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Katie said brightly, ‘Grandma’s taking me to Disneyland for my birthday.’
‘You’re having a party on your birthday,’ Grace said. ‘You’re not going to Disneyland.’
‘Not right then,’ Lottie said. ‘Of course, not then. I have to miss her party, I told you. Terrell and I are going out of town.’ She leaned down toward Katie and cooed, ‘And that’s why I’m taking my sweet little sweetums to Disneyland upon my return. I personally know one of the dancing dwarfs, who’s prepared to give us a behind-the-scenes tour of the Magic Kingdom.’
‘Goodie,’ Katie cried.
‘You did make her do her homework, right?’ Grace pressed a finger against her temple. A vein throbbed.
Lottie pulled on her lip.
‘The one thing I asked you to do.’
Lottie shot her a wounded look and fiddled with her hair. Her bracelet clanked. It was fake turquoise that looked like gobs of used chewing gum. ‘We were getting around to it.’ She opened her mouth, threw back her head and sneezed. ‘That dog. I mean it.’
‘When, Lottie? It is now after eight on a school night and all you’ve done so far is pump up my child on caffeinated soda and yellow grease.’
‘Grace, you’re just not fun anymore. You need to work on your people skills.’
‘I want you to sit, Katie.’ Grace’s voice was icy calm. ‘I want you to sit at this desk and not move until you finish your homework. Is that clear?’
Katie stomped to the desk.
Grace yanked open a drawer and got out Katie’s stationery. It was pink and orange and had psychedelic ponies gamboling. She positioned a purple crayon in her daughter’s limp hand.
‘This is fun,’ Grace said. ‘We’re having fun learning about the mail. You send this to somebody, you get something back. You’re going to like it.’ It sounded like a threat.
Katie started to whimper. ‘You can’t make me.’
‘Oh, for Pete’s sake,’ Lottie protested.
‘I don’t have anybody to write to!’ Katie burst into tears and put her head down, dampening the stationery.
‘Write to Clint, honey,’ Lottie said, ‘he’d be happy to have you –’
‘She is not writing to Clint,’ Grace said, and Katie wiped her eyes and raised her head, interested at this turn of events.
‘Who’s Clint?’
‘She’s not writing to some hick singer who shellacs his hair until it’s the size of a turkey rump.’
Grace couldn’t believe she was having this conversation after the day she’d had, except that it was with Lottie, so it made sense. In the kitchen, the phone rang.
‘Hick!’ Lottie said in a hushed, stricken voice. Her unnaturally violet eyes brimmed with tears. ‘I want you to know Clint’s hosted the first hour of the Grand Ole Opry seventeen times, and I mean the first hour that’s broadcast, too, not the one that warms everybody up. Not even George has done that.’
‘She’s not doing it,’ Grace said.
‘How do you spell Clint?’ Katie asked.
‘Katie, enough. And Lottie, would you please get that phone?’
Grace waited while Lottie stalked out of the room, muttering about personal maid service.
‘Remember that girl Mommy told you was her friend when she was in high school?’
Katie shook her head.
Grace reached around Katie to rifle through the desk.
‘We haven’t gotten a pumpkin and you promised. We never do anything.’
Novels made it look easy. Heroines, they had a kid, they had problems, the kid got farmed out for long stretches, just dropped conveniently out of the story, while the heroine – always taller and skinnier than in real life, too, it wasn’t right – got herself out of trouble in some plucky way and came back to the kid and the kid was relaxed and happy and clueless about how close her mom had come to being turned into roadkill.
‘Nothing fun. I’m just a little kid. I’m supposed to have fun.’
‘You’re having a party Saturday.’
From the kitchen, Lottie sneezed and trilled into the phone, ‘Hello? Helllooo?’
‘And no goodie bags ready yet either. None. Not one.’
‘Oh, good, here.’ Grace pulled out her address book and started thumbing through it. It was slow going. Somehow, she’d mixed up the R’s with the S’s. ‘Well, Mommy had a friend named Annie and she grew up and got married, and they had a kid and he lives on a farm in Iowa and that’s who you can send your drawing to. And you can tell me what to say, if you want, and I’ll write it down.’
‘And a costume. You said you’d make one this year. You promised.’
Grace had. Months ago it sounded like a fine idea, she just couldn’t remember why. In the kitchen, Lottie banged down the phone, cursing.
‘You promised and you forgot. Just like you forgot to take me to see the panda baby at the zoo.’
‘The panda baby was sleeping, Katie.’
‘You promised and we didn’t.’
Katie had the instincts of a pit bull. She just lunged and clamped hold, dragging Grace back over every thing she’d promised and failed to deliver. Grace would be on her deathbed and Katie would kneel and clasp her wizened hand and stroke the purply veins, lean in close and murmur, ‘You promised popcorn and we were out.’ Then Katie would pull out a list of wrongs, and it would be on one of those long computer paper rolls, and she’d settle in for a nice, long chat.
Death would be a relief. Grace kept looking through her address book, ignoring the expletives coming from the kitchen. ‘He’s nine. A Cub Scout, I think.’
Her finger stopped. ‘There. Here it is. His name is Dusty Rhodes. He’ll enjoy getting a lovely drawing from you.’
‘No, he won’t. He’s a boy.’
Nobody ever told her it would be this hard. This constant and this hard. ‘They have animals and he has a paper route and he’s nine,’ she repeated. ‘Or ten. Anyway. That’s who you can send your letter to.’ She block-printed out the address onto the envelope.
‘I could write to Daddy.’ It hung there. Grace looked at her. Katie stared at her hands. Katie tried lots of things to get out of what she didn’t want to do, but never the trump card, her dad.
Grace had created this longing in this small, beautiful girl, this empty space that nothing filled. She’d promised herself she’d be better than Lottie, and she’d turned around and created the same ache in Katie that she’d had, growing up.
‘We’ve been through this, honey,’ Grace said gently. ‘Remember? Daddy died before you were born. It has to be a real letter. Not one to heaven.’
‘Tell me again.’ Katie stood up and Grace settled into the chair and pulled her onto her lap.
Katie’s eyes were a rich brown, a Portuguese color that spoke of sailing ships and rough seas and High Mass said in lonely places.
‘We loved each other very much.’
‘Uh-huh. Jack. You met him at a Padres game. They were playing New York.’
‘Right. We got pregnant and were going to get married, which is not the right order to do things in, and I don’t want you doing it that way either, but I’ll still love you no matter what.’
‘Only there was a car crash. That’s what happened.’
‘That’s what happened. And he would have loved you, honey.’
‘A lot.’
‘Over the moon. That’s what he would have been, having you as his daughter.’
Lottie appeared in the archway. ‘Wrong number. He hung up.’
‘You’re sure it was a he?’
‘I could tell just the way he breathed it was a he. I know how men breathe, Grace.’
‘So this Dusty kid,’ Katie said. ‘That’s a silly dilly stupid name.’
Grace glanced uneasily toward the phone, her thoughts elsewhere. ‘What? Try and leave that part out, Katie.’
An hour later, Lottie mercifully gone, Grace finished the carton of yogurt she was eating standing up. She bent down and kissed her daughter on the forehead.
Katie’s hair was a curly cloud on the pillow. Her favorite doll nestled in her arms, a Katie doll built to look like her, an extravagant birthday present Grace had given her for her fourth birthday. It had a recorder inside, so that Katie’s voice came out in short staccato sentences that Katie periodically changed. The voice was so lifelike that Grace sometimes thought it was Katie herself and dropped whatever she was doing to answer, much to Katie’s great amusement, which made Grace want to permanently injure the Katie doll’s vocal cords in any one of a number of unfortunate accidents.
Katie’s eyes were closed, along with the doll’s. They were dressed in matching pink nighties, caramel-colored hair tangled in wild manes, dark long lashes against pink cheeks. On the vanity lay the drawing, smudged and crinkled with violent splotches of color. It appeared to be a giant smiling orange head floating over a pink and orange lake. Katie had dictated a short message to go along with it.
Dear Dusty: How are you? I am fine. This is Cinderella who is riding in a big pumpkin. She is inside. That is why nobody can see her. Mommy says you came to our house and broke your arm. You need to write me back right away so I can pass kindergarten. Sincerely, Katie Descanso.
Impulsively, Grace ripped a piece of paper out of a wide-lined notebook she found in Katie’s bookshelf and added a quick note of her own:
Dear Annie: We missed hearing from you at Christmas. Hope you’re okay. I know this is a lot, but could you prod Dusty to answer this right away? Katie’s had this pen pal assignment looming over her for weeks. Of course. Love you, thanks. G.
‘We get to play the Timer Game tomorrow, right?’ Katie’s voice was blurred with sleep.
She’d forgotten about the Timer Game. ‘Right.’
‘Good.’ Katie shifted and licked her lip, eyes closed. ‘You’re wrong about one thing, Mommy.’
‘Only one?’ Grace sealed the letters in an envelope and dropped it on the dresser. She opened the drawers.
‘He’s not dead.’
‘Who?’ She pulled together shorts and a top and underwear. There was a long silence, and Grace thought Katie had dropped off to sleep.
‘Daddy,’ Katie muttered. Her lips went slack. She breathed in through her nose.
A prick of unease darted through her. She put down the clothes. ‘Honey. Katie.’ Grace touched her shoulder gently. ‘What are you talking about, sweetie? With Daddy.’
‘He visits me sometimes.’ Katie shifted under the covers, punching the pillow down, trying to find a comfortable spot.
‘Visits you?’ Grace shifted her weight. She adjusted the quilt. They’d bought it on sale at Penney’s, small pink squares of pink and white rosebuds.
‘Uh-huh. I’ll wake up. He’ll be there, at the end of my bed. He talks to me, too.’
‘What does he say?’
‘Stuff. Just private stuff. He’s coming back for me.’ She yawned hugely. ‘Night, Mommy.’
‘Night, sweetie.’
‘Wait till I sleep?’ Katie’s voice was faint.
‘Sure.’
The room faced out over Scott Street. In the dark, the soccer and T-ball trophies on Katie’s bookshelf were indistinct soldiers. The half-opened window was a small black square hanging over the eaves slanting down to the front porch. The dotted Swiss curtains moved gently, caught in an invisible breeze.
Grace stroked her daughter’s hair. ‘Katie? You do know he doesn’t do that, right? Sweetie, you do know that?’
Katie’s mouth opened into a slack O. One small foot hung out of the pink quilt. Grace cradled it in her hands. It was warm and delicate as a shell.
She kissed the arch, tucked it back in, and gently eased the window shut.
Across the street, a shadow moved. Grace tensed. It was a dog, nosing in the trash. Screens. She had to spring for screens.
Helix was dreaming on the braided rug when she entered her bedroom at the end of the hallway, his fake leg spasming the air. From her bedroom sliding glass window, the harbor spread out before her, glittering with boats tethered in black water. She pulled the sheer curtains and locked her bedroom door. She could feel her heart banging dully in her chest as she went to her closet and found it.
It was a small hard box made of enamel and she kept it on the top shelf under her sweaters. She was breathing through her mouth now and Helix cracked an eye open to look at her blearily before settling back into sleep. She lay down on the bed and put the box on her chest and felt its small cold heaviness, and her finger slid into the crack of the box and she sighed deeply and opened it.
The phone rang.
Helix jerked out of sleep and growled once deep in his throat. ‘It’s okay, boy, it’s okay.’
She stared at the machine, wondering if this was going to be another night where she was plagued with hang-ups. She heard Jeanne’s voice leaving a message, and she put the box aside and rolled over and picked up. ‘Hey.’
‘My God, I can’t believe what you’ve been through.’
‘Did you call earlier?’ Grace sat up. Helix stretched and got up, taking a few steps and flopping down next to her ankles, his ear cocked, watching her.
‘What? No, why?’
‘I keep getting hang-ups. Never mind.’
