"When we were up in your room, I didn't notice your letters," she said. "I remember you had them on the dresser."
Star and Jade fixed their eyes on me as I thought and then shook my head.
"Me neither. He must've taken them."
"Why would he take them?" Jade asked, her mouth turned down with disgust. "How sick is he?"
"Sick enough," Star said. "I'll go hack up and look." "I'll help," Misty said, rising.
The two left and Jade fetched the coffee cups and took out the milk She tried to keep my mind off things by describing some of the new clothing her mother had bought in anticipation of her big
celebration. She was talking with nervous energy, reminding me of how she was at our group therapy sessions, especially toward the end when she described her attempted suicide with sleeping pills. Then she poured us both some coffee. We heard Misty and Star come down the stairs. One look at them told me they hadn't found the letters.
"Maybe he gets off on reading other people's private stuff," Star said.
"Maybe he didn't know all of it himself," Misty suggested. She looked to me.
"I don't know what he knew. He never mentioned anything to me."
"Well, we can't do anything about it now. Let's concentrate on what we can do," Jade said finally. She poured Star and Misty their coffee and sat.
"So? What can we do?" Misty asked.
"Move on with our plans. In the morning I'm picking up some things for our private room. If you want, I'll pick you up first," she said to Misty.
"Okay."
"We still have a lot of fixing up to do around here. I'll sleep over tomorrow night," she told me. She looked at Misty. "When did you say your father was remarrying?"
"This Saturday and it's a church wedding, too, with lots of guests!"
"We'll all go with you," Jade said.
"You will?"
"Why not? Star?"
"Fine with me, but I don't have anything fancy to wear."
"I have just the dress for you," Jade said. "I'll bring it here. Cat needs something nice, too. Tomorrow afternoon, I'll have the limousine take us to Camelot's on Sunset and we'll get her something outstanding."
"That's nice, thanks," Misty said, her face filling with her characteristic cheer and vivacity.
"I'd better do some more work on Geraldine's grave," Star said. "It's lucky he came around here at night. We might get other visitors. It still looks too much like what it is. I'll do it in the morning before I go home." She sipped some coffee. "If I don't get back here later in the day, don't wait around for me," she added.
"Is there anything we can do for you? Maybe we should all come to your house," Jade wondered.
"No, it would just make Granny nervous and all. She'd be afraid my mother would do or say something embarrassing. We'll see," she said.
The silences were long and deep between us. When we sipped our coffee, we peered over the cups at each other, all of us sensing the tension in the room. How fragile our confidence really was, I thought. For me the doubt worked like a doorway to the darkness from which Geraldine could emerge, her face twisted in a smile of derision, her eyes like two candle flames. Her hatred and anger shot up from the ends of her dead fingers, twirling and streaking through the earth and into the house to crackle and spark in the rooms and hallways and to remind me that she wasn't far away. She was never far away.
"Are you all right?" Jade asked me. "Cat?"
"What? Oh, yes," I said.
"Let's finish straightening up," she said. "What do we do about the back door?" she asked, nodding at it.
Star inspected it and then went out to the garage to get some tools. We all watched her work.