A Dash of Summer
Kate is a morning person, but Castle has absconded with her early bird - the two of them have flown the nest to who knows where. So she pours coffee from the pot her husband and son already made, fixes it without that little, solemn face peering up at her, his heels drumming the cabinets.
It's strange. It throws her off, doing it alone.
She wanders to the back deck and faintly catches a blur of something on the lawn, far off and disappearing fast, and she assumes Andy is out, cleaning up after the wedding guests. She frowns at the thought - the catering and wedding event team were supposed to take care of everything last night - but if Andy feels the need to check, she can't blame him for it.
The wood of the railing is hard against her ribs and Kate can't find a place to settle. She keeps her eyes on the way the sunlight suffuses the sky, brilliant and soaking through every molecule of air, but it's too much.
Her eyes hurt and her back is stiff and she's off her rhythm.
Kate sighs and heads back inside, dismisses the idea putting on a swimsuit and going down to the beach, touches the wooden butcher's block with her fingertips, tries to find what she's missing.
She scoops up her phone from the kitchen table and checks her messages, email, everything. But the 12th is silent, and nothing for her to do anyway since she's on vacation, and Castle hasn't let her in on whatever and wherever he's taken her son.
Since she's always refused to put those game apps on her phone, she doesn't even have that for distraction. Just the lack of contact with the outside world, lack of tethers this morning, and while she used to crave these moments when they first were together, she can't fathom what to do with them now.
What did she used to do?
What does she want to do?
She wants to not feel like this - missing. Unsolved. She wants to think that her mother's life is what matters most and not her death, but it's a terrible, shaky lie, and the construct has begun to crumble.
She wants the name.
She wants to speak the name of the man who murdered her mother in an alley and left her like trash. She wants to know.
But not today. Not today.
The Hamptons house is too big, too alone, and while two of her sources of strength and distraction and fulfillment are out of the house - she has Ellery upstairs who needs her mother.
Needs her, loves her, adores her.
For another day, another morning, Kate can not-know. She can.
She can do this.
Kate haunts her daughter's empty bedroom with Abe Lincoln riding on her shoulder. Already the pet bearded dragon has grown, his prehensile hands and tail cling to her shirt and the strap of her bra to hold on. Strangely - so did her kids when they were little, so small, and she remembers cheetos stains on her clothes were Dashiell's fingers gripped so tightly.
She lifts a finger and taps Linc's head; he pushes back into her touch, his eyes blinking their second, thin lids so that he looks happy. Kate smiles and opens Ellery's closet, glances through the clothes the girl usually leaves here for summer.
They have a lot, she and Castle, and that means the kids do too. She's not sure how comfortable she is with having two of things - one for each house - and Ellery won't notice if Kate weeds out her wardrobe and gives items to goodwill. But Dash would.
Dashiell would notice only because everything has to follow rules, has to be in place, has to be the same as it's always been. But so long as Kate doesn't give a way Cricket's shoes, Ellery will be happy to share.
She has a kind heart. She looks at the world with joy, like her father, and a shrewdness that comes from Kate but which doesn't mar her fun. Kate thinks she's maybe a little bit jealous of that.
She goes through Ellery's dresser drawers first, making a neat, folded pile on the bed of all the things that Kate knows are too small now. She has a moment's hesitation when she thinks about hand-me-downs, her mind spinning, sudden visions crowding for space, and so Kate holds back the cute red shorts with the foxes on the back pockets, and the mint green and white polka dot bloomers that Ella looked adorable in last year.
Not for herself - no, hopefully, she and Castle won't have any more surprises. But for Allie and Rafe? Too soon; it's too soon now. But anything can happen, and Allie was the one who bought the fox-pockets for Ella in the first place.
She sorts through a hundred different t-shirts, mostly hilarious screen prints that Castle said Ella had to have or cast-offs from Dashiell when he outgrew them. The dinosaurs Kate knows can go, but a couple of the dragons have to stay, just in case. A pug dog that says I know I'm cute. Feed me. The animated bubblegum machine pooping a gumball. The elephants in love, their trunks twined into a heart. The horse and narwhal embracing on the front of another t-shirt, and on the back, the resultant unicorn saying I'm back! The cute orange kittens making photocopies, and the t-shirt Kate bought her daughter that says Property of the NYPD.
So many clothes, so many things Ella doesn't wear, or wears only because their family is here in the Hamptons, wears only because Kate is too lazy to pack. It makes her feel good to get rid of the clutter, and now she itches to wake Ellery, get the girl involved, have her help weed Kate's closet as well.
They could all use a little cleaning out.
She saves enough outfits for an emergency week but the rest Kate will donate.
She skims her fingers over the hanging up clothes, the dresses and skirts. The red polka dot sundress that Kate remembers from South Padre last October, the navy one with the straps that tie off into bows at the girl's shoulders. The neon pink frilly skirt with its black lace underskirt that Ella adores.
She pulls out the items that are too small, that hit Ellery at the thighs instead of the knees, and then she goes back and makes herself evaluate it all critically. She saves the red polka dot sundress because she loves those memories - and her daughter's blue eyes and dark hair above the red - but she's brutal on the rest of it.
Time to get Ella out of bed though. Time to get moving on the day - enough stalling, enough waiting, enough thinking too much.
She'll bag up these clothes and then she'll have Ella help her mommy weed her own closet, and then they'll take a trip into town to donate them - just the two girls, re-establishing that connection.
This will be good for them.
Kate stands in the doorway and surveys her daughter still asleep in their bed. She wraps her fingers around her coffee mug for the warmth, the heavy aroma of caffeine and vanilla, and she plans her attack.
Her seduction, really. Just as Castle said. Romancing her daughter requires every ounce of patience that Kate owns, and she's not quite sure how Castle managed it on her back then.
Back then? Oh, if she's honest, even still. Kate sometimes still has to be wooed out of herself.
She pushes off against the door frame and heads into their bedroom, silent on her bare feet, sliding a lock of hair behind her ear. She got it cut recently and it's shorter than she wanted, but now it brushes her shoulders and takes less time to straighten. Worthwhile for her kids' busy mornings these days.
Kate sinks down onto the mattress and leans back against the headboard, taking a sip of her coffee. Ellery's hand is under her cheek, giving her fish lips, drooling onto the sheets, but kind of adorable. Kate brushes a finger down the girl's forehead, sliding the hair out of her eyes, and leans in to kiss her sleep-warm skin.
Not even a flicker. Ella could be out for hours.
Does it really matter? Is it imperative for her daughter to get up right this moment?
They got to bed late and it was a full day, and as Ella told her, she danced so much.
Kate settles in and lays a hand over Ella's back, rubbing soft circles to soothe herself more than her daughter. The room is awash in summer sunlight, the beautiful gold and warm yellows of the Hamptons, that cool blue undertone that comes from being so close to the water. She can see the trees through her window, the palms and sand trees mostly, and past that the horizon melts into the grey blur of ocean and sky.
She's feeling disparate today - a study of contrasts, joyful and seductive one moment and then weighed down and out of sync the next - and she's pretty sure she's only fit company for a sleeping little girl anyway.
Kate sets her coffee on the bedside table, nudging Castle's paperback away from the coaster so the mug has room. She picks it up and glances at the title - one of his new YA authors, an advanced reader's copy. She thumbs through it a moment but feels no allure and drops it back on his bedside table.
She rolls onto her other side, facing Ella in the bed, and lets herself drift for a moment, not responsible or focused, not driving herself towards the end goal.
Everything orients around the wound of her mother's death. She knows it; she does. She's trying and she's been so much better than she expected. Castle has been unwittingly helpful as well - since he spends so much time at Black Pawn, she has to take up the slack with the kids, their schedules and schools, the downtime at home. When Castle is with them, he is so present and active, she can't manage the slow slide into that hole.
This little girl before her helps. Her son helps. Supports that keep her going, moving, keep her up. But a weekend in the Hamptons and the wedding over means Kate's run out of distractions.
She doesn't want to think about it.
But she reaches for her phone and unlocks the screen, hovers her thumb over the contacts.
Before she realizes it, she's calling Jordan Shaw.