The Pilot's Wife_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [42]
Kathryn could picture Mattie’s face at the other end of the line, the eyes uncertain and wide and panicky. Kathryn could imagine how the news would have bruised Mattie, how her daughter must have hated hearing about the rumor from Taylor. How Taylor, being a normal teenage girl, would have been slightly puffed up to be the one to break the news to Mattie. How Taylor would then feel compelled to call all of their mutual friends with a detailed description of Mattie’s reaction.
“Oh, Mattie,” Kathryn said. “It’s just a rumor. The news media, they get an idea and they go with it before they’ve even checked it out. It’s awful. It’s irresponsible. And it isn’t true. It absolutely isn’t true. I’m here with the airline safety board, and they would know, and they’re denying the rumor very strongly.”
There was a silence.
“But, Mom,” Mattie said. “What if it is true?”
“It’s not true.”
“How would you know?”
Kathryn heard the note of anger in her daughter’s voice. Unmistakable. Why hadn’t she told Mattie the truth that morning during their walk?
“I just know,” Kathryn said.
There was another silence.
“It’s probably true,” Mattie said.
“Mattie, you knew your father.”
“Maybe.”
“What does that mean?”
“Maybe I didn’t know him,” Mattie said. “Maybe he was unhappy.”
“If your father was unhappy, I’d have known.”
“But how do you ever know that you know a person?” she asked.
The query momentarily stopped the volley of questions and answers between them, allowing a wave of uncertainty to rise up in front of Kathryn. But she knew that Mattie didn’t want uncertainty now, however much she might have been challenging her mother. Kathryn was sure of this.
“You feel it,” Kathryn said with more bravado than conviction. “Do you feel that you know me?” Mattie asked.
“Pretty well,” Kathryn said.
And then Kathryn realized that she had fallen into a trap. Mattie was good at this, always had been.
“Well, you don’t,” Mattie said with a mixture of satisfaction and dread. “Half the time you have no idea what I’m thinking.”
“OK,” Kathryn said, backing off, conceding. “But that’s different.”
“No, it’s not.”
Kathryn brought the heel of her hand to her forehead, massaged it.
“Mom, if it’s true, does that mean that Daddy murdered all those people? Would it be murder?”
“Where did you hear the word?” Kathryn asked quickly, as if Mattie were a child who had just uttered an obscenity she’d learned at school or from a friend. Yet the word was profane, Kathryn thought. It was appalling. More appalling for coming from the mouth of her fifteen-year-old daughter.
“I didn’t hear it anywhere, Mom. But I can think, can’t I?” “Look, Mattie. Just hang on. I’ll be right there.”
“No, Mom. Don’t come here. I don’t want you to come. I don’t want you to come here and try to tell me a lot of lies to make things better. Because I don’t want lies right now. It can’t be made better, and I don’t want to pretend. I just want to be left alone.”
How did a fifteen-year-old girl come by such unflinching honesty? Kathryn wondered. The truth was more than most adults could tolerate. Perhaps the young were better at reality, she decided, having had less time to dissemble, create fictions.
Kathryn stifled the impulse to raise her voice, to simply overpower her daughter’s fears and doubts, but she knew from experience not to press Mattie now.
“Mom, there are men here,” Mattie said. “Strange men. All over the place.”
“I know, Mattie. They’re security men to keep the press and public away from the house.”
“You think strangers would want to get in?”
Kathryn didn’t want to frighten her daughter any more than was necessary.
“No, I don’t,” Kathryn said. “But the press can be a nuisance. Look, just sit tight. I’ll be there in just a little while.”
“Fine,” Mattie said tonelessly.
Kathryn stood a minute at the counter with the phone in her hand, regretting the severed connection. She considered calling Mattie back immediately, trying to calm her down, but Kathryn knew that such an effort