Mortal sin, p.8
Mortal Sin, page 8
“You could have fooled me. You sure look like one, with all that yellow hair and those big blue eyes. You could be a movie star, like Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts. Or even—yeah, now I know who it is you remind me of. Not Julia Roberts. Julia Stiles. She is one hot chick. You look just like her. Something about the cheekbones. What was the name of that movie she made with Freddie Prinze, Jr.?”
“Down to You?”
“Yeah, that’s it. You look just like she did in that movie. As a matter of fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d think it was her, sitting here beside me on this old wooden bench.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“Honest to God. Could this face ever lie to you?”
He wore the sweet expression of a Boy Scout, and he continued to ply her with that guileless smile and those soulful blue eyes. Two benches over, a studious-looking black kid with wire-rimmed glasses and a backpack had his nose buried in a fat paperback copy of Shakespeare’s tragedies. A couple of housewife types, in from the burbs for a day of shopping, studied the subway map on the wall, heads close together as they held a private conversation and avoided eye contact with anyone who might jeopardize their safe return to their safe suburban homes on their safe suburban streets in their safe suburban neighborhoods.
In the background, Jamal continued to play. The Arborway train hurtled into the station, and the man named Rio stood. “This is me,” he said. “You take care of yourself, Julia.”
He walked away, casually tossed a dollar bill into Jamal’s open instrument case. Jamal nodded thanks without breaking rhythm. Rio climbed the steps onto the train and staked out a space near the door, stood there as several women squeezed past him to get a seat. The door closed and the train began to move. At the last possible instant, he looked up, met her glance through the dirty window, and raised a hand to his brow in silent salute. Then the tunnel swallowed him up.
The house was so empty without Kit. Instead of all that youthful energy, instead of the teenage angst and the constant clutter and the daily overdose of MTV, there was just…nothing. Sarah wandered from room to room like a lost soul, waiting for a phone call that didn’t come. She hated having Clancy Donovan’s phone number on that flyer instead of hers, hated it passionately, even if she did understand his reasoning. Because she bounced perpetually between the house and the bookstore, she risked missing an important call. As pastor of a large parish, the good Father was on call twenty-four hours a day. There was never a time when his cell phone wasn’t with him. It made sense that they should use his number instead of hers, but she still didn’t like it. Patience had never been her strong suit, and this business of sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop was driving her to the brink of insanity.
She wasn’t sleeping worth a damn at night. Instead, she lay awake, night after night, thinking about what she might have done differently. Somehow, she knew, this was all her fault. If only she’d listened more closely, if only she’d been a little less rigid. It had been a challenge, having instant motherhood thrust upon her in the form of a wayward and high-spirited teenage girl. But she’d risen to the challenge with enthusiasm, and with gratitude for having finally been given the opportunity she’d waited years for. That she’d failed so miserably at such an important task was a heartbreak she would carry with her for the rest of her life.
She paused at the dining room window and drew back the curtain. Outside, the snow gleamed bluish in the moonlight. A dried leaf, caught by the wind, scuttled across the lawn. Sarah dropped the curtain and went back to pacing. She couldn’t abide sitting here like some helpless B-grade movie heroine, wringing her hands and waiting for the hero to rescue her. She wanted to be Erin Brockovich, out there on the street, kicking ass and getting things done. She needed to find Kit before something god-awful happened to her, something Sarah would never forgive herself for allowing to happen.
Earlier tonight, she’d called Remy in New Orleans, just because she didn’t know who else to talk to. To his credit, her ex-husband hadn’t said, “I told you so.” Instead, he’d sounded concerned, for her as well as for Kit. “You can’t blame yourself,” he said. “If anybody’s the villain in this piece, it’s Bobby. If he’d been any kind of father at all, he would have handed her over to you the day Ellie died. You wouldn’t be in this mess now.”
“How can you be sure?” she argued. “Maybe I would’ve messed her up as bad as Bobby has. We come from the same gene pool, after all. And I haven’t exactly lived the most stable existence. Maybe Connellys just aren’t cut out to be parents.”
“Or maybe your guilt’s more about the past than the present.”
She didn’t have an answer to that, probably because he was right.
“Look,” he said, “kids run away every day. Most of them come home sooner or later, maybe a little the worse for wear, but not irreparably damaged. It’s the parents who suffer, because teenagers have tunnel vision. They don’t understand that the things they do hurt the people who love them. They’re too self-absorbed. Kit’s a smart girl. She’ll be okay. You’re the one I’m worried about. You need to get some sleep. If you don’t, the worrying’s apt to kill you.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“And call me again if you need anything. I mean it, Sarah. Just because we’re divorced doesn’t mean…well, you know. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
They’d ended their conversation after that, because there really was nothing left to say. She understood the truth in his words. She just wasn’t sure she could apply it to her own life. Guilt was a powerful motivator. And so was love. Put the two together and you created an unstoppable force.
She wandered to the living room and turned on the television. The man whose face filled the screen was fair-haired, charismatic, fortyish. He smiled into the camera, surrounded by a young, attractive, athletic-looking family. “Tom Adams,” the voice-over said solemnly. “Standing tall for the Commonwealth.”
So this was the esteemed Senator Adams. What was it Steve had said about him? He’s so conservative he makes Rush Limbaugh look like Dennis Rodman. Adams hardly looked like the spawn of Satan Steve had made him out to be. His politics may have leaned a little further to the right than she preferred, but wasn’t that what the majority of the voters seemed to want? Josie was right. Adams looked agreeable enough, if you could get past the fact that he was probably one more rich boy who would never have to worry about the demise of Social Security, because his trust fund was bottomless.
Sarah clicked a button and the senator’s face disappeared. She knelt before the hearth, took a long-handled match from the box on the mantel and struck it. The match flared into flame. She touched it to the stack of kindling arranged neatly in the fireplace, fanned it with her breath, and watched the fire dance to life.
Determined to enjoy its cozy warmth, she poured herself a glass of white wine, popped in a Patsy Cline CD, and settled on the couch with her bare feet tucked up underneath her. While Patsy sang about walking after midnight, Sarah stared into the flames, absently twirling her wineglass by its stem. She’d been so sure she was doing it right this time, so sure she’d finally turned around that string of bad luck and worse choices that had followed her around for the past sixteen years.
She and Remy had parted on friendly terms. But when she’d announced her intention to pack up Kit and move to Boston to take up residence in the house she’d inherited from her father’s sister, he’d been aghast. “Why would you want to do that, sugar?” he asked. “The place is falling down, Boston is an icebox, and the people there are the rudest I’ve ever had the misfortune of doing business with.”
Dear Remy. He truly meant well. And the house had its faults, for sure: it was desperately in need of paint, and the front steps were about ready to fall off. Sooner or later, she was going to have to replace the roof. The interior could use fresh wallpaper and updated kitchen appliances. It was going to take time and money to bring the place into the current century. But she’d fallen in love with the old wreck the instant she turned her key in the lock. It was hers, all hers, and she loved it in a way she couldn’t adequately explain to her ex-husband.
“Stay here,” he’d argued. “I’ll put you and Kit up in a nice little apartment. I’ll take care of you financially. You won’t have to worry about a thing.”
“But that’s the problem,” she’d told him. “I need to pay my own way. I need to stand on my own two feet and be a responsible adult. I need to be a momma to that poor little girl.”
He argued until he was blue in the face, but she refused to back down. She needed to make a new start, needed to reassess her life. She started looking at business opportunities in the greater Boston area and found a charming little bookstore that had just gone on the market. She flew to Boston to check it out, then put together a business plan, liquidated her assets, and took the plunge.
Bookmark was doing well. And after years of being married to one man or another, she’d discovered she really didn’t mind being alone. Between mothering Kit, running the bookstore, and trying to keep the house from falling down around their ears, her life was too full for the absence of a man to even register on her radar. She’d begun to flex her muscles, both physically and emotionally, had begun to plumb her inner depths and to discover her own strengths, strengths she’d never imagined she possessed. It was empowering to discover she didn’t need a man to survive.
But this thing with Kit had knocked her for a loop. She hadn’t realized the extent to which she’d built her life around the girl. Kit’s disappearance had placed her life on hold indefinitely. If the worst happened and Kit didn’t come back, that hold was likely to become permanent, because without Kit, she couldn’t see much reason to go on.
She finished off the glass of wine, muted the CD player, and picked up the telephone. She knew Clancy Donovan’s cell phone number by heart because she’d spent hour after hour, day after day, staring at that flyer with Kit’s picture on it. She hated that picture, had always hated it. School photos were so stiff and unnatural, and Kit was such a lovely girl.
He answered on the second ring, his voice soft, mellow, familiar. For a brief instant, she wanted to give in to the aching desire to cry. Instead, she said, “Do you think I’m crazy?”
There was a measured pause before he said, “Sarah?”
“Never mind. I guess that gives me my answer. You must not know very many crazy women.”
“I recognized your voice. Moonlight, magnolias, balmy southern nights.”
“That’s your story, anyway.”
“And I’m sticking to it. Why would I think you’re crazy?”
“My ex-husband thinks I’m obsessing too much about Kit. I just wondered if you shared that opinion.”
“I think that under the circumstances, you’re allowed to obsess until the cows come home.”
“Josie’s been at me, too. She keeps telling me it’s time I started dating. The universal panacea. Like I have any interest in men right now.” She wrapped the phone cord tight around her index finger, let it spring free, and watched the flow of blood return. “The longer this goes on, the more frustrated I get. I guess I had this naive idea that we’d just cruise downtown, pick her up off a street corner, and bring her home. Rather simplistic of me, wasn’t it?”
“It’s a normal expectation. Not particularly realistic, but normal. This kind of thing is an education in itself. Unfortunately, the degree comes from the school of hard knocks.”
“In the beginning, I was fueled by anger. I was furious with Kit for running away in the first place, furious with the police for not being more helpful. Now—” She paused, sighed. “Now, I think I’ve run out of fuel. I’m so tired. And so discouraged. This is my fault, you know.”
“How is it your fault?”
“I was lousy at being a mother.”
“Do you think that’s really fair to yourself? Have you ever had any previous parenting experience? Did you ever take parenting classes?”
“Most people don’t take parenting classes. They still manage to raise normal kids.”
“Most people start with infants, and work their way up to teenagers. They have a little bit of experience under their belts before they get to Bedlam. You’re being far too hard on yourself.”
“I could have made better choices. Kit’s been dragged from pillar to post all her life. So what did I do? I uprooted her one more time and took her fifteen hundred miles away from everything that was even remotely familiar. I knew she was unhappy, but I didn’t know what to do about it. That girl’s just starving for love, and God knows, I tried to give it to her. But I couldn’t get through. That’s my failing, and I know it. Now I’m terrified she’ll go looking for it in the wrong place, and it’ll be all my fault.”
“Have you talked to anyone about this guilt you’re feeling?”
“Well, Father, in case you haven’t noticed, it appears as though I’m doing just that.”
There was a brief silence at his end of the phone. “Yes,” he said, sounding surprised. “So you are.”
“I’m sorry I bothered you. I really wasn’t looking for a therapy session. I’m not even Catholic. And you’re off duty. But I appreciate you listening to me. I guess I just needed to blow off a little steam.”
“You’re not bothering me. And I’m never off duty. You know, there’s a local support group for families of runaway and missing children. I think it meets somewhere in Lynn. If you’re interested, I can get you information on where and when.”
“Is that what you think I need? A support group? You don’t strike me as the touchy-feely type.”
“I think any of us, when faced with a life-altering crisis, can benefit from the wisdom and support of people who’ve already been there.”
“A cagey response if ever I heard one. All right, Father, you might as well get me the information. I suppose it beats psychotherapy.”
“I’ll see what I can do for you. Sarah—” He paused, and she waited, breathing a little too hard, still playing with the phone cord, trying to mold it back into its original neat coil. But it was too late for that; the damage was already done. “We’ll find her,” he said. “I promise.”
“You keep telling me that,” she said. “Maybe one of these days, I’ll start believing it.”
The next time she saw the man who called himself Rio, Kit was hovering at the top of the stairs inside the entrance to the Park Street T station, trying to stay warm. Every time the door opened to let commuters into the old stone building, the March wind sliced through her with knifelike precision. But she was loathe to descend those stairs and part with even a dollar in order to pass through the turnstile and rest her weary body on a bench. Last night, she’d slept in the foyer of a dilapidated apartment building somewhere in the South End. At least she’d been indoors, out of the wind and the cold. But when she woke up, her backpack was gone, stolen while she slept right next to it.
It was the closest she’d come to crying since she left home. Her clothes were gone, and so was the photo of Momma she’d carried since she was four years old. Her last joint had been in that bag, along with the candy bar she’d bought yesterday afternoon and vowed to save for morning, no matter how much her stomach gurgled and growled in the meantime. Now all she had left was Freddy, who’d been cradled in her arms while she slept, and a five-dollar bill tucked into the pocket of her grimy jeans.
For the first time, she considered the possibility of going home. Kit was familiar with the concept of hitting rock bottom, and she was pretty sure she was hovering in the vicinity, if she hadn’t already arrived. But to go home now—assuming Aunt Sarah would even take her back—would be to admit she’d failed. Failure was a weakness, and only sissies were weak. Kit Connelly was no sissy. Life with Daddy had toughened her, and she would spit in the eye of anyone who possessed the audacity to suggest otherwise.
If only she wasn’t so very hungry.
He materialized out of nowhere. One minute, she was standing alone, squeezed against the wall as harried commuters dashed by in a mad rush to catch the train that had just pulled into the station. The next instant, Rio was standing in front of her, a bagel in one hand, a steaming cup of coffee in the other. She wasn’t sure which looked better to her, the man or the bagel, but if she voted on the basis of smell, the coffee won, hands down. Anything that smelled this good couldn’t possibly be bad.
“Hey, Julia,” he said. “How’s it going?”
Eyeing the bagel, she said, “Hi.”
He glanced down at the bagel in his hand, then back up at her face. “Buy you breakfast, gorgeous?”
Suddenly, it was more than she could stand. The cold, the hunger, her stolen belongings, his generosity. A single fat tear spilled from the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. She swiped at it viciously. Without another word, Rio took her by the arm and led her outside, across the street and into the bagel shop on the corner.
“Anything you want, babe,” he said. “My treat.”
She picked out a raisin bagel and two chocolate honey-dipped doughnuts, a carton of milk and a bottle of Fruitopia. They sat in a booth and he watched in silence while she ate every last morsel. She washed it all down with the milk, and then she opened the bottle of juice for dessert. For the first time in a week, her stomach felt satisfied, full almost to the point of discomfort. “Thank you,” she said. “You can’t know how hungry I was.”
“Anything for you, sweet thing. I wondered if you’d still be around. I thought maybe you would’ve gone back home by now.”
Over the rim of her bottle, she said, “I’m not going back.”
He nodded knowingly. “That’s what I figured when I saw you. You seem like the type of girl who knows what she’s doing. If you left home, you must’ve had a good reason. It wasn’t just to get attention.”
“Hah. Like I ever got any.”
He took a sip of coffee and said casually, “Folks ignored you, did they?”
