A Daughter's Trust

CHAPTER ONE

GRANDMA’S FUNERAL WAS ON a Friday. Baby Carrie woke up with a stuffy nose that morning. Camden spat up his formula. Not a good day to leave them with a sitter.

But Sarah Sue Bookman had no choice. At home, alone with her kids, having a baby on each arm was relatively easy. The norm. She could do it in her sleep. Had done it in her sleep.

But inside the sacred walls of Saint Ignatius…with Grandma Sarah really gone…Having to say goodbye…

She had to leave the babies with Barb.

SITTING IN THE SECOND ROW of pews in the hugely imposing, historic San Francisco church, Sue could sense the ghosts of saints around her. In the Italianate architecture, in the candlelit altars lining both sides of the nave.

Approving? Disapproving? Did they know how angry she was? How unwillingly she was giving up Grandma to them?

She tried to focus on the priest, who’d known Grandma Sarah for many years, instead of on the open casket where her body lay.

Sue had expected this day to come eventually. Grandma was eighty years old. But it hurt worse than anything she’d imagined.

Maybe if they’d had warning. Maybe if Grandma had been sick for weeks or months, instead of a few days. Maybe then…

The pastor talked about Sarah Carson’s generosity, her need to love everyone who came into her sphere—most particularly children. Just last week, when Sue had taken the babies on their regular visit to the house in Twin Peaks where her mother had been born and raised, Grandma had insisted Sue leave Camden and Carrie with her and hike a trail to the top of the peak. Something she’d been doing for as long as she could remember.

A hike she’d never take again. At least not from Grandma’s house. Not coming home to iced tea and conversation with the only person she’d ever felt truly safe with.

Father John talked about the one child Sarah had borne, Sam, Sue’s uncle. He was sitting in the front pew with his wife, Emily, and their daughter, Belle, who was two years younger than Sue.

Sarah had raised a fine man in Sam, the priest said, a man who could be relied on to lead the Carson family, to care for them, to carry on in the absence of his parents. With his car dealership that employed almost a hundred people, and his standing in the community, he was a testimony to the life Sarah Carson had lived.

And then the white-robed father looked at the woman sitting next to Sue. He spoke of the infant daughter Sarah Carson and her now deceased, beloved hus

band, Robert, had adopted. Jenny.

Sue’s mother.

Sue gave her mom’s hand—glued to her with their combined sweat—a comforting squeeze as the priest droned on about Jenny’s life as evidence of the mother Sarah had been. Sue’s father, seated on the other side of his wife with his arm around her, tightened his embrace, and rubbed the side of Sue’s arm with the back of his hand at the same time.

That’s how it had always been with them. Jenny and Luke together through every step of life, keeping Sue firmly within the bonds of their love.

Sue loved them. Yet she’d entertained the uncharitable thought, often enough for her to write her own sentence to hell, that if Jenny had had her way, all three of the Bookmans would dress like triplets.

All the time instead of just the vacation shirts. The Bookmans Take Manhattan. The Bookmans Do Hawaii. The Bookmans Visit Mickey.

When the Bookmans flew to Italy—The Bookmans Roam Rome—Sue had refused to wear the shirt. She would never forget her mother’s crestfallen expression as they’d left the house early that Saturday morning on their way to the airport.

She’d been nine at the time.

And she’d called Grandma Sarah from a pay phone at the airport in lieu of visiting the bathroom as she’d said she was going to do.

Grandma had told her she’d be embarrassed to wear the shirt, too. And she’d reminded Sue that Jenny loved her and only wanted what was best for her family. “Just follow that big heart of yours, my girl, share it, and you’ll be fine.”

It had sounded so easy.

When, in truth, nothing ever was.

“I’LL BE RIGHT BACK, Ma. I need some air.”

How many times in the past twenty years, since that first rebellion back when she was nine, had Sue made excuses like that? I need to use the restroom. I’m going to the water fountain. I’ll be right back….

As usual, they earned her the same concerned and loving look—a glance from her mom that effectively shut out all of the quiet voices floating around them in the crowded vestibule outside the church sanctuary. “You okay, baby?”

Nodding, Sue gave her mother a hug. “I’ll hurry.”

“How’s Belle? I saw you talking to her.”

“About like me. In shock. Can’t imagine life without Grandma.” Sue glanced over to where her cousin was standing with her mother and father, just as Sue was.

As it had always been.

Sam and Emily with Belle attached to Emily’s side. Luke and Jenny with Sue right next to her mother.

All that was left of the Carson family.

Some of Sue’s best childhood memories had been at Grandma Sarah’s house when the adults would be involved in whatever adults did around the table, and she and Belle could escape.

Sue from claustrophobia. Belle from her father.

“I won’t be long,” Sue whispered quickly now as one of Jenny’s longtime high school friends came up to offer condolences and ask how long she and Luke were in town.

Glad for the chance for a breather without having to leave her mom and dad unattended, Sue bolted out into the cool March air.

AS THE GROUNDSMEN lowered the cheap box into the public grave, he stood back, watching, but vowing not to feel. Not to try to understand.

If any mourners had attended the funeral, they’d since left.

Except for the lone onlooker who stood by the grave. A young black woman. A friend?

That he’d had a little sister he’d never known was not a surprise to him. The fact that his drug addict mother had been able to carry a second baby to term was a mystery. But that she’d been permitted to keep the girl—that, he could not comprehend. What kind of society, what kind of child services system, had allowed a mother already proven unfit to teach her daughter the ways of drugs and sex instead of ABC’s?

The fact that the child—a woman of sixteen—was dead, had killed herself, didn’t cause the twitch that suddenly appeared at the side of Rick Kraynick’s eye.

The fact that he cared did that.

THE BURST OF BRISK AIR didn’t alleviate Sue’s claustrophobia as she stood on the steps of St. Ignatius. She had to get away. To take in long clean breaths of ocean breeze. To hear the waves as she watched them crashing to shore and rolling out again.

Grandma Sarah had promised she’d live forever.

Grandma, the one person who’d never judged her. Not that she’d known everything about her granddaughter. Some things no one knew. Or would ever know.

Sue’s secret. Buried. Just like Grandma.

“Hey.”