Carrie Link

KATIE

pt.2

Katie is sixteen now, Bob is nineteen. Even though her curfew is 11:00, they still have plenty of time to have sex. I can’t even believe Mom and John are so dumb they don’t realize that. They really think that if she is home by 11:00, she won’t get pregnant.

They were wrong, though, Katie is pregnant. Right away Mom tells me she doesn’t think it’s Bob’s baby. For about two minutes Katie broke up with Bob and dated a guy named Jack. They both worked at Sears in the shoe department. Apparently they did more than help ladies find shoes that fit.

Katie and Bob make-up, she then “gets pregnant”, and next thing you know Bob and Katie are married. Katie has no job, no high school, but a baby coming. She belongs in Prineville.

One kid turns into two and shortly after that Katie leaves Bob. She’s moved on, he’s not enough man for her.

Katie eventually takes off, no one knows where she is. She leaves both girls with Bob and his new wife and their two boys. Nobody knows if Bob realizes only one of these girls is his. Nobody wants to take the chance that he might not raise someone else’s child.

Katie has another daughter, we hear, nobody knows who her father is. Nobody actually knows where Katie is. What we do know is Bob isn’t the one we should have all been worried about all those years ago. Bob raises Katie’s daughter, their daughter, and his two boys with his wife. He and that wife of his stay together for years and years, and provide a stable, loving home for all the kids, while Katie is God-knows-where, doing God-knows-what, with God-knows-who.

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My mom calls, John has died. They’ve been divorced for years, but Mom still keeps in touch with Lori. She knew he was in the hospital, no surprise that he died. The only surprise is he didn’t die years ago with all the drugs he took and mixed together.

“Will you go to the funeral with me?” she pleads.

Of course I will. That’s the only reason I’m here, right? To support you?

Bob comes to the funeral. He looks much the same way he did nearly 30 years ago, but he is softer, more handsome, more smiley, more self-confident. He has all three of Katie’s daughters with him. Don’t know how or when the third one got dumped on him, but no surprise that she did.

This daughter, this now fifteen-year-old girl, Jordan, looks exactly like her mom did at that age. Exactly. Same heavy eye make-up, same dangly earrings, same dirty blond hair, same blue eyes. In those blue eyes of hers is the same hesitant look, the same “I’m not a child. I’m fully grown-up. I know more than I should” look.
I grab Bob after the service and I tell him how sorry I am that we all judged him so harshly, so wrongly. I tell Bob that John should have kissed the ground he walked on, that really, he was the best thing that ever happened to Katie, the only one she could really count on.

Bob smiles, blushes, thanks me.

“You know, we think Katie is dead. We can’t call her ‘dead’, though, there isn’t a body yet. We’re pretty sure the last guy she was with murdered her. That’s why I’ve got Jordan.”

I look over to where Jordan is standing, alone, looking like she’d rather be anywhere but here. I walk towards her, right hand extended.

“Hi, I’m Carrie. Your dad said I should come over and meet you.”

Eyes raise slightly from their focus on the floor.

I guess that means we’ve officially met.