Turning Angel

“Drew, listen to me. There is no upside to paying this money. Just by showing up, you’d be admitting some guilt. You could also be taking your life into your hands.”

“Because the caller could be Kate’s killer? That’s what you were thinking, right?”

He has me. “I guess so.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too.”

“Then you should call the cops. At this point, an act of God couldn’t keep your affair with Kate from becoming public. You have to think damage control now. It’s a hundred times better if the police learn the story from you than from someone else. Better for your family, too. Think of Tim.”

“I have until tomorrow morning to make that decision.”

“Don’t assume that.”

“Penn, the guy who called me probably murdered Kate. I want to see his face. I want to-”

“I know what you want to do. Forget it. Go home, mix yourself a stiff drink, and start thinking about what’s best for your son. That ought to be a change.”

Drew sucks in air as though I’ve knocked the wind out of him. “I know Tim needs me, okay?”

“You haven’t been acting like you do. Tim would be lost without you. And if you really think Ellen isn’t a good person, that’s twice the reason to keep yourself out of jail.”

More silence. “You’re right. Goddamn it, I just need to dosomething about Kate.”

“There’s nothing you can do. It’s time to suck it up and be a man. Kate’s beyond help. She’s gone. All you can do now is pick up the pieces of your own family.”

“Daddy?”comes a small voice.

Glancing toward the hall, I see my daughter poke her head around the kitchen door frame. Annie is a physical echo of her mother, a tawny-haired beauty with eyes that miss nothing. This is both a blessing and a curse, as I am continually confronted by what is essentially the ghost of my dead wife.

“Annie’s calling me, Drew. I need to go. You go home and calm down. I’ll call you in a bit and we’ll decide what you’re going to do.”

Silence.

“Drew?”

“I will.”

“How’s Jenny handling it?”

“It’s destroyed her. I had to sedate her. She ought to be asleep soon.”

“Jesus…okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

By the time I hang up, Annie is standing in front of me, her cheek pressing into my stomach. The one eye that I can see is full of sleep. She yawns, then says, “Where’s Mia?”

“Mia had to go home, Boo.”

“Aww. Mia’s fun.”

“I know. She’ll probably be back tomorrow. She said you fell asleep during the movie.”

“I guess I did. I already knew what was going to happen. Are you going to call Caitlin tonight?”

“Probably.”

“Will you do it now?”

“Let’s get you in the bed first. Then she can tell you good night.”

Annie smiles, then tugs me toward the stairs. I follow, but she stops at the base of the staircase. “Will you carry me, Daddy?”

“Nine years old? You’re pretty big to get carried these days.”

“You can do it.”

Yes, I can,I say silently, for some reason thinking of Annie’s mother. Sarah will never carry her child up the stairs again. An ache passes through my chest, like the pain from an old wound, and then I sweep Annie up into my arms and march up the steep staircase to the second-floor bedrooms. The old Victorians in Natchez have stairs seemingly designed to keep pro athletes in peak condition. I turn into Annie’s room, bend my creaking knees enough to pull back the covers, then slide her underneath them. She laughs and yanks the blanket up to her neck.

“Now call Caitlin!” she squeals.

I take my cell phone from my pocket and speed-dial Caitlin’s cell phone. She’s working a special assignment in Boston, as an investigative reporter for the Herald. I met Caitlin when her father, a newspaper magnate who owns the Natchez Examiner and ten other papers in a Southern chain, sent her down here to whip theExaminer into shape. We got close during my efforts to solve a decades-old civil rights murder and during the trial that followed. Caitlin grew to love Natchez-and me-but after the excitement of that trial faded, along with the glow of the Pulitzer she won for her stories covering it, she realized that Natchez might not be the most exciting place to spend your days, especially when you’re under thirty and hungry for challenges.

After a year of living next door to Annie and me, Caitlin began taking assignments in other cities, mostly working on investigative stories for other papers in her father’s chain. We’ve remained committed to each other, and to our plan of marrying one day. But following through with that plan would mean changes that Caitlin isn’t ready to handle yet. Annie would begin to see Caitlin more as a mother, and would expect her to be around much more consistently. Caitlin has asked me about moving to a city-after all, I lived in Houston for fifteen years-but to my surprise, I find myself reluctant to leave the town where I grew to adulthood.

Caitlin’s phone kicks me to voice mail. “This is Penn and Annie,” I say. “We’re trying to get a long-distance good-night kiss. Call us when you can.”

“Voice mail,” I tell Annie, trying to sound unconcerned. “She must be working.”

“You should hurry up and marry her,” Annie says. “Then she can be my real mom. Then she can live here.”

I can’t help but feel some resentment. When the Herald offered Caitlin a plum assignment investigating further sexual abuse in the archdiocese of Boston, she almost turned it down. The job meant at least two months away from Natchez, and though we talked about flying to see each other on weekends, we knew that probably wouldn’t work out. But the offer came from a renowned editor for whom Caitlin had worked as an intern while at Radcliffe, and I sensed that if she said no, she would eventually resent it. I’m glad she took the assignment, but our fears about visiting have proved true. The sum of our recent contact? I’ve flown to Boston once, and she flew down to Baton Rouge for a weekend with Annie and me.

“She works this late?” Annie asks.

Lately it’s become more and more difficult to reach Caitlin at night. “It’s not that late for grown-ups. Maybe she’s working undercover.”

“Yeah, she does that sometimes,” Annie says thoughtfully. “Like a spy.”

“Yep. Now, shut those eyes.”

Annie opens her eyes as wide as possible, then giggles like a two-year-old.

I poke her in the side. “You’re a pain in the you-know-what.”

More giggles. I give her a kiss, then walk into the hall and descend the long staircase. “See you in the morning!” I call.

“Not if I see you first!” she yells back.

In the kitchen, I raid the refrigerator and construct a colossal turkey po’boy. I only had a salad before the school board meeting, and I’m starving. To keep my mind off Drew and his problems I click on CNN, but there’s no escaping. CNN makes me think of Caitlin, and thoughts of Caitlin bring me back to Drew.

The essential problem that has kept Caitlin and me from marrying is our age difference. At thirty-three, she is very much in the midst of proving herself in her chosen profession, which requires her to leave Natchez often. At forty-three, I’ve already succeeded in two different careers, and the only thing I have left to prove is that I can raise my daughter well. Having endured the problems that come with a ten-year age difference, I can’t help but view Drew’s dream of a real life with Kate as absurd. Did he plan to divorce Ellen and commute by air between Natchez and Boston in order to see Tim? He couldn’t have continued practicing medicine in Natchez. The local society women would have risen as one to boycott his practice and ostracize the former darling of St. Stephen’s Prep. How would Drew have introduced Kate to fellow doctors in Boston? This is my wife. She just graduated-from