Beckett: Irony
Tuesday 16 October
Kate pulled open the heavy wooden door with glass panelling. She squinted as she adjusted her eyes from the bright New York sun to the dim dirty-yellow lighting of the grill restaurant. She scanned the tables laid out in perpendicular fashion, either side of a dividing panel. Her father sat at the far end of the long darkly wooden-panelled room, in a booth opposite from the bar, both lit and shadowed by the old-fashioned upturned glass wall lamps above him. As ever, she noted with affection, he wore his usual smart casual combination of shirt and blazer.
Her stilettos echoed along the wooden floor as she passed a small group enjoying an animated business lunch, the smell of steak and garlic making her stomach growl despite the lack of any appetite. He stood as she arrived, and kissed her on each cheek. She shifted out of her mid-length cream coat – the leather always seemed to stay at home whenever she was with her father - and slid into the deep red bench opposite him, tucking her purse and coat beside her.
'This was a lovely surprise, Katie. We haven't been here in years.' She winced. It's true that she didn't arrange to see him all that often and she certainly didn't invite him out for lunch regularly. Though, she thought, neither does he.
'How's work?' he started when she didn't respond.
'It's good, Dad. I'm just taking a few vacation days.'
He raised his eyebrows. 'I did think it was odd us having lunch mid-week. I didn't think you knew what a vacation was.'
She slit her eyes back at him in mock offence. 'Thanks for meeting with me, I know you're busy.'
'We just finished a case so I'm flexible.' An unnatural pause descended between them. 'I, um, ordered you a strawberry milkshake, I hope that's alright? You do still like them?'
Kate smiled to herself. Having been the parent for the last few days it was strange to find herself in the child role. She could have done with a coffee, or something stronger, but instead she said: 'Thanks, Dad. Yeah, they're still my favourite.' Another uncomfortable silence fell. Laughter from the group wafted over them, one man's bark louder than the others. It was impossible to make small talk when all she could think about was how he was going to react to her news. No point putting it off any longer.
'I have something to tell you,' she said, clasping her hands together on the table, the white tablecloth scrunching slightly beneath her fingers, and hunching her shoulders forward.
'Okay. This sounds ominous. I'm listening,' he replied, giving her the calm slight smile with accompanying eye twinkle that gave nothing away about what he was really thinking. It had always unnerved her so much when she had been caught out by him when she was a child, and he had waited for her confession.
'After Mom died, I kinda lost it. Well, I was already a little crazy.'
'Rebel Becks! Don't think I haven't heard that before. You and that motorcycle.' He shook his head with a soft smile.
'Sure,' she rushed. 'So, it wasn't unusual for me to have-' she squirmed as she tried to phrase it delicately for her father, '-a lot of boyfriends.'
Jim raised a hand. His daughter's sex life was not something that they ever, ever discussed.
'But I was always careful, Dad,' she continued, undeterred. 'I took care of myself. Except. After Mom, I guess I was a little less careful.'
A strange, pained growl escaped the back of Jim's throat.
'Katie, you don't have to-'
'I do, Dad.' Her head snapped up. 'Wait, what? I don't have to what?'
'You don't have to tell me. If you don't want to.' In place of his teasing smile was a frightened frown, then his eyes widened like a frozen child unable to move out of the way of an oncoming vehicle.
'Tell you what?' There was a buzzing in her ears while she waited for him to answer. Goosebumps raced across her arms like fire along a stream of petrol as she realised what he was going to say.
It seemed as if the words fell from his mouth without his control. 'About the baby,' he choked. Her mouth fell open, stunned. This couldn't be happening.
'About the…the baby. You…you knew!'
Jim mirrored her body language, placing his hands on the table, his palms turned upwards towards the dark panelled ceiling, his face etched with pain. 'You were nineteen, wearing loose sweaters in August in Manhattan. You didn't come home for our first Christmas together without your mother. Of course, I knew.' She was speechless for several seconds. The air seemed to have been sucked out of the room. Eventually her voice connected with her addled brain.
'But then why? Why didn't you say anything?' How could he have kept this from her?
'I figured you'd tell me. When you were ready. You were never one to push. Your mother always said: "Jim, she'll come to us when she's ready". She wasn't here to talk to so I just followed what I knew she would have said. And then it was months then years and, well, you know the problems I had,' he begged. Kate was a swirl of emotions unable to tell if she was angry or just plain shocked. The irony that they had kept the same secret from each other slowly dawned on her.
'Dad, I don't know what to say. I'm sorry I didn't-'
'Sorry? You don't have to be sorry. I'm the one who should be apologising.' Confusion and regret swirled around them like a dense fog.
'We are a pair,' she said quietly, shaking her head, before they sat silently while the waiter placed their orders on the table. She stirred the straw around the tall glass, watching the cream cling then slide down the straw, as he added one brown sugar lump to his Americano. Still hypnotised by her drink, she said:
'So, what did you think happened to the baby?'
'I…adopted, I guess. Or…the father's family…'
'I know we don't talk about stuff like this-'
'You're my little girl, Katie,' his nose screwed up like a bad smell had passed by him. The look reminded her of Erin.
'There isn't a father. It was a drunken one-night stand.'
He looked up sharply.
'You weren't…taken advantage of.'
'What? Oh no, nothing like that, it was consensual. I didn't ask his name; he didn't ask mine and he left before I woke up.' She ignored her father's flinch.
'You didn't think to find him?'
'He wasn't a student; he was just some guy I met in a bar.'
'Some guy? He's the father to a child!'
She hadn't yet begun to think how she was going to have this conversation with Erin though it had started to plague the back of her mind, so she wasn't prepared to tolerate this line of questioning from her father. 'Dad, I don't want to argue about this,' she said sternly. 'I didn't realise I was pregnant for a long time. I'm trying to tell you something here.'
'No, you're right. I'm sorry. You asked what I thought happened to the baby.' He sighed. 'It was such a dark time then, Katie, so dark I'm sorry to say I barely thought about it. The pain of losing your mother. I failed you. I know I wasn't there for you. I've had to live with that.'
'Dad…' She hated seeing his pain. She reached across the table and squeezed the fingers of one hand. 'So, what did you think when I didn't tell you?'
'I guess you want me to say I was waiting for you to tell me but, even though you and Johanna are so much alike, there's one way in which you and I are the same: we bury things. I don't go digging around in graves, Katie.'
'She's not dead, Dad.'
'She?'
'A girl. I had a baby girl.' Jim dropped the coffee spoon on the saucer, the clang ringing loudly, and flopped back against the bench, deflated.
'Do you want to know more?' She ventured, both concerned and irritated.
'Katie, I'm sorry. We've both kept this from each other. I had no idea when you asked me out to lunch that today was the day you were going to tell me. It's been, what, thirteen years. Why today?'
'Because she's living with me now,' she said without missing a beat, her voice sharp as glass. If he had known for all this time, then there was no need to pussyfoot around him.
Bewilderment struck him into silence.
'Erin. Her name's Erin.'
'What? How?'
A couple, a middle-aged man and woman in suits, sat down two tables from them.
Kate took a deep breath and lowered her voice. 'I gave her up for full adoption. That's the deal I made. No contact, no input. I came home just a few weeks afterwards; she stayed in California with her parents. They were killed in a car crash over a year ago. And just by pure chance, Castle would say by divine providence or something, she came into my orbit last week.'
'Last week?'
'It's a big adjustment. My focus has been on Erin. It was a no-brainer, Dad, when I saw her. To bring her home with me. There was no other family. I might not have been able to be a mother to her when she was born – but, you know, it wasn't a choice,' she interrupted herself. 'Not really. As the months went by after Mom died and there was no progress on her case, I knew I wouldn't – couldn't – let it drop.' The words tumbled out at speed, the need to explain unstoppable. 'I was pregnant, but I knew I couldn't bring my baby into that darkness with me. I needed her to be safe. And I didn't regret it. I know I did the right thing. When I stay out for twenty-four hours on a case; get called out at three am; when I'm getting shot at by a sniper.' Jim winced. 'Castle once said to me that I crawled inside my mother's murder. On some level I knew I was always going to do that, and I am glad I didn't bring Erin with me.'
'I do understand, Katie. You don't have to justify it to me. But is that why you didn't tell me? You thought I'd be angry?'
'Aren't you?' she asked quietly, the passion evaporating. She sipped her milkshake; a slow gurgling of bubbles collected around the bottom of the glass.
'Angry? Honey, no. Just sad. And ashamed. You wanna know why I didn't tell you I have known all this time? Because I was ashamed. Ashamed that I couldn't help you. Ashamed that you couldn't confide in me. Your mother was dead, I was the only parent you had left, and you couldn't trust me. You were looking after me when I should have-' He dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
'Dad, I…'
Jim shook his head, blinking away tears.
'So, what's she like? Do I get to meet her?'
'Of course,' she smiled broadly, relieved he was lifting the burden of comforting him. 'We're living with Castle – Alexis is away at college so it's the four of us with Rick's mother too.'
'You didn't want to take her to your apartment?'
'I know I could have but I felt it was right to be with more people. To have a family. Castle is great with kids, I work long hours, he can be at home a lot. I want to be with him too, Dad. I waited so long, and it felt right for us to do this together.'
Shaking his head, he said: 'So, the parents. Did you choose them? What kind of people were they?'
'I did,' she replied, not quite believing that she was telling her father the whole story and he was listening, not storming out in judgemental anger. How could she not have trusted him to be supportive, it seemed so absurd now? But she had been young, grieving and confused, and he had been so broken by Johanna's death. The words were coming to her so easily, more easily than she ever felt talking to him. 'The adoption agency gave me a selection of potential parents' files. They all seemed nice but this one pair, they stood out.'
'Why?'
'It was the name they would give the baby. I knew she was a girl: as soon as I discovered I was pregnant I couldn't imagine a boy at all. They had to write this personal statement.' A wistful look appeared in her eyes as she relived the memory. 'And they said they would call a girl Erin. And that's the name I would have chosen.'
'What was so special about that name?'
'Don't laugh, okay. You remember the tv show Bewitched, from the sixties?'
'You used to watch reruns with Mom when you were small. You'd wrinkle your nose and try to make magic happen. You used to stomp your foot in frustration. You were so cute.' They smiled at the shared recollection, lost for a moment in more innocent times.
'After Mom died, I found that show again in college and I was watching it endlessly in my room. I looked up the history of the show and the little girl, Tabitha, was played by a pair of twins. One was called Erin. And that's what I knew I would call my daughter. I know it's silly but-'
'You and your mother loved your shows together.'
'Would Mom have been ashamed of me? Giving her away?' she found herself whispering.
'Your Mom can't be ashamed of you because she's not here.' He was stern now. 'Katie, things happen, we make choices, and we have to live with them. Maybe if things had been different and you'd fallen pregnant and she was alive, you wouldn't have given her up for adoption. You wouldn't have become a cop either. But it's what happened. There's no point thinking about what ifs. I'm here and I could never be ashamed of you.'
Kate's ears turned red, unused as she was to her father being so verbose and direct to her. The sharing of emotion was exhausting, accustomed to being the supportive one as she had done through his problems with alcohol. Even when she had been shot and needed full time care while she recuperated at Jim's cabin, she had kept him at an emotional distance, insisting on doing as much as possible for herself. Sometimes she couldn't help feeling like the teenager, hiding her rebellions from her father, like any other daughter, but it jarred with the adult role she had been thrown into when her mother was murdered. It had distorted their parent-child relationship so that when they talked now it was often awkward and quiet, each unsure where they stood with the other: Kate unwilling to share, Jim unwilling to pry.
Hiding her embarrassment, she took a sip of her milkshake, pushed the glass away and sat back upright against the bench. Not knowing how to respond to his paternal comfort instead she returned to his earlier question: 'They were academic people, like you and Mom. I was sure that they would give her the same wonderful childhood that you and Mom gave me.' She wondered if her father realised that as a teenager she had chosen the life for her child that she herself had spent the previous few years rebelling against. In the throes of grief, that childhood had felt so unreachable, and she had thought it the best gift she could give her daughter.
'And did they? Has she had a good life?'
The million-dollar question. 'You know Dad, once she was with her family, I didn't let myself think about her too often. On her birthday – December 28th – I'd wonder what she was doing to celebrate, what she might look like. But that's the luxury of adoption, the not-knowing. I was free to imagine that wherever she was, she was safe and happy. But now that life has shattered. She ended up having to grieve just as I had to. I couldn't protect her.' Her lips trembled but she was determined not to cry in front of him.
'That's one of the hard lessons about being a parent, Katie. No matter what we want for our children, there's only so much we can do to protect them.' A guffaw from the animated group ricocheted around the restaurant, the couple nearby looking up and then over at them.
Kate shifted closer to the wall, adjusting her folded coat. 'She doesn't want to tell me about her life. She's holding her cards close to her chest.' It felt so good to open up to her father. 'Dad, I want to wrap her up. Hold her, but she's so distant.' She hadn't yet told Castle about how her arms would sometimes ache when Erin was nearby, the memory of holding her when she was born imprinted in her muscles.
His eyes held hers as if to say I wonder who she gets that from. 'I guess, it'll take time?' he said. He leaned his elbows on the table, holding his coffee in both hands. 'I remember when you were born your Mom wanted to do everything right. You know your mother: so determined, so focused. And it shocked her that she didn't have all the answers. We had nights when you wouldn't stop crying and she cried because she thought she could just hold you, be your mother and that would be enough.' She nodded, accepting her father's reach for her hands. 'It takes time to become a parent, Katie. The responsibility, it happens suddenly and instantly but it's still an on-the-job learning curve. I know she's not new-born but it's the same for you now.' Her eyes welled up; she was unable to prevent one line of tears from dropping. 'You're trying and that's all that matters.'
Kate nodded again, afraid that her voice would crack if she tried to speak. The incremental progress she was making with Erin was encouraging but oh it was slow.
She brushed the tear away with the back of a hand and pulled herself together. 'What about a baseball game? You and I could take her to one together?' she suggested.
'I'd like that very much.'
They ordered lunch and reminisced as they ate, Kate keen to hear her father's perspective of when she herself was a teenager. She had often found herself so confidently reassuring Castle over the years about how he should give Alexis her space, let her grow up as she's supposed to, let her embrace her independence and her mistakes. Now, she felt like a fraud having given that advice out so freely. She cringed as she realised how simple it was to say but so much harder to do. How exactly was she supposed to 'never mess with a teenage girl and her hormones'? She had naturally aligned herself with Alexis's point of view but now she sympathised with Castle's struggles to let go. Erin is almost thirteen, boyfriends - or girlfriends, so much still to learn - wouldn't be too far in the future and the idea of that was already far too awful to contemplate. It was heart-warming to find herself on the same playing field as her father, his parental experience a fountain from which she would be able to drink.
As they browsed the dessert menu, Kate keen to extend her time with her father, she said: 'There is something you could do for me, Dad. For Erin.'
'Of course, anything.'
'Erin isn't ready to talk about her parents with me and she clams up whenever I try to bring them up. She has nothing of hers with me, we've had to buy new clothes. I'm gonna try and track down her stuff through Children's Services.' She didn't mention that Erin had told her in no uncertain terms to keep out of her history. 'She must be the sole inheritor of her parent's estate. Can you look into it for me?'
'Sure, honey.'
'Daniel and Niamh McDonnell. They died 17 July 2011, in New York City.'
'No problem, leave it with me, it may take a few days.'
Jim fidgeted as if he had another question on the tip of his tongue.
'What is it, Dad?'
'I was just thinking, how is Rick taking it? How are you two, it's still very early in your relationship?' He hadn't blinked at all when she had revealed in passing that she was now in a relationship with Castle, she realised. She chewing the inside of her cheek at her father's look of relief and pride; Jim hadn't been very effective at hiding his enthusiasm for Castle through the years.
'It is but we've known each other for years. He's, you know, he's Castle,' she shrugged, unable to prevent a large smile breaking out at the thought of him. 'He's a big kid himself, he loves having a child around. Especially as Alexis has left for college.' Although she felt pangs of jealousy in the few moments when Erin had let her guard down and goofed around with Castle - he had introduced her to his X-box and his remote-controlled toys – it was also when she saw Erin at her most relaxed, when she could see glimpses of the future of their family. Of course, Castle had accepted her daughter without question. The childish grin he would throw her when he was mucking about with Erin gave her butterflies, the kind you only get from knowing you made the right choice.
Apart from the playfulness with the sunglasses when they went shopping, she had been the serious parent. She didn't begrudge it. It's how the two of them had operated for years, The Straight Woman and the Clown, and it was only to be expected that they would continue in that dynamic in this situation. She needed to be the one in control and it was a relief that Castle wasn't fighting her for it. What she had treasured most since Erin's arrival were the quiet moments they had together. Erin had been the one to join her on the couch in the middle of the night and silently start reading near her. It gave her confidence. Erin was now sleeping during the night albeit a late night and waking up late in the morning, but it was progress. She had even managed to address the school situation again by leaving brochures out on the table. Initially Erin had ignored them, but Kate had looked up yesterday evening when preparing dinner to find her browsing them.
'Have they met? Alexis and Erin?'
'Not yet. Castle wants to tell her in person.' In truth, she was as terrified of Alexis's reaction as she had been of her Dad's. She had enormous affection and respect for Castle's daughter and the last thing she wanted to do was be the cause of any upset between them. She also knew that for all Alexis's sweetness she could be spicy when she wanted to be, and she couldn't help feeling anxious about any hostility Alexis might have towards her daughter. Afterall, she wasn't sure how she would have reacted if the moment she left home another, younger, girl started living at her home with her father. Alexis and Castle were extremely close; it was reasonable to expect that Alexis might have what could be termed 'difficult feelings'. That her own relationship with Alexis had had little time to be established worried her further.
The main reason that Castle had not yet driven up to Columbia was because when not at home, he had been at the precinct working the case. Today, however, while she was meeting Jim, she had left him looking after Erin, demonstrating his love of science experiments, inspired, she imagined, by Erin's suggestion of home-schooling. Jim was about to answer when her cell phone rang. She gave him an apologetic look as she answered, waving the screen at him to show it was Castle.
'Hey, everything okay?' she said, 'Is Erin okay?'
'She's fine. Listen, Beckett,' he lowered his voice. 'They've made an arrest.'
A/N:
1) Had to steal Burke's line about a dead person unable to have feelings for the living, I always loved that line.
2}Not sure when next update will be as it's now the summer holidays and three children to entertain will considerably impact my writing time!
