Irises (21 page)

Mary hoped Simon would offer to help her find Kate, but he sounded as if he had all the hurt he could take for a while. “I'll try Bonnie,” Mary said, and hung up.

Mary called Bonnie, but Bonnie's brother told her she was in the shower and Kate was not there. She asked him if he could have Bonnie call her before she went to school.

Aunt Julia had been hovering while she was on the phone.

“Something happened to Kate, didn't it?” Aunt Julia finally asked.

Mary tried to sound calm. “I don't think anything happened. It's just that she left so early and she didn't take her backpack.” She decided not to mention that Kate's bed hadn't been slept in.

Aunt Julia dismissed her concerns with a wave of her hand. “Oh, she just forgot. Or maybe she has all the books she needs at school.”

“She always takes her backpack to school. It has her calculator and everything she needs for her classes.” Mary went over to the backpack and lifted it. It was heavy. Mary could never understand how Kate could carry such a heavy load without being permanently hunched over. Her own backpack was light by comparison.

“I heard you on the phone with Simon just now. She got here safely last night, and then she left early to go someplace. Why are you so worried all of a sudden? Have you ever known Kate to not take care of herself?”

Mary picked up the cushions from the floor and placed them on the sofa. In those few seconds, she struggled with herself whether to tell Aunt Julia about the insurance letter. She remembered the conversation they had the day before and Aunt Julia's response when she asked her about coming to live with them. She took the letter out of her back pocket and handed it to her.

In the kitchen, the kettle began to whistle. Mary went to turn off the stove while Aunt Julia read. When she came back, she found her slumped on the armchair, shaking her head. Mary could see that she was reading the letter for the second or third time. Aunt Julia dropped it on her lap.

“That no-good son of a —”

“Aunt Julia!” Mary stopped her.

“I'm sorry, but how could he do that? How could he lie on an application and take a chance that he would leave you without any money?”

“Maybe he didn't know he had a heart problem when he applied.”

“That's not what the letter says. It says right here: ‘Fraud. Misrepresentation.' That means ‘lying' in my dictionary, and lying means he knew. Oh, God, I knew it! I knew that man was no good. He was a big phony, that's what he was.” Then she looked at Mary and saw what her words were doing. “Oh, honey, come here.” She pulled Mary over to sit on the sofa and put her arm around her shoulder. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. It's very hard for me to keep my mouth shut, you know that. Here.” She took a balled-up tissue from the pocket of her bathrobe and handed it to Mary. “I've got to calm down here,” Aunt Julia said to herself. “Let me get a cup of coffee. I don't think I can eat anything right now. I'll settle down after a cup of coffee. I'll have decaf this morning. I'm already too riled up. Regular coffee will put me over the edge.” She stood up, began to walk into the kitchen, then stopped. “Oh, that's why you're worried about Kate. She came home last night and read the letter, and you think she got upset and took off. Oh no. Kate wouldn't do that.” Aunt Julia disappeared into the kitchen, still mumbling.

Mary sat there, paralyzed. For something to do, she went to look for Kate in the backyard and, ridiculously, in the shed. All along she was overcome with a feeling, a certainty almost, that something bad had happened to her. As soon as she reentered the house, the phone rang and a wave of hope and relief traveled through her body. “That must be Kate,” she said as she ran to the phone. Aunt Julia popped out of the kitchen, a look of curiosity on her face. “Hello,” Mary said, out of breath.

“Hey!” It was only Bonnie.

“Have you seen Kate?” Mary asked.

“My brother told me you called asking for her and then Simon called a little while ago. Is it true they broke up?” Bonnie sounded eager, excited, as if she were wishing the answer was yes. Mary always suspected Bonnie had a secret crush on Simon. Maybe that's why she was so glad Kate was going away to college.

“If Simon told you they broke up, it must be true.”

“I couldn't get a sense from Simon whether it was a major breakup or not. He sounded sort of shaken up. I wonder . . .”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Bonnie, if you know anything, please tell me. It's not like Kate to disappear like this. She's not at school, because she didn't take her backpack. It doesn't even look like she slept here last night. Her bed is still made.” She wondered whether that was something she should have said. But surely she could trust Bonnie, Kate's best friend. “You know something,” M
ary said
.

Bonnie exhaled on the other end. “I was just thinking that maybe Kate told Simon about her acceptance to Stanford and that's why they broke up.”

“Forget about the stupid breakup and help me think where she might have gone,” Mary said, annoyed.

“I don't have the slightest. Have you looked around the house?”

“She's not here,” Mary said.

“Listen, I got to go to school. I'm sure she'll turn up. S
he's probably at
school already. You said she didn't sleep
at home
? That's super weird. I wonder where she could h
ave gone
?”

“Bonnie,” Mary said quickly, thinking that she was about to hang up. “I'm pretty sure she's not at school, but if for some reason I'm wrong, can you ask her to give me a call?”

“You're not coming to school?”

“No, I'm going to stay here in case she comes home.”

“Okay, but you're overreacting.” Bonnie's usual sweetness had disappeared. She hung up when Mary didn't respond.

Mary held the receiver against her ear until she heard a dial tone. It could be that she was overreacting, as Bonnie said, but dread lodged in the pit of her stomach. She had never felt that kind of premonition before and it was impossible to ignore it. She placed the receiver back on the phone and stood in the hall, waiting for someone to tell her what to do. She barely noticed Aunt Julia offering her a glass of juice.

“Nothing?” Aunt Julia asked.

Mary shook her head and took the glass with both hands. She let Aunt Julia lead her by the elbow back to the living room. She sat Mary down on the armchair. Mary tried to think of the places Kate could have gone. She had other friends, but none she confided in, none whom she would go to in the middle of the night or the early morning. There was n
o one
from church. . . .

And then it hit her. Church. She put the glass down and rushed into Papa's study. She opened the top drawer of his desk and saw the empty space where he kept his keys. The keys to the church were gone. They had never bothered to return them after Papa died and now they were gone. Kate had taken them, Mary was certain. Kate was at the church. She hurried out of Papa's study, stumbling over herself. She went to her room, put her sneakers on, and ran past Aun
t
Julia. “Where are you going?” she heard Aunt Julia call as the screen door slammed behind her.

“I'm going to check at church,” she said.

“Why on earth would she go there?”

Aunt Julia was right. Why on earth would Kate go there? Mary herself might go there if she had some terrible news. The silence of the empty sanctuary would bring her peace, would put her mind in the right place once again. But Kate? Then again, nothing about Kate was predictable any longer. Something new and complicated was emerging.

She jogged the two blocks to the church. The windows were dark and there was an air of abandonment to the building. The church could have been an empty warehouse with a cross on top of it. She opened the main door, hoping that Kate was sitting quietly in the sanctuary, reflecting, praying, but the sanctuary was empty and dark. She walked through and felt the somber quiet of the place invite her to sit and rest, to accept whatever the day was going to bring. She pushed on. She needed to be strong for Kate.

There was no one in any of the Sunday school rooms. All the doors were locked except for the door to the minister's office, Papa's old office. Papa always kept that door locked an
d she
couldn't imagine Reverend Soto leaving it open. She remembered that the office had a couch and once again s
he was
filled with hope that Kate was there. Perhaps she had come to be in the place where Papa spent so much time, where she would be surrounded by his books and his lingering presence.

She opened the door slowly so she would not startle Kate from sleep. But Kate was not there.

For a few moments she felt the anguish of what it would be like to lose her sister forever. “Kate,” she said. She sat down on the couch and covered her eyes with her hands. She could feel tears rising, but she shook them off. She needed to think clearly. She looked around and saw the boxes full of Papa's books and the decorations and knickknacks that people had given him over the years. Reverend Soto was clearing away Papa's things.

She walked over to Papa's oak desk. His calendar was gone. The top of the desk was empty except for a Rolodex and a se
t of
golden pens that protruded from both sides of a brass clock. She ran her hand over the desk's surface but it no long
er felt
like Papa. He always kept the desk cluttered with papers and magazines. Beside the desk sat a table with a laptop and a printer. Mary was looking at these when something shiny on the floor caught her eye. She bent closer and saw Papa's keys.

She picked them up and sat on the desk chair, her head reeling. Kate had been there. But where was she now? Maybe Mary missed her in one of the classrooms. She decided to look through the church one more time, but then, with her head a
t this
level, she could see the card where the Rolodex wa
s op
ened.

Rev. Andrés Soto

El Camino Hotel and Apartments, Room 157

6781 Alameda

El Paso, TX 79915

(915) 859-1104

“Oh, Kate,” Mary said quietly.

 

K
ate found the keys in Father's desk where they always were and then she headed for the front door of the house. She made no effort to be quiet. She was not going to tiptoe out of the house or act as if she was sneaking out. The discussion with Simon, the letter from the insurance company, had both drained her and strangely exhilarated her. She felt both exhausted and unable to be still.

The night was full of electricity. Her nerves tingled as she walked the two blocks to the church, the keys dangling in her hand. Now and then a whispering voice told her to stop, to consider what she was about to do, but she pushed through it. The warnings sounded like Father. Whenever she heard them, she remembered the words in the insurance letter:
misrepresentation, fraud
. Who was he to warn anyone? She felt as if she were being honest for the first time in her life.

Kate was certain she would find his name and telephone number somewhere in the office. It was in the Rolodex on his desk under A.
For Andy
, she thought with a smile.

The voice on the other end of the line sounded fully awake. It was eleven.

“Hello? Hello?”

Kate hesitated. She could hang up now and go back home. Home. Home was a mother who was dying but never died, a sister who couldn't live alone. Home was the place that gripped you by the ankles whenever you tried to make something o
f yo
urself. “Hello,” she said tentatively. There was somethin
g abo
ut taking that first step that gave her strength. She was on her own now.

“Who's this?”

“It's me.”

“Kate?”

It was a relief to be recognized. “Yes.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Remember when you told me I could call you day or night?”

“You sound like you're in trouble. Where are you?”