by Jae
With deliberate slowness, her father folded the newspaper and handed it back. “Kate…” He sighed. “We talked about this. I told you a hundred times that you don’t have to support yourself. That hasn’t changed.”
Her shoulders hunched, Kate stared down at the newspaper in her hands before slowly raising her head and looking at her father. “I have changed. I let you put off this discussion for years now. No longer. What if I had died in the earthquake or the fires?”
Her mother let out a loud gasp, but Kate kept talking. “I would have gone to my grave without ever achieving my dream. Like Corny,” she added in a whisper. “Is that really what you want for me?”
“Kathryn…child…” Mrs. Winthrop folded her hands as if praying for Kate to see reason. “Just think of what it might do to your marital prospects.”
Kate faced her squarely. “I don’t care about my marital prospects.”
Mrs. Winthrop’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head. She clawed at her chest with both hands, wobbled on her feet, and collapsed into a heap of taffeta.
“Now look what you have done!” Mr. Winthrop shook his head at Kate, bent over his wife, and patted her cheeks to revive her.
Lucy, who had stayed in the background during the discussion, crouched down next to her and felt her pulse. “She’s fine.”
“Who are you?” Mr. Winthrop asked.
“Dr. Lucy Hamilton Sharpe. Pleased to meet you, sir.” Lucy held out her hand.
Mr. Winthrop just stared at it. “Another woman who’s working outside of her home? Was it you who put those ideas into my daughter’s head?”
“Your daughter doesn’t need anyone to put ideas into her head. She can think just fine for herself,” Lucy said. “Besides, would it really be so bad to have a daughter in the newspaper business? She might be able to negotiate better advertisement fees for your company. That could save you quite a bit of money.”
Mr. Winthrop stroked his mustache. “Hmm.”
Giuliana bit back a grin. Clever Lucy had beaten him with his own weapons.
Kate’s mother sat up with a groan.
Mr. Winthrop put his arm around her. “Let’s get her home.”
Kate hurried over and took her mother’s other arm. “I have the automobile. It didn’t get blown up after all. I could drive you to the ferry dock.”
“We’re not going back to Belvedere,” her father said. “I bought a house on Gough Street in Pacific Heights. It’s a fine neighborhood that remained completely unburned.”
“Then let’s take her there.”
With Mrs. Winthrop staggering between them, they walked toward the edge of camp, where Kate had left the automobile.
After a few steps, Kate looked back over her shoulder and searched Giuliana’s face. “I’ll be right back.”
Would she really? Giuliana wasn’t so sure. The Winthrops would never allow Kate to sleep in a leaky tent and eat the tasteless stew the Red Cross food stations handed out while they lived in a mansion and dined on baked oysters and lamb roast.
Did she really want Kate to forgo all of that? If she loved Kate, shouldn’t she want what was best for her, even if it shattered her heart into a thousand pieces? Her chest already felt empty as she watched Kate walk away with her parents.
Lucy pulled her around and enveloped her in a hug without saying anything.
Giuliana put her forehead against Lucy’s shoulder and struggled to hold back tears. “Why did I not fall in love with you?” she whispered. It would have been so much easier.
Laughter rippled through Lucy’s body. “Don’t ask me. It should have been impossible for you to resist me, but alas…”
Giuliana pulled back and lightly hit Lucy’s arm.
Lucy handed her the newspaper, which had been left behind. “You’d better put that away somewhere safe. Kate will want to frame it.”
For a moment, Giuliana could already see that frame hanging in the tiny cabin they had talked about getting, but the mental image quickly faded. She rubbed her burning eyes and smoothed her hand over the newspaper as if it were a good-luck charm. Please, let it come true.
* * *
Her father had taken over the driving, relegating Kate to the backseat. After being in the driver’s seat for so long, it felt strange. Or maybe it was being away from Giuliana that made her feel a little out of control.
“You’ll love the house,” said her mother, who seemed to have recovered.
Kate bit her lip. How could she tell them she wouldn’t stay? She had just accompanied her parents so they wouldn’t have the unavoidable fight in the middle of the refugee camp, where half the park could overhear.
When they passed Lafayette Square, which was a mass of white tents too, her father turned left and drove past a row of stately mansions.
From on top of a hill, Kate glimpsed the bay and Alcatraz Island to the north, but what held her attention even more was the view of the destruction to the east. If only she’d brought her camera.
In front of a mansion with a gabled roof and two round turrets, her father stopped the automobile and helped her mother climb down.
Kate followed. With its walls painted a pleasant shade of yellow and images of sunbursts framing the second-story windows, the house looked friendly. For a moment, she could imagine herself living here. After sleeping in a smelly tent for almost a week, having a home—and a bed—of her own would be nice.
She helped steer her mother up a couple of steps to the covered front porch and into a marble-floored entryway.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” her mother said as she sank onto a brocade sofa, one of few pieces of furniture already in the house.
Kate nodded. Had the house been on sale even before the earthquake, or had its owner decided to pack up and leave afterward?
“Your room is the first one at the top of the stairs. It doesn’t have any furniture yet, but as soon as all the stores reopen, your father will take you to buy a new bed and a dresser and everything else you want.”
Anything she wanted? In the past, her mother had always tried to pick out the furniture for Kate’s room. Maybe living through the disaster had changed her mother too.
“Of course, you could also order some pieces from a catalog,” her mother continued. “If you—”
“That’s very kind, Mother,” Kate said before she could go on. “But that’s really not necessary.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you need—”
Kate braced her shoulders as if preparing for a storm. “I’m not staying.”
“You’re not…staying?” her mother repeated. “Where else would you stay but in your home?”
It’s not my home, Kate wanted to say but held it back. No need to hurt them any more than necessary. “I’m staying in the park.”
Her father sank onto the sofa next to his wife. “Are you out of your mind? You want to stay in that tent?” His mustache twitched. “You prefer sleeping on the ground with perfect strangers to staying in your parents’ comfortable home?”
“It’s not about what I prefer. It’s what I have to do.”
“Have to do? You mean for an assignment?” He shook his graying head. “Kate, don’t you think that takes investigative journalism a little too far?”
Kate slowly shook her head. “I’m not just staying there because I’m taking photographs for the newspaper.”
“But that’s why you don’t want to live here, isn’t it?” her father asked. “It’s because of this…this…job with the newspaper. Because you’re afraid I’ll forbid it.”
“Well, you did forbid it.” Kate raised her chin. “And I’m not giving it up.”
Her father sighed. “Where on earth did you get that stubbornness from?”
“Not from my side of the family, that’s for sure,” her mother muttered.
“You’re both plenty stubborn, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion for the hundredth time,” Kate said, surprising herself with her daring words.
A tremor went through her fathe
r’s clenched fists as if he barely held himself back from shouting at her. He took several deep breaths. “All right. You can work for that darn paper—with the understanding that it’s only until you get married.”
It was quite a concession. And since Kate planned to stay unmarried, she had no problem agreeing to this compromise. But the job wasn’t really what kept her from living with her parents again. “It’s a generous offer, Father, but I’m still not sure I can live here.”
“Is this about Julie?” her mother asked, her eyes narrowed.
Kate swallowed. Did her parents suspect what Giuliana meant to her? She peeked at her mother, then at her father. Neither looked close to jumping up and strangling her, so they probably had no idea what was going on. “Her name is Giuliana.”
Her mother waved her hand. “If this is about you not wanting to desert your…friend…” She glanced at her husband and sighed. “Well, what’s one more mouth to feed, right, Cornelius?”
“Right.”
Kate blinked. She hadn’t expected that. So her mother had learned something from the disaster after all.
Should she accept the offer? It was tempting. Really tempting. Warm water at the turn of a faucet. A soft bed with warm covers. Clothes that didn’t reek of smoke and sweat. As much food as she wanted—food that wasn’t beans and stew. Lord, she had never appreciated the luxuries of her previous life as much as right now.
And she didn’t want it just for herself. Her parents were proposing the same to Giuliana, who deserved the best life had to offer. They could live here, together.
She tried to imagine what life in the mansion would be like but couldn’t. Living through the disaster might have changed her parents a little, but they would never change completely. No matter how hard Kate tried, she couldn’t picture her mother sitting down to share her meals with a mere maid. Neither could she imagine cuddling up to Giuliana at night with her parents under the same roof. No. If she wanted more than a few stolen moments, she needed to leave.
“I really appreciate the offer…” She looked from one parent to the other. “I do. But…”
“But you still won’t stay.” The lines on her father’s forehead deepened. “Is the newspaper providing board and lodging?”
“Um…not exactly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? They either are or they aren’t.”
“They aren’t.” She forced herself to hold his gaze. “I’m thinking about renting—”
“Can you even afford a decent place from a photographer’s salary?” her father asked.
Kate licked her lips. Now they were getting closer to the point that would make him explode. “That’s why Giuliana and I are thinking about sharing a place once she finds work. We could share the costs, and the rent for a cabin is really not that high.”
“Cabin? You don’t mean the cabins they described in those notices, do you?”
The muscles in Kate’s belly twisted. “Yes, I do.”
In less than a second, her father’s face turned the color of a pomegranate. He jumped up and towered over her. “Over my dead body!”
“But, Father—”
“No!” He thumped his fist against his thigh as if barely holding himself back from slapping her instead. “I won’t allow it.”
Her mother jumped up too, gripped Kate’s shoulders, and shook her. “Be reasonable, Kathryn. There are rats in the park—huge beasts! You saw them. And there’s ash in the food. That’s no life.”
“I told you I’m not going to stay in the park for much longer, Mother. Just until the cabins are ready.”
“I saw the notice. Those shacks are tiny. Practically an outhouse. How’s that any better than sleeping in the park?”
“This isn’t about how large my home will be or about the ash in my food. It’s about independence. Can’t you understand that? Not even a little?” Kate looked from her mother to her father, hoping to detect just a hint of understanding in their eyes but finding none.
“Independence won’t fill your belly. It won’t save your reputation.” Her mother shook her again and sent a pleading gaze at her husband. “Say something, Cornelius. Stop this madness.”
Kate turned toward her father too. Usually, he was the more indulgent of her parents and the one more likely to take her side.
But now his face looked carved from stone. No understanding softened the planes of his reddened face. “No daughter of mine will live in such a shack like a beggar woman! This is where I draw the line, and that’s my final word.”
A tremor ran through Kate. If she said what was on the tip of her tongue, her life would change forever. But that’s what you want, don’t you? She drew a deep breath and thought of Giuliana. “Fine. If you insist, then I’m no longer your daughter.”
Her mother gasped and swayed, her grip on Kate’s shoulders tightening almost painfully. “You can’t do that!”
“Me? This is your doing, not mine. You have a choice. I don’t. Don’t you understand? I need to be my own person. I want to have my own home—not my parents’ or my husband’s. My own.” Kate thumped her chest with one hand.
“No,” her mother said. “I don’t understand it. I don’t understand you young women at all. Don’t you think of what people will say if we let you live in such a horrible place?”
A long-suppressed spark of anger ignited inside of Kate. She freed herself of her mother’s grip. “Can’t you forget about your precious reputation even for a second? Isn’t what I want more important than what people might think? You lost one child to the cruelty of life. Do you really want to lose the other to your own vanity?”
Her father stared at her, his lips a tight line beneath his mustache. Tears gleamed in her mother’s eyes. Neither of them said a thing.
Kate looked at them for a second longer. As the silence grew too painful, she whirled around and marched to the door. Her steps echoed through the almost-empty room.
“Kate!”
“Kathryn!”
Not daring to hope, she paused in the doorway and looked back.
Her parents glanced at each other, and then her father took one step toward her. “Wait. I…we…” His shoulders dropped. “If you need anything, let us know.”
Her pride wanted to reject his offer, but she sensed that this time, it was about more than just money. It was his way of telling her he still wanted her to be his daughter. She nodded. “Thank you.”
The room behind her was silent as she walked out, into a future of her own making.
* * *
Giuliana peeked at her pendant watch for the twentieth time. It had been one and a half hours since Kate had left with her parents. Driving to Pacific Heights and back couldn’t take that long.
With every minute that went by, the voice in the back of her mind got louder, telling her that Kate wouldn’t return.
Stupidizza! Of course she will be back, she firmly told herself. She even left her camera behind. She had to trust Kate. After all, Kate had jumped off the ferry for her when she could have gone to Belvedere with her parents.
Giuliana rubbed her thumb over the golden watch that had once belonged to Kate before slipping it back into the pouch at her waist. She pretended to study Mrs. Kohler’s book so the other women would leave her alone while she was keeping an eye on the edge of camp. But there was no sign of the familiar automobile.
Finally, she closed the book with a thump and stared at the cover without really seeing it. Maybe it was better this way. Her life would be less complicated if she forgot about Kate and the intense connection they had made. She could still marry a man, have children, and lead a normal life.
But she couldn’t fool herself. If she wanted a man, she could have married Calogero. She didn’t want a man. She wanted Kate.
“Did I forget to tell you that you actually have to open the book to read it?”
Giuliana’s head jerked up.
Kate stood in front of her, looking tired, a little sad, and entirely wonderful.
Giuliana put the book down and flew at her without caring what the other refugees would think.
Kate caught her and held her close. “Are you all right? You’re trembling.”
“You came back.” Giuliana pulled her closer in a futile attempt to merge their bodies.
“Of course.” Kate moved back a little so she could study Giuliana but still held on to her shoulders. Tiny lines formed between her brows. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“No, I…I worried. You were away very long.”
“I left the automobile with my parents, so I had to walk all the way.”
“Oh.” How stupid. Giuliana hadn’t thought of that. She peeked left and right to make sure no one could overhear their conversation. “I would understand. Your parents…they can give you things. A house with a roof. A soft bed. An automobile to take you everywhere. Water that comes out of the faucet. Pretty dresses…”
Was it selfish of her to wish Kate would forgo all that luxury to live in a tiny one-room cabin with her?
“You’re right,” Kate said.
Giuliana’s heart seemed to skip a beat and then began to hammer triple-time. Kate agreed with her? Did that mean…?
“My parents can offer me a lot of things. But that’s just it—they are things. Nice things, for sure, but just things. They can’t replace what’s really important.” Kate gazed into Giuliana’s eyes with a tenderness that nearly made her cry. “We might not have warm water or a soft bed, but we have each other,” she whispered into Giuliana’s ear.
Giuliana nearly kissed her then and there. A groan rose up her chest. She wrapped her arms more tightly around Kate and pulled her close. “T’amu,” she whispered in Kate’s ear.
Kate’s hands stilled on her back. “What does that mean?”
“I will tell you when we are alone.” They were lucky that emotional displays weren’t that unusual in the refugee camp right now, so nobody seemed to think anything of two women clinging to each other, but she didn’t want to share that special moment with anyone else.
“That could be some time,” Kate said.
“We have a lot of time, no?”
A soft smile spread over Kate’s face. “All the time in the world.”