Almost A Wife. Eva Rutland

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СКАЧАТЬ Sandy and the kids. Tim, the eldest, is at Cove High, basketball and all that stuff, and to take him away now would…Oh, you know how it is.” He spread his hands. “So what’s the procedure.”

      “Relocation. That’s a first. If we—” His buzzer sounded and he picked it up. “Yes?”

      “A Mr. Canson, sir, attorney at law, from Columbus, Ohio. He says it’s urgent.”

      “Put him on,” he said, wondering. “Canson? He didn’t know a Canson. Nobody in Columbus but… “Tray Kingsley,” he said into the phone. He listened, trying to absorb the shock, a creeping feeling of sorrow. Kathy Byrd dead. Sudden. A heart attack. “I am sorry.” Vaguely he wondered why he had been called. “Is there anything I can do?”

      He listened again, longer this time, astonished. “Of course,” he finally said. “I understand.” He didn’t understand, but he added, “I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

      At four that afternoon, he sat on a plane to Columbus, Ohio, still trying to understand. Trying to absorb the shock. Kathy Byrd dead. She was only…He added the years. Twenty-six. Strange. Same age Pete had been when he died two years ago.

      Pete and Kathy Byrd. Both gone.

      He stared out at the clouds, feeling a little numb. Of all the rotten luck.

      He remembered the lawyer’s words, “All of her affairs left in your hands. It has taken me some time to find you.”

      “Yes.” He had moved twice in the two years since he had seen her. Despite the sorrow, he felt a bit of irritation. Why me?

      And at this crucial time, just as he was about to get going with all these new developments. “I am sorry,” he had said again, “I can’t leave San Francisco at this time.”

      “Mr. Kingsley, it’s imperative that you come immediately because of the children.’

      That gave him pause. Poor little tykes…couldn’t be quite out of the toddler stage. “Are they all right?” he had asked anxiously. “I mean, who’s taking care of—?”

      “A friend,” the lawyer assured him. “They’ve been with her all week.”

      He felt relieved. Of course. Kathy would have long ago made some arrangement for the children in case of her death. She was that practical.

      Absently he wondered what was his role. Probably executor to be sure her plans were carried out. She was not one to skip details. He had been amazed at how well she had dealt with Pete’s death.

      He had come then because she called him. Even though she had been surrounded by friends and neighbors, she had clung to him.

      “You’re family,” she had said.

      He had been touched, but they were not at all related. She had been just one in the gang that hung around his house during the growing up years in Dayton, Ohio. His had been that kind of house. His mother that kind of mother, he thought, and felt the familiar lump in his throat. She had been so loving, full of fun and easygoing, never minding the noise at the Ping-Pong table or around the basketball hoop that hung above the garage door the constant splashing of the swimming pool. Kids from the nearby Children’s Home, Kathy and Pete among them, had been welcome and frequent visitors. Pete and he had been pretty close, same teams through Little and Pony League, same classes during high school. And Kathy, always and forever Pete’s girlfriend, had tagged along. The two of them had frequently double-dated with him and Gloria or whoever had been his current crush.

      After high school, they had gone their separate ways. He went on to Harvard, and would probably have lost touch altogether, had it not been for his mother who was on the board of the Children’s Home, and took a personal interest in several of the kids. She kept him informed. “Pete’s waiting tables, and studying to be a court reporter…Kathy’s working at the bank.” He had come home to be best man at their wedding, and later, godfather for their first child. But then…his mother died.

      For a moment he was back in that nightmare. She had had a heart attack and he returned home. Too late.

      He shook off the feeling that always haunted him when he thought of his mother.

      Anyway, Pete and Kathy moved to Columbus and, well, just faded into his past.

      Until Pete died, and Kathy called. He had gone to Columbus then and found capable Kathy distraught and trying to cope, saddled as she was with a babe in arms and a three-year-old. Though grief-stricken, she had not been in bad shape financially, what with Pete’s life and mortgage insurance. He had been doing well as a court reporter, with Kathy typing the transcripts at home. During his illness, she had begun transcribing for other court reporters, and was assured of a steady income. Tray had only needed to give solace as best he could, and help iron out the legal details concurrent with death. He had promised to stay in touch. “Call if you need me. Anytime for anything.”

      “Cocktail, sir?”

      He looked up at the Flight attendant. “Whiskey and soda, please. Thanks,” he said, taking a swallow before setting the glass on his tray. He needed it. He was assailed by guilt. He hadn’t kept in touch.

      Oh, a few phone calls in answer to her infrequent notes. Birthday and Christmas presents for the kids. But he hadn’t been back, not once. He often went back to visit Dad, who was still working as a pharmacist, still living in Dayton, though he had moved from the old home to a condo, complete with golf course, swimming pool and cronies.

      Dayton, he reminded himself, wasn’t all that far from Columbus…But no, he hadn’t kept in touch.

      I’m in touch now, he thought, two days later, when he sat on a plane headed back to California. He was accompanied by a six-year-old girl holding tight to a teddy bear almost as big as she, and a four-year-old boy clutching a peppermint stick in very sticky fingers.

      Quite a bundle for a bachelor accustomed to traveling light. Especially when the bundles were alive and kicking!

      “No! I don’t want this thing ’round me.” The boy pushed at the seat belt with surprising strength.

      “It’s just till we get going,” Tray apologized, desperately trying to get boy, girl and teddy bear buckled in.

      “You have to, Peter.” It was the girl who got the boy’s attention. “You know like Mommy always did in the car.”

      “I want Mommy!”

      “Mommy’s in heaven,” the girl said, repeating as before, that Mommy was never coming back. It broke Tray’s heart every time she said it. Her big blue eyes would grow even more solemn and sad. Not the happy child she had been when he had seen her two years ago.

      “Her real name is Chelsea, but we call her Sunny because she’s our…my,” Kathy had corrected herself, remembering Pete was gone. “My little ray of sunshine.’

      Sunny. She had been then. A happy, smiling child, her eyes bright, her golden curls dancing as she pranced around. Too young then to realize that her daddy was dead.

      She was not too young now. She was keenly aware that her mother had suddenly disappeared from her life. He hadn’t seen her smile once. But he felt a tug of admiration for the staunch little figure…bravely reassuring her brother while tightly СКАЧАТЬ