She didn't finish the sentence. Suddenly her eyes were filling with tears. Rob didn't know what to do. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her, but at the moment he was driving a car. Penn Station was dead ahead. He swung around its south side, then turned into a restricted area under its belly. He pulled the car into the curb and turned toward her. He stroked her shoulder, wondering what to say.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm not made for this kind of thing."
"Who is? Nobody's made for losing a sister. A twin, no less."
"I wish I could be stronger. I should be stronger."
"You're pretty damn strong," Rob told her. "It took a lot of guts to come in here and go to the morgue alone to see her. A hell of a lot of guts."
Suddenly her head was up and she was staring at him. Her face was blotchy, and streaked with tears, but her eyes were fierce, her teeth were clenched.
"Find those bastards, Rob!"
"I will, Kara." He had never seen her like this. "Take it easy, take it easy."
"And when you find them, I want you to call me. Because I want to see them. I want to see what kind of scum did that to my sister!"
"As soon as I know, you'll know. And we'll get them. Kelly's case won't get dropped. I've got a personal stake in this, too, you know. I promise we'll get them."
"Okay," she said. "That's good enough for me. Can I have your number so I can call?"
As he fished out a card for her, Rob didn't attempt to explain that finding the two men who'd been in the room with Kelly was a long way from convicting them of tossing her out the window, especially since the Forensics boys were saying there was no sign of a struggle. They were pushing to call it a suicide, and Kara would not want to hear that.
He said, "If I can get away, I'd like to come to the funeral."
"No! I mean, that might not be such a good idea. I'd feel better if I knew you were here working on her case."
Rob had figured she'd say something like that. Kara seemed intent on keeping him at arm's length. So what else was new?
"I'll walk you to the Amtrak platform."
"That's okay. I can make it." She started to get out of the car, then stopped. "And thank you, Rob. When they unzipped the bag at the morgue, you turned away. I appreciate that."
He was baffled.
"Why?"
"It gave me an inch more of privacy than I would have had otherwise. That was very considerate. I'm glad to see that you haven't become like everyone else in this city."
And then she closed the door and walked away toward the station doors.
Considerate, hell! he thought. He hadn't been able to look at Kelly again because she looked so much like Kara. And he hadn't been able to bring himself to watch Kara view her sister's battered corpse, couldn't watch her pain, her naked grief. So he'd turned away. That was all.
He lit a cigarette and watched the station doors for a while after she had gone inside. Kara had changed. She'd always been a strong person, with lots of drive and intensity, but the intervening years seemed to have brought everything into sharp focus for her. There was fire in her voice, and a steely determination in her eyes. Although legally she'd been an adult when they'd had their affair, she'd still been a girl inside. She was a woman now, inside and out.
And somehow he knew it would not be another ten years before he saw her again. He found himself looking forward to that.
Punished me again.
Still recovering from it. At least he didn't find the letters. Doesn't know about my scribblings. Be furious if he did. They tell too much about him, about our whole mad relationship. He'd punish me again, worse than ever.
But I can't stop writing. Only this bit of pencil and these scraps of paper allow me to retain the most tenuous grip on the last remnant of my sanity. My only link to reality, whatever that means. My reality—one continuous nightmare interspersed with all too brief periods of wakefulness. Have to keep a record of these awake times, to reassure myself they exist. That I exist! They are worth any punishment.
Oh, the punishment. He metes it out so casually these days. Simply for belittling him because he lost the blonde. Laughed at him because she escaped him. Resented my taunts, so the swine punished me.
But no matter. I survived. And in that poor nurse's death I've found hope. Proves he's not omnipotent. Not quite the Ubermensch he believes himself to be—that I believed him to be.
She escaped him.
Perhaps there's still hope for me.
February 7
5:32 P.M.
"YOU COMING DOWN SOON, MOM?"
Kara turned at the sound of Jill's voice. In the dim twilight leaching through the bedroom window she saw her daughter standing uncertainly in the doorway. Jill was still dressed in the dark green plaid dress and white tights she had worn to the funeral. Her dark brown hair had somehow held onto the French braid Kara had worked it into this morning.
"In a few minutes, Jill. I just want to sit here a while longer."
Jill walked over to where Kara sat by the window and put a hand on her arm.
"Are you okay, Mom?"
Kara put an arm around Jill's thin little shoulders and hugged her close. Someday I'll be okay, she thought, but not yet. Not for a long time.
"I'm fine," she told Jill. "Just sad."
It was over. Finally. Kelly had been laid to rest in a tearful ceremony late this morning. Six nurses had come all the way from Manhattan to say good-bye. Kara had been touched by that. They had accompanied the family back to the house and were downstairs now with her mother, Bert, Aunt Ellen, and a few neighbors who remembered Kelly.
Kara knew she should be downstairs playing hostess, but she couldn't manage that right now. She didn't want anybody else here in her house tonight. Except Jill. And maybe Mom.
Kara wanted them all to go home now and leave her alone with her grief. She wanted to hold onto that grief, use it to keep Kelly alive, use it to retrieve the memories of the past they had shared so intimately.
Go away! All of you!
She'd heard it was good to share your grief; that was what wakes and funerals were for—not for the dead, but for the living. To Kara, it was morbid, all of it.
"Aunt Kelly's with God, right?"
For the hundredth time, Kara reassured her little girl that her Aunt was indeed up in heaven with God.
"And she's happy, right?"
So important to Jill that her Aunt was happy. It seemed to make Kelly's death easier for Jill to accept. But it didn't work for Kara.
"Very happy. She's up in Heaven's ICU taking care of all those scorched souls they ship in from Purgatory every day. She's happy and very, very busy."
On the last word, Kara felt her voice start to crack. She hugged Jill more tightly against her.
If I start crying now, I'll never stop.
She got control and pushed Jill to arm's length, glad she hadn't turned on the lights.
"You go downstairs and play hostess with the mostess for a little while, then I'll come down and take over, okay?"
Jill brightened. She loved to be put in charge.
"Okay!"
They hugged again. Kara could never get enough hugs from Jill, or give her enough. She loved her like life itself, and strove every day to give her child two parents' worth of affection.
"Love you, bug," she said.
Jill kissed Kara on the cheek and ran downstairs.