Chapter Fifty-Nine
You’d think Mary Beth would know by now that April weather in Syracuse is never as nice as you expect it to be.
Sometimes God or Mother Nature or whoever’s responsible decides to throw in a beautiful day. Even the flowers and foliage are fooled by it.
She hurries toward the door, past ice-glazed forsythia and limp daffodils with their sunny heads half buried in crusted snow.
This morning was so balmy that she wore only a light windbreaker over her uniform and didn’t bother to put on socks with her loafers.
By ten o’clock, it was obvious that boots and a parka would have been more suitable.
Juggling her grocery bags into one hand, she pauses to go through the damp mail poking out of the metal box beside the door.
Flipping through it, she extracts everything addressed to Mary Beth Winterfield and Ceto Winterfield, Apartment 1A. It’s all bills, as always. She returns the downstairs tenant’s mail to the box and heads inside.
She can smell weed in the vestibule as she unlocks her door. Sometimes it’s the teenage kid who lives upstairs, but more often than not, it isn’t.
Today is one of those days.
Ceto is on the couch with a joint in her hand, feet on the coffee table still cluttered with the greasy take-out bags she brought home last night.
The way she eats and lies around, you’d think she’d have bad skin and be carrying extra weight, but no.
For the most part, she looks as wholesome as any other attractive blue-eyed blonde in her mid-twenties.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Mary Beth asks.
“I’m sick.”
“Ceto! You can’t keep doing this! It’s irresponsible! They’re counting on you to be there.”
“It’s Starbucks. They have a million people working.”
“Well, they were counting on a million and one. You let them down. And you needed the money.”
“How would you know what I need?”
“Because your student loan bill just came in the mail, and I know you can’t afford to pay it.”
“It’s a joke. Why would I pay a loan from years ago when I don’t even have my degree?”
“Whose fault is that, Ceto? You’re the one who flunked out of school. You still have to pay back what you borrowed.”
“I am paying it back.”
“Whatever. It’s your life. It’s your problem. Can you at least come help me put this stuff away?”
“What is it?”
“Food. So that we have something to eat. Something other than crap,” she adds with a nod toward the bags.
“It’s not crap. I like it.”
“It’s not good for you. It’s full of chemicals. Smoking’s not good for you either.”
“No way, Mom! Where’d you hear that?”
“Why do you always have to be so damned sarcastic?”
“I must have inherited it from you.”
Mary Beth turns away, as she always does when Ceto mentions anything like that. She has no memory of Caroline. As far as she knows, Mary Beth is her mother. There was no reason to tell her otherwise. She thinks her father was a deadbeat one-night stand.
She’s always been curious about him. Mary Beth has told her she never even knew his last name.
A few months ago, Ceto said she was thinking of doing a DNA test to find him.
“I don’t know why you’d bother,” she said, keeping her voice level. “He’s a loser.”
“How do you know? Maybe he’s changed. You did.”
Right.
When Ceto was little, Mary Beth knew of only one way—other than stealing other people’s stuff—to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. That led to the drug-trafficking arrest.
The only thing worse than serving time was knowing that her precious Ceto was in the foster care system, growing up without her.
Mary Beth always intended to tell her the truth about her mother when she was old enough. And her father. She’d never met Gordy Klatte, but she knew Caroline truly loved him. He was no deadbeat loser. He was kind.
“Then why don’t you tell him you’re pregnant and marry him?” she asked her sister, early on.
“Because I can’t do that to him. It would ruin his life. The baby and I will be fine on our own. With you. The three of us will be a family.”
And then it was just the two of them. Then Ceto alone, in foster care.
The way she kept getting in and out of trouble, just like Mary Beth . . .
Things could have been different, if she’d known the truth all along—known that she came from something better.
Maybe it was a mistake, but it was too late to change things.
“Just put away the groceries while I go get changed,” she says, putting the bags in the kitchen. “Leave the macaroni on the counter. I’m making it for dinner.”
“With sauce?”
“With butter.”
“You mean that cheap fake margarine crap. Yeah, sounds really healthy.”
“If you prefer butter, you’re welcome to buy it yourself. No one’s stopping you.”
In the small bedroom off the kitchen, she kicks off her shoes, swaps her waitressing uniform for sweats, and shoves her cold, achy feet into slippers. Better.
But she needs to hang the uniform for tomorrow. Her other one is in the hamper, and she doesn’t feel like doing laundry tonight.
She opens the small closet and grabs a hanger. About to close the door, she sees that the stack of boxes on the shelf is slightly crooked.
She wouldn’t have left them that way. All those years in prison hadn’t just left her determined to get her life in order—they’d taught her to keep it in order, including her physical possessions.
She hasn’t gone through them in a very long time.
But someone must have.
She takes down the one on top, sets it on the bed, and starts going through it.
Five minutes later, she’s back in the living room.
Seeing her, Ceto sits up straighter and stubs out the joint. “Okay, okay, I’m putting away the groceries.”
“Where’s my bracelet?”
“What are you talking about?”
“My silver charm bracelet. Where is it?”
“How would I know?”
But she knows. Mary Beth can tell by the look on her face. She’d probably have seen it on her own face in the mirror, back in the old days.
“I guess you did get something from me after all,” she says, shaking her head. “It really does take one to know one.”
“One what?”
“Liar. And thief.”
“I’m not—”
“Oh please. You are. And I’m not angry. I’m broken, okay? You’ve broken me. I’ve been in the federal pen. I’ve been through a hell of a lot worse. But this? You stealing the one thing that means anything to me in this world? This breaks me.”
“A stupid bracelet means more to you than anything? Seriously? It’s not even gold.”
“So you do still have it. Good. I was going to ask you where you’d pawned it so that I can get it back. Hand it over.”
Ceto reaches into her pocket, takes out the bracelet, and hurls it at her.
Mary Beth ducks.
It hits the wall and drops into the trash can beneath it.
Mary Beth fishes it out. It’s covered in ashes and coffee grinds. Wordlessly, she takes it over to the sink and cleans it. Her hands are shaking. Her entire body is shaking. She turns off the tap and walks over to Ceto, holding it so that it dangles from her fingers.
“You have no idea what this means to . . .” She stops, choking back a sob. “But how could you know?”
She should have told her.
But it’s not too late.
Mary Beth looks down at the bracelet for a long moment. Then she reaches out, takes Ceto’s bony wrist, and puts it on.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Just swear you’ll never sell it.”
“I told you, it’s a worthless piece of crap. I don’t know why you’re acting like it’s the crown jewels or something.”
“I should have given it to you a long time ago, because . . .” Mary Beth takes a deep breath. “It was my sister’s. And she was your mother.”