"Here it is," she said, almost begrudgingly.
"Thank you. And thanks for agreeing to meet with me," I said, reaching for a cup and saucer after it became clear she wasn"t going to serve me. I raised the cup to my mouth, ready to take my first sip.
"This isn"t a tea party. I"m a busy woman, Miss Ashe. I expect you"ll be brief," she started in as I innocently blew on the tea.
"Of course," I said, setting my cup down, a little miffed. First, she had just about demanded I take the tea. Then, she had practically ordered me not to drink it.
"You agreed to talk with me for an hour. I"ll respect that," I said, wondering how I"d gotten her to agree to anything. Obviously, she resented my intrusion in her staid life.
I"d been up front with Benjamin Greaves about taping our conversation. I"d intended to be honest with Marie Kenwood, too, but seeing how cantankerous she was, I opted for deception. I reached into my pocket, turned on the tiny tape recorder and pulled out a Kleenex. I wiped my dry nose as the older woman again looked at her watch and deliberately avoided my gaze.
Ignoring my tea, I relaxed back into the couch, shifted my body so that it was facing her, flashed my brightest smile and said, "So tell me about Destiny, Mrs. Kenwood."
For the first time, she looked directly at me.
"Are your eyegla.s.ses purple and red?" she asked as she squinted and leaned forward for a better look.
"Yes," I said wearily, preparing for a lecture.
"I like colorful things," she said, totally surprising me.
Well, that was all the encouragement I needed. Her cold veneer had slipped for an instant. Shamelessly, I took full advantage of the moment.
"You must. The artwork on your walls is beautiful," I said, lying without a trace of guilt.
"Oh, those, they"re nothing. Just a little something I did in my painting cla.s.s." She smiled for the first time.
"You painted them?" I feigned surprise.
"I certainly did."
"You"re quite talented. I especially like the one of the sea. The colors are extraordinary."
That must have been enough flattery for her because she changed the subject.
"So you want to know about Destiny, eh? After all these years, you come into my life to ask me about Destiny?" She pushed her eyegla.s.ses up her nose.
"Er, yes." I felt so timid around her.
"Before you called, young lady, I hadn"t heard that name for some time. After my son Peter died, after the little one left, I forbade people to utter their names."
"I"m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Kenwood," I said, meaning the loss of her son.
"I missed her every day, you know. No one ever thought about that when they took her away," she said with more than a trace of bitterness.
"Why didn"t you ever see her?"
"The Sisters wouldn"t allow it. They found her a new family, and they came to get her. It was best for her, they said, best for the child."
"Were the two of you close?"
"And how! I was her Nana a" that was what she called me. Barbara was forever trying to get her to call me Grandma Kenwood, but she never would," the older woman said with a hint of triumph. "She was such a beautiful child," she added, almost as an afterthought.
"She"s quite beautiful now," I said softly, but I don"t think she heard me.
"She was never more beautiful than the night her father died. We were together, you know. The kids had dropped her off earlier in the evening. What a grand evening that was."
I wasn"t sure I"d heard her right.
"Pardon me?"
"Oh yes," she said, startled by my voice. "It was a grand evening. We made sugar cookies and paper dolls. Destiny took a bubble bath. We overflowed the tub with bubbles and laughed at our silliness. I tucked her into bed. She was so tired a" as only the young can get. I think she was asleep before her head hit the pillow. I kissed her forehead and turned out the light." All of this Marie Kenwood said, as if reciting a poem.
"That was our last happy time," she continued. "I was still up, reading, when the phone call came. My boy was dead."
She pulled a tissue out of her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes.
"They didn"t tell me then, on that awful night, that I"d lose Destiny, too, but I knew it." She paused. "I knew they"d take her away from me."
"That night, did you tell Destiny her parents had, ahm, pa.s.sed away?"
"Dead is the word, young lady. They weren"t pa.s.sed away. They were dead," she said, the fatigue evident in her voice. "Someone had to do it, so yes, I told Destiny, but not that night. For six and a half hours, I cried in the dark. I thought the sun would never come up again. When it did, I told her."
"What did you tell her?"
"Oh, my, I can hardly remember. I tried to compose myself before I woke her. No sense letting her see her Nana cry. If I recall correctly, I told her that her parents were in heaven with Baby Jesus. That made her happy. Then I told her the truth, that she wouldn"t be seeing them anymore. At that, she started crying... and I started crying again, too, a little."
"I couldn"t help myself," she added, as if she owed me an explanation. "I remember, she patted me on the head and said, "It"s okay, Nana." "
"Did you ever think of being Destiny"s guardian?"
"Of course, I did," she said spiritedly. "But do you think they"d award custody to a 57-year-old widow with diabetes just because it made the most sense? Of course not! I was all alone. My husband, Rudy, had died of cancer the year before. Unfit, the nuns told me. As if they knew what was best for my Destiny."
"Weren"t there any other family members who could have taken custody?"
"I was her only family on Peter"s side. He was our only child. On Barbara"s side, there was her parents and a sister, but they lived back East and hadn"t seen the child but once or twice. They didn"t care a whit about her," she said with disgust.
"Barbara wasn"t close to her family?"
"No, siree. They cut her off when she married our Peter. They saw her a few times after the child was born, but that was it. They never even came to the funeral. Imagine that a" wouldn"t come to Colorado to bury their own daughter."
"Why didn"t they like Peter?"
"He wasn"t rich enough for the likes of them. They wanted Barbara to marry some society boy. She went against them when she fell in love with Peter. Rudy always said she was better off not talking to them, but I don"t think it"s natural when parents don"t have relations with their children."
"Were Barbara and Peter in love?"
"Oh, my, yes! "Til the day they died, they were in love. You"d never seen two kids as in love as they were. Made you uncomfortable sometimes." She chuckled at the memory.
"How did they meet?"
"They met at school, that school in Fort Collins. He was studying to be a high school teacher. She wanted to be a nurse. They were married in "52, but I can"t remember the exact day any more. I never was good at remembering dates. Rudy would remember if he was here. That man could remember everything. Some things were better off not remembered, I"d tell him, but he"d insist on remembering, the stubborn old fool," she said affectionately.
"It sounds like you loved Rudy quite a lot."
"We were suited for each other."
"This may be a hard question for you to answer, Mrs. Kenwood, but I have to ask it a""
"Don"t coddle me, young lady. Nothing"s too hard when you"ve lived through eight decades. Ask your question!"
"Okay," I swallowed hard. "How did you ever manage to say good-bye to Destiny? How could you say good-bye to her when you knew you"d never see her again?"
She fiddled with her dress, ironing out every invisible wrinkle, before she answered me.
"First of all, I thought I"d see her again. I didn"t know when, but I was led to believe I could stay in touch. It wasn"t until after they"d taken her away that the Sisters phoned me and told me I shouldn"t ever contact her."
She took a sip of her tea, which must have been stone cold. She showed no sign of noticing.
"I remember the day they came to get her. She had been staying with me while the church looked for a suitable family. I was a fit guardian for a month, you see, but no more. Secretly, I think they were afraid I"d die before she graduated from high school. Well, I"ve shown them a thing or two, now, haven"t I?"
She tried to suppress a cough.
"Heavens, that must have been the coldest day of that winter. I know because my pipes froze up that night. I had the child bundled up as I"d always done when I was sending her home with Peter. The only thing showing on her was her big, green saucer eyes. The rest of her was clothes. When I heard the doorbell, we said our good-byes. I"d already explained all the rest to her, so we were ready. I"d told her she was going to get a new family, a new house, new friends, and that she"d be very happy. I"d told her she"d get new toys, but even that didn"t cheer her up. She was very down that day.
"In the middle of me telling her this, she interrupted me a" I never could teach her to stop interrupting with her infernal questions a" and asked, Will I ever see you again, Nana?" Well, what could I say to the child? I couldn"t lie to her and I couldn"t tell her the truth. I did the best thing I could think of. I said, "Yes, Destiny, you will. Someday soon, you will, but now you have to go live with your new family." She was a bright child, she always had been, and she knew that someday never comes. She burst into tears. The doorbell rang again, and I didn"t know what to do. I tried to comfort her as best I could. I told her not to cry, that everything would be okay, that her new family wouldn"t want to see her cry, that I loved her. Then I answered the door and she left with the two Sisters. I went back inside the house, and that was that."
"That must have been hard for you."
"It was," she said simply. Right then, she noticed I hadn"t drunk a sip of my tea. "There, there, let me get you some fresh tea. There"s plenty of time for talking."
With that, I knew I had her. We spent the rest of the afternoon talking about Barbara, Peter and Destiny Kenwood and about Marie and Rudy Kenwood. Twice, I had to excuse myself to change tapes in the bathroom. Each time, I felt guilty about taping our conversation without her knowledge, but then I reminded myself that I represented Destiny, not Mrs. Kenwood, and I did it anyway. Had I asked her permission, maybe she would have even said "yes," but I couldn"t quite see Mrs. Kenwood understanding or appreciating the modern tools of technology. She probably would have told me, "If you can"t remember it, you don"t need to."
I had started out the afternoon afraid of her; I ended it respecting her.
Before I left, she gave me the name and phone number of Barbara"s best friend, Lydia Barton. Lydia, who had lived next door to the Kenwoods when Destiny was little, would be able to help me put together more of the pieces. Marie said she"d call to let her know I"d be contacting her.
Interestingly, Marie Kenwood never asked any questions about Destiny Greaves, and I never offered any information. Perhaps too many years had pa.s.sed for her to let herself care about "the little one" again.
As I was leaving, she did start to ask me something but then caught herself. I encouraged her to tell me what was on her mind, but she wouldn"t.
I thanked her profusely for her time and for an enjoyable afternoon. She brushed aside my appreciation and told me to zip up my coat.
After I left, I drove off thinking about all that she"d told me and which pieces of it I"d tell Destiny.
Chapter 7.
All the next day, with a trace of anxiety, I looked forward to the dinner I"d arranged with Destiny.
When I got to Nadine"s Diner a few minutes early, she was already waiting in the lobby. She seemed nervous.
After we were seated and had ordered, I started to tell her about her grandmother. She quickly stopped me.
"Could we just talk awhile, Kris, about anything? Anything except my family. I need a little time."
"Okay," I agreed easily. "What do you want to talk about?"
"How about Kristin Ashe?"
"Very funny." I smiled.
"I"m serious," she said, looking at me intently. "I"m curious about you. You intrigue me."
For a second, I forgot she was dating Mich.e.l.le.
"Okay," I muttered after I regained my composure. "What do you want to know?"
"For starters, why is a woman as attractive as you not in a relationship?"
I laughed. "It"s an anomaly. A brief respite in the universe of time."
She laughed with me but waited for me to say more.
"Actually, this is the first time in my life, since I was eighteen, that I"m not in a relationship. I"ve never not been in a relationship. Four different women, with very little, if any, time between each one. This last year, since Gallagher left, has been the longest time I"ve been out of a relationship, and I have to tell you, it"s a relief. I"m lonely as h.e.l.l, but I was usually lonely when I was in a relationship. Frankly, I feel like a burden"s been lifted."
"The burden of Gallagher?" She looked right at me, almost into me.
"No, not at all. The burden of being in an intimate relationship. The expectations that go along with the words "I want to be with you." It"s such a struggle, such an incredible struggle for me to be in relationships with people. Especially my lovers, but not just them. Friendship is hard for me, too; so is relating to my employees."
"Why?"
I had to break eye contact before I could answer. "I don"t know why, but the pattern"s always the same. I start out trusting people. On a very superficial level, I love them. They fascinate me. I like getting to know them. I start out trusting them, then day by day, I pull back a piece of myself, hoping the other person won"t find me out, that they won"t know I"ve checked out, checked back inside myself."
"Mich.e.l.le"s right a" we are alike," she said quietly.
"How so," I asked, at once relieved and irritated that she"d broken into my monologue.
"I can"t be close to people either, Kris. You"ve had four long-term relationships. I haven"t even had one. I can"t remember the names of half the women I"ve been with. Usually, I leave their beds in the middle of the night, after we"ve had s.e.x, so I won"t have to remember. I leave them long before they can leave me."
"Wow."
"I always stay busy with my work, using that as an excuse for not ever committing to anyone, but that"s not really it."