Chez Stinky

by Susan C. Daffron

  “No, she came here later. That’s when I met her. I’m getting to that. I don’t know how much you know about the early fifties, but Greenwich Village in New York was rather a hip place to be. It was the beatnik era. Abigail got involved with some of those people and traveled around the country in an old school bus. They ended up in New York. I don’t really know all the details. Abigail didn’t talk much about it, but I think it was a crazy time. In any case, she got pregnant.”

  “What? So she did have children!”

  “Well, yes. But there’s more.” Louise twisted her handkerchief more vigorously. “She was scared and young and called her parents. They flew her back home and she was in confinement until she had the child. Her parents insisted that she put the little girl up for adoption.”

  Kat stared at her. “I had no idea. Do you know who adopted the baby?”

  Louise smiled. “Well, yes I do. I adopted Abigail’s baby. She was my daughter Kelly.”

  “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

  A tear slid down Louise’s cheek. “I don’t anymore. I’m getting to that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Please let me finish. This is a bit difficult for me. Anyway, Abigail was not happy about giving up Kelly. It was a private adoption that her parents arranged with my husband. Somehow Abigail found out that the baby was adopted by someone in Alpine Grove. So she ran away again and came here.”

  “Wow.”

  “As you might imagine, Alpine Grove in the early fifties was even smaller than it is now. It was quite easy to find out who had a new baby girl that was exactly the same age as Abigail’s child.”

  “So is that how you met?”

  “She got a job in the old cafe in town. I met her there. We became friends. Kelly got to know her, but it wasn’t until much later that Abigail actually told me who she was. Kelly loved going to her house. Abigail was so young when Kelly was born. And they were so alike.”

  “Kelly is the little girl in the photos I found?”

  “Yes, that’s her.”

  “So what happened?”

  Louise sniffed “Kelly was more like her mother than I thought. She was a rebellious teenager and it was the sixties. We started to fight. Horrible arguments. You’ve probably heard about the Summer of Love and all that. It was a difficult time.”

  “I’ve read about it. I was born in 1967.”

  “Yes. I know. I’m getting to that.”

  “What?”

  “At that time, many people were hitchhiking around the country. Many strangers came through Alpine Grove. Truck drivers, hippies. All sorts. There were many parties and I believe a lot of drugs.”

  “What happened to Kelly?”

  “She got pregnant when she was 17.”

  “You mean history repeated itself?”

  Louise sighed. “Very much so. Needless to say her father and I were furious. Since she was adopted herself, she knew all about the options. We insisted that she give up the baby, but she refused.”

  “What happened to her? Who was the child?”

  Louise began to cry. “Kelly died having her baby. The baby was you.”

  Kat’s eyes widened. “Me?”

  Dabbing at her eyes, Louise continued. “Yes. You. We were devastated about Kelly. And then a week later, my husband Harold, rest his soul, had a massive heart attack. I was a wreck. I couldn’t handle taking care of a new baby while my husband was an invalid. So I arranged to have you adopted. At the time, I couldn’t deal with an agency and all the paperwork. Abigail suggested her niece Mary.”

  “My mother?”

  “Yes. I’ve regretted my decision ever since. I didn’t try hard enough. But I hope you’ve had a good life. Your mother used to let you come up here to visit. But then she and I got into a major argument. Words were said. She never let you come back to see Abigail.”

  Kat rested her chin in her hand. “So Abigail was actually my grandmother. Not my aunt.”

  “Yes. And you are so much like her. And Kelly. You remind me of them, and it makes me miss them both even more.” Louise started weeping.

  Kat sat in silence for a moment trying to digest this information. Like most kids, she had wondered occasionally if she was adopted. But there was a family resemblance, so she never really put much stock in it. “Thank you for telling me. It actually explains a lot.”

  “I’m sorry I was horrible to you. Because I felt guilty for giving you up, I’ve never gotten along with your mother. And then I took that out on you.”

  “Well, my mother is not the easiest person to get along with.”

  “Just please don’t run away. I know your mother loves you.”

  “I think it’s a little late for me to run away from home.”

  Louise smiled. “Yes, I guess that’s true. I forget how old you are now. You remind me so much of Kelly. Time goes by so quickly.”

  Kat didn’t know what else to say and Louise looked exhausted. Kat stood up. “I should probably go. I appreciate you explaining what happened. I don’t know that it will affect the inheritance, but I suppose it could.”

  Louise stood and walked Kat to the door. She awkwardly clutched Kat and hugged her. “I’m so glad I talked to you. Abigail would roll over in her grave if that horrible Lumberjack ends up with her place. She loved her trees and land so much. And I know she loved you, too. I will do whatever I can to help you stay in Abigail’s house.”

  Chapter 13

  Movie of the Week

  Kat’s mind was a jumble of new information and she barely remembered the drive back to Chez Stinky. She walked in and her answering message light was frantically blinking again. After pressing the button, Joel’s voice came on the line. “Hi, Kat. I’m just trying to reach you again. I hope everything is okay. I’ll be busy most of tomorrow and then I have a late flight out of here. I should be back there around 11 p.m. I miss you.”

  Kat gave the machine a dirty look. It was annoying that she’d hadn’t been here to take the call. And that Joel didn’t leave a number…again. She was bursting with information she needed to share. Just hearing his voice would make her feel better.

  After the meeting with Louise, Kat was mentally and emotionally exhausted. She flopped down into a chair at the kitchen table and her stomach growled. When had she last eaten? She got up and stared into the refrigerator for inspiration.

  She looked up from her quest for food as a car rumbled down the driveway. Maria’s little Miata was slowly navigating the potholes. She walked outside to greet her friend.

  Maria jumped out of the car and waved. “Hey, girlfriend! I forgot to give you your money!” She ran up the stairs holding an envelope and came inside.

  Kat took the envelope from her peeked inside at the bills. “Money? I need that. Thanks for coming back out here to give it to me.”

  “I’ve got to head out now, but most of your furniture is gone. And your last paycheck is in there, too. After I extracted it from Mark, I decided not to mail it, since I figured I’d see you first.”

  “How was your date?”

  “It was good. We went to the Italian place. Larry really likes Italian food.”

  “I noticed.”

  “He likes it when I talk about my grandmother’s recipes, too. I told him about her lasagna, and I thought he was going to faint.”

  Kat smiled. “I didn’t know your grandmother made lasagna.”

  “She usually doesn’t. Actually, she mostly eats TV dinners. I embellished a little. Food talk makes Larry horny. I need to get some Italian cookbooks and find more recipes.”

  “He’s going to be disappointed if he ever meets your grandmother.”

  “Oh, that won’t happen. He thinks she lives in a little village in Tuscany.”

  “Wait, doesn’t she live in New Jersey?”

  “Larry doesn’t know that.”

  Kat smiled. “If he wants to honeymoon in Italy, you’re going to have a problem.”

  “Give me a break. I’m not getting
married for a long time. I’m still sowing my wild oats. I don’t know what sowing is exactly. But I know I’ve still got a lot of oats that need to get sowed.”

  “Is it sowed or sown?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever. Speaking of sowing, which we all know is just a fancy word for getting it on, how’s the sexy engineer?”

  “I don’t know. He went on a trip.”

  “Where?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Maria frowned. “I’m not going to have to have that chat with you, am I?”

  “No. I’ll deal with it. His sister calls it ‘clamming up’ when he shuts down and won’t talk. I think he might think he’s protecting me or something.”

  “I guess that’s sweet. Sort of. No. Not really. That would piss me off.”

  “I’m trying to retain composure, particularly after I melted down about his ex-girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think that was your finest moment.”

  Kat nodded. “Plus, I had a weird day. Do you have to leave right away? Or do you want to hear about how I’m adopted and my aunt is actually my grandmother.”

  Maria raised her eyebrows. “What?” She walked into the kitchen to look at the clock on the wall. “I definitely have time for that. Maybe I’ll just go in late to work tomorrow. Mark will just have to deal with it.”

  “Okay. I’m going to have a glass of wine. You can’t have any because you’re driving.”

  “Yeah, yeah. So come on, spill it.”

  Kat related the story Louise had shared earlier. By the end, Maria was sitting up straight in the chair staring at Kat. “That’s like an ABC movie of the week. You need to sell the film rights about your family to a TV network.”

  “I’m not sure my mother would be up for that idea.”

  “That doesn’t matter. She’s just a supporting character.”

  After Maria left, Kat fed the animals and collapsed into bed. Thanks to the wine and information overload, she was asleep moments after her head hit the pillow.

  The next morning, Kat had a headache and a sick feeling in her stomach. Was she hung over? Yuck. Maybe the wine hadn’t been such a good idea. She moved slowly feeding the dogs and dealing with her morning routine. Taking a shower sounded like way too much work. For the unemployed, Mondays weren’t particularly different than any other day. She was at loose ends wanting to talk to Joel about everything that had happened, but unable to reach him.

  After the morning dog walk, she went outside with Linus. She stopped and leaned on the fence of the garden area, which was still filled with six-foot-high grasses. She looked through the welded wire fence. A small purple flower was reaching up through the thick weeds to find some light. Seeing the little plant struggle to grow shifted something in her mind.

  She went out to the Tessa Hut and dug through various dusty and rusty things on the shelves until she found an old trowel. Even if she wasn’t going to live here in the end, she wanted to see if there was anything left of the garden Abigail had cared for and loved so much.

  Linus settled in for a nap under a tree and watched as Kat dug, scraped, yanked, and pulled in her effort to uncover any flowers and herbs Abigail might have planted. After about an hour of effort, one small corner of the garden was clear. Kat sat on the ground with her back against a fence post, pleased at having unearthed some feeble thyme and sage plants. With a few breaks for water and dog walks, Kat continued digging for hours while Linus supervised with his eyes closed from his shady spot under the tree. As the big dog’s fur ruffled in the breeze, Kat worked until she was too exhausted to think about anything anymore.

  That night, Kat awoke to the sound of a dog bark. Linus woofed once from downstairs. A few minutes later, Joel’s snuggled his warm body next to her and wrapped his arms around her. She rolled over in his embrace and looked into his face. The moonlight was streaming in through the window, glinting on his eyes. She smiled at him. “Welcome back.”

  “It’s good to be back.” He nuzzled his face in her hair and kissed her neck. “I missed you. You smell like Thanksgiving dinner and wine. What have you been doing?”

  Kat giggled, enjoying the feel of his body next to hers. “I fell asleep before I took a shower. Sorry about that. I found some herb plants in the garden. And Maria stopped by last night to give me my last paycheck and the money from all the furniture she sold. Apparently, she’s a hard-nosed negotiator. She was motivated by the prospect of shoe shopping. Then we talked for a while. It has been a weird couple of days.”

  “Really?” Joel sat up and looked down at her. “The Lumberjack didn’t come back, did he? Is everything okay?”

  Kat pulled him back down to her. “Relax. It’s nothing like that. And I’d like to know where you were first.”

  He sighed. “Okay. I went to Las Vegas.”

  “Vegas? Why?”

  “I wanted to see if I could find the records of the notification of your aunt’s divorce. I have a friend there who went to engineering college with me, so I stayed with him. I spent most of the day looking at microfilm of old newspapers. I know more about the Las Vegas news of yesteryear than I ever wanted to know. That’s one strange place.”

  Kat smiled. “I don’t think anyone would argue that point. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry or get your hopes up about it.”

  “Sorry, but that plan failed. I did worry. I had no idea where you were. You said if I had questions about you, I should ask you. I think you need to do your part to provide answers when I ask questions.”

  He looked into her eyes. “I know. You’re right. I’m not used to telling people what I’m doing. Then you said I didn’t have to ask permission, and I didn’t want to talk about it. Anyway, the trip was a failure. I didn’t find anything. But I didn’t have time to go through everything. A lot of little newspapers have come and gone over the years. I asked a librarian for help before I left, and she said she’d keep looking into it. She looked really bored, so I think she was excited about having something else to do.”

  Kat sighed. “That’s too bad. I can’t believe you went all the way down there. I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” She reached out toward his face, caressed his cheek and smiled. “I think I forgive you.”

  “I tried, anyway. One good thing happened, though. My friend works for a company that supplies slot machines for casinos.”

  “I guess he got out of engineering?”

  “No. He is an engineer. Slot machines have gone high-tech. He said his company might be interested in some consulting work.” He grinned. “You don’t want to have programming errors on the circuit boards that would lead to too many payouts. He wants me to send an email tomorrow.”

  “If you figure how the slots work, maybe you can give me some of that extra cash they spit out, since I could be homeless again. I seem to have bad luck with housing lately.”

  Joel propped his head on his hand and looked down into her eyes. “You could always stay with me. I could add on to the shack. Maybe make it less of a shack and more of a house.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Of course I would. I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

  “You know I have all these dogs and cats, too. They go where I go.”

  “I know. It might be a crowded shack. I just want to be with you.”

  Kat breathed a sigh of relief. “I want to be with you, too. I thought you might be going on the trip to get a job or something.”

  “I said I wasn’t. I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Kat’s eyes widened. “I love you, too. I don’t care where I live as long as it’s with you.”

  Joel leaned down and kissed her slowly and tenderly. The tension Kat had stored up for days evaporated from her body and then there was nothing but the warm sensation of his touch.

  The next morning, Kat and Joel slept in later than usual, entwined with one another in the bed, unwilling to break the cocoon of warmth they had creat
ed. Kat lay in his arms and explained her newly discovered family history.

  When she was done retelling the tale, he gazed at her thoughtfully. “That’s quite a story. I think I see why your aunt’s, or I guess your grandmother’s, nightstand is so well stocked.”

  “Abigail was late to the safe sex game, but apparently she made up for it.”

  “So it seems.”

  “Given my family predilection for extreme fertility, I’m glad I’ve always been a little hysterical about birth control.”

  “Better safe than sorry. And speaking of that…”

  Kat rolled her eyes. “If we don’t get out of bed soon, there’s going to be a canine citizen uprising.”

  Joel nibbled on her earlobe. “Mmm. Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Kat giggled. “They’ll be okay. It’s not that late.”

  Later that morning after feeding and walking dogs, Kat was downstairs lying on the bed in Joel’s office, staring at the ceiling. “I’m tired.”

  Joel looked up from his computer. “I think I know why.”

  “I did a lot of gardening.”

  “That, too.” He looked back at his computer monitor. “Hey! I got an email from the librarian! It looks like she found something.”

  Kat sat up on the bed and looked over at him. “Really?”

  “Yes. She found the newspaper notification. In some small obscure paper in Nevada. Impressive.”

  “Librarians do love a research challenge.”

  “She’s going to scan it and email it to me. Then I can print it out.”

  Kat jumped up off the bed. “This is good news!”

  “Have you seen any paper anywhere? I need to set up the printer.”

  “I think there was some in the closet.”

  Kat opened the door and bent over, looking around on the floor and rummaging through the boxes in the closet. She’d seen copier paper somewhere. Joel walked up behind her and touched her back, startling her. She jerked upright and hit her head on something metal that was jutting out from one of the shelves at the side of the closet. “OW! Not again!” She rubbed the top of her scalp. “What is that? This is the second time I’ve hit my head on it.”