Kristin Ashe: A Safe Place To Sleep Part 5

To make a bad night worse, I opened my blinds to a blanket of fresh snow.

On a clear day, from my high-rise windows, I could see two hundred miles of Colorado's majestic Rocky Mountains a" from Colorado Springs' Pike's Peak to Boulder's Flatirons. That gray day, however, was an exception. I could barely see the highway, which was only a mile away. Everywhere I looked, the white film covered the cars and streets and buildings below me. Undaunted, I dressed warmly and left to pick up the kids, hoping their youthful energy would erase some of the terror of the night before.

I wasn't disappointed. As soon as I got to their house, Zeb and Jessica piled on me, first hugging me, then wrestling with me. By committee, we decided to go to Funworld Sports Center, saving the zoo for a drier, warmer day.

In the car, Jessica loudly told me she missed me. That it had been eighteen-hundred days since she'd last seen me. I smiled and said I missed her, too. Zeb, in his infinite six-year-old wisdom corrected his four-year-old sister and told her it had only been three hundred days. Surprisingly, he wasn't far off in his calculations.

Jessica, unimpressed by Zeb's correction, squirmed in the back seat and occupied her time by waving at cars. No one in the cars waved back, but that didn't affect her enthusiasm.

In Funworld's parking lot, as I was lifting Jessica out of the back seat, she quietly said to me, "I prayed you would come."

"And I did," was all I could say as I set her on the ground and quickly turned so she wouldn't see my tears. Holding hands, we ran through the parking lot, trying without success to avoid puddles of slush.

Once inside, we played and played. We swam. We drove b.u.mper cars. We bounced around in a room full of b.a.l.l.s. We ate corn dogs and pizza and nachos and french fries. We drank lemonade and Dr. Pepper and milkshakes.

Over lunch, Jessica told me she had two married cats. She knew they were married because one of the cats just had kittens. I marveled at her right-wing, moral logic. Zeb told me his dog Moe had eaten one of his goldfish. After the fish had jumped out of the bowl and hit the floor, he explained with zeal. We laughed and told more stories.

That evening, after I'd taken them back to their home, I cried and cried. Partly, I cried for how much I missed them.

Mostly, I cried for how much I missed myself.

The next day, which was Sunday, Mich.e.l.le called to invite me to brunch with her and Destiny. They were going to try a quaint restaurant in Park Hill. I declined. I wanted to see them, but not together, not that day. Maybe not until I was done with Destiny's case, I told her.

She accepted that without argument, probably because Destiny's naked body was lying next to her, I thought wryly. As we were hanging up, she told me she was going to see a psychic to ask her about Destiny's childhood. I heard a giggle in the background. Great. I told her I'd be anxious to hear what the psychic had to say. Mich.e.l.le coyly suggested she might not share her information with me, or with Destiny either. Another giggle.

Mich.e.l.le and I set up dinner plans for Friday night, just the two of us, and I put down the phone wondering how Mich.e.l.le had ever come to be my friend.

Feeling lonely and faced with an entire empty day ahead of me, I decided to call Grandma Ashe, my father's mother. She was home, as she almost always was, and eagerly accepted when I invited myself over to her house for dinner and cards.

I spent most of that cold, dreary day snacking, napping, reading and watching TV. By late afternoon, I was feeling queasy from having lain around all day.

I summoned enough energy to put on my shorts and head to the racquetball room in the bas.e.m.e.nt of my apartment building.

In an empty court, I volleyed for an hour before I became bored.

I trudged back up to my apartment, took a quick shower, and drove the six blocks to my grandma's house. I would have walked, but there was an ominous chill in the air that night, a bite from which my car only slightly protected me.

Promptly at 6 p.m. (right after Lawrence Welk), we sat down to one of her typical dinners, high in starch and low in imagination: roast beef, noodles, mashed potatoes, rolls. I happily ate everything on my plate and pleased her by taking seconds. After dinner, we cleared the dishes into the sink and retired to the living room.

My grandma had to go to the bathroom, so I got out the card table. Setting it up reminded me of the first time she let me play cards with her lady friends. One of the eight women in her Canasta Club had been sick and, at the age of nine, I was her subst.i.tute. I smiled as I remembered how my brash style of play had offended everyone, except my grandma.

Grandma and I were partners and we won all afternoon. Having played cards with me many times before, Grandma wasn't surprised by my reckless strategy, but it sure raised a few other whitish-blue eyebrows. I never played illegally. I simply played like the c.o.c.ky kid I was. Hand after hand, I went out, ending the game with the ladies holding fists full of cards and mouths full of air. On the rare occasions when I had a bad hand (and sometimes even when I didn't), I'd loudly announce "This isn't a hand, it's a foot!" and Grandma and I would both laugh as if it were the funniest thing we'd ever heard. Despite her friends' scrutiny, my grandmother loved me more than ever that afternoon twenty years ago.

When Grandma emerged from the bathroom, we got down to some serious playing, chatting amiably between discards.

At one point, as I watched her lay down her cards, I thought about all the happy hours I'd spent at her house: baking cookies and eating them fresh from the oven, taking walks in Was.h.i.+ngton Park, sitting on her glider in the warm summer evenings. My grandma's favorite story, which she told so often I could almost remember it happening, was about how I was the only grandchild she ever had to spank. When I was three years old, she gave me a swat, so soft it couldn't have hurt a flea. I defiantly told her "Didn't hurt!" My gentle grandmother said, "I didn't mean for it to hurt, Kristin," and pulled me into her arms. Although she was eighty-six and in near perfect health, I worried about the day I would lose her.

"Do you ever think about dying, Grandma?"

She answered my serious question without missing a beat.

"Only when the mortuary calls," she said matter-of-factly as she laid down a card I wanted.

"They call you?"

"Once a month."

"You're kidding!"

"I'm not. Honey, do you want that ace or not?" she asked. I'd been so shocked by the thought of a mortuary teleprospecting my grandma that I'd forgotten to play.

"Er, yes. I'm going to pick up the pile. What do you tell them?"

"I tell them I'll get back to them when I'm ready."

I tried not to laugh because I thought she was serious.

"Won't it be a little late then?" I asked reasonably.

"Oh, well," she said, laughing mischievously. Once again, she'd fooled me.

We played on, though I'd lost my concentration.

"I do think about what will happen to me," she said.

"When you die?"

"No, if I get sick."

"You don't worry about dying?"

"Not any more."

"You just worry about being alive?"

"Every night, I pray that when I leave this house, it will be feet first."

"Huh," was all I could say, knowing what she meant, but unable to bear the picture of my grandma on a stretcher.

"Everyone I know is dead. Most of my friends are dead or dying. Your grandfather's been dead for forty years. I'm glad I never remarried. I would have had to bury two more."

"You outlived both the men you considered marrying?"

"I did."

"Tell me about them."

She proceeded to tell me the stories I'd already heard but loved to hear over and over again. Tales from her past kept us busy until it was time for me to go.

When she went into the bedroom to retrieve my coat, suddenly I knew it was time.

For a brief moment, I was like a detective working on my own case. Except I wasn't all there. My detached self was working to solve the mystery of what had happened to my emotional self.

When Grandma returned, I asked her one question, a question I'd never been able to ask before. One was enough.

"Hey, Grandma, what kind of a father was Dad?"

Instead of answering my question, she posed one of her own.

"What do you mean, honey?"

For some reason, my stomach suddenly felt sick. I willed control of my voice and casually said, "Nothing specific, just what kind of a father was he? I can't remember much about when I was really little and I just wondered what he was like."

With that, I fell silent. It took her the longest time to answer. I struggled into my coat as I waited.

"Well," she said, still thinking, "when you girls were young, he liked to bathe you, and diaper you...."

As she continued to speak, I fought to control myself. At the words, "He liked to bathe you," my stomach had dropped and I'd felt the strangest impulse to burst out in laughter a" nervous, hysterical peals of mirthless laughter. I needed information, but I couldn't give information. I had to appear calm, almost disinterested.

My grandmother's voice, by now far away, went on.

"...later on, when you got to be older, he didn't take as much of an interest in your lives...."

I didn't hear anything else she said. Not about her son. Not about anything. As quickly as I could, I hugged her tightly, kissed her cheek, and ran out into the night, clutching the leftovers she'd insisted I take for my lunch the next day.

Driving home, the most absurd memory came to me. I remembered the swimming lessons my sisters and I had taken for several summers in a row beginning when we were ages six, five and four. We had all started in the beginning swimming cla.s.s, and failing to ever advance, had all ended in it. Undaunted, my mother brought us back, time after time, for the next session of beginning swimming. Every single session, all three of us failed.

For two summers, we grew taller and taller, and came back to each new session of the cla.s.s embarra.s.sed by our height, our age, and our inability to move on. In light of the fact that every single other child in each of our cla.s.ses pa.s.sed, my mother couldn't understand our failure. We were all three fit, coordinated children, especially Gail and I. Gail went on to excel at soccer. I played football, tennis, and baseball with the best of the boys. Finally, although she couldn't fathom it, my mother accepted that we would never be able to swim. We were grateful when we didn't have to return for further humiliation.

"My G.o.d!" I said out loud as I carefully steered my car on the snow-packed streets, "I was four years old then."

"I was four years old then," I kept repeating over and over again, louder and louder each time until finally it became a high-pitched scream. My first conscious memory, and what a horrible one it was.

"Why couldn't we swim?" I whispered, because my throat hurt from screaming.

Perhaps we were terrified of the water, it occurred to me for the first time in my life. Not for its ripples, but rather for its touches.

I didn't sleep well that night.

Someone is attacking me. The person crawls into my bed and snuggles against me, flesh completely covering my little body, hands clutching my sleeper pajamas. I see my attacker's hands. They remind me of someone, but I cannot think who.

Chapter 6.

The next day at work, I sluggishly went through my paces. I rewrote an article, 'Ten Steps To A More Relaxed Pap Smear." I called a few of my clients. I chatted with my employees (carefully avoiding time alone with Ann). Nothing spectacular, but it sure beat thinking about the past a" mine or Destiny's.

The next few days were much the same until Wednesday when I left work early to meet Marie Kenwood.

I drove east for what seemed like forever until finally, at the southeast edge of Denver, I found my turn-off.

Marie Kenwood lived in a moderately-priced retirement community, one of those "planned neighborhoods" that has plenty of green beltways, few amenities and the appearance of security. Inside her complex, the streets meandered in every direction but a sensible one, and it was almost impossible to distinguish one residence from another. Even with the oversized address numbers and the color-coordinated blocks, it wouldn't have surprised me if half the residents had, at some point, tried to enter another person's house.

Twice, I drove past the golf course, totally lost. Finally, at wit's end, I stopped in at the clubhouse to ask directions. An elderly man told me he was going my way and offered to let me follow him. At a snail's pace, I followed his blue Pontiac to Mrs. Kenwood's doorstep. As he drove off, I waved my thanks; he tipped his hat.

I rang the bell and waited anxiously for Mrs. Kenwood. When at last she opened the door, I let out a sigh of relief. I think I had been afraid she'd be as intimidating in person as she'd been on the phone.

But how could she intimidate me? I towered over her, not because I'm extraordinarily tall, but because my 5'6" were giant next to her 4'10" (including stacked-up hair).

My relief came too soon.

"Mrs. Kenwood?" I asked politely as I extended my hand.

"Of course I am, young lady," she said, ignoring my outstretched hand. "Come in out of the cold." She directed me past her into the foyer. I turned back to her, once again attempting to introduce myself.

"I'm Kristin Ashe. I'm pleased to a"" I didn't have a chance to finish my greeting.

"Of course you are. You're late," she said, deliberately looking at the elegant lady's pocket watch hanging from a gold chain around her neck. "Six minutes late, to be exact."

"Er, yes," I said apologetically. "I would have been early, but I got turned around in the complex. Some kind gentleman helped me find a""

"Never mind," she barked. "You're here now. Would you like some tea?" she asked, sounding more like a platoon leader than a hostess.

I hated tea but I didn't dare ask for Dr. Pepper.

"Yes, please."

"Fine, then. Have a seat. I'll be back shortly."

She ushered me into the living room and disappeared around the corner. Delicately, I sat down on one end of her flowered couch, hugging the armrest for support, somehow fearing she'd burst into the room and claim I was sitting in her seat. Timidly, ever conscious of her nearby presence, I looked around me.

On every wall, there was a painting. Of mountain scenes. Of ocean scenes. Of trains. Of flowers. Each one was recognizable for what the artist had tried to paint, but that was the extent of the talent.

Her coffee table overflowed with magazines and newspapers. Catholic Register. Good Housekeeping. Ladies Home Journal. Farmer's Almanac. Nothing I wanted to read.

On the floor next to the couch, a large cotton bag held yarn and knitting needles. Straight ahead sat a television set. I glanced around the room and dread filled me as I realized I was sitting in the place that had the best view of the TV. That, combined with the bag, convinced me I was sitting in Mrs. Kenwood's favorite spot. I quickly scurried down to the other end of the couch.

And not a moment too soon. I had barely jumped up from her cherished seat when she came through the doorway carrying a silver tray. She set it on the coffee table in front of the couch and then sat in the exact spot I'd just occupied.