Goodnight Nobody (17 page)

"No, not that way," I said, trying to adjust approximately sixty-three pounds of toddler in my arms. "No, Mumma, no!" Sophie wailed as Jack's foot bounced off her shoulder. "No more baby touch!"

"You've got to press and push up on that bottom bar at the same time."

"This one?" he asked, gesturing toward one of the crossbars with his gun.

"No, no, the one underneath." I pointed with my chin. Jack and Sam, unbelievably, were still asleep, but Sophie seemed to have figured out what was happening.

"Mumma, why dat man takin stroller?"

"He needs it, I guess," I said, shifting the boys in my arms. Sophie shrieked at a volume that would have done her grandmother proud.

"Uglydoll!"

Shit.
Chapter Forty-three,
I thought to myself.
In which I am sold into stuffed slavery and Sophie is left inconsolable.

"Um, excuse me? Sir?"

"Uglydoll!"
Sophie blatted as both boys opened their eyes, looked at their sister, and started to wail. The mugger had finally managed to collapse the stroller and had lifted it over his shoulder.

"Could I just get my daughter's toy out of the basket?"

"Buy her another one, rich bitch!"

"Uglydoll is special!"
Sophie wailed.

"Uglydoll is special!" I repeated. "I mean, I can't just buy her another one!"

He heaved a sigh and stopped. I hurried forward as fast as I could with Sophie still attached to my leg, worked one hand free, and rummaged through the basket underneath the folded-up stroller as quickly as I could. Juice box, deflated toy basketball, plastic container full of cheddar cheese crackers...

"Uglydoll!"

I finally located the doll and handed him to Sophie. She popped her thumb in her mouth and clutched the doll, glaring up at our mugger, who cocked an eyebrow at the four of us.

"Anything else?"

I slumped backward against the Dumpster. "No," I said, watching my four-hundred-dollar German-engineered stroller vanishing from my life forever. "No, that'll be all."

Rich bitch,
I thought, shaking my head. I shoved what I could back into the diaper bag, carried the kids to the sidewalk, hailed a cab, and called my husband.

By three o'clock that afternoon, Ben had collected us at the police station. His brow was furrowed, his lips were pinched, and his eyes were furious. "That's it," he said. "That's it for the city. We're leaving as fast as I can get us out of here."

I opened my mouth to protest and found I was too wrung out and shaky to come up with coherent arguments as to why we should stay. By four o'clock Ben was on the phone with real estate agents. The next week he put our apartment on the market, and the week after that he ushered me into our very own Montclaire and handed me the keys. Goodbye, New York City; hello, Upchuck, Connecticut.

Even before we'd moved here, but certainly more since the great relocation, I'd find myself daydreaming about how my life could have turned out differently. What if I'd tried harder with Evan? What if I'd held out for the big love instead of settling for a man I merely liked?

No point in wondering, I thought, dragging myself out of bed too early the next morning as my kids clamored for pancakes and my husband clamored for his dry cleaning. If there was no Ben, there'd be no kids, and I couldn't imagine my life without them. Still, as I distributed plates and clean shirts, I couldn't keep from thinking about what would have happened if the British Airways computer that had assigned me my seat had put me one row forward or one row back, or if I'd gone to Paris or Miami Beach instead of London to tend to my broken heart, or if I'd slipped my eye mask on a minute earlier and Ben Borowitz had never seen my face.

Twenty-Two

The Upchurch Town Hall, according to the plaque set in a hunk of granite in front of the building, had been built in the Year of Our Lord 1984. But whoever had done the construction had taken the town's Colonial history seriously: instead of padded flip-up auditorium seats with armrests and cushioning, the high-ceilinged room was lined with high-backed hardwood pews that would have done a luxury-averse Puritan proud and that were, judging from the shifting and squirming going on, a tad too narrow for the modern-day behind.

Not that there was any room for me to squeeze mine in. Kitty's memorial service was slated to start at ten a.m., but evidently, all the other citizens of our fair town had gotten a memo instructing them to show up no later than nine forty-five. By the time I rolled into the room at a very respectable nine fifty-three--with my hair combed, and wearing lipstick I'd applied in the rearview mirror--every seat of every row was taken, as was each of the three dozen or so folding chairs set up around the room's perimeter.

I circled the room, then edged my way into a corner. Carol Gwinnell waved to me from her seat three rows back from the podium. She was wearing a dove gray skirt, a white silk blouse, black pumps, and, in place of her usual clusters of bangles and bells, a simple pair of diamond studs. Next to her was Sukie Sutherland, in a pale beige suit and a double strand of pearls. Next to Sukie sat Lexi Hagen-Holdt, with her hair neatly French braided, in a long-sleeved light brown T-shirt dress that stretched against her shoulders and tights that showed off the curves of her calves.

I stood in a corner in my black skirt and dark blue sweater and wished I'd gotten the memo about muted earth tones. "Let us pray," intoned Ted Gordon, the town's Congregationalist minister. Everyone dropped their heads. I dropped mine too, so fast that I could hear my neck creak. "Oh, Lord, we ask that you welcome our sister Katherine Cavanaugh into your arms. We ask that you comfort her grieving family, her loved ones: her husband, Philip, her daughters, Madeline and Emerson, her parents, Bonnie and Hugh..."

Parents? I couldn't remember whether any of the obituaries had mentioned parents. The "she is survived by's" had only included her husband and her daughters. Tara Singh's website had featured Kitty's maiden name and hometown but had said nothing about a mother or father...and Bonnie was the name I remembered from the postcard in Kitty's bedroom.

I raised my eyes as far as I dared and scanned the crowd. There were a dozen couples who were the right age to be her mother and father. I looked in the front row, but I could only see Philip, and the girls in matching navy dresses, and a well-preserved older couple whose male half was the spitting image of Philip, if Philip were thirty years older and had spent a good portion of that time enjoying marbled steak and twelve-year-old Scotch.

"Lord, we ask you to lift up this community," Reverend Gordon continued. The reverend had curly hair, round shoulders, and an earnest look on his full face. He looked, I thought, struggling mightily to keep from bursting into inappropriate laughter, exactly like the guy who'd played Flounder in
Animal House,
which made it a little difficult to take him seriously. "Let us be a light to one another, a comfort to the grieving family," he said, cheeks quivering with sincerity. "Let us be patient and loving as we travel through this terrible time as a community, and as the police continue their quest to bring the perpetrators of this horror to justice."

Reverend Gordon leaned forward and gripped the edge of the podium tightly. His gold wedding band twinkled underneath the lights.

"What can we say about Kitty Cavanaugh?" he asked. "A brilliant thinker. A loving mother. A caring, devoted spouse."

A ghostwriter. A woman who spent three afternoons a week in New York City doing God knows what.

Reverend Ted paused and and looked down at us all warmly. "What can we say," he asked, "about a thirty-six-year-old woman who died?"

I think that my jaw must have sagged open.
I know my eyes widened.
I am certain that I whispered the words
Oh, no, he didn't!
under my breath. A murdered woman's funeral, and Flounder's quoting
Love Story
? Didn't Kitty deserve better than that? I looked around for someone who I could share that observation with, but all I heard were quiet sobs and genteel sniffles.

As it turned out, there was a great deal that Reverend Ted had to say about a thirty-six-year-old woman who died. He praised Kitty's warmth as a mother, her skills as a homemaker, the excellence of her homemade strawberry rhubarb pie, which had twice taken ribbons in the church's annual Spring Fling Bake Fair. He spoke in only the broadest, blandest terms of the "thought-provoking articles" she'd written, left out entirely the fact that she'd written them for somebody else, and made a single passing reference to Kitty's book, "which has died along with her." I eased my right foot out of the high-heeled pump I'd foolishly chosen and waited for any mention of Kitty's pre-Upchurch life--a college friend, a hospital newsletter editor, a New York City roommate. It never came. There wasn't another word about her parents, or a single mention of anyone from her childhood or college or New York City. It was like she hadn't existed until she married Philip and moved to Upchurch; like she'd written herself into being. Or rewritten, I thought, putting on my right shoe and slipping off my left one.

"And now," Reverend Ted said, gazing down at us benevolently, "if any of Kitty's friends would like to speak?"

The big, high-ceilinged room was silent except for the occasional sniffle or the shifting of one stockinged leg against another. Flounder gazed at the audience expectantly. I found myself unexpectedly on the verge of tears as Kitty's in-laws stared stoically ahead, poster children for the stiff upper lip society, and Marybeth and Sukie murmured softly to each other but made no move toward the stage. Wasn't anyone going to say anything? Didn't she have any friends? If I bought the farm, I was sure that Janie would give a kick-ass speech in my honor, that she'd make me sound funny and loving and competent and that she wouldn't mention the day Sam had rolled off the bed and Jack had fallen out of his car seat and I'd had to go to the emergency room twice in eight hours. And unlike me, Kitty had actual praises that could be sung about her. There were women here who'd seen her devotion to her daughters firsthand. So why wasn't anyone singing?

Finally Kevin Dolan made his way to the stage and whispered into Reverend Ted's ear. I exhaled, thinking that at last someone was going to say something on Kitty's behalf, as Kevin whispered and pointed. Into the crowd. Toward the back of the room. At me.

"Kate Klein?" the reverend asked. Heads turned. A flurry of whispers made its way through the aisles, as the blood drained from my face. I shook my head. Reverend Ted appeared not to notice. "Kate Klein!" he said, and then tried for the first semi-joke of the morning. "Come on down!"

I shook my head more vigorously and mouthed the word
no,
while keeping an appropriately sedate expression cemented to my face. My
no
didn't register. Hands gripped my arms and I found myself propelled down the aisle in my too-tight shoes. Then, somehow, I was up on the stage, with Kevin Dolan guiding me gently toward the podium. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I must have heard you wrong, but didn't you tell me you were working on a speech for her memorial?"

Busted,
I thought, as my head bobbed up and down, a movement completely independent of my will.
Oh, Kate, you are so completely screwed.
I held the edges of the podium in a death grip and stared out at the crowd--three hundred of my Connecticut contemporaries--with not a single thought as to what I was going to say.

I swallowed hard, then began, "Kitty Cavanaugh was..."

"Louder!" called someone in the back row.

"Can't hear you!" added someone else.

I cleared my throat and adjusted the microphone, wincing at the squeal of feedback, and tried again.

"Kitty Cavanaugh was a good mother, a good wife. As we've all heard," I added limply. "And she was doing important work--the work of..."
Spending secret afternoons in New York City and possibly cheating on her husband, who was undoubtedly cheating on her.
Oh, God help me. I swallowed hard. "...investigating what it means to be a good mother, a good wife, a good person in our times. We might not all have agreed with what she had to say..." I wiped my forehead, as someone in the back row sucked in an outraged breath. "But maybe we can all agree that being a parent is hard. Really, really hard. Harder than those books make it sound, harder than the movies make it look. And at the end of the day, I think Kitty will be remembered for being brave enough to ask those hard questions, to try to find her own answers, to not give a damn if they flew in the face of what we'd been raised to believe." I swiped my sleeve against my forehead again and felt sweat trickling down my back and soaking the band of my bra. I probably looked like Albert Brooks in
Broadcast News.
Memories of the handful of times I'd seen Kitty--really seen her--flashed uselessly through my mind. Kitty in pink linen, smiling at her daughters; Kitty sprawled out dead on her kitchen floor with blood turning her silk blouse the color of old Bordeaux.

Sing,
I thought.
Sing her praises.
"So...so maybe we can all sing a song. In her memory." I whipped my index finger discreetly over my upper lip and realized that, in spite of years of voice lessons and listening to every jazz recording ever made, in spite of growing up with one of the world's preeminent sopranos as a mother and one of the country's top oboists as a dad, I couldn't remember the melody to one single song. Not a single lyric, not a single note. Nothing. My mind was absolutely blank. Except...I drew a deep breath. "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands." My voice cracked on the last word. The audience stared at me, dumbfounded. Reverend Ted's broad brow was furrowed. Kevin Dolan's jaw dropped. Finally Lexi Hagen-Holdt and Carol Gwinnell patted their hands together and began to sing.

"If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands."

A few more halfhearted clappers joined in, their faces politely expressionless, their voices cultured and soft.

"If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it," Reverend Ted joined in, in a serviceable baritone.

"If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands," sang Kevin Dolan. The final pairs of claps rang through the audience like stones falling into an empty well. "Thank you," I murmured, and limped back down the crowded aisle, which parted as the other mourners leaned--no, cringed--away from me.

I staggered past them, drenched with sweat, and went back to the wall I'd been leaning on. The woman beside me leaned over to touch my hand. "That was..." Her lips worked for a few seconds. "That was really something."

I nodded weakly. Really something. I just bet it was.

"To conclude," said Reverend Ted, "We will hear from Kitty's family."

Oh, no,
I thought, as my breath caught in my throat. Philip Cavanaugh was making his way unsteadily through the crowd with his daughters. One was on his left side and one was on his right and they were guiding him, like tiny navy blue tugboats guiding a freighter into port.
Oh, no. Not this.
I fumbled in my purse for a tissue and settled for a wadded, chocolate-streaked napkin from Dairy Queen. I'd never cared much one way or the other about Lady Di, but I still had vivid memories of her funeral--that casket with the folded letter on top reading "Mummy" that had had me sobbing like I'd lost my own mother (who was actually performing in Denver at the time, perfectly safe). What if it had been me, and Sophie and Sam and Jack were left with just their father? I thought of the letter on the van the night before and couldn't stop myself from shaking, as Philip Cavanaugh paused and wiped his eyes. His eyes were sunk deep into his head. His lips were grayish and trembling. His cheeks were hollow; new loose skin beneath his chin wobbled as he walked.

He climbed one step, then two. His heel caught on the third step and he stumbled, almost falling, before he reached the podium. I heard Lexi Hagen-Holdt gasp, and saw Carol Gwinnell pat her shoulders. The dark-haired woman seated in the front row next to Kevin Dolan--Delphine, I presumed--sobbed quietly into a handkerchief. Philip reached out one finger and touched the microphone lightly, as if to make sure it was still there.

"Kitty was..." His voice was a low, toneless rasp. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Kitty was..."

Much too loud, this time, or he'd gotten too close to the microphone. There was a booming echo, then a muffled thump. Philip Cavanaugh leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.

"This is too much," muttered the woman on my left. Then Reverend Ted was there, gently guiding Philip back down to his seat. The two girls remained, standing in front of the microphone, miniature Kittys with perfect posture and shining brown hair combed back neatly from their pale faces. They looked at each other, and finally, one of them--Madeline or Emerson, I had no idea--stepped forward. "We loved our mother very much," she said.

The clock ticked. Lexi Hagen-Holdt cried. Philip Cavanaugh's breath rasped as he struggled for composure and Reverend Ted patted him ineffectually on the back. The other little girl stepped up to join her sister.

"She was the best mother in the world."

The lobby was a logjam. Philip, propped upright by his parents on one side and Reverend Ted on the other, stood like a waxen effigy with a hand on each of his daughters' shoulders. I scooted behind them as quickly as I could, given the blister situation, trying not to hear my reviews ("Who was that...that large woman, and what on earth was she thinking?" one chic, rail-thin woman inquired of another). As I watched, Kevin and Delphine Dolan approached Philip. Kevin wrapped his arms around Phil's shoulders. Phil closed his eyes, and Delphine Dolan, whose makeup was in ruins, stood by his side, wiping at her eyes. When Phil reached for her arm, I thought I saw her flinch.