The Bishop’s Wife (Linda Wallheim Mystery, #1)(104)

I stood there, staring at the window. Kelly’s window. She was not my daughter, my Georgia. She hadn’t come into my life to be a substitute for me. But she had come for a reason. She had come to bring me to myself.

“Have you seen her at all since the funeral?”

“A couple of times,” I said.

“It’s not your fault, you know. That Jared is taking her away. He would likely have done it anyway. He needs a new start, and maybe Kelly does, too.”

Maybe.

I caught a glimpse of a face out the window, and then there was a small hand waving at me. I smiled and waved back. Then she was gone.

“We should keep going,” said Anna. She rubbed her shoulders as if it were still winter. “It’s cold.”

She was doing it for my sake, I knew, pretending that I should do it for hers.

We had headed back up the street when suddenly something hit me from behind, at about thigh height. It was soft and warm and I thought at first it must be one of the neighborhood dogs that sometimes get out. I would probably recognize it when I turned around and could help it find its way home.

But it wasn’t a dog.

It was Kelly Helm, and she was alone. I looked back at her house. How long until either Jared or Alex came running after her and snatched her up? A matter of seconds, most likely.

So I turned around and wrapped my arms around her, lifting her into the air. “How are you, sweetie?” I asked. She wasn’t my daughter, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy her little-girl softness and her little-girl smile.

She started babbling at that pace young children have, so fast a lot of the words got lost in the mix. “Daddy bought a new house, and it has a little house in the backyard just for me. He says I can have sleepovers in it and I can have a kitty. And he says my new mommy will be there for me. And I’m going to go to school there. The school is just across the street and I will be able to walk there. When the summer is done I’m going to meet my new teacher and my new friends and I’ll get a new backpack and new shoes and maybe even a new hat and mittens. And my new mommy will make me a lunch to put in a sack and I already went to church there. And they sing the same songs that we sing here, except they also sing one about snow and rain and sunshine.” She began to sing in a sweet, clear soprano.

Tears stung my eyes, thinking of the musical ability in her that I would never be able to nurture. Not my daughter, I reminded myself again.

“Do you want to come see my room? It’s all packed up in boxes. It looks funny.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, looking up at the house again. Where were Jared and Alex? Who was looking out for Kelly? “Let’s take you back home. I’m sure they’re wondering where you are.”

“Grandpa is on the phone,” said Kelly. “He’s talking to the movers.”

Ah, that explained it. And Kelly had slipped out while he had his back turned. Again.

And she would be punished again if he noticed she was gone.

“You go on, Linda,” said Anna. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m going to get home now.”

I watched Anna’s receding back and felt a little lost. A part of me wished she had stayed, but another part of me had an impulse to pick Kelly into my arms again and run to my own house with her. I could put her in the car and take her out for ice cream and then? There was no “and then.” She had her family and I had mine. We were sealed to them, and not to each other.

“You can walk in,” said Kelly. “The door isn’t locked.”

“You go in and when I ring the doorbell, you can open it,” I told her, thinking that the confusion of me at the door might make Alex or Jared not notice that Kelly had been coming in, not coming down the stairs to the door.

After Kelly let me in, it was a minute or two before Alex Helm appeared with a cell phone to his ear. He said, “Look, I’ll call you back, all right?” He put the cell phone away and then looked up at me again, as if he expected I might have disappeared in the meantime.

“Hello,” I said.

“Kelly, are you finished in your room?” he said to get rid of her. “Are you ready for your father to come get you and take you to the motel for the night?”

“Yes,” said Kelly. “It’s going to be an adventure!” She smiled up at me brightly.

Would she remember her mother at all? I had tried to give her that photograph, but it was still at home where I had tucked it away. Maybe it was better for Kelly this way, to forget the mother who was dead now. Her father was getting remarried and she would have a new mother, and she could keep smiling like that for the rest of her life.

I thought of Helena Torstensen, and Tobias. And Liam, who had tried to forget his mother’s last moment of life.

“I’m very happy for you, Kelly,” I said. “I wish the very best things for you.”

“Now up to your room,” her grandfather said, pushing her away and up the stairs.

“But I want Sister Wallheim to see our new house,” said Kelly. “Can she come with us when we go today? Or tomorrow? Please, she could bring us some food.”

“No,” said Alex Helm. “That’s not appropriate. She lives here. And you will live there.” Alex Helm looked acutely uncomfortable.

“I’m very busy this afternoon and tomorrow anyway,” I said, though the last word was thready. I didn’t want to say those words at all. I wanted Alex Helm to say no to Kelly. I wanted him to be the bad guy. But he was going to be in Kelly’s new happy life, and I wasn’t. So I did what I did for her sake, not his. Not mine.