“I don’t need help.”
“Kristen.” Rose lowered her voice. “You’re pregnant and hiding it from everybody. That sounds like a girl who needs help.”
“Okay, so I’m pregnant.” Kristen’s eyes brimmed, but she blinked her tears back. “My boyfriend Erik’s in Reesburgh, in the insurance business. He broke up with me, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to tell my parents, and they’re away anyway, so I came here to get back on my feet. That’s why I was out of school the day of the fire. I had morning sickness.”
“So you didn’t know the fire was going to happen?”
“No.”
“And you had nothing to do with it?”
“Of course not.” Kristen laughed, sadly, and Rose felt relieved and puzzled, both at once.
“So your boyfriend doesn’t want the baby?”
“It’s not that. He doesn’t know I’m pregnant. He broke up with me before I found out, and I’m not about to tell him, now.”
“He does have a right to know. I bet he’s the one trying to find you. Somebody called your parents’ house for you, the housesitter told me.”
“It was him. He calls my cell all the time, but he doesn’t want me back.” Kristen wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “He wants his stupid truck keys, which I threw in the ocean.”
“Aw, I’m sorry.”
“Me, too, but not about the truck.”
Rose smiled. “Why don’t you tell your parents? I’m sure they’ll help, and they’d want to know.”
“You don’t know my dad.” Kristen shuddered.
“What are you going to do about the baby, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I think I’m keeping him, or her,” Kristen answered, confident. “I think I can do it on my own.”
Rose’s heart went out to her. “What are you living on?”
“Savings, and I have money I inherited from an aunt. I’m fine, thanks.” Kristen’s lower lip buckled with regret. “I’m sorry I left Melly in the lurch, I really am. That’s why I called you this morning.”
“I know.” Rose got up, went over, and gave her a hug. “Eat crackers every morning, first thing. Old-school Saltines. You won’t feel so sick.”
“Thanks.”
“I’d better be going. It’s a long drive.” Rose went to the door, then stopped. “Let me just ask you something. Do you remember seeing cans of polyurethane in the teachers’ lounge, recently?”
“Yes. They were varnishing the cabinets. I remember there were WET PAINT signs everywhere, and it reeked.”
“When?”
“Thursday, the day before the fire. Why?”
“Somebody told me that the polyurethane is partly the reason for the explosion. It was left there, and it blew up.”
“So?”
“So I don’t get it.” Rose shrugged. “Why does anybody varnish cabinets in October, a month after school opens? Especially if it smells and is going to ruin peoples’ lunch. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know. Maybe a second coat?” Kristen got up, walked to the door, and held it open. “You won’t tell anyone I’m here, will you?”
“No, but you should.” Rose went into her purse. “Here, take this.” She found her wallet, pulled out a hundred bucks, and handed the money to Kristen, who put up her hand like a stop sign.
“No, I couldn’t.”
“Yes, you have to. Please.” Rose put the money in Kristen’s hands. “Good luck, sweetie.”
“Thanks. This is so nice of you.”
“Oh, wait. Take this, too.” Rose pulled a folded paper from her purse, opened it, and showed it to Kristen. “This is Melly’s drawing of the two of you. That’s Albus Dumbledore in the hat.”
“I knew that,” Kristen said, with a newly teary smile, and Rose gave her a good-bye hug.
“Call me if you need me. And Melly wants you to know we eat Kristenburgers.”
“They’re yummy, right?”
“Not in bulk.”
Kristen laughed. “Can I keep the picture?”
“Sure.” Rose went to the door. “I told Melly I mailed it to you, and that’s the last lie I’ll ever tell my daughter, except for Santa Claus.”
It was dark when Rose hit the street, but before she went back to the car, she walked to the beach and took off her shoes, enjoying the sensation of the cool sand as she went down to the shoreline and stood at the edge of the very continent. She still had a blister on her ankle, and the chilly wavelets rolled over her feet, healing and good. The gray foam made pale, shifting lines, one after the other all the way to the black horizon, where sea blended with sky. The stars shone bright white, encrusting heaven, and the full moon was a perfect circle, like a paper hole left by a hole-puncher in school. She breathed in the salty smells and the cool wetness of the air, standing at the intersection of summer and autumn, and at a crossroads in her life, too.
She thought of Leo, hoping she hadn’t left him behind, because she wasn’t sure where she was going. And she didn’t know what to do or think about the school fire, either. She stared into the blackness at the horizon, looking for answers, knowing a line was surely out there, but she couldn’t see it. Still, she looked hard and tried to find it, and she found herself thinking of Kurt Rehgard. He was gone, and she didn’t know where he was going, either. Or where her mother had gone, or her father.
She thought about death, and life starting anew, in Kristen. And she thought about the place between life and death, where Amanda slept, waiting to wake up, or not. She said a silent prayer for her, and realized that Thomas Pelal had been there, too, in her mind. She had kept him alive, in death, for so long, and it was time to let him go. She realized that letting someone go was setting them free. So she set him free, letting his spirit soar over the great churning sea and up, up, up into the heavens.
The wind blew her hair back from her face, and she breathed in deeply, inhaling one lungful after another, letting it energize and renew her. She kept an eye on the horizon, or where she thought it was, and understood that not everything that existed could be seen. Not every border was clear. She kept thinking of Kurt and the fire, sensing that something still seemed out of whack. She didn’t know the answers, and she didn’t even know the questions, but they were out there.
As surely as earth met heaven.
Chapter Fifty-three
Back at the cabin, Rose sat over her laptop at the farm table, watching videotapes of the school fire. She’d done it before in her darkest moments, but now she had a new purpose. She was looking for something that could give her a clue about what had happened last Friday at school. She took a sip of fresh coffee, but didn’t need the caffeine to keep going, though it was after midnight. Melly and John were sleeping over at the Vaughns’, which was their babysitting routine when she and Leo were out past ten o’clock.
She hit PLAY on the most recent link, which was the thirty-fourth new viewer video. She was amazed at how many more there were, from cell phones, flip cams, iPods, and videocameras, made in a world where everybody filmed everything that happened around them, even as it happened, becoming observers in their own lives.
She was having a similar sensation as she watched the video, visualizing herself out of her own body, hunched over the laptop. The only light fixture was the lamp over her head, casting a cone of brightness onto her crown, like Dumbledore’s peaked hat. She couldn’t help projecting outward into the dim cabin and through its walls to the dark night, its blackness obliterating the outlines of the cabin roofs and the jagged tops of the tall evergreens, cutting into a blanket of dense clouds like so many hunters’ knives. The full moon lurked behind, leaving the night opaque and inscrutable.
She hit another video, which showed the same terrified children running from the school, only from a different vantage point. She scanned the video titles backwards in time, reversing the chronology until she was a hero mom. Next to that video was a TV report that she hadn’t seen: More on Moms: Tanya Roberts
on Speaks with Eileen Gigot. She clicked the link, and after a web commercial, the anchorwoman came onto the screen:
“I’m Tanya Robertson, and tonight I begin my ‘More on Moms’ report, which goes behind the scenes in the life of the single mom whose daughter was trapped in the fire at Reesburgh Elementary. Tonight I’d like to answer the question we all have about single moms—how do they do it?”
Rose watched, intrigued.
“By way of background, Eileen Gigot’s life changed seven years ago, on August 11, in the world-famous Homestead factory, which started in 1948 with a 6200-foot plant that made only potato chips. Today, Homestead employs almost four thousand people and has grown to a plant totaling fifty-six thousand square feet. It makes potato chips, popcorn, and tons of other snack foods, shipping all over the world from right here in Reesburgh, Pennsylvania.”
Rose thought Tanya was angling for a new commercial sponsor until the screen turned to a stop-time photo of the Homestead factory, then morphed into the present-day plant, with her voiceover: “Eileen’s husband, William Gigot, loved his job at Homestead, but he was killed in a forklift accident at the plant.”
Rose eyed the photo they showed next, of William Gigot and three other men wearing yellow Homestead shirts, with nameplates that read WIJEWSKI, MODJESKA, and FIGGS. Bill Gigot was a tall, handsome man with bright blue eyes that would find their way onto Amanda’s pretty face. The screen switched to Tanya, sitting with a teary Eileen, near her breakfront.
Tanya asked, “How did you think you would get along, raising three children on your own?” The camera turned to Eileen, her eyes glistening in a face that looked prematurely lined, and she answered, “I believe that the Lord gives all of us the burdens we can carry, and no more. Of course, I wish it turned out differently. I miss Bill, every day.”
Rose felt a pang, but her thoughts kept coming back to the fire, the polyurethane, and Kurt. She navigated back to the home page, found the story about his crash, and clicked the video. Onto the screen popped the aerial footage, and she watched the coverage again, wondering about what he’d told her.
It’s the GC’s fault, the general contractor, Campanile.
She stopped the video, logged onto Google, plugged in Campanile, and found its website. It had a slick home page with a picture of a huge hotel, and the copy read:
The Campanile Group is a cutting-edge construction corporation, a new way of doing things in an age-old business. The Campanile family gave us our beginnings over a century ago, and though we value our Pennsylvania origins, we have expanded and grown nationally.…
Rose got the gist. Her gaze fell on the About Us link, and she clicked it. There was a photo of another building, but no listing or bios of corporate officers, only a PR person. She remembered that Kurt had said a “buddy” told him Campanile was at fault, and she wondered if the buddy was somebody working with him at the school. Kurt had worked for Bethany Run Construction, so she plugged their name into Google.
A website popped up, much lower-budget than Campanile. The Bethany Run home page showed three men in brown Carhartt overalls in front of a cinderblock foundation. The caption read, Vince Palumbo, Frank Reed, and Hank Powell, our famous founders. The only pages on the sidebar were Current Jobs, Past Jobs, and Contact Us.
Rose clicked on Current Jobs, which turned out to be blank except for a banner that read, Sorry, Our Current Construction Page Is Under Construction! Reesburgh Elementary wasn’t mentioned, and she clicked to Past Jobs, which showed three small new houses. There was no About Us. She felt stumped, then thought back to the coverage of Kurt’s crash. He’d been killed with a friend, and she had forgotten his name. She clicked back and read the online article until she found the name—Hank Powell. It sounded familiar. She clicked back to the Bethany Run website and double-checked; Hank Powell was one of the “famous founders.”
She felt a twinge of sadness, and wondered if Powell was the buddy. A line under the articles had a link for obituaries, and she clicked the one for Kurt. It was brief and ended with View and Sign the Guest Book. She clicked, and the screen opened to a webpage designed to look like an open book, with entries for Kurt and Hank Powell:
Uncle Hank, We love you and miss you. We wish we could go to the beach with you again. Your niece and nephew, Mike and Sandy
Dear Kurt, A light has gone out of our lives. We pray for you, and say hi to Pop when you see him, for us. Love, Carline and Joani
Rose read each one, feeling her heart getting heavy.
Kurt, You were a great friend and a great carpenter. Signed, Vince
Rose remembered the name, Vince. She clicked back to the Bethany Run site, and Vince Palumbo was another of the founders; maybe he was the buddy. She mulled it over. Vince hadn’t been out drinking with Kurt that night, and Hank Powell had been the one with Kurt, so Hank seemed more likely to be the buddy. It meant that the two men who knew something about how Campanile was at fault were both dead.
She got up, stretched, and walked around the room, ending at the window, looking out into the blackness. She kept thinking about Kurt, Campanile and the car crash, and she started to wonder if they were related. Another series of what-ifs popped into her mind. What if the crash hadn’t been an accident? What if Kurt and Hank had been killed because they knew something about Campanile? What if Kurt was killed because he had been asking about the fire?
Rose didn’t know if she was seeing connections that weren’t there, or making connections that needed to be made. Kurt had been drinking, but maybe his drinking hadn’t been what had caused the accident. He’d said something about new buddies, and she didn’t know what he meant. Maybe someone had driven him off the road, or into a tree, or whatever had happened. She looked into the blackness, and all she could see was her own silhouette reflected in the window, an indistinct outline.
She eyed her dark reflection. If Kurt had been killed because he was asking about the fire, she was responsible for his murder. She owed it to him to find out the truth.
She wouldn’t settle for anything less.
She couldn’t, anymore.
Chapter Fifty-four
“Are you sure you don’t mind, sitting again, Gabriella?” Rose asked, holding John. He reached up for her nose with splayed fingers, wet from being in his mouth, and she gave his cheek a kiss. “It’s one thing to sit for a day, and another to sit for two more, maybe three.”
“Not at all.” Gabriella dismissed her with a wave. The sun hadn’t risen over the trees yet, but the Vaughns’ lovely kitchen was already flooded with light. “You know we adore the kids, and Mo loves spending time with Melly.”
“Thanks. I hate to go without saying good-bye to her.”
“Let her sleep in. We were up late, watching a Harry Potter movie. Call Melly later. She’ll be fine.”
“And the dog, you can deal?”
“The dog is great, too. I want a Cavalier, I already told Mo. She sleeps on Melly’s pillow. It’s charming.”
“But what if I’m gone until the weekend?”
“Please, take your time.”
“I will, thanks.” Rose gave John a final kiss and handed him to Gabriella with a wrench in her chest, then walked to the door. “You have my cell number, right?”
“Yes, thanks. And you have mine.” Gabriella opened the screen door onto an already warm day, alive with the sound of birds chirping. The Vaughns’ front lawn spread out like a dew-laden carpet, and a tall butterfly bush near the door hosted yellow swallowtails and orange monarchs. “What a morning! Why do you have to go back again, anyway?”
“I have a few more appointments, lawyers and such.” Rose stepped outside. She hated to lie to them, but they’d worry if they knew the truth. Living without lying was going to be harder than she’d thought, like counting carbs.
“Okay, good luck.” Gabriella stepped on the front step. “Stay well.”
“I will, thanks again.” Rose kissed John’s warm head one last time, but as she went down the steps, he starte
d to cry, a choked little sob. She turned around at the heartbreaking sound, guilt-stricken when she saw his adorable face pink and contorted. “Aww, see you soon, Johnnie.”
“Go on, he’ll be fine, I promise.” Gabriella waved her on, sympathetic, and Rose turned away with a sigh, vowing to make this trip count.
She hurried to the car, pulling out her phone on the fly, hit the speed-dial for Leo, and listened to the phone ring, then it went to voicemail and she left a message. She put her phone back, got in the car, and started the engine. She took one last look back, and Gabriella was comforting John on the top step.
Rose stifled another sigh, then hit the gas. She felt torn about leaving them again, but she had to figure out what was going on, for herself. She couldn’t be right for them if she wasn’t right for herself, and she hadn’t been right for herself for a long time.
And that time was over, for good.
Chapter Fifty-five
Rose parked on a street south of the school, so the press wouldn’t see her car, then got out and chirped it locked. She had on a white man-tailored shirt, jeans, and sneakers, and with sunglasses and her hair under a Phillies cap, no one would recognize her. She walked to the school and made a beeline for the cafeteria, noticing that the plywood wall was being painted by the students. The mural showed a smiling sun overlooking a grassy lawn covered with oversized sunflowers, undersized trees, and polka-dotted butterflies, a kiddie version of paradise that hid an adult version of hell.
Rose walked to the break in the plywood fence, where there was a makeshift entrance that had a clear plastic sheet as a door, then she stopped. It was quiet, for a construction site. No workmen were going in and out, like there had been before. She checked the street, and only one dusty pickup sat parked at the curb, where there had previously been a lineup.
She slid off her sunglasses, turned back to the entrance, and stepped around the plastic sheet. It was dark inside, and the cafeteria was a man-made cave with an eerie azure cast, from the tarp on the roof. It still smelled, though much of the debris had been cleared. Rose felt grit under her sneakers, and realized that she was at the end of the cafeteria, close to the handicapped bathroom. She didn’t see anyone around, so she walked ahead, passing a construction lamp with high-intensity bulbs on a metal stalk. Toward the far side of the room, she spotted the broad back of a construction worker, dressed in a white hard hat, dirty white T-shirt, and painter’s paints.
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