Chapter 83

I

John’s leave lasted much too short, Miri thought. Even though he was going to San Diego to visit his family, Miri thought her time with him was quite brief.

On John’s last night in town, he and Miri, along with Kelly Hope and her friend Justin (a philosphy major at Loyola that Miri described as a “Nietzsche quoting egghead”) went out to dinner in Chicago. They headed to a place that both girls went to when they came to town.

“It’s not the Ritz, but we can afford this,” Kelly said laughing; “I think we’ll be spending a lot of time here studying for finals. What do you think, Mir?”

“I like that it’s open all night and has all the coffee you can drink,” Miri said; “My Uncle Joe says you don’t buy coffee... you rent it!”

“Best burgers in town, bar none!” Kelly said as they were led to a booth and settled in.

After they all ordered said burgers, Justin asked John, “So, when’s your flight?”

“Tonight at eleven forty-five,” said John. “I’ll get to San Diego in the middle of the night, but my mom will still be there to pick me up. Oh, and Miri,” he paused as he looked at her, “Mom can’t wait to meet you! I emailed her those pictures we took outside your dorm building and she thinks you’re a cute girl.”

“You did tell her I’m not even 17 yet, didn’t you?” asked Miri.

“I did, and she told me that if you’re smart enough to be in college at 16, then more power to you,” John said.

“I like your mom already and I’m not even dating you!” Kelly said.

The four of them talked for a long while in the diner just off the Miracle Mile, and when they left, John noticed that it was probably time to head to the airport.

“I have to turn in the rental car; check my bag, then sit and wait for my flight to be called.” John said.

“We may as well head over there then,” Justin said; “We’ll take Miri back to school with us.”

“Good. Thanks for that, dude,” John said to Justin. “It’s Sunday and the girls have a big trip ahead of them this week.”

“Really?” asked Justin, as if he had heard about it for the first time; “Where you ladies off to?”

“Upstate New York. Between Syracuse and Buffalo,” Kelly said; “Going to spend time with family and they’ve graciously invited Miri to come along.”

“Sounds like a good time,” John said, kissing Miri’s temple. “Isn’t it starting to get cold up that way, though?”

“It’s perfect fall weather according to my grandfather,” Kelly said; “He and his companion have been having dinner on the front deck the

last couple of nights. He should know. He’s lived in that area nearly his entire life.”

All too soon, it was time for John to go through the screening and head to his gate. Miri found herself getting emotional. She’d spend more time with him during the last two weeks than she ever had since they met over a year before. They talked about a lot of things. Miri felt that they had an understanding about future visits. They’d even discussed her joining him in California during Spring Break, though that would have to be okayed with her mother.

Kelly and Justin left the two of them alone to say their goodbyes.

“I’ve had a great time, Miri,” John was saying. “I can’t wait to come back and visit! But it’s this saying goodbye business that’s hard for me.”

“Me, too,” Miri said; “I’m just finding it hard to let you go.”

“Miri, my sweet girl...” John said; He held her close, just wishing to feel that closeness to her.

He had fallen completely under her spell. He also realized that she had no idea of the way she really made him feel. She had no idea how incredible she was. She was, as she had said on many occasions, “just Miri”.

John’s flight was called and he said, “Miri, I have to go.”

“Be careful, John,” Miri said. John noticed that she was trying very hard not to cry. “Call me in the morning?”

“You got it,” John said; “When’s your first class?”

“Eight in the morning,” Miri said.

“That’s only 6am in California,” said John; “How about the one after that?”

“Ten til noon,” Miri said; “It’s my Psychology Lab. If you call then, I could talk to you. It’s pretty open and casual. The class itself is rigid as hell.”

“How about 11am, then. That’s 9 where I am,” suggested John.

“Okay, I can do that,” Miri said.

John leaned down to kiss Miri and she responded. She didn’t want it to end. Neither did he.

But end it had to, then John went through the security check and was gone.

And Mirielle Summers stood in the middle of O’Hare Airport with tears streaming down her face.

She didn’t realize it yet, but she was in love.

So was he.

===

How did I get here? Kathryn asked herself when she woke up in a strange room. This isn’t my house, not my bedroom...

And looking over to her right, the man sleeping next to her wasn’t Christian.

Oh, God! Kathryn thought, realizing what had happened. Chastity is up to her old tricks! I have to get out of here!

She looked around to see what Chastity had brought with her. There was a purse, Kathryn’s car keys, and a wad of bills sitting on the table near the hotel room door. Kathryn had no idea if it was hers or not, so she took it anyway.  

The man on the bed didn’t even stir. I wonder if he’s dead, Kathryn asked herself.

She walked closer to the bed, and saw that the man’s chest was moving with each breath. Satisfied that Chastity didn’t kill him, Kathryn made her escape from a wide awake nightmare.

Out in the parking lot, Kathryn saw there was a valet and asked the attendant to retrieve her car.

“Yes, Ms. Edwards,” he said; “Right away.”

Kathryn couldn’t help the look of lust on his face. Did Chastity do him too?

Once she got into the car, which she was relieved was really hers, she started driving out of the parking lot on to the street. She made a right and stopped at the light, and it was then she realized she had no idea where she was.

There was a convenience store at the next corner, so Kathryn went in and got a map.

She was in Toronto!

How in the hell did I get into Canada? she asked herself. I haven’t been here since Helene was a tiny baby!

Kathryn knew she had to find her way home. But how?

Okay, Kathryn, just follow the map, she thought to calm herself down.

You had to go and ruin my fun, didn’t you?

-You had to go and ruin my life!

You’re so fucking boring that I had to do something to liven things up. So, I stole your car and picked up a guy.

-And took him into Canada! You know how much trouble you could’ve gotten me into?

And I should care, why, Kathryn?

-That car is registered to me! If the police had stopped you, my reputation would be shit!

Like I care about your precious reputation?

-Sleep, Chastity! Sleep forever!

Kathryn heard no objections from her alter on that. That only made her more afraid she had something else planned. Something far worse than picking up a strange man, crossing an international border and having sex with him.

She now had to figure out how to get home and explain all this to Christian.

===

II

Julia and Jeremiah arrived in Chicago the following afternoon, where they found each of their children, led by Miri, waiting for them.

On the flight out of  Washington, Julia had told Jeremiah of her visit to Christine Travis at Walter Reed.

“How did that turn out?” Jeremiah asked.

“Not too bad,” Julia said; “Of course, she’s embarrassed that she fainted, but it turned out that it was nothing serious that caused it. Just a little overtired and slightly dehydrated. Nothing that sleep and a couple of good meals can’t take care of.”

“What was her relationship to Jacob, though?”

“They were close friends, Jere,” Julia said; “It was because of my stay at Walter Reed that they met. They found that they had a lot in common, enjoyed each other’s company, and probably would have become a couple if Jacob had not passed away.”

“About how old is Christine?”

“She’s a year younger than I am, Jere,” said Julia. “I would have been cool with it.”

“With someone younger than you are dating your father?” asked Jeremiah, surprised.

“Age is just a number, Jere, you know that,” Julia said; “Jasmine is older than you are.”

“Only by about a couple of years,” Jeremiah said; “Not 30 some years!”

“So?” asked Julia; “Why is everyone so shocked when older men get involved with younger women? It’s not that big a deal.”

“If it were one of your daughters, you’d think differently,” Jeremiah said.

“But it’s not, is it? It’s a woman that my father was fond of,” Julia said.

“I wonder what her family thought?” Jeremiah asked.

“Does it matter? She’s an adult.”

Jeremiah just rolled his eyes. Julia didn’t know that he and Nik knew about her marriage to Jack Coltrane. To change the subject to something a little more neutral, he asked Julia about Miri’s trip to New York later that week.

“She’s really excited about it,” Julia said; “She and Kelly have become great friends. Since she’s seen where Miri grew up, Kelly wanted Miri to see where she grew up. All I know is that it’s between Buffalo and Syracuse on a lake somewhere. Kelly was raised by her grandparents, and her grandmother died about three years ago. Her grandfather has a new love, who... surprise, surprise... is considerably younger than he is!”

Jeremiah laughed as the plane made its descent into O’Hare; “You just had to rub that in, didn’t you, Jules?”

Julia just looked at him and said, “Yeah, I did.”

===

If Eric stopped to admit it, he was kind of excited to meet Kelly’s roommate Mirielle Summers.

Every time Kelly called home now, it was, “Miri and I did...” or “Miri and I went...”

Eric was happy that Kelly had a friend her age at school, so that she didn’t feel like some “scholastically gifted freak”, as she put it. He was looking forward to having both girls at the house for the short time they had off for Fall Break. Krysta reminded him that they probably won’t see much of them because Kelly wanted to take Miri to all of her favorite hangouts in town.

“You know how girls are, they want to spend as little time with their parentals as possible,” Krysta teased.  

“I was thinking it was because Miri has never been here and Kelly wants to have all her friends here meet her,” Eric replied; “I wouldn’t mind finding out more about her either.”

“Her mother has been rumored to be the infamous ‘SpineSplitter’ from the Occupation,” Krysta said; “I wonder how Miri deals with all that notariety?”

“Probably doesn’t want to hear about it all the damn time is my guess,” Eric said.

“We’ll find out soon enough, Eric,” said Krysta. “They’ll be here Wednesday.”

“I hope Miri doesn’t find us boring,” Eric said.

“Oh, stop Eric!” laughed Krysta, swatting his butt playfully; “You are the least boring person I know.”

“You know what I mean,” said Eric; “I just want the girls to have a break to remember.”

Neither Eric, Krysta, Kelly or Miri knew was that it would be a break to remember... for all the wrong reasons.

===

III

It was still dark when Kathryn finally made it home. The lights in the house were still off, so she was sure everyone was sleeping.

There was an entrance to her studio from the outside, and she used that entrance to get into the house. Kathryn flipped on the lights and saw that nothing had been touched since she was there before she thought she went to bed.

This is probably where Chastity came out, while I was down here, Kathryn thought. I’ve been so busy getting ready for my show at the gallery that I’ve spent hours down here. Did Christian check before he went to bed? Did he find me missing?

The painting she had been working on had remained as it was the last time she saw it. Kathryn heaved a sigh of relief that Chastity didn’t deface it in any way.

Sitting down in the chair in the corner, Kathryn knew she had to tell Christian about what happened. She felt afraid because what if Christian signed papers to have her committed to the clinic again? Kathryn couldn’t bear being apart from her family because of Chastity. Chastity would have to die somehow.

“But how, without killing myself as well?” Kathryn said aloud. “Whatever Cameron has tried with me isn’t working. Chastity still came back.”

Kathryn made a mental note to call Cameron in the morning. She then fell asleep in the chair, where Christian would find her after the girls left for school.

===

Both Miri and Kelly knew it would be a long two days before they left to go to Kelly’s hometown of Misty Lake, New York.

“Misty Lake sounds like someone’s name,” Miri had said when Kelly first told her where she was from.

“No, it’s just the name of the lake my grandparents’ house is on,” Kelly had replied; “It didn’t take a genius to name it. They just observed that there was a mist over it in the mornings. But that was a couple hundred years ago.”

For now, homework beckoned, and the roommates really weren’t into studying.

John had called Miri when he said he would, during her lab time. He’d gotten to his mother’s safely, and that evening, she was making his favorite meal- beef tips in gravy over egg noodles.

They talked for about half an hour, then Miri went back to the lab to finish up her research into tramatic brain injuries. One of her sources was her own cousin, Kendria Donovan.

Kelly was putting off finishing the paper for her English Comp class, mainly because it wasn’t due until after Fall Break.

“Why are all these 19th century stories so boring and morose?” Kelly asked aloud. “‘The Awakening’, for example. God, what a depressing tale!”

“My mom had all us girls read that,” Miri said; “I have to agree. I don’t think my little sister and my youngest girl cousin have read it. May be a little too young to understand all those themes. Is that what your paper is on?”

“Yes, and it’s hard to write about this Edna’s ‘awakening’ of her sexuality with a man who doesn’t really care about her, then her killing herself when she realizes that he doesn’t love her,” Kelly said; “She’s supposed to be this strong female character, but almost from the get go, I feel that she’s not. She lets a man she’s not married to manipulate her feelings, falls in love with him, then he tells her, ‘Oh sorry, Edna, I didn’t mean to make you fall in love with me. I was just playing.’”

“It was the first story that I literally yelled at a character for being stupid,” Miri said; “My mom comes in and asks who I’m yelling at and I told her, ‘I’m yelling at Edna Pontellier for being such a moron!’.”

“How your research for your paper on Traumatic Brain Injuries and Psychology coming?” Kelly asked, changing the subject.

“So far I’ve found some fascinating stuff, and talking to my cousin who actually had a TBI was an eye opener,” Miri said; “She’s going to have one of her doctors email me some information about TBIs similar to Kendria’s. From what I’ve read, Kendria is very lucky her injury wasn’t more serious. She’s a freshman at Harvard of all places. She wants to either be a doctor or a researcher.”

“If she’s at Harvard after all that, then she’s recovered very well,” Kelly said; “They only take the best of the best into their pre-med program.”

“Kendria got a near perfect score on her SATs,” said Miri; “Her own sister didn’t even do that well. But she’s no slouch, either. She’s at Georgetown with our cousin Sandy.”

“Cool!” Kelly said; “The whole time I was growing up, I wished for a sister. Then last Christmas, I found out I had three of them!”

“I can’t wait to meet them, your mom, your grandfather and his...” Miri hesitated. She wasn’t sure what to call the girlfriend of Kelly’s grandfather.

“Companion,” Kelly said; “That’s how they describe themselves. Grandfather jokes that he’s not a boy, so ‘boyfriend’ doesn’t fit. Krysta is the one who actually suggested companion, and Grandfather liked that.”

“Should I just call her Krysta, then, instead of Ms. Banks?”

“Krysta’s her name,” Kelly said with a wink; “Just call her that. She’s not into all that ‘Mr. and Ms. Whomever’ jazz.”

The girls talked until bedtime, then went to get their rest. They couldn’t wait to leave for New York. Once there, they couldn’t wait to leave after what they were about to experience.

===

IV

Christian headed downstairs to Kathryn’s studio to see if she had spent yet another night there preparing for her show at the beginning of December.

He walked in the door and saw her sleeping in the old overstuffed chair she liked from the first apartment they shared together, and let her be until the girls had all gotten off to school on the bus.

“Where’s Mom?” asked Lili; “She usually gets us up.”

“She’s in her studio,” her father said; “She’s working on stuff for her gallery show and fell asleep down there. She’s really nervous about it and wants to show her best stuff.”

“But I thought I saw her drive her car last night,” Lili insisted; “She was gone a long time. I went downstairs to find her and she wasn’t in her studio.”

Christian looked at his youngest daughter and asked, “About what time was this, Lili?”

“I don’t know, Daddy,” Lili said. “Real, real late.”

“Mom’s been acting weird lately,” Erin chimed in; “Like she’s not herself. Like she did before she left last time.”

“I’ll ask her about it,” Christian said; “Lili, your bus will be here any minute. Erin, Helene, you have about 30 minutes before your buses arrive.”

After making sure that Lili was on her bus, and escorting the other girls to their bus stop, Christian came back into the house and went down stairs to Kathryn’s studio. He wanted to play a hunch.

He had suspected for weeks that Chastity was trying to come back, despite the treatment Kathryn was getting from Cameron Chang. Christian would know just by looking at the things Kathryn had in her bag.

Kathryn was still sleeping in the chair, and her purse was sitting on a nearby table. It was wide open, like she wanted someone to look inside it.

He saw all the things that Kathryn was known to have in her bag: wallet, keys, her secure phone; but there was one thing he wasn’t expecting to see.

A large amount of Canadian currency.

Christian hasn’t taken Kathryn across the border in several years, so he knew that the cash wasn’t from one of those trips.

Kathryn started to wake up, and when she opened her eyes to see Christian standing there, she thought nothing of it.

But then Christian only had to look at her to know that something wasn’t right about her.

Kathryn stared back at him with green eyes.

Her eyes were blue.

Chastity’s were green.

In the trash can next to the table, Christian saw a small box; the kind that held contact lenses.

Green contact lenses.

“My God... Kathryn!” Christian gasped.

The change was instantaneous. Out of Kathryn’s mouth came Chastity’s voice,

“Kathryn is hardly God, Christian.”

“Where is Kathryn?” Christian demanded.

“Somewhere you’ll never, ever find her.”

Christian noticed a second change, nearly as instantaneous as the first.

“Christian!” Kathryn’s voice gasped; “Chastity’s trying to kill me! Help me!”

===