Their voices sounded so good to her, a balm to her wounds. It was the best Christmas present she could have asked for. “First of all, thank you for the flowers you sent to Seth’s funeral. I’ve written you a note, but they’re not all mailed yet.”
“Honey, you know we don’t want any thanks. If we could have, we would have come out there to be with you.”
“I know. I understand. It’s so good to hear your voices.”
“Kathleen,” Edna said. “How are you? How’s the baby? Are you all right?”
Their love reached through the wires and touched her, opening a floodgate of emotion that she had kept safely dammed. She poured out the entire story, starting with the day she had taken Erik to the airport in Fort Smith. “Theron is Erik’s baby,” she admitted softly.
“Kathleen, do you think we’re so old and feeble that we couldn’t figure that out?” B. J. asked. “We’ve known all along who that baby’s daddy is. Does Erik know it?”
“Yes,” she said calmly, then launched into the other half of her story, telling them of his reappearance in her life, their subsequent antagonism and then the days in Chub Cay. “I can’t stop loving him. I slept with him, and when I came back, Seth was dying.” She broke off with heartren
ding sobs that anguished the two people listening to them.
“Kathleen, you poor baby,” Edna said, and Kathleen heard the tears cracking the older woman’s voice.
“You and that young man have been fighting tooth and nail since you first laid eyes on each other. Why don’t you just tell him how you feel?” B. J. asked.
“Because I’m not sure he loves me. All he wants is Theron, and I’m afraid he’s going to take him away from me. Not that I’ll let him without a fight, but he could make life miserable for a long time.”
“That’s a pile of crap if I ever heard one,” B. J. said.
“Kathleen, that’s nonsense. You didn’t see him when he came looking for you after his accident. I’ve never seen a man so in love, sick with it.”
Kathleen shook her head sadly. “No. He was only angry that I’d run out on him.”
“He won’t do anything to hurt you or that boy,” B. J. said. “I’m too good a judge of human nature not to know that.”
“You don’t know him now. He’s different from the way he was at Mountain View. He’s… callous… hard.”
“I wonder what would turn a man like that?” Edna asked, her meaning implicitly clear.
Kathleen changed the subject and told them about Theron’s latest exploits. “I hope you can come out and see him soon. You’ll love him.”
“We already do,” B. J. said.
Just before hanging up, Edna said, “Why don’t you and Theron fly down here to see us? He could play in the woods. It would do you good.”
“I’d like to, but I don’t know when I can. Things are rather unsettled just now. Let me see what’s going to happen.”
* * *
She didn’t have long to wait. Two weeks into the new year, the Kirchoffs’ lawyer called Kathleen and Hazel to his office and read them Seth’s will. Its contents surprised them both.
Unknown to everyone except himself, his attorney, and the purchaser, Seth had sold the Kirchoff stores to a larger department store chain. Conditions of the sale were that his sister hold a position on their board of directors for as long as she wanted and that the name of the stores remain Kirchoff’s for the rest of her life. Kathleen was to remain in her present position for as long as she wished. She didn’t interrupt the lawyer’s sonorous voice to reveal her plans in that area of her life.
The house was also left to Hazel, as was the majority of Seth’s estate. Kathleen was bequeathed an amount which seemed immense to her, but was actually modest when one measured Seth’s wealth. He had also left her a country house in the Napa Valley north of San Francisco. He had never even mentioned the property to her, although the attorney told her Seth had purchased it over a year ago.
Hazel was enraged to find that her brother had sold the stores out from under her, but was victorious, she felt, over Kathleen. There had been no mention of Theron in Seth’s will, a surprise to Kathleen, a source of celebration for Hazel. Her share of Seth’s estate outweighed Kathleen’s many times over.
“You and your brat will be out of my house within a week,” Hazel said as they left the attorney’s office. “I never want to see you again if at all possible.”
Kathleen didn’t honor her with a comment, though Hazel’s eviction was a welcome relief. She didn’t want to spend one unnecessary night in that house. What would Hazel’s reaction be should Kathleen tell her who Theron’s father was? As cunning as she was, why had Hazel never guessed? Kathleen had often feared that her sister-in-law would recognize one of Erik’s traits in the boy. But she wasn’t searching for clues to his parentage. It was his and Kathleen’s mere existence that was the bane of her life, not where they had come from. Had Hazel been less intent on sabotaging Kathleen’s work and causing friction between her and Seth, Hazel’s eyes might have been opened to the one trump card that could have truly beaten her nemesis. She had been holding an ace and hadn’t realized it. Now it was too late. The game was over.
Kathleen looked into Hazel’s pinched, triumphant, gloating face and was almost tempted to tell her everything. But what purpose would that serve? Hazel had no bearing on her future now.
George drove Kathleen to the Napa Valley house Seth had willed her, and she was delighted with it. One look at the old brick house, fashioned after the chateaux of France, convinced her that this is where she wanted to live with Theron.