The Forgotten Hours(59)
“Come on, Katie,” John insists. “Talk, will you? I want to hear what’s going on out there.”
“I beat Grumpy at chess,” David says, but John doesn’t appear to hear him.
All Katie can really think about are the endless questions she has that she knows she’s not supposed to ask. Does everyone have to use the same toothpaste, or does he have his own tube? Is he allowed cream in his coffee in the mornings? What does he do if he’s hungry in the middle of the night?
“Charlie, listen,” her father says. “Can you leave us be for a minute?”
Her mother’s eyes narrow; she wants the kids to entertain John, make him laugh, and help them all pretend this isn’t really happening.
“I can’t just get up and leave, John,” she says. “You know how it works.”
“Take a little walk, then, would you?”
She hesitates but then stands up and strides out of the booth toward the guard. Their heads come together, and she murmurs something, and he shakes his head.
“Katie Gregory, you wipe that sorry look off your face, do you hear me?” John hisses over the phone. “I want you to sleep in your own bed, okay? You stop getting into your mother’s bed like a baby. You’re eighteen years old, for Chrissake.”
The blood drains from her face. David kicks lightly against the floor with his sneaker. “Dad,” he says, his voice an octave too high. “Come on.”
“I’m counting on you kids to keep things going at home, like, you know, normal. You’ve got to trust that everything’s going to work out all right. The appeal looks good, really, really good. It’s just a matter of time, and if I can suck it up in here, then you guys can too. No wallowing, okay? No crying, no complaining.”
“I wasn’t complaining,” Katie says.
“Yeah,” David says, his liquid eyes so innocent, “she wasn’t!”
“Promise me you’ll pull yourself together, Katie. Be brave,” her father says. “Promise.”
It is that word—promise—that strikes her to the core. It is her constant ballast in the years to come, a flashing beacon that leads her way. Now she knows what to do. Her brain is plugged back in, her circuits firing: she can promise her father to be brave; she can try her very best, always, not to be just another disappointment.
27
Very late at night after Jack left, Katie called Zev in Spain. She had been lying in bed in the dark, unable to sleep. An early riser, he picked up immediately, his image emerging on her screen like a man underwater. Half his face was covered in foam, and the other half was clean shaven. “Wasn’t expecting it to be you,” he said, wiping a towel over his mouth. “Isn’t it the middle of the night?”
“Yeah, but I know you’ve got your talk today. I wanted to wish you luck,” she said. She was so desperate to talk to someone. “And I’m lonely. Wishing you were here.”
“Well, me too. What are you wearing?” he said, grinning.
She smirked back at him. “You don’t have time.” She turned on her side and propped the phone up on her pillow. “Are you nervous?”
“Not really. And it seems the less I care what people think, the more they want to hear what I say, so it’ll probably be a smash hit.”
“Thanks for the picture. Nobody’s ever drawn me before. I’m flattered.”
“So you should be. I’m a very famous artist.” He sat down on something, maybe the edge of the bathtub, and took a sip from a small ceramic cup. “How is the countryside? Seen any bears?”
“It’s okay,” she said. “To be honest, it’s a bit strange. It’s—uh, I grew up here, and I haven’t been back in a long time. A really long time. Last time I was up here, things were, um, kind of complicated.”
“Complicated . . .”
She smiled. “Yes, and I’ll tell you all about it when you’re back. In the meantime, shave that hairy face of yours, and go slay them.” After they hung up, she felt a little better, but only a little. After all, now there was even more that she wasn’t telling him. And no matter what she did to distract herself, she could not stop thinking about when she was going to see Jack again.
The next morning, she put her bag into the Datsun and gave the house one last walk-through. The rooms were tidy, years of neglect dusted away. New curtains, throw blankets, hangers in the closet, soap at the sink. A few nonperishables in the cupboards.
She drove back to the courthouse in Blackbrooke. Since Jack’s testimony was inconclusive and she hadn’t gotten a straight answer from him, maybe she’d learn something from Lulu’s testimony and her father’s. The same ladies who had been there on Friday let her in with no fuss. It took them a few minutes to get her the transcripts, and then they left her alone. Thumbing through the document, Katie went straight to Lulu’s testimony.
Direct Examination
Q. Good morning. Can you state your name for the court, please?
A. Loretta Henderson. People call me Lulu.
Q. That’s with two t’s, is that correct? L-o-r-e-t-t-a?
A. Yes, that’s correct.
A barrage of questions followed about her schoolwork. (She was a B student.) Was she in band? (Yes.) How many instruments did she play? (One, badly.) How many siblings did she have? (None.) There were dashes all over the transcript, which must have meant pauses in the testimony (what was happening during those silences?). As Katie read, a middle-aged man with disheveled hair hovered by the door as though to ask her what she was up to, but he disappeared as soon as she looked up.