Intrusion: A Novel (11 page)

“From his point of view . . .” Scott said.

Kat looked out the window.

“It’s not fair,” she said quietly.

“No. It’s not.”

Once back at the house, Scott gulped down a mug of coffee. Five minutes later, he was at the door, briefcase in hand.

“Faster than a speeding bullet,” Kat said. “Did you even taste that coffee?”

“Sorry. The work. Jesus. It just piles up.”

“Sarah Harrison keeping you busy?”

“She’s brought in a lot of new accounts, so I’m not complaining. But Sarah wants what she wants. She’s not the easiest of clients,” he said.

“I never thought she would be.”

He paused on the step.

“Okay, I’ll be home soon as I can. Maybe we can open a bottle of wine. Watch
The NeverEnding Story
.”

Kat regarded him sadly. Chris’s favorite movie when he was a young child.

“If we can bear it,” Kat said.

In the early evening, when Scott was still not home by the time she was ready to prepare dinner, Kat moved to call him just as the phone rang.

“Damn car,” Scott snapped immediately. “It’s acting up. I’ll have it checked on the way home. You go ahead and eat, sweetheart. I’ll pick up a hamburger.”

Kat ate a small piece of cold lasagna from the fridge, picked at a salad. Afterward, she pulled the DVD of
The NeverEnding Story
from the cabinet, studied it for a moment. It would be too late to watch it when Scott got home. She took a breath and then slid it into the console. Kat heard only the first notes of the movie score before she switched it off fast. No. It was not a movie to watch alone. It was a movie to watch with a child. An hour later, she was in bed. She heard Scott’s key in the lock. He closed the door quietly. She heard the soft thud of the fridge door, the clink of a glass. Then, silence.

ELEVEN

T
he moment Scott left for work the next morning, Kat pulled out her laptop. Telling herself that it was just a quick look, only curiosity, she checked medical websites, just as she had done years ago, for reasons why a woman did not conceive again after the successful and easy birth of a first child. Maybe there would be new research? Maybe things had changed? But the information was still overwhelming and inconclusive. They would need tests, both of them, just as the doctor had suggested years ago. And Scott would not agree to tests—she was certain of that. He would say it was too late. He would say those days were over.

One fact occurred and reoccurred on every medical website—it was more difficult for a woman to conceive after the age of forty. Kat had reached her fortieth birthday just five days after Chris’s death. A birthday that, numb with grief, Kat and Scott had not celebrated, had barely acknowledged. She sighed, closing her eyes. She really was losing her grip. It was ridiculous to think like this. It was insane to even consider having another child. Could she cope with pregnancy right now? The hormone changes, the mood swings? Her moods were erratic enough. And to focus on getting pregnant? They would need passion for that. Maybe Scott could muster enough. But could she? Maybe pregnancy simply wasn’t possible. And yet, and yet . . .

They had always wanted more children. They had imagined, when they were first married, having three or even four. Two at least. They had talked, when Chris was accepted at Berkeley, of being empty nesters, and Kat had joked that they could always foster needy kids from time to time. Scott had not balked at that. He had smiled. But no, that wasn’t the same. It wasn’t what she longed for right now.

Kat closed the laptop, stood, and moved to the window to stare out blankly at the garden. She closed her eyes, recalled clearly—all senses stirred—the memory of the warm weight of Chris as a new infant in her arms. She remembered sniffing his head and thinking that he smelled freshly baked, like a blueberry muffin. His soft skin, the velvet pads of his tiny hands holding her finger, the fluttering of his eyelashes as he dreamed. What did he dream of, she and Scott would wonder, when he knew so little of the world? Maybe the warm, watery womb he had left behind?

Catching her breath, stunned by another wave of loss, Kat turned and held on to the sink for a moment to steady herself. Enough. Enough. She needed fresh air, activity. She needed to clear her head. She picked up her bag and car keys. Grocery shopping was a chore she dreaded—she feared bumping into anyone she knew, hated the awkward conversations, the stumbling sympathy—but she needed to pick up something for dinner and also some wine and Scott’s whisky.

At the top of the hill, she realized she had chosen the wrong time of day. It was lunch break at the high school; seniors were all over the place, dragging along in groups or singly, heading to Wendy’s or the market. The one privilege of the last year in school was the freedom to go out to lunch. How Chris had loved that.

Kat, hands tight on the steering wheel, tried not to look at the young people on the sidewalks and kept her eyes on the road until she swung into the market’s parking lot. Most of the kids would be at Wendy’s, across the street. She hurried toward the entrance of the market and there, so visible with that signature pink streak in her hair, was Chris’s friend Vanessa—and Ben and Matt, too. Behind Vanessa, she could see another girl, a dark-haired girl. Kat slowed, ready to turn around quickly and head back to her car, but Vanessa had spotted her. The teenager frowned, lifted her hand in a wave. Kat moved toward them slowly, her smile frozen.

The boys melted away like spooks, disappearing around the corner. The girls waited.

Vanessa greeted her in a soft voice, her usual bright smile missing.

“Was that Ben?” Kat asked. “And Matt?”

“Yes—they had to go. How are you, Mrs. Hamilton?”

“Fine. Just fine. Thank you.”

The two girls stood, in the small awkward silence, waiting for her to speak further. Kat felt paralyzed.

“It was Chris’s birthday yesterday,” Kat said finally, the words coming from nowhere, unrehearsed.

“I know,” Vanessa said. “We had a little party for him. Just a few of us. His favorite beer. A cake.”

Kat thought about this. What was his favorite beer? She had no idea.

“That’s so nice,” she said, swallowing. “Ben was there? And Matt? And Teddy?”

“Yes. All the boys who were with . . .” Vanessa faltered. “Who were there,” she concluded.

“And how are they now?”

“Ben’s okay. Teddy’s still having nightmares.”

“Oh,” said Kat. “I’m sorry.” Though she was not really sorry, she admitted to herself with shame. They were alive. A nightmare was a small price to pay.

“It was fun,” the dark-haired girl said. “Chris would have loved it.”

Kat looked closely at her: a slender brunette, pretty, with dark eyes.

“I’m Chloe,” the girl said. “Chloe Martinez.”

Love you, miss you.
So this was the girl who had left flowers at Chris’s grave. Kat felt a sharp pang of loss for all the things her son would never experience: the journeys not taken, the love affairs never begun.
I hope Chris had a massive crush on you,
she thought as she studied the young woman’s attractive face.
I hope he kissed you behind the school bike sheds. I hope he felt joy. I hope he experienced that, at least.

“Nice to meet you, Chloe. Well, I’m an idiot. I’ve come to the wrong market. They don’t have Scott’s whisky here. Different brands, different prices. I’ll have to drive over the hill. Good to see you both. Give my best to the boys.”

She was talking too fast. The girls must think she was a blathering fool.

“Bye,” they said in unison.

Kat turned and walked quickly to the car.

Minutes later, she was back on her own street, pulling into the driveway of her house, still shaken. She was cursing herself for a wasted trip when she saw Brooke, smartly dressed in tailored work clothes, getting a package out of her mailbox.

“You want coffee? I’ve just made some,” she called to Kat.

Kat crossed the street to Brooke’s ultramodern home, a minimalist space of chrome and smoked glass she had inherited after her divorce. Newly promoted to art director at a small Century City advertising agency, Brooke made a good salary, but she freely admitted that her ex-husband had been generous to her. After two years of marriage, he had returned to his first wife and children.

“Back to his wife! Can you imagine?” Brooke said at the time. “The things he said about her. To hear him talk, you’d think she was an evil, frigid monster. I knew he was missing his kids, though. It was killing him. And, bright side, I get to keep the house. That will help mend my poor little broken heart.”

“Your little broken heart will mend when you meet someone new.”

“Me? Never. I intend to stay as free as a bird.”

Now, as Brooke poured coffee, she looked over at Kat.

“So you went out alone, sweet pea? That’s good,” she said.

“Meant to go to the market and then didn’t go inside. Met some of Chris’s old friends and just bolted back here.”

“That’s okay. The market’s not going anywhere. It will be there tomorrow and the day after. So who was the high-fashion gal visiting you in a Jag the other day?”

“Sarah. The old school friend I told you about. The one in Palm Springs.”

“Oh, right. The rich widow. She looks pretty young for a widow. Well, if she ever gets tired of that Hermès bag, ask her for it. I’ve wanted one my entire life.”

“Your entire life? You told me you were a tomboy most of your young life.”

“Well, since I grew up. Since I stopped wanting a skateboard. So how are you, sweetie?”

Kat blurted out details of her Internet research, the newly awakened longing for a baby.

“You think I’m insane to think of it? Having another baby?”

Brooke, eyes narrow, thought about the question seriously.

“Not insane. No. But you’re still grieving. It’s maybe not a good idea right this minute. Not that I know shit about anything. What does Scott say?”

“Haven’t really mentioned it to him yet.”

“What’s your therapist say?”

“Haven’t told her.”

“Well, that, babe, should be your first question to her at your next session. And maybe you should mention it to Scott
before
you get yourself pregnant.”

“Saw some of Chris’s old friends today,” Kat said that evening as she and Scott had dinner. “During their lunch break. It was strange to see them. Without Chris.”

He looked up, frowning.

“You were near the school?”

“At the market. I met the girl who left flowers at the grave. Chloe. Must have been Chris’s girlfriend. Pretty girl. Nice, too. Seemed nice.”

“Don’t think I ever met her.”

“She was with Vanessa. The boys were there, too, but they vanished before I could talk to them.”

“I haven’t seen the boys since the funeral,” Scott said. “I thought Ben would drop by at some point. He used to pretty much live at our house.”

“He probably doesn’t know what to say to us.”

“True,” Scott said. “Maybe he worries we blame him.”

Ben had been driving when a truck had blown a tire, veered out of control, and hit an SUV that then crossed three lanes of the freeway to hit the boys, traveling in a Mustang convertible in the opposite direction. According to all reports, Ben had been following the speed limit; he had not been drinking. He could have done nothing to avoid the accident.

“You did ask for the police report. Maybe he knows that you checked his alcohol level.”

“Jesus, Kat. Any parent would do that.”

She remembered Scott in those first weeks—checking maintenance records on the truck, on the road, talking to litigators at his office, researching tire statistics, desperate to find someone, anyone, to blame—the truck driver, the SUV driver, the tire company, even the county. If there had been a center divider, he told Kat, the accident would not have happened. His own colleagues had talked him out of litigating that. A freak accident. Nobody to blame.

“It wasn’t Ben’s fault,” Kat said.

“He doesn’t
know
that we understand that,” Scott said. “Maybe he still feels, I don’t know, guilty. Something.”

Kat frowned. “God, I hope not.”

After dinner, when Scott was working in his den, Kat took out the laptop and once more reviewed the Internet research on tests and pregnancy for an older woman. She wanted to talk to Scott about it. She knew he would think the idea totally insane, but she had to at least ask him. The words had to be said.

Finally, when Scott had been working for over an hour, Kat drank two fast glasses of wine, walked with rigid determination into his den, and stood in front of his desk like a schoolgirl facing the principal. Scott turned from his computer, frowning.

“What’s up?”

“I want to ask you something,” Kat said. She saw the concern on his face, and she took a long breath. “Would you even consider having another baby? Would you go for the tests the doctors suggested so that we could—”

She had no chance to end the sentence. He stood, moved around his desk to pull her hard against his chest.

“Kat, please. Please. It won’t bring him back.”

“I know it won’t—” Her voice broke on the words. “But another baby. It would be so wonderful. Just to hold an infant. To care for another baby. Can you imagine?”

“Stop it, sweetheart. You’re torturing yourself. You’re not strong enough to get pregnant again, Kat. Not emotionally strong enough. And we’re so much older. No. No, it’s just not an option. You need to find a different way through this.”

She leaned against him, unable to speak further until, after a while, he released her gently.

“Make some hot tea,” he said. “Maybe find an old movie to watch? I need to finish off this one report, then I’ll join you.”