Intrusion: A Novel

by Mary McCluskey

  “It was fun,” the dark-haired girl said. “Chris would have loved it.”

  Kat looked closely at her: a slender brunette, pretty, with dark eyes.

  “I’m Chloe,” the girl said. “Chloe Martinez.”

  Love you, miss you. So this was the girl who had left flowers at Chris’s grave. Kat felt a sharp pang of loss for all the things her son would never experience: the journeys not taken, the love affairs never begun. I hope Chris had a massive crush on you, she thought as she studied the young woman’s attractive face. I hope he kissed you behind the school bike sheds. I hope he felt joy. I hope he experienced that, at least.

  “Nice to meet you, Chloe. Well, I’m an idiot. I’ve come to the wrong market. They don’t have Scott’s whisky here. Different brands, different prices. I’ll have to drive over the hill. Good to see you both. Give my best to the boys.”

  She was talking too fast. The girls must think she was a blathering fool.

  “Bye,” they said in unison.

  Kat turned and walked quickly to the car.

  Minutes later, she was back on her own street, pulling into the driveway of her house, still shaken. She was cursing herself for a wasted trip when she saw Brooke, smartly dressed in tailored work clothes, getting a package out of her mailbox.

  “You want coffee? I’ve just made some,” she called to Kat.

  Kat crossed the street to Brooke’s ultramodern home, a minimalist space of chrome and smoked glass she had inherited after her divorce. Newly promoted to art director at a small Century City advertising agency, Brooke made a good salary, but she freely admitted that her ex-husband had been generous to her. After two years of marriage, he had returned to his first wife and children.

  “Back to his wife! Can you imagine?” Brooke said at the time. “The things he said about her. To hear him talk, you’d think she was an evil, frigid monster. I knew he was missing his kids, though. It was killing him. And, bright side, I get to keep the house. That will help mend my poor little broken heart.”

  “Your little broken heart will mend when you meet someone new.”

  “Me? Never. I intend to stay as free as a bird.”

  Now, as Brooke poured coffee, she looked over at Kat.

  “So you went out alone, sweet pea? That’s good,” she said.

  “Meant to go to the market and then didn’t go inside. Met some of Chris’s old friends and just bolted back here.”

  “That’s okay. The market’s not going anywhere. It will be there tomorrow and the day after. So who was the high-fashion gal visiting you in a Jag the other day?”

  “Sarah. The old school friend I told you about. The one in Palm Springs.”

  “Oh, right. The rich widow. She looks pretty young for a widow. Well, if she ever gets tired of that Hermès bag, ask her for it. I’ve wanted one my entire life.”

  “Your entire life? You told me you were a tomboy most of your young life.”

  “Well, since I grew up. Since I stopped wanting a skateboard. So how are you, sweetie?”

  Kat blurted out details of her Internet research, the newly awakened longing for a baby.

  “You think I’m insane to think of it? Having another baby?”

  Brooke, eyes narrow, thought about the question seriously.

  “Not insane. No. But you’re still grieving. It’s maybe not a good idea right this minute. Not that I know shit about anything. What does Scott say?”

  “Haven’t really mentioned it to him yet.”

  “What’s your therapist say?”

  “Haven’t told her.”

  “Well, that, babe, should be your first question to her at your next session. And maybe you should mention it to Scott before you get yourself pregnant.”

  “Saw some of Chris’s old friends today,” Kat said that evening as she and Scott had dinner. “During their lunch break. It was strange to see them. Without Chris.”

  He looked up, frowning.

  “You were near the school?”

  “At the market. I met the girl who left flowers at the grave. Chloe. Must have been Chris’s girlfriend. Pretty girl. Nice, too. Seemed nice.”

  “Don’t think I ever met her.”

  “She was with Vanessa. The boys were there, too, but they vanished before I could talk to them.”

  “I haven’t seen the boys since the funeral,” Scott said. “I thought Ben would drop by at some point. He used to pretty much live at our house.”

  “He probably doesn’t know what to say to us.”

  “True,” Scott said. “Maybe he worries we blame him.”

  Ben had been driving when a truck had blown a tire, veered out of control, and hit an SUV that then crossed three lanes of the freeway to hit the boys, traveling in a Mustang convertible in the opposite direction. According to all reports, Ben had been following the speed limit; he had not been drinking. He could have done nothing to avoid the accident.

  “You did ask for the police report. Maybe he knows that you checked his alcohol level.”

  “Jesus, Kat. Any parent would do that.”

  She remembered Scott in those first weeks—checking maintenance records on the truck, on the road, talking to litigators at his office, researching tire statistics, desperate to find someone, anyone, to blame—the truck driver, the SUV driver, the tire company, even the county. If there had been a center divider, he told Kat, the accident would not have happened. His own colleagues had talked him out of litigating that. A freak accident. Nobody to blame.

  “It wasn’t Ben’s fault,” Kat said.

  “He doesn’t know that we understand that,” Scott said. “Maybe he still feels, I don’t know, guilty. Something.”

  Kat frowned. “God, I hope not.”

  After dinner, when Scott was working in his den, Kat took out the laptop and once more reviewed the Internet research on tests and pregnancy for an older woman. She wanted to talk to Scott about it. She knew he would think the idea totally insane, but she had to at least ask him. The words had to be said.

  Finally, when Scott had been working for over an hour, Kat drank two fast glasses of wine, walked with rigid determination into his den, and stood in front of his desk like a schoolgirl facing the principal. Scott turned from his computer, frowning.

  “What’s up?”

  “I want to ask you something,” Kat said. She saw the concern on his face, and she took a long breath. “Would you even consider having another baby? Would you go for the tests the doctors suggested so that we could—”

  She had no chance to end the sentence. He stood, moved around his desk to pull her hard against his chest.

  “Kat, please. Please. It won’t bring him back.”

  “I know it won’t—” Her voice broke on the words. “But another baby. It would be so wonderful. Just to hold an infant. To care for another baby. Can you imagine?”

  “Stop it, sweetheart. You’re torturing yourself. You’re not strong enough to get pregnant again, Kat. Not emotionally strong enough. And we’re so much older. No. No, it’s just not an option. You need to find a different way through this.”

  She leaned against him, unable to speak further until, after a while, he released her gently.

  “Make some hot tea,” he said. “Maybe find an old movie to watch? I need to finish off this one report, then I’ll join you.”

  TWELVE

  In the late afternoon of the following day, Scott’s voice on the phone sounded both exhausted and irritable.

  “That damn car,” he said. “It was supposed to be fixed. I’m leaving it in the shop. Have to get James to drop me. You better go ahead and eat.”

  “Again?” Kat said. “Well, of course. I love eating alone. In fact, I can’t even remember when we last—”

  “It’s not my goddamn fault if the car—”

  “No. Nothing is your fault, Scott—” She paused, biting at her lip. It wasn’t his fault. Jesus. She was turning into a harridan. A cartoon wife.

  “Do you want me to pick y
ou up?” she asked in a small voice, praying he would say no. The idea of driving downtown frightened her: the kaleidoscopic clamor of the freeways; the huge, speeding trucks, too close. She waited while he considered this.

  “No. Don’t worry,” he said, at last. “I’ll get a ride.”

  She replaced the phone, walked into the kitchen. The house felt cold, echoing, and so quiet she could hear the clicking of the fridge. I need to focus on something else, she told herself. The job on the weekly paper would begin in a few weeks. She shivered. She didn’t want the job. She didn’t think she could do it. The only job she really wanted right now, she admitted, was to take care of a child. A baby. A growing child. That tiny curl of desire was becoming impossible to ignore.

  Two hours later, when Kat was beginning to worry that Scott was unable to get a ride home and she would have to pick him up after all, Sarah’s green Jaguar pulled up to the curb. Scott stepped out and, seeing her at the window, waved. Kat hesitated and then moved to open the front door.

  “James was tied up, so Sarah kindly offered to drop me,” Scott called. He turned to Sarah. “Sure you don’t want coffee?”

  “No time,” Sarah said, leaning out the window of the Jaguar and waving to Kat.

  “It’s a long drive to Ojai,” Scott said. “Coffee might be a good idea.”

  Sarah looked over to Kat. The green eyes appeared bright in the fading light.

  “Would it be a bother, Kat? I hate to interrupt your evening.”

  “Of course not. Come in.”

  As Kat made coffee, she listened to Sarah’s and Scott’s voices from the living room. They talked of contracts to be signed, documents to be filed with the court. She heard the name of Jeremy Woodruff, Scott’s colleague, and then laughter. They seemed to have found common ground in their dislike of the pompous lawyer.

  She carried in the coffee as Scott continued to explain about language that was essential, could not be excluded if they were to avoid problems later. It was Sarah who interrupted him, turning to Kat with a warm smile.

  “Scott, enough of this shoptalk. I should get moving and leave you two to your evening.”

  “You’re spending a few days in Ojai?” Kat asked.

  “Just a quick visit. I have to meet the builder very early in the morning.”

  “You’re extending the house?”

  “I’m building an orangery. Remember the one at Lansdowne?”

  “Oh yes. Of course. Victorian. It was beautiful.”

  “I want one exactly like it. The architect is having trouble with my phone descriptions. And I don’t have a picture.” She laughed. “They’re not common in California. I’ll have to walk the perimeter and try to make a sketch.”

  Sarah rested her head on the back of the armchair, musing. “Remember when you first saw Lansdowne? When I first took you there? You were so excited, you ran from room to room, even down to the basement, even up to the attic. You loved that house. Almost as much as I did.”

  “I was a council-house kid, remember,” Kat said. “I’d never seen so much space. The bedroom you and I had, at the back of the house overlooking the garden? That was bigger than my entire home.”

  Sarah laughed.

  “The house was falling apart and just so horribly tatty, and still you loved it,” she said.

  “Didn’t look tatty to me.”

  Sarah stood then, gulped down her coffee, and was gone in a few minutes. She waved from the window of the Jaguar, gunning the engine as she headed up the street.

  Scott followed Kat into the kitchen.

  “She likes to replicate those old rooms, doesn’t she?” he said, sounding puzzled. “That old bathroom in Ojai. This new project. And one of the rooms in Malibu is an exact copy of some room in a seaside cottage in Sussex.”

  “I remember the cottage in Sussex,” Kat said. “Little gatehouse. Lovely place.”

  “Think she’s trying to recapture her lost youth?”

  “I doubt it,” Kat said. “She had a miserable childhood. I can’t imagine she’d want to recapture that. She was sent away to boarding school and moved from school to school. Always getting expelled. And her parents—well, I heard so many rumors. Her mother had a number of breakdowns. Her father lived in France. She won’t talk about them.”

  “She must have been fond of this Helen. The one with the big house.”

  “She was. In a strange way. They were offhand with each other, never hugged much. But they had some kind of bond. I remember when Helen had a fall, Sarah was terrified she would die.”

  Sarah had been at Kat’s house when the call came from Sister Agnes. A car was on the way to St. Theresa’s to pick up Sarah to take her to the hospital in Sussex where her aunt was being treated; Sarah must return to the school immediately. Sarah had turned so pale, her eyes wide and bright with a fear Kat had never seen before. Kat’s mother took one look at Sarah’s face and then turned to her husband.

  “My dad drove her back to school,” Kat told Scott. “That was amazing in itself. He never drove anywhere except to work. That little car was kept ready for the next shift. Maggie and I always had to take the bus. Anyway, he said he’d drive Sarah back to meet up with the limo and I went with them, and Sarah curled up into a tight ball in the backseat, asking over and over where she would go, what would happen to her. She was terrified that Helen would die.

  “I remember when we got to school, this big black car was waiting, and Sister Agnes was there and Mrs. Evans, the nasty housekeeper who hated me—”

  “Hated you?” Scott interrupted. “Why did she hate you?”

  “Wrong class. Lacked breeding. No right to be mixing with the likes of Sarah. She always treated me as if I were about to steal the silver. Anyway, Sarah just ran to the black car, didn’t speak to Sister Agnes or pick up anything from her dorm. The car took off with her and Mrs. Evans in the backseat. I remember my dad watching her and saying—Poor wee lassie.”

  “Nothing poor about the wee lassie these days,” Scott said.

  After dinner, Kat spent another hour researching on her laptop, then she stood at the bedroom window, chewing at her thumbnail. She liked the view from their hillside home: the twin boulevards of Tampa and Reseda pulsing yellow and red as traffic merged into shimmering neon trails. But on this evening, she was blind to the changing lights and shadows. There was a churning excitement building slowly in her gut. Maybe giving birth to another child was not a possibility. Maybe Scott would never agree to it. He would not go for tests; she was certain of that. And, yes, it would be difficult for her to conceive at her age. But there was another option. It was not ridiculous. It was not insane. But she needed more information on it. And she knew who could help her find it.

  She checked her watch. Sarah would have arrived in Ojai by now; she would no longer be driving. Kat found the card with the gold lettering that Sarah had given to her and dialed the number on it fast, before she had a chance to change her mind. And then she said the words that, before this night, she would never have believed she would one day say to Sarah Cherrington:

  “Sarah,” she said, “I need your help.”

  THIRTEEN

  Kat waited at the window a full thirty minutes before Sarah’s car was due to arrive.

  “Meet me for lunch in Beverly Hills tomorrow,” Sarah had said when Kat called her in Ojai. Kat had murmured about hating to drive over the hill, about maybe meeting in a restaurant closer to home, but Sarah had interrupted, dismissing all this.

  “No problem. I’ll send a car for you,” she said. “He’ll pick you up at twelve thirty.”

  Kat had applied makeup carefully, had spent a long time arranging her hair, and at noon, wearing a simple blue linen dress, the most expensive thing in her closet, she paced from window to mirror to check her appearance. The mirror reflected a woman with tidy hair and a pale and anxious face.

  Kat had no idea where she was going; Sarah had not mentioned the name of the restaurant. She assumed it was in Beverly Hills.
r />   When a silver Mercedes pulled up to the curb, Kat hurried outside and saw a young man in a gray suit already standing beside it. He moved fast to open the back door of the car for her.

  “Afternoon, ma’am,” he said in a friendly way.

  As the luxury car pulled out and made its way to the freeway, Kat, settling back into the soft leather of the seat, tugged at her dress so that it would not crease so much around the waist and hips, wishing now she had chosen something cotton, cool and crisp. She looked out the window as the Mercedes made its way over the hill, and she saw that, yes, Beverly Hills seemed to be the destination. The young man drove fast and smoothly, eventually pulled up outside a long, low building with a smoked-glass door, and Kat recognized the name of a restaurant she had only ever seen mentioned in the society pages.

  She thanked the young driver and then, shaky, took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and walked inside the place fast, before she lost her nerve. Kat had an impression of frosted glass, of huge flower arrangements, soft lighting, white tablecloths, crystal, and silver. The maître d’ approached her, greeted her with a silky “Good afternoon,” and inclined his head, waiting for her to speak. Kat gave Sarah’s name and he bowed slightly, turned at once, and led her through the busy restaurant to a table in the corner where Sarah waited, her phone in one hand, a netbook open on the table.

  As they approached, Kat studied her. Sarah looked quite at home in these surroundings. She wore a gray silk suit, diamond studs in her ears, her hair swept to one side, as she had often worn it years ago. In profile, the two sides of her face could look quite different: one side so bare, the delicate bone structure clear and unobstructed, the other side hidden by a cascade of rich brown hair. A Janus face, Maggie had said once. How appropriate.

  She clicked off the phone and stood as Kat reached the table.

  “Aha!” she said, hugging her briefly. “You see, Caitlin darling, there is a world over the hill and beyond the Valley. Now, would you like a cocktail?”

  “White wine would be lovely.”