Curiosity Killed the Kat (8 page)

“Sandra,” I said. “Have a seat on the porch, I’m going to go next door and see if they have a spare key, okay?”

She looked at me, a fresh blaze of fear jumping into her eyes.

“Don’t go!” She pleaded.

“Sandra, don’t worry. I’m coming right back. We have to get inside and my mother’s not here. I’m just going to step next door and get a key.”

She didn’t look convinced. Her face was a mask of fear at the thought of being left alone.

“Would you feel better if you were in the Range Rover with the doors locked?”

“
Okay,” she agreed.

I gave her the car keys and watched as she made her way back to the car and collapsed in the passenger seat. She carefully locked the doors and stared anxiously out at me.

Satisfied that she was safe for the time being, I crossed the lawn and knocked on the door of our neighbor, Cecelia Foote.

I had known Mrs. Foote since I was a child. She and her husband had lived next door to us as long as I could remember. Last year, when my mother had told me that
her husband, Frank
Foote
,
had died I was as sad as if I had lost a favorite uncle. He had always been so kind to me when I was growing up. He taught me how to ride a bike, and he could always be counted on for a few dollars if it was hot out and I wanted a treat from the ice cream truck.
I hadn’t seen Cecelia Foote for years, I hoped she remembered me and even more importantly that she had a spare key.

Every knock on her door sounded like a prayer. Please open, please open, please open.

And, then it did. Cecelia stood there staring at me. Her eyes were red like she’d been crying and her face looked haggard and tired. She was holding the phone and when she saw me standing there, her face went whiter and she dropped the phone and ripped open the door.

“Thank god you got my messages,” she said as she grabbed me into her arms. “Oh, honey I’m so sorry
. It was so sudden!”

I was as confused as I’d ever been, but a cold finger of dread was inching its way up my spine and making my stomach start to churn in fear.

“Mrs. Foote, what are you talking about? I just came to see my mother. It’s an emergency and I really need to see her. I was knocking and no one is home. Do you….” I started to explain but my voice died in my throat to see her just standing there staring at me incredulously.

“Honey, what are you saying?” She asked, dumbstruck. “I was just calling you again, just this minute.” She pointed to the phone where she’d dropped it at her feet.

“Are you telling me you’re just here?” She went on, “without hearing my messages?”

I nodded silently, afraid to ask her to explain further.

“Oh honey, come sit down.” She gently took my hand and led me into her comfortable living room, depositing me on her couch.

“Katherine, your mother passed away this afternoon.” She looked at me anxiously, afraid of my reaction to this horrible news.

I just looked at her. I could feel my grip on sanity loosen. My mother could not be dead. She was my mother; the one person that was always there. Even though we’d never been close and there had been many times that we had gone months or even a year without speaking, I always thought she’d be there in case I needed her. And I’d never needed her cold logic and straight speaking more than I did tonight.

“How?” It was all I could think to ask.

“Well, we don’t know exactly. The doctors think it might have been an aneurysm. It was very sudden. She didn’t suffer honey,” she assured me. “
I was on the patio in back having a glass of ice tea and I saw her in her
garden tending to her roses, you kno
w how she loved her roses, and then suddenly she just dropped, right to the ground!”

I couldn’t speak. It was as if this was happening to someone else. I could hear the words she was saying, but I felt numb and couldn’t think of how to react. She peered at me anxiously, but went on.

“
Well of course I knew something was wrong so I ran over to see if she’d fainted or fallen.”

She paused, choked up with emotion.

“When I got to her honey. She was already gone.” She started to weep again at the memory.

“I called 911 and they took her to the hospital, but there was nothing they could do. I’ve been trying to reach you ever since.”

She pulled my head onto her shoulder and held me. I
hadn’t checked my cell phone all day. I had turned it off because I was afraid of Steven’s call. That was why she hadn’t been able to reach me and I never heard her messages. I
was silent. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t scream, I didn’t feel anything. I wasn’t in my body, I felt like I was watching a program on television, that’s how removed I was from what was happening. It just couldn’t be real. If I didn’t react then it wouldn’t be real, I remember thinking.

“She loved you so much Katherine,” she said as she gently patted my back. “I know she didn’t show it often, and god knows she could have been more loving to you when you were growing up, but Frank and I knew that she was doing her best and we tried to p
ick up the slack when we could.”

Her kindness pulled me back into reality and the weight of her news hit me like a train. At once I started to cry, great shuddering sobs that rolled through me and drew sorrow up and out of me from the depths of my soul. I cried so hard that I didn’t make a sound. Just tears and gasps of pain. I laid on her couch and gave myself up to my grief and fear. All of it, my mother’s sudden death, the discovery of Steven’s crimes, and my sudden escape from the only life I’d ever wanted pressed down on me and I cried like my world had exploded.

Cecelia kindly left me alone with my grief. I could hear her in the kitchen filling a pot with water to boil for tea and pulling out saucepans to make me something to eat. The sounds were familiar and comforting and slowly my sobs eased and I came back to myself reluctantly.

Self pity was an emotion I couldn’t afford right now. I had to grieve for my mother later, when the issue with Steven and Charlie and Sandra had been resolved. Right now I ha
d to think clearly. The last thing my mother had told me when we spoke on the phone that morning had been how proud she was that I was finally reclaiming my independence from Steven. I couldn’t let her down and give up now. She would have wanted me to save this girl, and who knew how many other girls, from the horrible fate Steven and Charlie had been planning for them. Sandra was counting on me.

“Mrs. Foote,” I called.

At the sound of my voice, she poked her head out of the kitchen and smiled at me sadly.

“Call me Cecelia honey.” She said gently. “How are you holding up? I’m making you some scrambled eggs.”

“Thank you, but I’d like to go home. Next door I mean. Do you have a spare key you can give me?”

For some reason I didn’t want to tell her about Sandra. I knew we weren’t in danger from this kind woman, but my instincts were telling me not to bring her into this situation, if only for her own protection. The less people that knew what was going on, the better.

“Of course honey. The house is yours now, after all. And being in her space will help you feel closer to your mother right now.”

She turned to get the spare key and I slowly stood up, straightening my clothes and hair and rubbing the last few tears out of my eyes.

“Can I get you some water or anything first? Do you want me to come with you?” Cecelia was eager to help and I could see that she was worried about me.

“No, no. Thank you.” I tried my best to reassure her. “I just want to go home for now. I know she’d want your input on her funeral arrangements, so maybe we can discuss all those details tomorrow?”

“Of course Katherine. Whatever you want. I’ll take care of everything and you’ll let me know what you like, okay? I’m here for you honey, don’t worry.”

I smiled and thanked her and started to make my way to the door. Sandra must be frantic by now, if she hadn’t already driven off in a panic.
I had to get her out of the car and into the safety of the house.

Clutching the key to my mother’s house in my hand, I stepped outside onto the porch and the cool night air. The chill revived me a little and helped to clear my head. I looked to the street and was relieved to see the Rover still where I’d parked it. I didn’t see Sandra, but it was dark and I thought it would be hard to see her face from Mrs. Foote’s porch.

With a last hug and a promise to talk in the morning, Cecelia wiped her eyes and shut the door behind me. I walked quickly to the car, torn between praying that Sandra was still there and hoping she wasn’t.

When I approached the passenger door I looked in and saw Sandra asleep against the driver’s seat. Knocking softly on the window, I could see her awaken with a start and look over in fear. When she saw it was me she looked relieved and quickly sat up and opened the door.

“What happened?” She demanded as she got out of the car, “I thought you had left me or something was wrong!”

“Shhhh…” I tried to quiet her before Cecelia heard her voice and came back out to see what was happening.

“I’ll tell you inside. Follow me.”

We walked as silently as we could toward my mother’s dark porch. Beside me I could see Sandra glancing nervously around, aware that we were still in danger.

Letting ourselves into the house I switched on the lights and made sure the blinds were tightly closed against the dark outside.

For a moment I allowed myself to just stand in the living room and remember how I felt growing up here. I hadn’t been home in years and to stand here now, when my whole life had changed in the span of a day, made me feel like a stranger to this house. I was ashamed of the girl I had been when I lived here as a child. What kind of girl throws her self-respect away for her husband? Why had I wanted that kind of life more than anything else?

But those thoughts were pointless and a waste of time and energy. The situation was what it was and all I could do now was try and make it right, for myself and for Sandra.

I turned and saw her slumped on the living room chair, staring glumly at the walls, clutching her bag.

“Sandra, why don’t you try and get some sleep? You can use my old room. It’s down the hall, the last door on the right.” I pointed the direction and wordlessly she got up and left.

I could hear the door shut and the heavy squeal of the dresser being dragged across the floor. I guessed she was barricading herself in the room. I couldn’t blame her. At this point we didn’t know what kind of horrors would come out of the night for us.

Sleep would help both of us. I went to my mother’s room and slowly opened the door.

At first I hesitated to step inside. The room appeared as it always had from the time I was a child. She wasn’t fond of change and she had never added or removed or changed the furniture in this room. The queen-sized bed was neatly made with a gray and white comforter and she had gray and white accent pillows decorating the bed. Her dark oak dresser and nightstands were uncluttered and dusted. The light blue walls displayed only a few much-loved pictures and I could see a picture of me, taken at my high school graduation, on her nightstand.

Mrs. Foote had been right. I did feel close to her here. I thought of her waking up and making her bed this morning, never knowing that it would be the last morning of her life.

With a sigh I sat down on the edge of her bed and stroked the familiar comforter with my hand.

“Mom,” I said out loud to the empty room. “I came to see you. I wish you were here with me right now.”

With half a thought that she might answer me, I paused and listened, but the only sound I could hear was Sandra whimpering in her sleep across the hall.

This was silly. My mother was dead. She wasn’t going to give me advice about what to do. I had to figure it out for myself, for once.

Still, I thought as I sat there quietly. I almost felt like I could feel her calming presence. I felt better, stronger, being in this house. I thought again about what she had said to me that morning, about being a strong, independent woman and I smiled.

“Okay mom. I’m doing it.” I said. For some reason I felt like I had to say it to her, even though I knew she was gone. Maybe she could hear me, wherever she was. “I’m going to help this girl and who knows how many other girls that might be involved in this. And then I’m going to make a life of my own, and Steven can go to hell.”

Even saying it to an empty room felt treasonous. It felt necessary, but scary, as if Steven himself would open the door and walk in, summoned by the sound of his name and the slur against him.

I held my breath and waited. Nothing happened and I let myself relax.

“Okay
girl
,” I told myself, “Time to see what you’re made of.”

With that thought I pulled my shoes off and laid down on top of the comforter and fell asleep in minutes, exhausted by the life changing events of the day.

The next morning I woke up to the sound of knocking on the door.

When I opened my eyes I went through that jumble of confusion that happens when you wake up in a strange bed. My first thought was that it had all been a horrible dream and Steven would be coming in with coffee or a request for me to pick up his dry cleaning that day. And then I remembered that Steven wouldn’t be bringing me coffee and I would never be running his errands again. And then the moment I remembered that, I remembered my mother was dead and I couldn’t turn to her for help.