Most Precious Blood

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

“It isn’t much,” Malcolm said. “But life’s really pretty normal in Indiana. Christmas trees and picket fences and renting a tux for the senior prom. Things are definitely different in the east.”

  Val laughed. “I think you picked an unusual couple of days here,” she said.

  “I should hope so,” Malcolm replied. “I’d hate to think every day is like this.”

  “Make the next left,” Val said. “Jamey’s office is four blocks down.”

  Malcolm followed Val’s directions. “Do you know what you’re going to say to him?” he asked.

  “I’ll know when I see him,” Val replied, hoping that was true.

  “Do you want me to come in with you?”

  “No,” Val said. “Go back to school. I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

  “How will you get home?” he asked.

  “I’ll call for a cab,” Val replied. “I’m not helpless. I know it must seem that way right now, but I’m perfectly capable of getting from one place to another.” She paused for a moment and realized ordinarily she’d call Bruno and wait for him to take her. She wondered if ordinarily would ever return to her life.

  Malcolm dropped her off in front of Jamey’s office building. Val grabbed her books, thanked him, and watched as he drove off. Bruno wouldn’t have just left her there, she thought. Was this what life outside the Castaladi circle was like?

  She entered the building, got onto the elevator, and took it to the third floor. Jamey had had the same office for years now. She could remember playing there with Kit and even Kevin when they were all little kids.

  Jamey had a new secretary, prettier than the last one, Val noticed. “I’m Val Castaladi,” she said, and the name sounded strange to her, untrue. “I’d like to see Jamey if he’s free.”

  “I’ll check,” the secretary said. She buzzed Jamey’s office and told him Val was there.

  “Send her in,” Jamey said over the intercom. Val smiled at the secretary and went in. She always liked Jamey’s office, the way the walls were lined with law books, the family pictures on the desk, the window overlooking the main street in town. Jamey’s office looked homey, in a way his home never had.

  “Val,” Jamey said, getting up and giving her a hug. “This is a pleasant surprise. Sit down. Tell me what brings you to my section of town.”

  Val smiled at him. Jamey looked exactly like Kit, small and wiry with reddish-blond hair and green eyes. They had the same smiles too, smiles that lit up a room. Val tried to remember the last time she’d seen Kit smile that way, without irony or rue.

  “Actually, I’m glad you came,” Jamey said. “Although I wouldn’t have called you. How’s Kit doing?”

  “How do you mean?” Val asked.

  “This business with Amanda shook us hard,” Jamey replied. “Have you been over to the house?”

  “I was there yesterday,” Val said. “I helped a little with the cleaning.”

  Jamey frowned. “Kit won’t tell me the complete story,” he declared. “She was alone with Amanda for close to half an hour, before I could get there. I tried to get her to talk to me when we drove back from the clinic Sunday night, but you know Kit. She just kept it to herself. I thought maybe she was talking to you.”

  “The place was a mess,” Val said. “I know that.”

  “I’m not a very good father,” Jamey said. “That isn’t something I admit very often even to myself. I’m a worse husband, if that’s any comfort. I don’t know how to deal with people I love. Kevin’s easy. He handles things through avoidance. That’s a pattern I can understand. He doesn’t want to come home, fine. I’m more than happy to pay for prep schools and colleges and summers abroad. But Kit insists on staying, taking care of things. She meets everything head on.”

  “Isn’t that good?” Val asked. “Isn’t that how you’re supposed to handle things?”

  “Not when you’re still a kid,” Jamey said. “Not when you can’t possibly handle the things you’re confronting. How is Kit supposed to deal with Amanda’s drinking? I can’t, and I’m a good thirty years older than Kit is.”

  “I don’t know,” Val said.

  “Neither do I,” Jamey said. “But I’m open to suggestions.”

  Val thought about how Jamey had been away on Sunday, stayed away on Monday. She thought about Kit all alone in the house with the torn paintings and the slashed mattress. She wondered, not for the first time, about just how closely Jamey adhered to his marriage vows, and whether Kit was as suspicious of those pretty secretaries Jamey favored as she was.

  “Maybe you could spend more time with her,” she said. “The two of you could do something together, the way …” She wanted to say, “the way Daddy and I do,” but the words wouldn’t come out.

  “The way families are supposed to,” Jamey said. “It’s an interesting concept. Kit and I do approximate the average American family a lot more when Amanda’s drying out, I know that. I guess we could do something together. What do you and Rick do? Sail? Anything else?”

  “He takes me out to dinner sometimes,” Val said. “And we watch movies together on the VCR. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy.”

  “Maybe the four of us could get together,” Jamey said. “Over the weekend maybe. Sunday brunch. How does that sound?”

  Val had no idea how it sounded, but she suspected Kit would like it a lot. “Why don’t you and Kit count on doing it,” she said. “And if Daddy and I can join you, we will.”

  Jamey nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. “Thank you. Is that why you dropped in, to talk to me about Kit?”

  “Frankly, no,” Val said. “It’s more like a legal matter.”

  Jamey raised his eyebrows. “How legal?” he asked. “Trouble at school?”

  “Nothing like that,” Val said. She bit down on her lower lip and willed the words to come out.

  “Drugs?” Jamey asked. “Alcohol? Are you pregnant?”

  Val raised her hand to stop him. “No,” she said. “I’m not in trouble. I just need some information.”

  “For a paper?” Jamey asked. “Social studies maybe?”

  “Jamey, please,” Val said. “This is hard for me, and you’re not making it any easier.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Take your time.”

  “It has to do with my parents,” Val said. “My real parents.”

  “Your real parents?” Jamey said.

  “I know I’m adopted,” Val said.

  “What makes you say that?” Jamey asked.

  “I found a letter my mother wrote me,” Val said. “For me to read on my eighteenth birthday. I didn’t bother waiting. I read it last night. She said I was adopted, and I don’t see any reason to think she’d lie.”

  “Have you spoken to your father about this?” Jamey asked.

  “No,” Val said. “He’s in Washington. You know that.”

  “So why are you speaking to me?” Jamey asked.

  “You’re his lawyer,” Val said. “And his friend. You must know about the adoption.”

  “I’m not saying that I do,” Jamey replied. “But if I did, what would you expect me to tell you?”

  “Everything,” Val said. “My mother’s letter told me practically nothing. She didn’t seem to know where I came from, how Daddy got me. I’ve been talking to other people who are adopted, and they all tell me both parents always know. You don’t just bring a baby home one day, the way Daddy seems to have. I figure if Mama didn’t know, you must. I want to hear everything.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jamey said. “I can certainly understand your feelings, but there’s nothing I can do to help you, except to suggest that you talk to Rick about it.”

  “Come on, Jamey,” Val said. “I can’t, and you know it. You think I can just wait for Daddy to get home and casually ask him if he kidnapped me as an infant? Or if he had an affair with someone, and I’m his illegitimate child?”

  “Where do you get these ideas?” Jamey asked.

  “What am I supposed to think?” Va
l replied. “That Daddy found an agency that never bothered to ask what Mama felt? That he convinced some doctor somewhere to find him a baby and not ever mention it to Mama, so it could be a surprise?”

  “I’m surprised by you,” Jamey said. “Rick’s been a wonderful father, especially since your mother died. I’ve never known a father and daughter who were closer than the two of you. I flounder around with Kit, can’t even comfort her when Amanda goes on one of her drunken rampages, and you question your father and his love for you?”

  “No,” Val said. “I don’t question that. At least I don’t think I do. But I do question why he kept my adoption a secret from me, and whether it was legal. And I also question why you won’t just tell me what I want to know.”

  “Because I’m his lawyer,” Jamey replied. “And we have a lawyer-client relationship that guarantees confidentiality, no matter how pressing your needs are. I can’t answer any of your questions, Val. I can only suggest you ask Rick yourself.”

  “And what if he lies to me?” Val asked. “The way he’s been lying for sixteen years?”

  “Then you’ll have to get your answers some other way,” Jamey said.

  “Can’t you tell me anything?” Val cried. “Can’t you tell me at least if my parents, my real parents, are alive? Nobody was murdered to get me, were they?”

  “You can’t honestly believe that,” Jamey said. “You think Rick shot up a nursery somewhere, stashed the machine gun in the bushes, and brought you home to your mother?”

  “Does that mean he didn’t?” Val asked.

  “The very idea is absurd,” Jamey declared. “As you well know.”

  “Tell me this then,” Val said. “Were you his lawyer then? If I am legally adopted, did you handle the paperwork?”

  “I was his lawyer then,” Jamey replied. “And because of that, I can’t tell you anything more. Ask Rick. He’ll be home soon enough.”

  “I don’t understand you,” Val said. “All my life you’ve told me if I ever need help, I can turn to you. And now the one time I do, you tell me to get out. If you’re like this with Kit, I really feel sorry for her.”

  Jamey was silent for a moment. “I feel sorry for her too,” he said. “Val, I’ve been your father’s lawyer for twenty years now. I was fresh out of law school when he hired me. He’s my best friend, and I’m his. I was the first person he called when his wife died. He’s Kit’s godfather. It’s been a constant comfort to me that Kit’s had you, had your family to turn to when her own is in shambles. It breaks my heart to see you this way, angry, confused, doubting Rick’s love for you, doubting Rick himself. But there’s not a blessed thing I can do for you except urge you to talk to him. He’s the only person who can answer your questions. I know I can’t.”

  “That’s crap,” Val said. She picked up her schoolbooks from the floor and stood. “Thanks anyway.”

  “How are you getting home?” Jamey asked. “Is Bruno waiting for you?”

  “He’s home,” Val said. “He doesn’t know anything about this. I’ll take a cab.”

  “I’ll take you,” Jamey said. “Just give me a minute.”

  “Don’t bother,” Val said. She ran out of the office and down the stairs, not even waiting for the elevator. She wondered if Jamey would call Bruno, the way Kit had, but then she didn’t care. She could walk home. It was only a mile or so away.

  As she walked down the main street, Val tried to remember if there had ever been a time she’d walked home alone from anywhere, even Kit’s. She couldn’t think of one. Someone, usually Bruno or Connie, had accompanied her. She was sixteen years old, and this was the first walk she’d ever taken all by herself. She was sixteen years old, and her life was a lie, and she was completely alone. Things had to be different in Indiana.

  She could see her house a half a block away. There was the fence, wrought iron and ominous, and the evergreens that lined the property, keeping the house dark and sheltered from view. When she was younger, she thought it looked like a castle, but now it just looked like a prison.

  She stood for a moment staring at her home. Her mother had loved it, she knew, but she also knew how much her mother had cherished her times away from it, especially those times she stole away from everybody. If she had run off with Val on occasion, she must have run off to be alone as well. Val pictured her mother. She didn’t think about her very much, she’d almost stopped thinking about her while she was dying. It was easier to think about schoolwork.

  Didn’t she wonder, Val thought. Didn’t she ever dare ask where her daughter came from? What kind of woman would simply accept a baby and raise it as her own without wanting to know where the baby came from, how it was acquired.

  “Obedience is only right,” Val’s father had once told Val, on the rare occasion when she had questioned one of the sisters. “A child should obey her parents and her teachers, a wife should obey her husband.”

  Who should a husband obey, Val had wanted to ask, but didn’t dare. Kit would have, and Jamey would have had an answer, unless it was covered by confidentiality. If Val’s father had asked her mother to kill, would she have obeyed him? If he asked her to accept a kidnapped baby as her own, would she have agreed? Or would she have reported it to the police, knowing the pain some mother was going through because her child had been stolen from her.

  Val stood across the street from her house and stared at the evergreens. There was one thing she knew without any confirmation and that was there was pain associated with her going to live with the Castaladis. Whose pain, she might never know. But that didn’t make it any less real.

  She took a deep breath and crossed the street. She couldn’t imagine continuing to live under the same roof as Rick Castaladi, but she didn’t know where else she could go, at least not then. She went up the front walk and unlocked the door.

  “Val! Where were you?”

  “Daddy?” she said, unable to stop her father from embracing her.

  “Were you out by yourself?” he asked. “You should know better than that.”

  “I went to Kit’s,” Val said. “Bruno took me. I decided to walk home, that’s all.”

  “You should have called Bruno,” Rick said. “He would have gotten you.”

  “What kind of trouble could I get into walking home five blocks?” Val asked, knowing it wasn’t from Kit’s and it was more than five blocks, and she was lying to her father and she didn’t care.

  “Plenty,” Rick said. “You could get into a lot of trouble walking home from Kit’s, from school, from anywhere. The world is not all sweetness and light, Val. I pay Bruno a salary for a reason.”

  “I’ll call next time,” Val said. It was easier than arguing with him. “What are you doing home anyway? I thought you weren’t getting back until tomorrow.”

  “That headache of yours worried me,” Rick replied. “So I cancelled tomorrow’s appointments and grabbed the shuttle back. Business can keep until next week. How are you feeling?”

  “All right,” Val said.

  “Is your headache gone?” Rick asked. “Connie said you felt okay this morning, but you didn’t sound quite right to me when we talked. I almost told you to stay home from school.”

  “I feel fine, Daddy,” Val said. “You didn’t have to come home early.”

  “You’re a lot more important to me than some jerk at HUD,” Rick replied. “But I don’t like this. Headaches, then not calling Bruno, but taking off on your own. Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “No,” Val said. “It isn’t.”

  “I knew it,” Rick said. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Val stared at the man who was what, her father, her kidnapper, and tried to follow Jamey’s advice. Just ask him and wait for the happy answers. But the words were choked up inside her, and she realized that she was afraid. She had never been afraid of her father before, not even when she was little and had angered him. And now he frightened her the way he had frightened Terry.

  “It’s Kit,
” she said. “I told you Amanda’s in a clinic. She got drunk on Sunday and tore up the house. She broke just about everything in the kitchen, and she even ripped some of Jamey’s paintings.”

  “She’s a very sick woman,” Rick said. “I guess Kit’s real upset about it.”

  Val nodded.

  “And you’ve been over there, helping her out,” Rick said. “Headache and all.”

  Val looked down at the floor.

  “I hope Kit appreciates what kind of a friend she has,” Rick said. “The way you stand by her, the way you’re always there for her. She’s a lucky girl to have you.”

  “Yeah,” Val said. “She’s real lucky.”

  Rick gave Val another hug. She felt her body stiffen, and tried to relax before he sensed her tension. “Tell you what,” he said. “How about you go to your room, get out of that uniform, and we have dinner out together? How does Chinese sound?”

  “Not tonight, Daddy,” Val said. “I really should go to my room and catch up on my homework. I didn’t do anything yesterday because of my headache.”

  “You’ll get another headache if you don’t eat supper,” Rick said.

  “I have my period,” she lied, knowing Rick would be uncomfortable with that. “I feel kind of crampy.”

  “Poor kid,” he said. “Go upstairs then, and I’ll have Connie make you some tea. If you feel up to it later, we can watch a movie together.”

  “Okay,” Val said. She forced herself to give her father a quick kiss on his cheek, then turned her back to him, and walked away from him slowly, carefully, so he couldn’t see how hard she was shaking.

  Chapter 7

  Rick was already in the dining room when Val went in for breakfast. He put down his newspaper and looked at her, awaiting his morning kiss. Val walked over to him and pecked him on the cheek. She’d avoided further contact with him the night before, but she knew she’d have to see him in the morning and act as though nothing had happened. She didn’t have the strength for a confrontation, not just yet.

  “Sleep well?” he asked. “Feeling better now?”

  “Much,” Val replied.

  Connie came in and asked Val what she wanted for breakfast. Val hated the thought of eating in front of her father, but knew she had no choice. “Scrambled eggs and toast,” she said.