Sins of the Fathers (18 page)

Friday morning Katharine put out food and fresh water for two invisible cats, cleaned a litter box that was definitely not invisible, and treated herself to a swim before breakfast. As she stroked up and down the pool she found herself sending up prayers of thanksgiving for the silky water, the peace of the morning, the beauty of her yard, and the joy of having a pool. Then she remembered what Hasty had said earlier: “All this for one woman?”

“I’d share it if I knew how,” she muttered as she climbed out.

Anthony was coming through the gate, so she pulled on her coverup and went to meet him. Before she could tell him about the Japanese beetles, she noticed that his smile was wider than usual. “The way you’re beaming, God could send the sun on vacation and let you light up the world. Did you win the lottery?” she teased.

“Just about,” he told her. “My daughter called last night, and she’s jumped through all the hoops. She’ll be getting her Ph.D. next month. My little girl is gonna be a doctor!”

If they had been on hugging terms, Katharine would have hugged him. “That is fantastic!”

“Sure is. Her mama was already on the phone when I left, looking for someplace to throw a party. We’d be honored if you’ll come. We don’t have a date yet, but I’ll let you know.”

“Have it here.”

She didn’t know which of them was more surprised by her offer, but when he hesitated, she gestured to the yard. “All of this is as much yours as mine. You’ve done all the work. Please? I’d be the one who was honored. You can either have a formal party or a swim party, whichever you like. You’d be doing me a favor, too, because you’d give me a good reason to finish the house by then.”

“I’ll ask Elna,” he murmured. But he was looking around like he was already seeing his daughter and friends scattered about the lawn.

“No, I’ll ask her. I’ll call her when I go in. But first, we’ve got an awful case of Japanese beetles. Did she tell you?”

He held up a sprayer. “She told me. Let’s see what they’ve done.”

“Oh, my,” he exclaimed when he saw the shiny green backs among the rotting buds she’d left the day before because they weren’t hurt. “If you’d called me when you first saw them…” Anthony had never been shy about reproving her for any neglect of her yard.

“I didn’t see them until last night,” she protested. “I’ve been away, and the roses were fine when I left Tuesday morning.”

“Those little terrors can swoop in and destroy plants before you know it. Let me get at them, then.”

Leaving him to his work, Katharine headed inside to change. On her way through the kitchen she called Anthony’s wife. Elna sounded reluctant at first, as well she might.
I’ve never asked them here to enjoy what he’s created,
Katharine realized with a pang. She doubled her efforts and made it clear she would be delighted to offer her house and yard as her gift to their daughter for her achievement.

“It would be beautiful,” Elna admitted. “If you’re sure and Anthony doesn’t mind, it would be wonderful. Thank you so much.”

“When do you want to have the party?” For the first time, Katharine realized the enormity of what she had offered.

“The last week of August. She said she’ll be home by then.”

Six weeks. Katharine looked at what she could see of the downstairs in dismay. As she pictured the upstairs, panic started in her toes and surged upward. What had she done?

“That will be fine,” she told Elna, proud that her voice didn’t even quaver. “You start making your list of people to invite, and I’ll get the house finished.” They exchanged the pleasantries that oil the wheels of society, and hung up.

“Next time you see your friend Hasty,” Katharine told the chubby pig as she robbed him of a prebreakfast cookie, “tell him I now have a deadline to get this house in order, but I may die in the attempt.”

That cookie was the last one, so while she fixed and ate breakfast she made another batch, jotting herself a note to remember to get more pecans and chocolate chips. She’d gone through a lot of cookies that week, between guests and taking some down to the beach.

Rosa, the maid, came at nine, headed upstairs to get their room ready for Tom’s arrival, and hurried right back down. “You know you got a cat on Mr. Tom’s pillow?”

Katharine accompanied her upstairs. Sure enough, the small cat was curled on Tom’s pillow, having a snooze. As soon as it saw the women, it streaked out the door.

“Hey,” Katharine called after it, “you could at least stick around to help change the bed.”

“Mr. Tom ain’t gonna like having a cat on his bed,” Rosa warned.

“We won’t tell him,” Katharine suggested. “After you make the bed, close this door.”

She peered into the other bedrooms, but the little cat was nowhere to be found.

She went to her study to compile a list of everything she needed to do so they could leave for the lake as soon as Tom arrived. He wasn’t due until four, so when the telephone rang, she was puzzled to hear his voice.

“Where are you?” If he had come home on an earlier flight, she’d have to cancel her hair appointment.

“Still in D.C. I’m sorry, hon, but I’m not getting home this weekend after all. Mitch went to the hospital a couple of hours ago with chest pains.”

Even as she voiced sympathy for Mitch, whom she genuinely liked, Katharine felt ice around her own heart. The company CEO was only fourteen years older than Tom. If Mitch could have a heart attack before he got around to retiring…

She pushed down that thought and tuned in to what Tom was telling her. “…a big do in Chevy Chase tomorrow night that he was supposed to attend, and he has asked if I could go instead.” She could tell he was pleased. Mitch had bypassed three men with more seniority to choose him.

“That’s impressive! Next thing you know, you’ll be senior vice president.” Katharine was already mentally packing her bag. “Black tie, I suppose?” She had a new black dress she’d been eager to wear.

“Of course.”

She waited for the next sentences, which would be,
Mitch said to send the jet to pick you up. How soon can you be ready?
It had happened before.

Instead, Tom said, “I wish you could come, too, but Ashley—Mitch’s wife?”

Trophy wife of thirty, hair like spun honey, wide blue eyes, mouth a perpetual pout smeared with lipstick, figure like…

Stop it,
she told herself.
Who Mitch marries is no business of yours.
But she had been fond of the homey, practical woman he’d divorced two years before. They’d been married longer than Ashley had been alive. Sometimes, like most corporate wives, Katharine wondered if Tom would come home one weekend and announce that he was trading her in on a newer model.

Nonsense. She and Tom had a solid marriage and still loved and enjoyed each other. She forced her attention back to what he was saying. “…a cousin of the woman throwing the party, and she was looking forward to it very much, so Mitch has asked if I will take her.”

“Oh.”

If Tom had been a woman, he could have read a paragraph into that word:
Bitch! Doesn’t mind marrying somebody thirty-two years older, but as soon as he gets laid up, she’s on the prowl. I’d wager both our kids that it was her idea for him to ask you to take her. Mitch is so besotted, he wouldn’t suspect a thing. But Ashley doesn’t want to miss her cousin’s party? My foot! She’s got enough cousins in Washington to fill a small town, and she never minded going to their parties alone when she was single. Now she not only has to have an escort, she won’t put up with Will Sikes’s foul mouth, Chesney Jenkins’s damp hands, or Tony Sorrel’s battleaxe of a wife—who would be sure to come along. Specifically requested you, did she? The best looking and smartest of the four? So help me, if she makes a move on you, you’d jolly well better…

“It’s not going to be a real exciting party, anyway,” Tom reassured her. He launched into a description of who would be there with what hidden agendas. Katharine hadn’t noticed the little cat creep under her desk, but when she tapped her foot in impatience, she stamped on her tail. The cat uttered a cry of terror and took off down the hall in the direction of Tom’s library.

“What was that?” Tom interrupted himself to ask.

“A cat. We are now the proud owners of two cats.”

“Cats?”

“Cats. Felines. Their owner died. It was real sad.”

She filled him in on meeting Agnes by the cemetery—leaving out the gun—drinking tea on her porch, reading of her death, and going back to the house yesterday. “She had promised Dr. Flo letters, but we didn’t find them. She even said Dr. Flo might be the heir to her land, but that’s a long shot and we didn’t find a deed. It breaks my heart to think of that vacant land getting overbuilt with ostentatious houses so a few rich people can retire down there.”

“Folks have to live somewhere. Sounds like it also broke your heart to see two cats without an owner.”

“Well, it did, and nobody else would take them.”

“What are their names?”

“I never heard her call them anything. I’m working on new ones.”

“You might consider Impulse and Second Thoughts. But they’ll be good company for you. Just keep them off our bed and out of my library, please.”

She should have known Tom wouldn’t object to cats in principal. Once he had even brought home two kittens for the kids. Of course, he had then taken off and left Katharine to care for them, and had called several times in the following week to instruct her not to let them sleep on beds, pee on rugs, prowl among his precious jade collection, or sleep on top of the books in his library.

She huffed. Really! If he wasn’t in the house, he had no say in how it was run.

“Katharine?” he sounded penitent. “I’m real sorry you can’t come up for the party.”

“I am, too, love, for more reasons than one. You know Ashley’s reputation. Be very careful.”

Tom laughed. “She’s not interested in me.” But she could tell the notion flattered him.

“I’m interested in you, and one of my duties is to warn you about the barracudas.”

When he’d gotten certified in scuba soon after they married, Katharine—already certified—had gone along for a refresher course. The dive instructor had told them, “Always stay with your buddy. That way, you’ll have somebody to warn you about the barracudas.”

“Just like in marriage,” Tom had whispered to Katharine, giving her hand a squeeze.

It had become a code between them. He would sometimes warn her about a new male acquaintance, “He is closely related to the barracudas.” At parties, if some man came on to her too strong, Katharine would cruise up to Tom and murmur, “I’ve picked up a barracuda.”

Tom, however, never thought he needed protecting. “Don’t be silly,” he muttered over the phone.

Which only showed how vulnerable he was.

But what more could Katharine say? She didn’t want him to hang up miffed. She had learned long ago that couples who live apart don’t have the luxury of little spats. What would be a minor flare-up at home can become a flaming row by the time one partner carries it around a few days. She racked her brain for a neutral topic of conversation, something that would let them defuse the present one. She couldn’t think of anything, but her mouth seemed to have a mind of its own. “Did you ever buy any books about pirates?”

“Pirates?” His voice was suspicious. “As in another ocean predator?”

She laughed. “No, silly, as in sailors who preyed on other ships along the coast of Georgia. I don’t remember if I told you about the pirate’s grave we found Tuesday.”

“If it was a real old grave, they sometimes used a skull to connote death.” He still sounded irritated.

“That’s what—” she stumbled “—somebody else said. But this one didn’t look much older than the Civil War, and it had crossed bones under the skull. I promise you.”

“I’ve got books on pirates somewhere.” She could tell he was finally ready to give up the quarrel, too. She waited while he thought, knowing he was mentally picturing his library, shelf by shelf. Tom’s memory was phenomenal, one of the things that made him so good at what he did. He seldom forgot a person he had met or anything he had read. And while he hadn’t yet read all the books he’d bought over the years, he seemed to be able to close his eyes, roam his shelves, and read all the titles on the spines.

In a few seconds he said, “Try the second shelf from the top on the right end of the wall behind my desk. I’ve got something about Blackbeard. He roamed Georgia for a while. There’s one about pirates down in the Caribbean, too. I swear, hon, one of these days I’m going to sit down and—”

“—read every book on those shelves. I know.” She managed a carefree laugh since he wasn’t there to read her face. “But you’d better hurry and retire or stop ordering books, or neither of us will live long enough to read them all. You got another package from Amazon while I was gone.”

“It ought to be a biography of Alexander Hamilton. Put it on my desk.”

“I already did. And thanks for the pirates. I’ll let you know if we find out who the one in the cemetery was. Have fun at the party.”

“Thanks. I’ll be missing you.”

She had succeeded in banishing his bad mood, but as she went to make iced tea for the weekend she would now spend at home, she permitted herself a glower of disappointment. “How is making tea like a good marriage?” she asked the cookie pig. “You have to give them both time and you have to accept that hot water and an occasional burn are part of the process.”

While she waited for the tea to steep, she stood at the window watching Anthony mow. Elna was so lucky. He came home every single night.

What makes people leave their homes and families to roam the world in the name of business?
she wondered.
Why can’t people stick around near where they live and find enough to do?

It might be heresy, but she suspected it had a lot to do with comfortable hotels, fancy meals, and other perks those travelers had come to accept as their due. It must be nice to leave somebody behind to worry about getting the grass mowed and the diapers changed.