bouquet of flowers to his hospital room. Her only outward comment about the whole affair was, “Well, that’s done.”
She finished her drink in one swallow and went straight downstairs and continued the rehearsal like nothing had happened. Jenny expected some discussion of it later, maybe a few tears, but none were shed, save the few at Tommy Wallace’s funeral two days later.
Two weeks after that, Jenny would see Jackson Hammond’s obituary in the paper. She looked across the breakfast table at Kathryn, who was reading the sports section, and without looking up, simply said, “I saw it.” And that was the end of it.
She did not attend the funeral, nor did she hear from, or contact, her brother.
Jenny secretly clipped the obit from the paper and tucked it away. Kathryn showed no interest, but it seemed wrong to let her father’s life drift into the ages with no remembrance of it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
In the ensuing days, Jenny became more sentimental about her mother and more determined to discover who she was. So much so that, in a last act of desperation, she finally risked approaching her uncle.
She picked a day—one that would allow her to broach the subject without suspicion, and chose a pleasant dinner at his home. She reasoned he would be relaxed and his guard would be down.
“Did you know my mother, Uncle Paul?” she casually asked.
He hardly paid attention to the question.
“No,” he said between chews as he cut his chicken breast.
Jenny waited in vain for some sort of elaboration, until her aunt gracefully filled the expectant silence.
“Why do you ask, dear?”
Jenny shrugged. “Today is her birthday. Now that Dad’s gone, I’m the only one left to celebrate it, and I don’t even know who she was, what she was like.”
Her aunt and uncle exchanged sympathetic looks. Paul put down his knife and fork and smiled sweetly.
“Why, she was just like you, kiddo … beautiful and smart and—”
“I thought you said you didn’t know her,” Jenny broke in, not interested in platitudes.
He looked to his wife for help, who merely raised her brow and waited for his answer. “Well, I’ve seen pictures … so have you … and, why, you’re the spitting image.”
“Picture,” Jenny corrected him.
“What?”
“One picture. That’s all I’ve seen.”
Her uncle wrinkled his brow in confusion and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “What do you mean, one picture?”
“There’s only one picture in the whole house. The one in the study.”
Paul looked at Betsy, who seemed just as surprised. “That doesn’t seem right.”
Jenny deposited her silverware on her plate with a clank, her appetite gone. “Nor is it fair to me.”
Paul was at a loss. He turned to his wife and pleaded with his eyes for a little help.
“I’m sure there are pictures somewhere, dear. Have you looked—”
“I’ve looked in the attic, in the cellar, through all the family albums. There’s nothing. Dad kept her all to himself, like he was ashamed of her or something.”
Her uncle frowned at the accusation. “Now, see here, young lady—”
Betsy put her hand on his forearm to still him, then turned back to Jenny.
“Honey, you know that’s not true.”
“How would I know that, Aunt B?”
“Because you know your father loved your mother very much. You could see it every time he mentioned her, or looked at you, for that matter. You were his pride and joy, Jenny, everything he loved in her and more, all wrapped up in one beautiful little girl.”
Paul smiled and sat back, amazed at his wife’s diplomacy. Across the table, Jenny placed her napkin beside her plate and abruptly excused herself.
Paul looked to Betsy. “What is wrong with that girl?”
“Honestly, Paul,” Betsy whispered. She skidded her chair back and then followed Jenny into the living room, where she found her crying, holding a family photograph in her hands that she’d taken from the mantle.
* * *
Jenny looked at the group portrait, specifically into her father’s kind face, and knew he loved her mother. He loved her so much that the memory of her was too painful for him, and that’s why she was so absent in their lives. Jenny knew he channeled that pain into the unconditional love and pride he bestowed upon her every day of his life, and she closed her eyes as the truth of it washed over her.
