Free Lifelines: Kate's Story by Vanessa Grant Page B

love
me, you’ll promise. He sent us away, and—if you do this, Kate, you’ll destroy
me.”
    “Mom,
this isn’t about you and Dad.”
    “Promise
me!”
    Kate
couldn’t swallow, and she felt a reflex surge up her throat. God, don’t let me
throw up all over her.
    “I’m
not doing this to hurt you, Mother.”
    Evelyn
drew her five-foot-two body up and glared at Kate with the expression Kate
remembered from the day she painted the kitchen walls with red food coloring. “You
will not search for your father,” she pronounced in a voice that lodged
somewhere between Kate’s heart and her throat.
    Kate
forced her voice through the rigid tension in her chest. “I’m sorry you’re
upset, mother. I need to leave now. I’ll come back tomorrow, for lunch, unless
you want to cancel.”
    “You’re
cruel, Kate. You always were, even as a child. You ruined everything for me in
Alaska, and you want to ruin it all again. Why do you hate me so much?”
    Kate
fumbled her purse from the counter. Halfway across the living room, she
croaked, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    She
got to the car but couldn’t remember the part where she opened her mother’s
front door. She jammed the key into the ignition. What if Evelyn opened the
door and reached out her tentacles, cut off Kate’s escape?
    Tentacles.
Jesus.
    The
car roared and Kate fumbled the shift.
    She’s
like a god-damned octopus, tentacles snagging from every direction. I can’t get
around them, can’t get past them.
    Why
did you say you’d come back tomorrow? Why are you such a baby? She’s a seventy
year old woman, and you’re forty-nine. She never beat you and there’s no excuse
for cowardice.
    Halfway
down the hill to Sixth Street, she yanked out her seat belt, snapped it home as
she reached for the brakes. As her foot depressed, she realized there could be
ice. Her breath on the air, and she would sail right through the stop sign,
into the traffic, trying to escape.
    Her
car stopped with front wheels in the middle of the pedestrian crosswalk.
    David’s
voice rang in her ears. You’ll kill yourself with your reckless driving. Or
you’ll kill someone else ... again. Is that what you want, Kate?
    The
drive home passed in mental reruns of the scene at Evelyn’s. Kate tried out
fantasies where she kept it together and asked questions despite her mother’s
tears; fantasies in which her mother gave her Han’s address and said, “Say
hello to him for me.” That one brought a broken laugh as she turned onto Taylor
Road. It wasn’t remotely funny, but what could she do but laugh when she’d made
such a mess of her vow to manipulate her mother for once in her life, instead
of the other way around?
    You
need to work on this hold your mother has over you.
    Later,
Sarah. I’ve got enough on my plate.
    Evelyn’s
face flashed vividly into her mind, her voice snarling: You will not look for
your father.
    Kate
slammed on the brakes with both feet and sent the car into a sideways skid at
the foot of her own drive.

    E velyn
stood at the window as Kate’s car whipped around the corner. How could her
daughter taunt her with painful memories of Han and that final summer in
Alaska?
    Evelyn
had loved Alaska. The people on the streets, friendly and English-speaking, a
relief after two years in Indonesia. She sat each afternoon in her chair by the
window on Windermere Street, Beethoven on the stereo while sharp mountains
filled the window. In Indonesia the neighbors had complained about her music,
and before that, in Brazil, Kate—home schooled for an interminable two
years—perpetually swamped out Evelyn’s orchestra with The Carpenters and The
Bee-gees.
    In
Alaska, Kate attended public high school, and for two blessed days each week
she attended pottery class after school, so Evelyn didn’t have to deal with her
until Han came home from work. Even better, in Alaska Kate was old enough to
leave alone nights, and Han came home early all winter because of the short
days.