“How did you find us?” Em asked.
“It was you.” Kate embraced her. She told them about the Third Eye Blind e-mail and how she’d tracked the tour, how she’d been to three cities in the past three days, showing Em’s picture at all those squash clubs … never knowing if she was actually ever going to find them.
And now she was here.
“I don’t care how you found us.” Sharon clutched Kate closely. “I’m just so happy you did. Let me look at you.” She took a step back.
Kate swept the hair out of her eyes. “You had me sneaking around the back, and then I slid into the lake. I must look like a swamp creature.”
“No.” Sharon shook her head, eyes beaming, even in the dim light. “You look beautiful to me.”
“You all look beautiful, too.” Kate grinned. They hugged one another again.
Justin had grown to almost six feet, long and lanky, his hair still bushy. Emily had filled out like a young woman. Her hair was shoulder length, with a little streak of blond running through it that Kate thought looked pretty cool—and she had two small silver hoops in her left ear.
And Mom … It was dark, eight o’clock at night. She didn’t have a stitch of makeup on. She was wearing a light blue Fair Isle sweater and a corduroy skirt. Kate noticed a few crow’s-feet around her mouth and eyes that she couldn’t remember being there before.
But her eyes were sparkling and wide. There was a warming smile on her face.
Kate hugged her. “You look great, too, Mom.”
They threw a lot of questions at her. How was Tina doing? And Greg? Kate shook her head guiltily. “He doesn’t even know I’m here.”
Then there was a pause. They all looked at her, reality creeping back in.
“What are you doing here, Kate?” her mother asked numbly. “You know what a risk it is to be doing this now.”
“Have you heard from Dad?” Kate asked, nodding.
“No. They’re not telling us anything. We don’t even know if he’s alive or dead.”
“I think he’s alive, Mom. I found something. Something I have to show you.” She didn’t want to say everything, not in front of Justin and Em. “At first I thought they must be lying and covering something up. They broke into my apartment and bugged my phones.”
“Who, Kate?” Sharon asked, mystified.
“The WITSEC people. Cavetti. The FBI. But I found this photo, from a folder full of Dad’s things you left back at the house.” She started to reach inside her jacket. “It changes things, Mom. It changes everything.”
Her mother put a hand to her arm. “There are some things we have to talk about Kate. But not here.”
They heard some movement emanating from the house. The agent Kate had seen now stepped down from the back porch. He shone a flashlight broadly around the yard.
Pushing Kate back from the light, Sharon whispered, “You can’t be here, honey. I’ll meet you tomorrow. In the city. I’ll call you. But right now you need to go.”
“I’m not leaving,” Kate said, “not now.” She locked her arms around Em and Justin. “I don’t know when I’ll get to see everyone again.”
“You have to, Kate. We’ll call Cavetti. We’ll let him know you tracked us down, that you’re here. He’ll have to let you stay a few days. In the meantime I’ll come into town tomorrow. We’ll go over some things.”
Kate pulled Em and Justin against her, nodding reluctantly. “Okay.”
“Who’s out there?” one of the agents called. The beam of a flashlight came a little closer.
Sharon pushed Kate toward the boathouse door. “You’ve got to go!”
She touched her hand affectionately to Kate’s face. Then her eyes lit up. Gently, she lifted something from Kate’s neck.
“You’re wearing your pendant.”
“I never take it off,” Kate said. They hugged each other one last time, and then Kate jumped off the pier and slid down the embankment to the lake.
“Tomorrow I’ll tell you something about it,” her mother said.
The following morning rose clear and bright. From her hotel room on the edge of downtown, Kate could see Puget Sound and the sun glinting off glass-walled skyscrapers. She cracked the window, and the caw of gulls came into her room, along with a gust of brisk sea air.
It had been a long time since Kate had risen so expectantly.
Sharon called about nine and told Kate to meet her at noon in a restaurant called Ernie’s at the Pike Place Market, the most public venue she knew. Kate tried to figure out how she was going to fill the next three hours. She pulled on her Lycra tights and went for a jog along Western Avenue, stopping a few times to gaze at the colorful sailboats dotting the sound, the dazzling skyline rising above her, and the tip of the famous Space Needle. Afterward, she stopped for a coffee and a muffin at a Starbucks that claimed it was one of the first three ever opened. Around eleven she made it back to the hotel and changed into a green quilted jacket and jeans.
It was only a short walk from her hotel to the Pike Place Market. Kate got there a little early and strolled around the crowded wharf and shops. Ernie’s was a large, bustling café with outdoor seating in the center of the festive market. The square was packed with young families and tourists. Kiosks hawking cool artisan crafts, Rollerbladers gliding through the buzzing crowd, street artists, jugglers, mimes.
Kate stopped at a trinket stall and bought a small polished silver heart charm she thought she’d give to her mom. It had an inscription she thought was amusing.
Sugar Girl.
As she waited, glancing at her watch, the sea, and the festive scene, something old and long buried flashed into Kate’s mind.
She was in the old house. She was maybe eight or ten years old, and she had stayed home from school that day, sick. She’d been pushing her mom to go out and rent her a movie, the prospects of the long day recuperating at home seeming bleak.
“How about I show you a movie?” Her mother smiled.
Kate didn’t know what she meant.
They spent the next few hours on the floor in the den, Kate in her pj’s. From a carton of old things, Sharon pulled out a dog-eared, ancient-looking Playbill.
The original West Side Story.
“That was my favorite thing when I was about your age,” her mother said. “My mom took me to see it at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York. What d’ya say I take you?”
Kate beamed. “Okay.”
Her mom pushed a tape into the VCR and turned on the TV, and the two of them curled up together on the couch and watched the story of Romeo and Juliet and their families, recast as Tony and Maria, the Sharks and the Jets. At times her mother sang along, knowing every word—“When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way,/From your first cigarette to your last dying day”—and when they played the big dance number in the gym—“I like to be in America!”—Sharon leaped up and mimicked the steps to a tee, dancing in thrilling unison alongside the character of Anita, throwing her hands in the air and kicking up her heels. Kate remembered clearly how it made her laugh.
“Everyone I knew wanted to be Maria,” her mother