Chapter 3

Are You Going to Wake Her?

Patty hangs up the phone and calls Detective Huntley.

"She's found," Patty says when he picks up. "You can call off the search."

"Oh! That's… that's wonderful. She's home?"

"She will be soon," Patty says. Patty knows the detective wants more details, but she doesn't feel like giving them right now. Instead she tells him sincerely, "Thank you for your help."

"Of course, Patty," he says.

"Get some sleep," she tells him.

He laughs and says pointedly, "I will."

Patty rolls her eyes at her phone and hangs up.

She puts on a jacket and leaves her apartment. She will walk a few blocks and then hail a cab, she decides. It is a warm spring night, and Ellen is right, she does need to calm down. She doesn't want to have a shouting match with Catherine in front of Ellen. Catherine is unpredictable – who knows what she would bring up? She wonders what Catherine has already told Ellen to her prejudice.

"Any news?" the door woman asks as Patty passes her.

She's new, and Patty hasn't learned her name yet. Perry got married and moved to Texas a few years back. Patty was the only person in the building not invited to the wedding.

"She's safe," Patty says. "Staying with a friend."

"Oh, good."

A friend. Is Ellen a friend? Patty's mind teems with questions. Catherine went to Ellen. What does that mean? Patty has quietly kept tabs on Ellen for years – keeping Ellen's updated address in her book, keeping her ears open for any rumors relating to Ellen's cases – but she didn't realize that Catherine knew this. Has she mentioned her former associate's name a few times too often in the little girl's hearing? Catherine is too much like her father and too much like Patty herself: she doesn't miss a trick.

Patty gets into a taxi and gives the driver Ellen's address on the Upper West Side. She grows serene as she watches the city lights slide by her window. The verbal flaying Catherine will get can wait until morning, Patty decides. Tonight they will both be tired.

She regards Ellen's building with curiosity. It is very nice, definitely an improvement on where Ellen was living nine years ago. Ellen is now a senior partner at a prestigious firm. She has done well for herself. Patty never doubted she would.

Ellen must have alerted her building's receptionist that Patty was coming, because he nods to her and says, "Go on up, Miss Hewes."

She sweeps past and gets in the elevator. Outside Ellen's door, she suddenly becomes self-conscious about her appearance. She hasn't seen Ellen in nine years, after all. She doesn't usually think of herself as an old lady, but she wonders if that is how Ellen will see her. She wishes she had looked in the mirror, maybe run a brush through her hair, before she left the apartment. Then she shakes her head to dispel these concerns, which, under the circumstances, are absurdly trivial.

Ellen comes to the door in PJs and a flannel robe. Her face betrays some trepidation, but her smile is friendly enough. Oh, Jesus, that smile. Patty gives the younger woman an antagonistic look – Ellen shouldn't be let off the hook entirely for her role in this debacle – but inside she has softened considerably. Ellen puts a finger to her lips and motions toward the living room. Patty follows her around the sofa.

"Oh," Patty sighs, gratefully taking in the sight of the little girl asleep on the air mattress with her arms wrapped tightly around one pillow and her head resting on another.


Ellen is very relieved to see that Patty's anger has cooled.

"Are you going to wake her?" she whispers.

"In a minute," Patty says. She stands looking at Catherine for several more seconds, then bends down and shakes her shoulder.

"Catherine," Patty murmurs.

Catherine reaches a sleepy arm up around Patty's neck, and Patty pulls her into a hug. It is an affecting scene, and Ellen gets a lump in her throat as she watches. Then Patty begins to shake Catherine gently from side to side.

"If you ever, ever, ever…" she says inarticulately.

"I know," Catherine says. "I'm sorry."

"Let's go home," Patty says after a pause. "Where are your shoes?"

Ellen gets them along with Catherine's other things, and continues to watch mesmerized as Patty helps Catherine on with her jacket and sneakers.

"I'm not five," Catherine grumbles, but there's no edge to it.

"So…" Ellen says uncertainly.

"We'll talk," Patty tells her.

Ellen nods. "Goodnight."

Catherine turns and gives Ellen a look that says many things at once. "Thanks," she whispers. And then they are both gone.

Ellen closes the door on them and makes a beeline for her yawning bed.