Beckett: Like Mother Like Daughter
Tuesday 16 October
Kate held open the door to her apartment as Erin ducked under her arm. They each carried a bundle of flattened cardboard boxes which they stacked by the door. She had only returned once since that morning when she had first met Erin, to hurriedly pack a suitcase of clothes. The air to the open space was slightly musty, the rooms full of the silence created by the lack of human activity. Often, she would return home to find dishes piled up on the draining board, a book open upside down on the grey couch, her bed unmade or maybe her blue yoga mat still stretched out because she had had to leave suddenly on a case. None of the evidence of her daily life was visible now; it was like she had already moved on.
The hairs stood up on the back of her neck as she watched Erin take it all in. Like a kitten coming out of a box into its new home, she was tentative and thorough, studying the space whilst still hovering by the door; her eyes roamed over every wall, shelf and piece of furniture in sight. Kate had enjoyed decorating this apartment after arson had forced her to leave her previous home. Ordering her belongings after the fire had been cathartic and empowering and she was proud of her interior design efforts. What would Erin think? What would she learn about her? She kept her social life, what there was of it, in public spaces, and rarely entertained. It was preferential to spend most of her time with Castle at his place: he tended to touch everything when he was at hers, as if to unwrap her some more.
'Why don't you have a look around and I'll start packing the rest of my clothes. I hope Rick realises he's gonna have to find space in the closet for all my shoes and coats,' she said in a voice that she hoped sounded light and gently sarcastic and which hid her nerves. Erin was too engrossed in the room to respond.
In her bedroom she took off her leather jacket (she had changed into more relaxed garb at the loft and put her hair up into a loose ponytail) and dumped it on her bed. She had started the drive over feeling like she was walking on air. Erin had selected Elton John's Greatest Hits CD from Castle's collection and they had sung along to a couple of early hits. Erin had been relaxed, notwithstanding the occasional jump from the sound of a car door slamming or a shout from the street. Now, however, Kate's chest was tight. It was quite something to have her daughter in her home, in her actual home, surrounded by the paraphernalia of the life she had lived over the last thirteen years. She let out a slow breath and tried to loosen her limbs with stretches. Erin had asked little about her life, the only real revelation being the death of her mother. Now, Erin was surrounded by objects representing so many memories of which she had not been a part.
As she folded the umpteenth coat wondering just how many boxes they were going to require themselves, she heard a strangled cry from the main room. Without dropping the blazer she was packing, she rushed in to see Erin clutching her motorcycle helmet, her young face wild with excitement.
'You drive a motorcycle! Do you have one?' she gushed.
Her heart pounding, Kate skidded to a halt. She caught her breath and draped the blazer over a chair before she replied. 'Yeah, I do. A '94 Harley Softail. I've always loved them, much to my father's disgust.' She stroked the shiny top of the black helmet, her head tilted to one side affectionately.
'That is so cool! When did you first get one?' Erin asked, all traces of her careful reserve stripped away by uncensored enthusiasm.
'When I was older than you,' she said, raising her eyebrows with gentle sternness as she took the helmet from her and laid it back on its place on a shelf, its home both practical and aesthetic.
'Can I have a go?' Erin asked, breathlessly.
'You'd like that?' she laughed, scratching the scalp above her ponytail with astonished pleasure. 'I don't see why not, that would be great to do together.' Her heart pounded again but not out of fear this time. The idea of taking her daughter out for a ride on her motorcycle filled her with unbridled joy and that Erin was just as excited took her by delighted surprise. There were things in their life that would be just theirs, adventures she had never let herself imagine.
'Yeah, I would! It's awesome! My mom would never have let…' she cut herself off. Erin's face rapidly drained of colour. She stumbled slightly past Kate who held her breath; her eyes darted in all directions. The jubilation and relief of the day vanished in a split second as if ice water had been chucked over them. Kate reached out to the shelf to steady herself.
'Erin, it's okay-' she tried to comfort, twisting in her direction.
Erin grabbed the nearest object she could lay her hands on. 'What's this?' she interrupted, her green eyes shining, pleading with Kate to change the subject as she held up a snow globe. All lightness from Erin's face had been scrubbed away leaving only the blackness of her grief, the raw pain of intrusive memories all too familiar to Kate.
Inside the globe were five tall Redwood trees, the moulded ceramic leaves a deep green which jutted out in neat triangles along thin trunks. Kate took the snow globe from Erin's trembling hand and plodded to her couch then slowly lowered herself so that she perched on the edge. She turned the globe, heavy like a paperweight, over in her hands, disturbing the leaves on the globe floor, as her elbows dug into the flesh just above her knees.
'I got it at Stanford, in my first semester. Before my mother died,' she said, doing everything she could to keep her tone calm and soothing. Erin remained standing as she looked around the room again; she hugged herself so tightly it was as if her arms were the only thing stopping her from breaking apart. Eventually, her eyes came to rest on the framed photograph of Johanna Beckett positioned in pride of place on one of the tables at either end of the L-shaped couch. Slowly, she walked over and picked up the picture to examine it closely.
'Is this her?'
'Yeah, that's my mom. Your grandmother.' The grandmother you'll never meet.
Erin sat down on the couch a couple of feet from her, still holding the frame. Kate held her poise like a statue. Erin traced a finger around Johanna's face.
'You look like her, you can see she's your mom,' she said. Hunched over, Erin continued to study the picture deep in thought. After a few moments, she reached for it and Erin placed it in her waiting hand.
'And you. I can see you in her,' she risked. Was this going to be okay, talking about their shared ancestry?
'What do you see?' Much to her surprise, Erin was engaging in this conversation, the darkness retreating. She shifted towards her and presented her profile.
'Your eyes' she replied instantly. She held up the photo in front of her. 'You have the same intense look she did. She was a lawyer: smart, interested in everything, passionate.' The familiar lump in her throat reminded her that the pain was always there to some degree.
'Who else do I look like?'
'My Dad,' Kate smiled. 'Your face shape is his.' She lowered the photo to her lap.
'I think I look a little like you,' Erin said quietly. Her hair had fallen messily across her face, and she tucked a long loose strand behind her ear.
More than a little. Erin's hair (desperately in need of a cut) and cheekbones were all Kate. 'I agree,' she replied equally quietly, disarmed that Erin had been thinking about this, though of course it should have been obvious, she thought, kicking herself inside.
'Do I look like him at all?'
'My Dad?' said Kate, rubbing her chin.
'No. My Dad. You're my birth mother…'
Like a lead weight in her stomach, realization dawned. 'You want to know about your birth father?' Of course, she would want to know about him. It was only a few hours ago that her father had asked about him too. She placed Johanna's photo back in its position, the frame warm where it had been handled.
'Do I look like him?' she repeated.
Kate sat back down on the sofa and gripped her hands between her knees as she faced her daughter who exuded waves of hopeful anxiety. Clearly this hadn't been easy for Erin to bring up. It had been at the periphery of her awareness for the past week that she would have to have this conversation but every time she thought about it her hands would sweat and she would distract herself.
'The thing is, Erin,' she cleared her throat. 'I barely remember him.' A gust of wind shook the windowpane sending a draught through the apartment. Kate shivered.
'What do you mean?' she said, frowning. Oh God, she was going to have to spell it out. Hints and innuendo were not going to work for a twelve-year-old.
'Are you sure you want me to tell you this story? It might not be what you want to hear.'
'Is it true?'
'I'll only ever tell you the truth,' she promised, her gaze unwavering.
'Then, yes, I wanna know,' she nodded solemnly. 'You've not mentioned him once. I've wondered about you all my life.' Kate's heart clenched. 'I'm adopted, you can't help it. The same goes for him.'
Erin's father was someone she had done her best not to think about. Before Erin had been born, before she had made her decision to have her adopted, Kate had been plagued with the sensation that she had already failed her child, that she was already coming up short as a mother by not ensuring her child had a father. Overwhelmed as she had been by her pregnancy and the responsibility of the decisions that she had had to make, she had simply written the untraceable father out of the narrative; she had returned to the bar more than once on the lookout for him but her searching had been fruitless. Erin's eagerness to know about him now stabbed her in a very specific point in her ribs beneath her heart; she felt sick. Whatever Erin had been imagining, she had very little she could give her to fill in the blanks.
Kate lifted her head to face Erin full on. She deserved to hear it clearly, not muttered amidst a cloud of shame. 'I have no way of contacting him. I'm sorry, he's not someone that you'll ever be able to meet.'
Erin's jaw clenched and she curled her fingers into her thighs, digging in hard. She blinked rapidly, holding back tears. Kate bit her lower lip as she waited for Erin to compose herself, keeping her own hands on her lap with difficulty, the desire to physically comfort her making her dizzy.
'Why not?' she choked.
She couldn't believe she was about to tell her daughter her origin story. It had been held so close to her, shared with no one for so long, she wondered whether the words would even come. But it was Erin's right to know. She faced the front door, staring across the room as she recalled what she could.
'I don't remember his name. I suppose I must have known it that night, but it would only have been his first name. My mom had died just a couple of months before. I had gone back to school, to Stanford, but I was a mess. I didn't know what I was feeling or doing. One night, I was drinking in a bar and I got chatting to this guy.' The scene played itself out as if she was there: she tasted the smoke in the air; she rubbed her fingers remembering the sticky grime of spilt drinks at the bar; she felt his breath on her neck as he had whispered into her ear.
'Handsome, I remember that. Dark hair, tall, a few years older than me, I think. I don't remember much more other than we went back to my place and we…' Better just to say it simply, she guessed, 'had sex and in the morning, he was gone.' She chose to omit just how drunk she had been and therefore hadn't been careful about contraception and that she hadn't been on top of taking the pill regularly in those couple of months. That conversation was for when Erin was older and would perhaps have the adult understanding to process that information, if she ever asked.
'Were you angry with him?' Erin said in a small voice.
'Angry, no, why would you think that?'
'Because he left you pregnant.'
'Erin. No.' She turned towards her urgently. 'Listen to me carefully. You came along, a happy accident, and it's me that wishes I could have been able to care for you then. I didn't have you adopted because you were an inconvenience in my life! Never, ever think that. I did it because I believed it was the right thing to do. I did it because I loved you from the moment I discovered I was pregnant.' It was impossible to know what Erin was thinking. She stared ahead of her, unresponsive save for a twitch at the edge of her lips. Was she mad at her? Sad? Somewhere deep in her consciousness, she had been scripting those words for thirteen years, ready should she ever need to explain. Now she had said them, she had no idea if they gave the consolation that she intended.
When Erin didn't speak, she took a deep breath before continuing. 'He was what I needed that night. Sometimes that what's consenting adults do.' Barely just an adult, she thought to herself, swallowing her hypocritical discomfort at thinking of Erin doing the same in just a few years' time.
'Eww, I don't want to know anymore,' Erin held up her hand, her face screwed up in adolescent disgust.
'I'm so sorry. I don't ever want to hurt you. I only ever wanted you to be happy.'
'I know you do,' she replied instantly.
Erin remained still. A tear trickled down one cheek, and she brushed it away quickly, sniffing back any more that might escape. She sat upright and stiff. Lifting a hand cautiously, Kate cupped Erin's chin, wary that she might resist but she didn't. Slowly, she turned Erin's face first one way and then the other, examining her methodically.
'You have a dimple on your right cheek.' Kate touched the sunken skin. 'No one in my family has a feature like that.'
'You think it's from him?'
'Maybe.' It was the best she could offer. It felt less than inadequate.
Kate's hand lingered on Erin's face, the rare touch magnetic on her skin. She dropped her hand as Erin's fingers replaced hers on the dimple. Sitting closer to her than Erin had allowed all week, her gaze rested on the two scars by one eye that she had noticed when they first met. Erin's fingers reacted to Kate's line of sight, and she rubbed the two small dents. It was on the tip of her tongue to dare to ask when Erin sighed:
'Chicken pox. I had it when I was five.'
'Ah, I see. Did you have it badly?'
Erin sighed again. 'It was itchy a lot, I guess,' she rubbed the back of her neck impatiently.
'Did you have any other illnesses?' Kate hedged, hopeful that a tiny crack in the door to the past might be opening.
Erin stood up and took a few steps before she turned back to Kate, sniffing loudly and holding her fists tight by her sides.
'Okay, fine, I know you want to know so here it is,' she said, firm and hard. 'I had illnesses like the other kids, and I went to school. I had friends and I had a normal childhood.' Her voice began to rise, and her arms moved like heavy windmills to emphasis her words. 'We went to England for three years and we loved it there. We visited the museums, went to West End Musicals, saw Stonehenge, Buckingham Palace, all that stuff.' It seemed like she might pause for breath, but the words came faster and louder as her face became redder and redder. 'My parents came to my school concerts and watched my soccer games. When we came back to the US, they were talking about going back to England more permanently. They were great parents.' Erin held one palm over her heart. 'You made the best choice – they told me they had met you and it's you who got to choose who adopted me. You wanted me to be happy, Kate, and I was. Then like that,' she snapped her fingers loudly, a skill Kate hadn't known she could do so effectively, 'it stopped. It just stopped. They were gone. And I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to have to keep remembering! Please! I just want a fresh start, forget everything that's happened. Please?' She vibrated from head to toe.
They both panted hard, each in shock at the outburst.
'I'm so, so sorry, Erin,' she whispered.
Erin's lip trembled as she fought back the tears. If only they could both erase the memories of their lost parents, turn away so that they could escape the endless, searing, unspeakable grief.
Kate shifted to the edge of the couch cushion. 'I wish it was that easy,' she said softly, keeping her own tears at bay. 'I understand, I really, really do.' She held both hands to her chest and swallowed. 'It's too painful,' She stood now, careful to keep her distance and not tower over her. 'It's too hard. For now. To talk to me. But some traumatic things have happened to you, I can't just pretend they didn't and ignore them.' She saw a window of opportunity and jumped on it. 'Therapy can be really helpful to process trauma.'
'I saw a counsellor a couple of times at the new school, it didn't help.' Erin walked over to the window and looked out onto the now darkened Tribeca buildings, her arms wrapped around her waist.
Addressing her back, Kate continued undeterred. 'After I was shot, I saw a therapist for a year. I had PTSD and it really helped to talk to someone regularly, a professional who was not a part of my life. You witnessed two horrific murders just a week ago. You've had a panic attack, you're jittery around loud, sudden noises and you don't seem to be able to talk about any of that with me or Rick.' Erin's shoulders tightened. 'A trauma like that would affect anyone and it's normal to need help to work through it.' She paused not wanting to continue but knowing she needed to say it anyway. 'And meeting me and living with me so unexpectedly can't be easy to make sense of.'
'So, you've already got someone, it doesn't matter what I want?' she snapped. Erin's uncontrolled emotional outburst revealed just how hard it would be for her to help Erin process her grief. Dr Burke was right, she needed professional psychological support. Whatever Erin said, Kate was unwavering in her conviction. Kate was the adult, Erin the child and it was up to her to ensure Erin got what she needed, she thought, drawing herself taller, stretching her long neck as if preparing for a fight.
'Of course, it matters. No, I haven't, but I do have a list from my therapist. It's about who would be best for you – you can meet them before you decide. It doesn't have to be all talking, there are lots of different types of therapy. Anything you say to them would be completely private and confidential. They are just there to help you. It's understandable that there are things you might not feel comfortable talking about to me, or to Rick. You wouldn't have to feel that with a therapist.'
'They couldn't tell you anything?' Erin looked over her shoulder, curious.
'Only if there was a safeguarding issue.'
'Safeguarding?'
'If the therapist had cause to be concerned about your physical wellbeing.'
'Okay,' she said slowly, chewing it over. Still looking out of the window, she said: 'You're right, maybe there is someone out there who can help a bit.' Kate exhaled deeply.
Kate decided it would be best not to continue the conversation for now. As drained as she was by it, she thought it must be worse for Erin, so she retrieved a couple of boxes and held them out to her.
'Could you pack up the photos in this room and the books on the shelf?'
Erin took them gratefully.
Every muscle in Kate's limbs ached, full of the conflicting tension of deep sympathy for Erin's suffering and hurt frustration at being kept physically at arm's length. Again, she felt ambushed by the feeling that if only Erin would let her hug her, somehow she would be able to make it all better. However, she knew more now than before. It wasn't going to be easy. Kate thought about what she had asked her father to do in researching Erin's inheritance. Erin had said she wanted to act as if the past hadn't happened. She knew that that wouldn't stop her from hunting down Erin's belongings. At some point Erin would feel able to face her lost childhood and she wanted to be able to give her those memories in the tangible way only objects can evoke.
They spent the next couple of hours filling boxes. Erin's eyes had almost popped out of her head at the sight of her closet. She had explained the different wardrobes she had for different areas of her life which Erin had listened to attentively clearly grateful for the distraction. Erin had fingered her small number of sleek elegant dresses with the most interest, running her hands over sequins and letting soft satin fall like waves through her fingers. Kate watched her out of the corner of her eye as her colour returned to its normal hue and her shoulders relaxed as they packed. Eventually they ran out of boxes. They piled them in the front room and marked them with a black sharpie. They could come back with more boxes tomorrow and she would need to hire a moving van.
Both sweaty and tired, Kate ordered dinner from her favourite local Chinese: some noodles, rice and spring rolls. They laid it out on the dining table, and at Erin's behest she found some chopsticks and watched as she deftly manipulated the sticks, wondering who had taught her to use them and when she might be one day able to ask. They ate in silence.
'Kate,' Erin asked eventually, with a mouth full of noodles.' Can I ask you something?'
'Sure, anything.'
'Rick's daughter, Alexis. What's she like?'
Ah, so she and Castle were not the only ones concerned about the reaction of the redhead to the new circumstances. 'She's very sweet. I don't really know her that well, she went to college soon after Rick and I started dating. What I do know of her though, she's kind and thoughtful. She's very different to Rick – she's the grown up to his child.'
'Will she be okay with me living at her place?' Erin busied herself with breaking a spring roll into several pieces.
Kate laid her chopsticks beside her plate. 'Erin, if you're worried, we do have other options. I still have the lease on this place.'
'No, it's fine. I like being at Rick's. You're going to have to go back to work soon, I guess, and I know I'll have to go to school.' Erin avoided her surprised stare. 'I'm done being alone so much which I may have to be if we stay here? Rick said you work late a lot.' The amount of time Erin spent in her room would suggest she was quite happy with her own company, so she quickly stuffed a large spoonful of rice into her mouth, burning the roof. Presumably she was referring to her time spent as a runaway? Erin had calmed down, and she was learning that a titbit like that wasn't an invitation for further questioning.
'I'm sure she'll be fine. Maybe it'll be a bit strange for her. Like you she's an only child, but you don't have to worry about her, I promise,' she reassured waving a chopstick around dismissively. Erin didn't need to be burdened with concerns about Alexis.
'It's not like she bites,' Erin laughed, shaking her head and pulling a silly face.
She had to turn away from the table and get a glass of water so that Erin couldn't see her grimace as she replied:
'No, no, she definitely doesn't bite.'
A/N Finally you've had a proper revelatory conversation between Erin and Kate, I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know. Some of you leave really detailed reviews for which I am so touched as they genuinely help keep me on track about ensuring I write about what you want to read (obviously may not play out as you imagined/hoped but still, I hope it entertains!). As ever the overall dramatic arc remains the same but we'll get there in whatever route we end up taking!
