True Bliss (36 page)

"Mom?"

"I've been a bad mother to you."

Bliss rubbed Kitten's shoulders and pulled a chair close beside hers. "I'm okay," she said. "I'm happy. Really happy."

Kitten raised her face and Bliss noticed what she hadn't noticed before; streaked mascara and the signs that her mother had been crying for a long time.

"Oh, Mom, what is it? Is it something with you and Daddy?"

"No! No, it's never been that. Morris and I have a wonderful marriage. We always have. But I shouldn't have ignored you the way I have." She rumbled in her bag for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

"I didn't know you still smoked," Bliss said, grateful for any diversion.

"Never quit," Kitten said, lighting up. "I just made sure you didn't know—or anyone else but Morris. I'm not young anymore, Bliss."

At a loss for words, Bliss resumed awkwardly patting her mother's back.

"I don't have the right to ask, but I need you. I need to feel close . . . No. I do feel close to you. It's just that I've never been good at affection."

Why tonight, of all nights? Bliss thought, and instantly disliked herself for being self-absorbed. She sighed. "I'm okay, Mom. You took care of all the important stuff."

"No, I didn't. I took care of your needs."

And put her own needs first. Her own and those of Morris Winters.

"Morris is very demanding, Bliss."

The statement shocked Bliss. "I know that, Mother."

"He's always known exactly what he wants, and what he needed from me as his wife. And from you."

"Yes."

"I'm not criticizing him."

"No."

"But I am criticizing myself. I should have made up for what he didn't have time to give you."

Once again words failed Bliss.

"Will you let me try to do that now?" Kitten stubbed her barely smoked cigarette out among thumbtacks in a shallow bowl. "Will you? Could we try to start being mother and daughter like other people are? Bliss—"

"Hush." For the first time, Bliss saw Kitten Winters's vulnerability, her insecurity. "I don't know what to say, except I'd like it if I thought you felt something for me."

"I do! I love you! And I hate myself for never knowing how to show you."

"Mother—"

Kitten got up abruptly. She found a tissue in her purse and wiped her eyes. "Of course you can't forgive me. Just forgive me after a lifetime of never being able to turn to me for anything. Anything but money and lectures on what you should or shouldn't do. Why should you forgive me?"

"Because it would make me feel very good," Bliss told her. She stood and took her mother into her arms. "Give it time, okay, Mom? Give us some time. You've made me glad tonight. Is that a good enough start?"

Kitten's renewed sobbing tore at Bliss. "It's okay. It will be okay. I don't think either of us has known too much happiness."

"I've always been trying to do what I thought I was supposed to do," Kitten said into Bliss's shoulder. "I was relieved when that boy left town. I thought I was supposed to be, because Morris was relieved."

Bliss stood absolutely still. "You knew about Sebastian from the beginning?"

Kitten sniffed. She raised her tear-streaked face and blew her nose. "Everyone knew, didn't they? I was on the PTA and Morris was very active with the sports program—the stadium and so forth."

"But none of those people knew about Sebastian and me. Not until afterward when the stories about Crystal Moore circulated."

"That's what I mean. We knew afterward." She dabbed her eyes. "Everyone knew afterward."

"You never said anything to me."

"I know." Kitten cried again, but quietly this time. "So wrong. I should have comforted you, but Morris was angry about what it would have done to us if you had gone away with the Plato boy."

"You'd have survived."

"Oh, darling, things were different then. You couldn't get away with the things public figures get away with now. Morris's opponents would have made a meal out of it. If Morris couldn't take care of his child, how could he be trusted with the good

of his constituents. That sort of thing. We needed a united front."

"And you got it," Bliss said without bitterness. She no longer had any reason to feel bitter.

"At your expense. Whatever happened to that dreadful Crystal girl? I assume he divorced her."

"You can certainly assume so, Mother. Sebastian and I are going to be married."

Kitten's mouth fell open in slow motion. "Well . . .Well, obviously I knew you were seeing him. After all, he was here and so on. Morris said he'd spoken of marriage, but we thought that was Plato trying to make your father upset."

How quickly the mood changed. "I'm going to marry him."

"I see." Kitten selected a thumbtack from its bed of ashes and rolled it between finger and thumb. "Well, you know what's best for you."

"Mother?" Bliss ducked her head until Kitten met her eyes. "That's it? You're not going to berate me or say how bad this is going to look for Daddy? Because of his stand on child pornography—which Sebastian would have absolutely no part of, by the way?"

Kitten straightened her back. "I'm going to make sure your father and I support you in whatever you decide to do. Morris will manage very well. I'm convinced he's going to go all the way to—well, you know. We don't actually say it."

"I hope Daddy agrees with you."

"He will." Kitten actually smiled. "You'd be surprised how much influence I have over your father. He hides it very well in public. His strong image, you know. But in private he's a pussycat. With me."

That wasn't exactly the picture Bliss recalled, but if it made her mother feel good, so be it. "Then I'm happy. I'd like us to be a family." She couldn't say "again," because it would be for the first time. "Actually, I'm happier than I've been since Sebastian and I agreed to marry when I was seventeen. What happened then wasn't his fault. Not really."

"What do you mean?"

"He was young. He made a mistake. I think Crystal's going to try to tell me—"

"Crystal?" Kitten wrapped her fingers around Bliss's wrist. "You've heard from her?"

Bliss looked away.

"She contacted you?"

"Yes. We're all a lot more mature than we were in high school. She wants me to know exactly what happened."

"Oh, my dear," Kitten said, her eyes filling with tears yet again. "Wouldn't that be painful for you?"

"Probably. But she told me she owes it to Sebastian." Perhaps this was appropriate, sharing the saddest part of her growing up years with her mother. "She's staying with her father and I'm going to go and talk with her."

Kitten shook her head. "I hope she really means well. She could intend to try to make him look bad in your eyes again."

"I've thought of that."

"Of course you have. You are so brave. I suppose that's one of the few good things that came out of having to rely on yourself so much when you were growing up. It made you strong."

Bliss turned the corners of her mouth up.

"But it didn't give you a high opinion of your parents, did it?"

"Mom—"

"No. No, you don't have to answer that. I don't have any right to expect you to throw your arms around me and tell me I was wonderful after all. But you are going to give me a chance, aren't you?"

"Yes," Bliss said. "Yes, I am. I'd like to."

Kitten took several moments to gain control enough to say, "Thank you. When are you meeting that woman?"

Bliss looked at the Delft clock. "Quite soon." Her stomach turned over.

"Shall I come with you, darling? I will if it'll help."

"No. This is one of those things you do alone. But I should think about getting there."

Kitten gathered her purse and gloves, and faced Bliss again. "May I call you tomorrow? I'm going to try anyway. And I... I'm going to suggest to Morris that we give a party for you and Sebastian. Good night, Bliss." She rose to her toes to kiss Bliss's cheek. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

Bliss didn't attempt to follow her mother, or to say anything else. She allowed herself a faint spark of hope for the future. Morris Winters had crushed his wife into the shape he'd needed her to be—he'd continue to crush anyone who needed to be changed for his purposes. A relationship with her father would never be in the cards, but perhaps Bliss could draw close to Kitten anyway.

On the way to her room to gather a jacket, Bliss recalled the many times she'd watched her father humiliate her mother, ever so subtly, of course, with his dismissal of her, and his attention to any attractive female in sight.

Morris Winters had a great deal to answer for. He would hate her marriage to Sebastian and he'd let them both know it, but he couldn't hurt them. And, despite Prue O'Leary's best efforts, Bliss's relationship with Sebastian wouldn't harm Morris's career. Bliss didn't regret wishing it might.

Getting a cab to come to a private address in Bellevue would be almost impossible. Wearing a sweat suit and tennis shoes, she put money in her pocket and set off to catch a bus into Bellevue. At night the route was sparsely served and almost an hour passed before she arrived at the Bellevue bus terminal. She cut through narrow side streets to the closest hotel, where she flagged a waiting taxi.

After his wife's death, Jim Moore had moved from Seattle to a trailer on a lot in the hills east of Bellevue. The silent cab driver followed Bliss's directions with only the snap of his gum in response.

They took 1-90 and headed away from Bellevue. A few miles west from the town of Issaquah, the taxi left the freeway and veered south. Dense stands of fir all but obliterated the moon-filmed sky over a narrow road that climbed Cougar Mountain.

Too nervous to sit still, Bliss pushed to the edge of her seat. "D'you know, I've lived in the area most of my life and I've never been up here."

The driver snapped his gum.

"There's a sign that says Beware of the Dog. We've got to look for that. It'll be on the left. Black and white sign."

The gum snapped.

Another switchback bend in the road, followed by another, and another, brought Bliss's stomach into her throat.

The driver's sudden, "Shit! Goddamn sonafabitch, fool!" and a sharp veer to the right, all but knocked her from the seat. "D'you see that? See it, huh? Goddamn fool."

She'd felt more than seen a car overtake. Traveling fast and showing no lights, the suggestion of its pale shape immediately disappeared into the darkness ahead.

"No lights! Shit! Round the bend and all over me before I knew it. Good job I'm on top of things."

"Yes," Bliss agreed weakly, wishing the man would go back to snapping his gum. "Very foolish person."

The man subsided, muttering unintelligibly.

They took an almost horizontal left. "I think we're getting close," Bliss said. "I'll need you to wait for me."

That earned her a grunt.

"There it is!" Bliss pointed to a sign beside the road. "You pull onto the shoulder and wait here. I'll run in and"—she thought rapidly—"I'll get my friend and have you take us both back to Bellevue." She didn't trust the cabby to hang around long.

With his protests following her, she leaped from the car and dashed past the dog sign, sparing a thought for the nature of the animal, but instantly discarding that thought.

Pale gravel gave her a route to follow.

Moving more slowly, she advanced. The only sounds were of wind sighing through tall trees and the distant baying of coyotes serenading the moon. Her stomach cramped, and sweat turned

cold on her back. Another hundred yards and she arrived at a clearing.

Light shone in one window of a trailer parked at the far side of the area. Dimly, Bliss could make out shapes spilling over the ground in all directions. Her eyes began to adjust and she saw barrels and boxes and lengths of wood and metal. Objects she couldn't identify lay among plastic bags that had never been closed. Whatever bulged from the bags was probably responsible for the odor of rotting garbage.

Bliss pressed a hand over her heart and approached.

Something moved by her feet.

She looked down and barely contained a scream. The sinuous body of a snake passed over one white tennis shoe.

Bliss kicked, kicked at nothing. The only remaining evidence of the reptile was a sibilant rustle.

Muscles in her thighs ached. Sweat stung her eyes.

Two steps leading to the trailer door had broken free on one side. Bliss reached up and knocked, and the door eased open a few inches. She made herself take a deep breath and said, "Crystal? It's Bliss Winters."

Inside the trailer a radio blared crackling, distorted gospel music.

Bliss knocked harder. "Crystal?"

"Come on in," a man's voice shouted. "She's primpin' as usual."

She didn't want to go in. She wanted to run, and she wanted to run right now.

"I can't get up," the man's voice announced. "The arthritis is too bad."

The cab driver was a few hundred yards away. If she didn't come back soon, surely he'd come to find her. And how much harm could one arthritic old man do? Crystal wanted to set things straight. Bliss had heard remorse in the other woman's voice.

Avoiding the broken steps, she gripped the doorjamb and pulled herself up to the threshold.

She wanted to hear Crystal's version of what had happened— before, and after she left Seattle with Sebastian.

The instant she entered the gloomy trailer, the door slammed shut behind her.

Bliss jumped.

A lone candle, waxed to a plate, burned beside a sink overflowing with dishes.

"You sit yourself down, missy. We got talkin' to do." A stooped old man shuffled forward. He pushed her toward a split bench seat from some old vehicle.

She didn't sit. Her head felt light. "Who are you?"

"Crystal's dad. Who else would I be?"

Of course. Bliss struggled to calm down. "Where is she?"

"Doin' like she's told for once. Lettin' me have my say first."

Bliss glanced toward a glow around the door into another room. "Can we put a real light on in here?" The sour stench of old food and unwashed bodies brought acid into her throat.