She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [42]
As a result, the girls had only their mother to turn to, the same mother who had abandoned them to foster homes whenever they’d been inconvenient, the same mother who’d yelled and screamed at them, insisting they were never good enough. That point must have been driven home further when, as soon as they got off the plane in Austin, Celeste stopped at Jimmy’s house to tell him what happened. After comforting Celeste and the girls, he told them, “You girls better take care of your mother, be there for her and do whatever she needs. Because now she’s all you have left.”
That was something Kristina understood—that she only had Celeste and that Celeste needed her. For Jennifer, it was very different. She grieved for her father. “For the first four days after we got to Austin, I stayed in the bedroom and cried,” she says.
Now that he was gone, Celeste, too, became preoccupied with Craig. In the months that followed, she badgered Cherie, demanding his ring, watch, and even her last letter from Craig. Cherie refused. When Celeste wanted photos of Craig, Cherie told her no. Not to be denied, Celeste bought a full-page ad in a Stanwood newspaper that read:
WANTED
ANY PHOTOGRAPHS
OF
J. CRAIG BRATCHER
His 15-year-old daughters are distraught.
We did not receive any physical memories of our father.
Just one photo would help ease the pain of his death.
PLEASE HELP US!
We Will Pay All Expenses
Jennifer and Kristina
The ad ended with a P.O. box and phone number. The twins knew nothing of the ad until she came to them giggling and said, “Look what I did.” Spurred by the ad, a Seattle television station requested an interview with the girls, and Celeste happily agreed. During the news footage, the twins said they missed their father and that his family had refused to give them photos. “I was a zombie, still really missing our dad,” says Jen. “Celeste told us to do it, and we didn’t refuse. You didn’t tell Celeste no. You just didn’t.”
In Stanwood, Cherie felt humiliated to have her family troubles so publicly aired. What remained of the relationship between her and her granddaughters dissolved the following year, when a Mother’s Day card arrived. Amid tiny hearts and a cheery verse that thanked Cherie for being an inspiration, was a letter that began: “Grandma, we really mean this.” It went on to voice an indictment of Cherie for turning her back on the girls and to gushingly praise Celeste.
Years later, Kristina would look at the letter and insist she didn’t write it. “That’s not my handwriting,” she says. “It’s Celeste’s.”
In Texas, Celeste must have seen the grief in Jennifer’s eyes, as, for the most part, she left her alone. She did complain to Steve about the way her newly reclaimed daughter dressed: baggy pants and big T-shirts; Seattle grunge. While Celeste didn’t appear to know what to do with Jennifer, Steve opened his arms wide to the sad teenager. Each day, he drove the girls to Westlake High School for their freshman year. On Sundays, while Celeste and Kristina slept in, he and Jennifer began a weekly ritual: breakfast at the country club. “We’d just go and talk,” says Jen, smiling at the memory. “It was fun.”
On weekends, Steve, Jennifer, and Kristina loaded into his Cadillac and, while Celeste had plans with friends, explored the small Texas Hill Country towns, stopping for lunch at hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Before long Jennifer became Steve’s companion, driving to Home Depot with him to pick up things for the house, spending time together. For a girl whose heart ached for her lost father, he filled a painful void.
As time passed, Celeste’s world was becoming Steve’s as she methodically cut him off from his own children. Looking back, it would seem that he was trying to do for her and the twins what he’d done