Lost & Found Ch. 04

I stared back at her, confused but resolute.

"Kat and me, we've got a home, why don't you came and live there with us, it's bigger, there's more room, you could --"

Sarah shook her head sadly.

"No, Frankie, Joe's everywhere here, all his things, the feel of him, I can't leave here and lose the last part of him, please don't ask me to do that!"

I nodded, understanding completely; it seemed to me that all this family ever did was say goodbye to its loved ones, I couldn't ask her to do that now, not again.

"Kat and me, we'll stay on in the house; it's her home, it's where dad is for her, she won't leave, I guarantee you, and I'll be there to look after her. She'll be fine, don't worry about her. Where's mom now?"

Sarah swiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

"Mom's waiting at home for you. Please don't make this difficult for her, she doesn't want all that crying and sobbing around her. She's going to need your help, and Kat's too, be the man of the family, that's what you are, Frankie, so please, take care of business, promise me?"

I promised her, fighting back tears. I was frightened; I didn't know how to be the man of the family, I'd never needed to; mom was strong, and I relied on her to tell me what was what, what was I going to do when she was gone? I didn't know how to bring up Kat; she may have been nearly eighteen, but she was still the youngest, barely out of childhood, there was so much more she need to learn from mom, how was I going to show her what to do and who to be?

I had to get out of there, just for a few minutes; I had to think, I had to work out what I was going to do next. Kat's graduation was just a couple of months away, but mom wasn't going to be there for it, how was she going to face graduation when all the most important people in her life would be missing? Only Kat and I would be there for her, no other family, just gaps in the photograph that would tear at her forever. And what about college? I know Kat had applied to State U, and a couple of colleges in the south-west, but would she even want to go to college now? I didn't want to be her parent, I wasn't ready, I wasn't even three years older than her, still just a kid myself.

I left Sally waiting for Kat to come round, took my keys and just drove around the block aimlessly, letting my autopilot do the driving while I tried to come to terms with what was going on in my family, the loss of yet another loved one, and the loneliness to come. Kat was going to be a mess, I knew that; she'd just barely gotten over dad, after a long, long journey back from her despair, and now she had to do it again; I was frightened for her; could she do this again, could she take that kind of battering again and level-off one more time? I doubted it, and I despaired over what would happen to her. Mom had made me her protector, fate had made me her father-figure, and now life was taking mom from her just when she needed her most. I couldn't be her mom as well; I could barely function as an adult myself, and the future loomed black and frightening.

I found myself back at Sarah's door, no wiser, no less frightened, and wishing this day had never started; somehow I had to go home, somehow I had to face mom, I just didn't know how, nor did I want to, I just wanted to run and hide, and make it all go away, make it not be true.

When I went back inside, Kat was awake, sobbing against Sarah, who was in almost as bad a state. As soon as she saw me, Kat tore herself away from Sarah and flew into my arms, locking her arms around my neck while a storm of sobs wracked her. I put my arms around her to steady her, and she pulled herself even tighter, her face buried in the hollow of my neck and shoulder. I comforted her, but I couldn't, not when I wanted to cry as hard as she was right now; I wanted my mom, I wanted her to be well, I wanted her to be there when I graduated, when I married, when my first baby was born, I wanted her to be there forever. But it wasn't going to happen.

Somehow, I managed to calm her down and convince her to come home with me; we needed to see mom, there were things I know mom wanted to say, things we needed to hear, and right now, every minute with mom was going to be a precious thing, a memory to take with us when she was gone.

Mom was waiting silently for us; her face tense and worried, perhaps thinking the same thing about Kat that I had; how was she going to handle this new hammer-blow?

Kat surprised me by being calm, rational even, but i could see what it was costing her, the tension in her as she fought not to collapse. I always knew she had inner strength, that day was when it started to assert itself, the day she learned of our mother's death sentence.

Mom was surprisingly calm and resigned; she'd known for a long time, but had chosen to hide it from us, hoping that it would progress slowly enough that we'd be safely ensconced in college, our career's mapping out before us, before she had to go. But it had quickened its pace, and she had run out of time.

I don't know where I got the strength to sit there as she calmly told us about the arrangements she'd made, the provisions she'd made for Kat, and for me, where she wanted to be buried, every last detail taken care of.

The days fled by, mom gradually weakening as the disease took its final toll on her, Kat and I constantly by her bedside, until it was time for her to move to the hospital in Roseville. She didn't want to die at home, she wanted us to remember her living there, not dying here, and so elected to spend her last days in hospital. Her doctors agreed, she could receive better care there than we could give, and it was what she wanted. Kat and I were at her bedside that last terrible day, Sarah in the corridor outside, her strength finally abandoning her; she'd made her last goodbye and fled the room, her soft sobs just audible through the closed door.

At the end, mom went silently, slipping away so gently I didn't even realise she'd gone, Kat's sudden intake of breath, and then her sob as mom passed away suddenly alerting me that she was gone. Kat crept into the shelter of my arm as I cried with her, Sarah suddenly there too, all three of us and little Joey now all we had in the world, all our parents and loved ones gone long before their time.

The arrangements mom had made included her funeral, and a Wake to follow. There were a lot of mourners; mom had been well-known and well liked in the community, and her friends gave good and heartfelt tributes. Kat sat through it all like a ghost, pale, drawn, silent and uncommunicative, Sarah no better, and it fell to me, as "the man of the house" to make sure the mourners were properly thanked, that all condolences were properly and graciously accepted, and that all the little bequests and tokens of friendship and remembrance she'd set aside for her friends were properly distributed.

The Wake afterwards back at our house was pretty much as we'd expected; there were no feuding relatives to get drunk and fight, no distant relatives to sing songs and tell us of the old days, no elderly aunts to sit and discuss past Wake's and family necrology, no boozy uncles to drink Guinness and give long, rambling toasts before starting fights with their sons; the only family Kat had was here, and it was only strangers, friends, for the most part, but strangers nevertheless, to hold the wake with us.

It was a solemn, almost morbid affair, no-one prepared to introduce even the slightest note of jollity, which, after all, was the whole point of the Wake; to celebrate the deceased, and toast their passing, American mid-West Protestantism at a loss when it came to Irish Catholic ritual, so retreating into stiff, solemn politeness. After a decent interval, with all the food eaten and the obligatory drink to toast mom, people began drifting away, and the last of her life and presence here went with them. Some of my friends from college helped me clear up, and then left with toasts of "Air Do Shlainte!" to the girls and me.

After the trauma of the funeral and the interment, there was nothing to do but get back to our lives. Mom had left all of us a substantial amount of money in the form of her various life insurance policies, plus Kat had her own money from dad's insurance, easily enough to pay all her college fees, so bills and suchlike were not a problem. But I was worried about Kat; she'd been silent and calm the whole time since mom had died, eerily so, almost like she'd detached herself from her emotions, but now she seemed to come alive again, her expression returning from the dull-eyed, haunted look that she'd worn since that day in the hospital to something like her normal self again, almost like she'd flipped a switch inside and turned-off all the sadness and loss.

I didn't know if it was a good thing, but it was certainly better than the ghost I'd been living with for the past couple of weeks. She began talking and socialising with me almost immediately, unlike the silent recluse she'd become after dad's death, and one evening I even found her stretched out on my bed, dressed in just a long baggy tee-shirt and panties, with a huge bowl of potato chips, watching a rerun of 'Saturday Night Live' and smiling at the gags and snappy one-liners.

My own grief had been mitigated and pushed back down to some extent by my worries about her, but now I began to breathe a little easier; somehow, she'd found a way to get past it, and now she seemed to be on her way back. She'd even remembered to thank me with a little kiss on top of my head for the gift I'd given her for her 18th birthday that had come and gone without us even marking it, coming as it did in the middle of everything else that was happening around us.

I'd given her a voucher for her to buy her prom dress, hoping to get her back out there with her friends and peer-group, and get back into school life and get excited about the promise of a new adventure in college.

She'd taken me at my word and bought herself something I knew mom would have disapproved of (I certainly did!), and one of her large and varied group of admirer's had asked her to the prom, she'd accepted, and again I felt the irrational surge of jealousy, which I pushed back down; get a grip, I told myself, she's an adult now, not a little girl, leave her to choose who she goes out with!

When Cody Pietersen, her date came to collect her, I forced myself to be polite, friendly, as non-threatening as possible, while still signalling that any taking of liberties with her would find me knocking on his door; I knew his older brother, the very definition of the phrase 'pussy-hound', and if young Cody had taken after him in any way, I was quite prepared to commit mayhem on his body.

I think he got that; the name 'Frank Novak' was still one to conjure with when it came to getting your ass comprehensively kicked (although the only ass I'd ever kicked had been that little rat-fuck Steve Dolan...)

And then she came down the stairs, and my heart nearly stopped; I always knew she was a beautiful girl, but now she was stunning! Her hair shone like burnished copper, piled-up in gleaming scarlet curls on her head and cascading down over her milky shoulder like a river of flame, red and vibrant, shimmering in the light. The short dress revealed her lithe, slinky figure, her long slender legs and milky-white shoulders, the daring décolleté showing just how much of a woman she was. Her milky skin glowed against the teal-green metallic fabric of her sheath dress, the exact same color as her eyes, and which clung to her like a second skin. I was literally open-mouthed in shocked amazement; my little sister was a sensuously beautiful, desirable woman, and I couldn't look at her enough. I actually felt my heart falter as I stared at her in open-mouthed amazement.

"Well, Frankie, will I do?" she smiled, and I could only nod as words failed me. I'd brought my camera, like any proud father would to take the picture of his daughter on her prom night, but it hung by its strap from my wrist, completely forgotten as I drank in the 8th Wonder of The World that was Caitlin Novak.

"Don't wait up for me, Frankie, I'm a big girl now!" she smiled, an injunction I fully intended to ignore; nothing in this world would keep me from staying up all night if it meant I got to see her looking like that again, a reaction that puzzled me a little; this was my kid sister! It didn't make any difference, though; I was going to wait until she was safely back home before I even thought about going to bed.

After she'd left, Cody bowing her into the rented Limo like a proper gentleman, my baleful glare no doubt imprinted into his memory, I tried to relax, watch TV, read, nothing seemed to work; I clock-watched almost incessantly, watch TV for an hour without taking anything in at all, then look at the clock only to discover less than 20 minutes had gone by. I paced, fretted, tried to eat a sandwich, have a glass of buttermilk, anything to try and relax and quit stressing, but nothing worked.

I remembered what my own prom night had been like, what I'd gotten up to with Missy Schiller, and promised myself that if Cody Pietersen tried even half that stuff, they were going to find his body nailed upside down to a tree beside the interstate with his dick stuffed in his mouth; and before you start talking about double--standards, I know, but this was my baby sister, and different rules applied...

Just as I'd decided they were gone forever, she'd eloped and run off with him to live in a trailer park in Duluth, the phone rang. It was Kat! It took me a little while to work out what she was saying, she was crying, and babbling so much, about all I got was that she was at the Dew Drop Inn, a sleazy fleabag over on the turnpike. I managed to get the room number, then hung up and bolted out the door, driving over there as fast as I could without getting caught by our scabrous sheriff or any of his equally morally bankrupt deputies.

I found Kat in the room in a state of high agitation; as soon as she answered to my knock, she jumped into my arms, holding my neck almost hard enough to break it, crying hysterically and babbling about how she was sorry. I tried to calm her down and find out what she was sorry about, and what she was doing in this rat ranch in the first place. I managed to get the crying stopped, and tried to find out what had happened, and where Cody was in all this. Eventually I got the whole story; it turns out Cody was pretty much the latest edition of his brother, so he and I would be having a conversation presently...

As I understood it, he'd booked the room here as his reward for taking Kat to the prom; he was hoping for a little post-prom magic, and had decoyed Kat here by telling her that some of the guys and their dates would be having a party here; apparently no-one else knew about the party, because when he and Kat turned up there was no-one there, just a great, big, inviting-looking bed. Kat got it immediately and tried to leave, but Cody tried to get insistent, telling her he put out for the limo, now she was supposed to be properly grateful. She kneed him, hard, in that special place that all men have, the one that will make you make squeaky noises that only bats can hear if you get smacked hard enough there, Cody went cross-eyed and made his escape, hobbling away at high-speed before Kat removed parts of him that he was going to need in later life.

When she'd finished, Kat looked at me fearfully, obviously expecting a dressing-down for falling for such a dumb ploy, and for not being worldly enough to avoid the situation in the first place, but hey, she was a kid, it was her prom, and these things happen; she got out of it unscathed; a lot of girls aren't so lucky...

"I'm sorry Frankie, he seemed so nice! I've known Cody all my life, I never guessed he'd try something like this! I feel so stupid!"

She started to cry again, and I instinctively gathered her in, like I'd been doing her entire life, letting her cry against me. I wasn't going to have a fit at her, not after the scare she'd had, all I wanted to do was stop her tears, something I'd been good at all her life too.

Kat hugged me as she sobbed, her sobs gradually dying away until she was quiet against me. I made to move so we could get out of that flea-trap and she murmured discontentedly and hugged me harder. I grinned over her shoulder and held her close, trying to forget what a luscious young woman I was cuddling and concentrate on the fact that she was my little sister, and I'd come over here to rescue her, not think about her like...that. After a while, she stirred and looked up, fixing me with her stunning emerald eyes.

"Frankie, do you like me? Still I mean, after what...happened here, do you hate me?"

I hugged her, grateful for the conversation.

"Baby-girl, I always like you; even when I'm mad at you I still like you! What happened here tonight wasn't your fault, so let's just go home, okay?

Again she murmured, hugging me tightly again, while I held her until whatever was going on in her mind had run its course.

"Do you like my dress, Frankie?" she asked in a small voice, and I began to wonder where this was going.

"I like your dress just fine, baby, it's kind of short, but it's a very pretty dress, and it suits you; it's your color..."

She buried her face in my chest.

"I'm glad you like it, Frankie," she whispered, "I wore it just for you!"

For a second I didn't register what she'd said, and then I froze.

"Say that again, please, Kat, I don't think I heard you properly. Did you say you wore it for me? What do you mean?"

She looked back up at me, her eyes huge and luminous in the sickly glow from the bedside lamp in that grimy flea-trap motel miles from anywhere.

"I wore it just for you; everything tonight was for you; the dress, my hair and makeup, everything. I wanted you to tell me how beautiful I was, to tell me not to go, to keep me for yourself. I love you Frankie, and I want you to love me!"

I was confused.

"I do love you, baby, I'll always love you, I promised mom when you were born that I'd always love you and look after you and I always will!"

She looked away impatiently.

"No, Frankie, I love, you, as in 'I am in love with you', and I want to know if you feel the same way for me; everything tonight was for you, don't you have anything for me?"

I could hear the tears in her voice, and I realised she was serious.

I was floundering, puzzlement shot with confusion and a growing feeling that she was touching on a part of me I didn't want to acknowledge. Without warning, she sat up and moved astride me, taking my face in both hands and kissing me, hard, her tongue snaking between my lips to rub against my tongue. Automatically, my arms tightened about her, and I kissed her back, aware at some level that this had been cooking inside me for a long time now, and I have to say, sister or not, I enjoyed every nuance of her kiss; her soft lips, her darting tongue, the sweet smell of her perfume, mingled with the scent of her hair, her skin, her warm breath, and under it all, the subtle scent of her need. As we kissed, the inevitable reaction happened. Kat felt it; she actually ground against me, writhing on my lap as she leaned into the kiss, making me even harder and more obvious.

I groaned and pulled away from her, drawing a shuddering breath as the enormity of what we'd just done intruded into my enjoyment of her kiss. Kat was a hot, beautiful girl, but she was still my sister, and I had to make her see that, even if a large part of me clamoured for more of her. She looked back at me with a small smile on her face, a corner of her lower lip caught between her teeth; Christ, she looked sexy when she did that! She knew exactly what she was doing to me, and God help me, I wanted more; but we were crossing a line here, and I didn't know how to pick my way back across it if we went too far.