The Concealers (16 page)

“Where're you headed?” she asked.

“Where I go every morning—to say hello to your grandmother. Want to come along?”

“Absolutely,” Katherine said. “Let's go, Hailey.” The dog was already waiting at the door, wearing her
Why the drama?
look.

Adrian, Katherine, and Hailey walked north on Main Street, passed a gray house with a white picket fence, and turned left on Cemetery Lane. Katherine could hear the sounds of children playing at the elementary school as they ambled down the lane to the well-kept cemetery grounds. Soon they arrived at the gravestone marked Colina Bethany Kelly, 1934–2003. Adrian spoke softly to his wife for a minute or two, while Katherine and Hailey waited quietly a few steps away.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Adrian said. “As long as you're keeping me company, before we go home, what d'ya say we make a stop at the church?”

Katherine knew that was coming. “Sure,” she said, “I'll stay outside with Hailey.”

In about a half an hour, they arrived at Saint Gregory's Church. Adrian went in and returned a few minutes later.

“You know, this church is connected to Saint Katherine. That's where your mom came up with your name—with a little help from me,” Adrian said.

“I guess I heard that somewhere along the way,” Katherine said.

She stopped walking, told Hailey to sit, and took hold of her grandfather's arm.

“Grandpa, may I ask you a difficult question?”

“You can try,” he said. “And I will, too.”

“Did Mom tell you that Larry was my father?”

“She didn't have to. I knew he was . . . or thought he was . . . he was her boyfriend.”

“Why did you say
thought
he was?”

Adrian was silent for a few minutes. He pointed to a bench along the quiet street, and they walked to it and sat down.

“I know this must be painful for you. I spent a lot of time back there trying to ask for His forgiveness about all of this.”

Katherine didn't really understand what he was saying, but thought it best to just listen.

“Your mother is a wonderful lady. She'd do anything for you. Anything. She figured your grandma and I would assume Larry was your dad. And we did. Or at least I did. Your grandma is . . . was smarter than me, in these things.”

“What did grandma think?” Katherine asked, in some ways wishing she hadn't.

“She may have known more than I did, or more than she wanted me to know. Women are funny that way—they just know things. Larry had left with the Air Force, and your mother was busy with her nursing in New York City. All I knew then was my daughter's heart was broken, her boyfriend was dead, and she was pregnant—and she had to have her baby. She knew that, too—on her own.”

“Did Mom ever tell you the whole story?”

“About a month ago.”

“What did she say?”

“That Larry was not your father. Larry didn't want to marry her—was gone in the Air Force—and that she got together with a young man when she was working in that hospital down there. She said that she knew she wanted to raise you as a single mom, and after we got word Larry was killed, she thought it would be easier for everyone if she said he was your father.”

“Did she say why she didn't tell you and Grandma sooner?”

“She didn't want to upset us.”

“Would you have preferred her to tell you?”

“I said I'd try, but that question doesn't seem to be going anywhere . . . or at least anywhere good.”

“Fair enough, Grandpa. Fair enough. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Kitten. We better get home before we're all in the doghouse,” Adrian said, as he slowly got up from the bench.

Katherine put her hand on her grandfather's shoulder. “Sit down, Grandpa, there's something else I want to say to you.” Adrian sat and looked at Katherine. She could see the thoughts swirling in his head.

“You've always been there for me, Grandpa,” Katherine said in a voice choked with tears. “You've taught me so much. One of the things you taught me is that it never hurts to say
thank you
. Thank you, Grandpa, for fixing my dolls, for cheering for me when I was cheering for our guys on the field, for teaching me how to drive, for telling me how beautiful I look—when we both knew better. For making me feel that I'm smart, that I can do anything, be anything, and shoot for the moon. And thank you for always telling me the truth.”

Adrian sat without saying a word for several minutes. Finally, he put his arms around his granddaughter and gave her a warm, long hug. “Thanks, Kitten. I'm too old to turn down a thank you like that.”

At that moment, Hailey jumped on the bench and started licking Katherine's face. She and her grandfather started laughing.

“Get down, Hailey, it's time for us to go,” Adrian said.

Back at the house, Adrian went to his den to watch a recording of the last NASCAR race. Katherine saw Beth at the kitchen table sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. Katherine poured herself a cup and sat down.

Katherine handed her mother a small gift-wrapped box with an envelope under the bow.

“What's this?” Beth asked.

“Open it.”

Beth surgically cut the bow and removed the paper as if she wanted to preserve it for all time. She opened the box and pulled out a lavender Norm Thompson scoop-neck bamboo nightgown with puckers at the yoke.

“This is beautiful,” Beth said in a velvety soft voice. She opened and read the card, stood, walked to Katherine, and gave her a hug followed by a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“You're welcome, Mom. Happy Mother's Day.”

“You've made my day, for sure. How long are you going to stay?”

“As long as it takes for me to pack my car as full as I can—leaving room for Hailey—and to decide what to leave behind.”

“That shouldn't be hard.”

“I don't want to leave you behind—that's what makes it hard.”

“What does that mean?”

“Picture a twenty-three-year-old house exposed to serious tremors from an earthquake. At first, it looks like the house survived, but a survey shows structural damage—the foundation has shifted and the entire house, including the roof, has moved out of alignment.”

Katherine could see a look of bewilderment on her mother's face, as if rain had suddenly fallen from a blue sky illuminated by a strong sun.

“I know you love me. You've taken care of me—been there for me—all of my life. That has been one of the cornerstones of my foundation. Another, however, is trust. I never thought that you'd lie to me, especially about something so fundamental. I know why you did it. I understand why you did it. But that doesn't rebuild the house.”

Katherine could see her mother's hands were shaking and had turned white. Beth began to cough and rub the back of her neck.

“I know this is painful for you,” Katherine said. “It's not fun for me either. But we have to deal with this. I don't want to leave without our at least trying to set the framework for rebuilding the house.”

“How do we do that?” Beth asked in a shaky distant voice.

“The foundation has to be the truth. Promise me—and more importantly, promise yourself—that you will never lie to me again.”

Beth nodded her head and mumbled some words that Katherine could not understand. Katherine got up and put her arm around Beth, and hugged her.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too—and in the spirit of telling you the truth—I hate that you won't forgive me.”

That stopped Katherine cold.
I hate that, too.
Her mother had just put her finger on the one burner on the stove in Katherine's mind that she hadn't been able to turn off. But it was a start. “What else do you hate?”

“I hate that I'm losing my eyesight and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I hate that I won't be able to help your grandfather when he needs me most. And when he's gone, I'll be alone.”

Katherine knew her mother's macular degeneration was progressive, but she didn't know how far it had gone. Her mother was at her core a nurse, and with all her problems what she was worried about most was not being able to care for someone else.

“Hey, Mom, let me take you and Hailey for a ride in my new BMW before I pack it up. It's a beautiful day. Let's go to Sodus Point and have lunch on the bay.”

“Let me check with Grandpa,” Beth said.

“He can come, too.”

“No, I think he'll be fine. Besides, I want to ask you some questions about Preston.”

Beth went into the den to tell Adrian of their plans.

“How're you doing, Dad?”

“Fine. Better now that you two are talking. I've been purposely leaving you alone. She's a fine girl, your daughter. And you've been a fine mother.”

“Stop it, Dad, stop it. I've done enough crying today. Do you want to ride with us? You'd love the car.”

“Another time. I just want to be alone right now. And you two have more talking to do I'm sure. Be with her while you can.”

Beth gave her father a kiss on the cheek.

“We'll be back in a while.”

“Take your time.”

Katherine punched the button on her remote, opening the back of her SUV just in time for Hailey to clear the hatch as she jumped in, tail wagging. Beth hopped in the right front seat, marveling at the finely stitched leather seats and dashboard and all the gadgets. Katherine set the GPS for Sodus Point, mainly to show her mother how the feature worked, and they were on their way, with Hailey's head practically in the front between them.

“Okay, let's have the questions about Preston,” Katherine said.

“Just tell me. I want it all. How's he look? What's he really like? How did you feel when you were with him?”

“Well, it started with his e-mail to me. He said he couldn't imagine what this must be like for me, and it breaks his heart to think about it. Here's a middle-aged man who finds out he has a daughter and he's thinking about how hard this is for me. Then he said he knew he wanted to be my father, to meet me, and get to know me
and love me.
I knew then that I wanted to reach out to this man.”

“So you got in touch with him.”

“I e-mailed him back and told him I wanted to meet him. He responded by inviting me to lunch the next day at the 21 Club. Have you ever been there?”

“No, but I've heard of it. Keep going.”

Katherine described the lunch meeting in detail, down to the last morsel of food and the last word of conversation. “He told me he was married to a woman named Marcia and that they have a one-year-old son, who, unfortunately, has a hearing problem, Mom. They named the son after Joe Hart, a lawyer friend. That interested me because the lawyer obviously had been a huge influence on his life.”

“Does this tie into your assignment?”

“It may. I'm working on that.”

“He asked me about my career and all of that. It was a long lunch. I told him I wanted to learn more about Hart, and he invited me to his place to meet his wife and son and then go to dinner. So the next night, I found myself in Trump Tower meeting Marcia and P.J. and then when the nanny came, the three of us went to dinner across the street at Armani's.”

“Armani's on Fifth Avenue?”

“Yes.”

“I never knew they had a restaurant.”

“That was wonderful. It was a great dinner and I enjoyed meeting Marcia.”

“What did she look like?”

“Younger than Preston, dark hair, thin, smart—stylish. She was a professor of psychology at Columbia.”

“What did you talk about?”

Katherine took the curves along the road with little effort in the powerful SUV. Almost on autopilot, she recalled the meeting with Preston and Marcia, and learning about Preston's charges.

“They were called the “
Collectibles”
and each was flawed in some way. Fulfilling that promise apparently had a big impact on Preston.”

“Really? That's a twist. Why do you say
apparently
?”

“Just a hunch at this point. Something Marcia said when talking about this group of people and the influence Hart had on Preston . . . I tried to pin Preston down, but Marcia called it an open question and said Preston was evolving on the subject.”

“I'm not sure what that all means, but I know you'll figure it out.”

Katherine thought about that and changed the topic. “Mom, what's the latest on your MD?”

“It's still dry MD, but my drusen are increasing fairly rapidly in both eyes, and I have slight central vision blurring in my right eye. My doctor thinks it could develop into wet, which is worse—new blood vessels under the macula leak blood and fluid—and that could damage my macula rapidly. For some people, shots to stop new blood vessels from growing can help—but there's risk with that, too. I worry that I won't be able to work down the road.”

“I worry about that, too. I'm so sorry you're going through all of this,” Katherine said, feeling the rising anxiety in her mother.

Now it was Beth's turn to change the subject. “How's your friend Susan?” she asked “She's such a sweetheart.”

“I don't think I've told you this, Mom, and it's not for publication. Susan is an alcoholic. She's been clean for years, but recently has been drinking again. I spoke with her on my way home.”