“Why should he tell you he talked to her?” Rowan had asked, and then for the third time filled his glass with straight whiskey.
Kate had thought the answer obvious and only stared.
“Tell me something, Kate who used to be Katie. What did I do yesterday?”
“You worked on the Cavanaugh landscape plan and obsessed about tree size for the side yard.” Kate answered. “Why?”
He looked away and then back. “I didn’t think you’d notice.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“It seems like all you talk about lately is Luna and Jack. Jack and Luna.”
Her heart fell sideways. “No.”
“Seriously. It does.”
“That’s so not fair,” Kate said, squeezing her napkin under the table, winding it through her fingers. “I just saw her in Birmingham three days ago.”
“Three days and how many hours, Kate?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You are obsessed with all of it.”
“Why are you being so mean? This is about Emily. She’s not some cute kid I met on a trip, or my second cousin.” She hollered and everything seemed to bounce off the house walls, a rubber ball of words.
“I know she’s your daughter. Don’t you think I know that part of the story by now?” He stood and looked down at Kate. “This is falling apart.”
“What is?”
“This conversation is falling apart. I am going to take a long walk and I’ll be back.”
That had been hours before.
“Oh, Rowan, where are you?” She rolled over and spoke to his empty side of the bed. She thought about taking a sleeping pill to ignore the panic, but then what if there really was something wrong and the police came knocking at the door and she was out of it? What if Rowan was in the Emergency room, mangled from a car accident, and she blissfully slept?
Waiting for Rowan, she again had the same terrible feeling—the exact helpless, hopeless feeling she’d had during that trip to Charleston with Norah so many years before.
On a girl’s getaway before Norah got married, they’d sat at a poolside hotel bar in Charleston, South Carolina, on the first day of spring. Norah had understood what that day was to Kate, and together they sipped mint-infused vodka drinks made by the hotel bartender with the Elvis hairdo. The pool was on top of a lavish hotel overlooking the spired city. The Holy City, the tour guide had told them, for all the churches.
When Norah fell asleep on the pool chair before the sun had set, Kate found herself at the bar drinking alone and discussing the intricate theory that Elvis was still alive and well, hiding somewhere to live a quiet life. Eventually she wandered out of the hotel to walk through the circuitous streets of Charleston. The Ashley River moved at the city’s side, a faithful companion, snakelike and sultry. Kate stood at its banks, aware of the slow buzz of vodka sliding its way through her body just like that river.
She walked on, turning into blind alleys and backstreets until she stood in front of a lavish Gothic cathedral so highly wrought that Kate’s eyes didn’t know where to rest. She pushed open the double wood doors and walked into the dark, quiet sanctuary, an otherworldly hush made of ancient whispers. Wandering in the rear of the church, she found herself face to face with an oil painting of the Madonna and child. A scholar, she thought, a woman better than herself, would have wanted to know the history of this grand church, the painter of this masterpiece, the origin of this edifice. But Kate merely wanted to kneel before this painting of the perfect mother: the kind of mother Kate couldn’t be to her own daughter, the kind of mother for whom statues were crafted and paintings were formed and religions were founded.
Kneeling on a worn velvet bench, Kate didn’t close her eyes when she prayed. She spoke directly to the painting. “You’re a real mother and I’m asking you to watch over my daughter. I have no right, but I’m asking anyway. Please watch over my daughter, Luna, born on this day four years ago. I won’t ask anything else, just that.” Kate then closed her eyes. “Just that.”
She stayed there on her knees long enough for them to hurt, long enough for the sunlight to move from one side of the stained glass Ascension to the other, long enough to cry and then stop. When she did stand, it was to light a candle and repeat her only plea, “Just that.”
The March air in Charleston was cluttered with the competing forces of air and water. Kate sat on the front steps of the church and realized she had no idea which turns she’d taken to get where she was—in her life, at the church. Water won the battle over air and rain began to fall, nestling in Kate’s hair, working its way through her clothes to skin.
The man who found her, the Italian man with the broken English, the tailored suit, and the umbrella, was charming and witty. He sat next to her on the church steps and tilted his umbrella to shield her from the rain. “I saw you today at the hotel pool,” he said.
Kate turned, her head dizzy. “Oh, yes. That was the beginning of the end,” she said, attempting to smile.
“What end?” he asked, and the word end sounded like “eend,” which made Kate laugh too loudly.
“This end, right here. Where I’m lost and half-drunk and … wet.”
“Aha,” he said and then held out his slim hand. “I’m Nico.”
“I’m Kate,” she said, leaning back against the step and scooting closer, under the dome of his umbrella.
“Kate.” He seemed to taste her name. “Are you lost?”
“In more ways than you can possibly imagine.”
“Well, I don’t believe in coincidence, so we meet again. Maybe I can help you be not lost.”
“Be not lost.” Kate laughed again. “Well, can you get us back to that hotel?”
“These are things I can do.”
“Show me?” she asked.
Nico walked her through the maze of streets and alleys, and Kate willingly followed, feeling safe and shaky. She needed, God how she needed, to outrun the fear that the way she felt would be the way she would always feel—Lost and Lonesome, a permanent penance.
Damp, they arrived at the hotel where they sat at the restaurant bar. Nico ordered her a sandwich and a beer, telling her that the “heaviness would save her lightness.” She laughed at his mixed-up words. He told her stories of Italy and how he’d come to Charleston to open a restaurant. A stranger who spoke her language in broken ways, he made her feel oddly safe, like another girl completely.
Satiated with food, they left the bar, and in the elevator their mouths came together in warm kisses. Then they were falling into his room; his hands found skin, running along her spine with deep pressure until he reached the hollow of her lower back and she gave into the sensations so opposite of what she’d been feeling. She tasted his skin, moist with rain. In dull amusement, she wondered how he could so neatly fold his suit over the chair while she was so carelessly ripping off her own clothes. When they did come together, she couldn’t blame him for pressuring or pushing, as she was the one who begged, “Now. Please.”
Kate actually believed, for the moments it was true, that giving her body to this kind Italian stranger would end the agony of wonder and loss. And it did, until it was over and she found herself again full of aching shame and the knowledge that she’d—once again—tried to fix something with someone. While he slept, she crept out and returned to Norah, spilling her pain to her best friend and then reaching for Jack’s yearly letter.
Then in a vow inside what remained of the first day of spring, Kate promised herself to never again believe a man to be an answer.
And until she met Rowan Irving in New York, she’d stayed far from that idea.
Now, curled up and alone in Rowan’s bed, the images in her mind grew. She’d tried to cover the pain and unknowing in so many ways. But it never ended. Yes, she thought. It stayed. And stayed. The need and want for what she lost never went away.
Eventually she drifted off and when she finally felt the bed tip, she inhaled the
stale beer aroma of Rowan crawling under the sheets. It was five AM. She sat up.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Out,” he mumbled. “Go back to sleep.”
He turned away and she stared at the back of his head, at his shoulders squared away from her like a wall she could never climb. “I’ve been up all night,” she whispered, reaching to touch him.
He rolled toward her and squinted. “Looked like you were sleeping to me.”
“I’ve been worried sick.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t know where you were and you didn’t call or answer my calls.”
“Are you now my mother?”
“What?”
“I mean, I’d think you were worried because you love me, not because you couldn’t find me or keep tabs on me.”
“What?”
“Stop saying “what?” You sound ridiculous.” He sat up. “I didn’t want you to worry. I just needed some space and time to think, and I fell asleep on Mark’s couch after the poker game. I had my phone turned off. I’m exhausted. Can we please talk about this tomorrow?”
“It is tomorrow. What did you need some time and space to think about?”
“Are you even kidding? You’ve been happier the past few months than I’ve seen you since I met you and you don’t think I know that you’re happier because they are back in your life? So not only did you keep this from me, but they bring you more happiness than I ever could?”
“No.” She took Rowan’s face in her hands. “I don’t know how to say sorry again. But it’s not ‘they’ who bring me happiness. Don’t say that. Yes, I am relieved and full of lots of emotions because my daughter found me, but it has nothing to do with Jack or having him back in my life.”
He stared at her for too long; long enough that she thought he might not answer, and maybe it would have been best if he hadn’t. “I don’t believe you,” he said and rolled over. The sentence was spoken into his pillow. “I just don’t.”
Kate pulled at his shoulder. “Please.”
“Stop. Let’s sleep. Nothing good can come of this discussion right now.”
Kate flopped back onto her pillow. When the alarm buzzed, she turned it off as Rowan snored. She would fix this. She would not let old feelings ruin something wonderful that was right here, right now.
* * *
The dinner party with friends was every other month and it wasn’t until four o’clock that afternoon when Kate remembered it. She was responsible for an appetizer. In a quick run to the grocery store, she grabbed a premade cracker and cheese tray wrapped in cellophane. They were late to the dinner party and Kate almost dropped the plate on the way to the front door. Rowan grabbed her elbow and steadied her. “You okay?”
“No, and you?”
“I’m just fine.”
“How?” she asked and turned to face him, balancing the plate and fighting tears.
“What?”
“I mean, how are you fine when we had a big fight and we haven’t talked about it all day and now you’re just pretending everything is okay?”
“Let it go. It’s over.”
“Over? You came home at five in the morning and said you think I care more about Emily and…” She stopped, biting back his name.
“You can say his name. Jack. Jack. Jack. Isn’t that what you wanted to say?”
“See? You’re not okay. This is ridiculous.”
The front door opened and Bessie Lovett stood there in the doorway in her pink shift dress and kitten heels. “What are you two doing just standing on my doorstep without ringing the bell? Silly you, especially when you have the appetizers, my dear.” She reached over to hug Rowan first and then took the plate from Kate as she stepped aside to let them enter the house. “Come in.”
Rowan placed his hand on Kate’s lower back and they entered the house. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I’m sorry, baby. It’s been a long day; I have a helluva hangover, and I don’t mean to be an ass.”
Kate stopped in the hallway and grabbed his hand. “Please don’t be mad at me. I can’t bear it.”
He nodded and kissed her.
“Look at you two lovebirds,” Larson’s voice bellowed, which is what his voice always did, and he joined them, slapping Rowan’s back. “How you feeling today, buddy?”
Larson’s wife, Cindy, tall and wearing an orange tunic as bright as her personality, walked into the hallway. She handed a glass of white wine to Kate, nodding between Larson and Rowan. “These two should be in bed after the night they had.”
“Huh?” Kate took the wine from Cindy and smiled through the stomach-dropping realization that Cindy knew something she didn’t.
“Last night. These two out all night at some club in Hilton Head, pretending they’re young, single, and cool. Ridiculous.”
Larson grabbed his wife around the waist and dipped her backward. “I only have eyes for you, baby.”
“Yeah, but unfortunately last night, you only had lips for your beer.”
Kate looked to Rowan. “Mark’s house?” she mouthed.
“So,” Larson said and turned to Kate. “Last night, Rowan told me your story. Unbelievable. It’s like a sappy movie, but better. Are you floating on air?”
“What?” Cindy pulled at Kate’s arm. “What’s he talking about?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Kate said as the four of them entered the kitchen.
“No, tell me now,” Cindy said, “I can’t stand it when Larson knows something I don’t. It kills me. Tell me,” she hollered, slapping her hands together. Everyone in the kitchen quieted, waiting.
Tasting Rowan’s lie and feeling her gut fold inside out, Kate shook her head. “No.” she took a long sip of wine. “Not now. Maybe later.”
“Oh, you’ve got to tell the story,” Larson said. “It’s amazing. I mean, shit, I’ve known you since high school and I had no idea.”
The hushed room stared at Kate and the floor below her feet shifted, altering her world in the same way an earthquake shifts a coastline, changing the view.
“It’s kind of … private,” she said. “I haven’t really told anyone yet.”
“Well, Rowan was telling the world last night,” Larson hollered.
Bessie lifted the tin foil off the crackers and cheese, staring at the prepackaged appetizer.
Kate cringed. “Sorry, it’s nothing fancy. I had an insane day and…”
Bessie laughed. “No problem, sweetie. But to make up for it, you must tell all of us the story Larson knows that we don’t.”
Rowan had moved to the other side of the kitchen, sitting on a barstool and drinking straight whiskey. The four other couples in the dinner club stood around the granite kitchen island waiting in various poses of expectancy. A story. Who doesn’t love a good story? But this was her story.
“The story.” Kate leaned against the counter.
“Yes,” Rowan said from the other side of the kitchen.
“Fine, a story it is then,” Kate said, using a singsong voice of sarcasm, the voice that as a child had sent her to her room one too many times. “Once upon a time, a long time ago before I knew Rowan, I slept with someone else.”
The kitchen sank into unsure silence, the friends not knowing whether to laugh or play along.
“Shocking, isn’t it? I mean, I’m sure Rowan never slept with another soul before he knew me. Right? Well, then … even more shocking, I got pregnant with Jack Adams and we had a baby and then we chose adoption. This baby, this little girl, found me and found us.” Kate took in a long, deep breath. “So, there you go. That’s the story.”
Larson came to Kate’s side. “Jack Adams? Are you shitting me?”
“No, I don’t think I am.”
“But you and Jack were … the perfect and inseparable couple. If he was the father … why?” Larson looked to Rowan and cringed. “Sorry, buddy, I didn’t mean it that way. Damn, why am I still talking? I should shut up now.”
“Goo
d idea,” his wife said and took his hand.
Larson looked to Kate. “I just think it’s unbelievable that you got to meet your daughter after all these years. That’s the part of the story I wanted you to tell. It’s … surreal.”
“Yep, surreal,” Rowan said and stood from the barstool. He left the kitchen and then the house shivered with the slammed front door.
“Damn, I’m an ass,” Larson said. “He told me all about it last night and I thought it was common knowledge. You know, something you’d want to talk about. A cool reunion story. Forgive me.”
“It’s not your fault, Larson. It’s mine.” She glanced around the kitchen at the faces of the couples she’d known for years. Oh, she thought, the things we don’t know about friends. They were all staring at her as if they’d just met her, as if they hadn’t laughed and cried, as if she’d never babysat their kids or cooked them dinner.
Bessie spoke first. “Girlfriend, it’s not a big deal. We…” she motioned to the women in the room. “Are here for you. We can’t wait to hear everything. But I know you gotta run off and catch that Rowan.”
“Thanks. I’ll call later…”
“I’ll repeat myself,” Larson said. “I’m an ass.”
“No.” Kate shook her head and hugged him. “You are not.”
* * *
Rowan sat in the car waiting on Kate, which brought relief. She climbed into the passenger seat and placed a hand on his leg. “I am so, so sorry this is hard on you. I don’t know how to make it any better. I just don’t. What do you want me to do?”
“Stop talking about it.”
“I wasn’t. You’re the one who told Larson.”
Rowan stared out the windshield. “Stop talking about it. Stop obsessing about it. Stop seeing your old love. Just stop.” Then he looked at her and his eyes were cold, marbles from a bowl, not real. “Tell me now, Kate. Look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t love Jack Adams. If you say that, I’ll believe you.”
There it was—the small space in a world where everything changes with a single answer, an honest answer. “I can’t,” she said, closing her eyes. “I can’t say that.”
And Then I Found You Page 19