Daddy's Girls (32)

“That’s the house.” Kate pointed. It was a medium sized, fairly elegant traditional house, with a flower garden in front and well-trimmed hedges. It was attractive and well kept. It looked like proper people of comfortable means lived there.

“Now what do we do?” Gemma whispered, as though their mother could hear them if they talked too loud.

“I don’t know,” Kate answered. “Do you want to sit here for a while and see if someone comes out?” She hadn’t formulated a plan for what to do when they got there. All her energies had been focused on finding the address, which had been easy.

    “Yeah, let’s wait for a while,” Gemma said. Her heart was pounding and Caroline was staring at the house and not saying a word. Kate found a parking place by backing up, just a few car lengths from the house. They had a perfect view of the front door and the garage, in case anyone entered or exited.

They’d been there for half an hour, and were just starting to relax, when the front door opened, and a well-dressed older man came out, opened the garage, got in a silver Mercedes sedan, and drove away, and the garage door closed on its own a few minutes later.

“Are you sure you have the right address?” Gemma asked Kate.

“How many Scarlett Jane Carsons can there be in Santa Barbara, or the whole country, with the right birth date?” she responded, and Gemma nodded.

“Good point.”

A few minutes after the man left, the front door opened again, and a tall older woman walked out. She was wearing white jeans, a pink silk blouse, and white running shoes. She dug in her bag for her keys, locked the house, and used a remote to open the garage. She looked right at them in the truck for an instant, as though she knew they were there, and there was a collective gasp. It was the woman they’d seen on the Internet. She looked exactly like Gemma with white hair, and a little bit like Kate. She had their height and their build, and her face was an older version of Gemma’s. She was still beautiful at her age. They knew that she was sixty-two years old. And as though pulled out of the truck by a magnet, Kate got out of the car, walked a few steps, and just stood there to get a better look at her. She couldn’t take her eyes off her, and as the garage door opened, Gemma got out of the truck too, and went to stand next to Kate. They didn’t have the courage to approach, but just stood there, watching her. There was a white Mercedes station wagon in the garage, but instead of getting into it, the woman stopped and turned, and looked at them again. No one moved for an eternity, and then she slowly walked toward them, with a stunned expression. Both Kate and Gemma wanted to turn and run, but they couldn’t. She stood a few feet from them in her driveway, and Kate spoke up in a choked voice.

    “I’m sorry,” she fumbled, “we were just admiring your house….We’re tourists…from L.A.” But Kate looked more like Wyoming than L.A. in her plaid shirt and cowboy boots.

“I know who you are,” the white-haired woman who was Gemma’s lookalike said softly. “I gave up hope years ago that this would ever happen.” Kate nodded, not knowing what to say, since they hadn’t hoped for it. They didn’t even know she was alive until their father died in May. There was a long, awkward pause, and they could see her hands shaking as she held the remote and her keys. She looked very pale. She was even prettier up close, and when she smiled, she looked even more like Gemma. It was like looking in the mirror. Gemma could see it too. “Would you like to come inside?” They hesitated and both nodded, and Kate felt obliged to say something.

“Yes, thank you. I’m Kate, and this is Gemma.” The woman smiled broadly then.

“I know. I can tell. You haven’t changed since you were two and three. Not much anyway. How did you find me?”

“We didn’t know you were alive until our dad died last month. We found your divorce papers in his safe. We didn’t know about that either. I did an internet search, and there you were. Have you always been here?”

    “For about twenty-five years. I lived in L.A. before that. I came to California about a year before you did.” She had been this close. As they were talking, Kate sensed some movement behind her, and turned to see Caroline standing behind her and Gemma.

“This is Caroline,” Kate introduced her. Caroline looked paralyzed for a moment, like a deer in the headlights, and then nodded.

“You’re all here. I’m sorry about Jimmy. I didn’t know.”

“It was very sudden,” Kate said, and Scarlett nodded, with a pained look on her face. It was clearly not a happy memory for her, hearing his name.

“Let’s go inside,” she said gently. She led them into a front hall that was beige and white marble and led into a living room with a spectacular view, all the way to the ocean, with a terrace outside. There were comfortable seating areas and an outdoor fireplace for chilly nights. She led them outside, invited them to sit down, and offered them something to drink, which they refused. She excused herself for a minute, called someone on her cellphone, and canceled a lunch date. She said something important had come up and she was sorry, and then turned her full attention to her daughters.

“I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to say, I’m so stunned to see you. I didn’t think I’d ever get to see you again. I thought by now, you’d forgotten me,” she said in a wistful voice. She seemed like a gentle person, but who knew what she had been like in her youth. She might have mellowed with age.