Chapter 48: Saralinda

Long airplane rides suck, even if you're in first-class. I mean, it wasn't that bad, really, especially since I was with Jake, and of course he arranged everything. I still feel so clueless sometimes, and Jake is so not clueless. Mostly. He helped me pack, and I wouldn't have remembered I even had a passport, or that I needed to bring it. Same goes for the credit cards that Gary got in my name for me. And my meds. I might even have forgotten a raincoat, which would be bad since we were going to Seattle. He even reminded me to take my binoculars and a bird book, which was just, like, really ... wow.

Dr. Anna says he's a Generally Competent Person, and that they're useful. Really, really useful.

But it was still a long flight, and Jake only let me have one glass of wine, even though he had three. I know, I know...

We watched movies. We slept as best we could. It still sucked.

I had weird dreams on the flight too. I dreamed of Mamma. Sometimes I was a little girl, and sometimes I was, like, me now. Jake was even in them, talking with Mamma, and Moira and Gary were there too sometimes. What was really weird was that Mamma was dirty, and her clothing was ripped. And she kept complaining about how cold she was. And I couldn't touch her. Every time I tried to go to her and hug her, something happened so that I couldn't.

Once, I woke up crying, and it was really nice that Jake was there to hold me.

The clouds were very low over Seattle when we got close to landing, but once we got below them, I stared out the window. This was home, but I'd never seen it from the air before. It looked as strange, and different as Hawaii or Fiji, with all of the mountains and water and trees. No palm trees though.

The hotel was, well, hotel-ish. We got there, and I took a shower and went to bed. I thought I'd sleep forever, but at about 5 a.m., I was awake. Like, awake awake. I felt kind of crappy, like I was worn out, but I couldn't sleep. I kind of woke up Jake by accidentally kissing him, and he took the hint. He's so sweet to me, always telling me I'm beautiful, which I know is a lie. Moira is beautiful. But Jake doesn't look like he's lying when he says it, so I don't know. The way he looks at me...

We did eventually get up. It was still hours and hours before we could go to Mamma, even after we showered and went down for some breakfast.

"We could go birding," Jake said, when I was finishing my coffee.

"What? Here? Where?"

"I don't know. There are lots of parks in Seattle. Maybe Seward Park – it's not far from the M.E.'s, and it's on the lake. Maybe there are ducks there or something. Even if there aren't a lot of birds, I think it's a nice walk."

The M.E. – Medical Examiners. I shuddered. My mother's body was there, somewhere inside their building. I'd asked Gary about it, before we even found out for sure that it was her. He said that it was really more like her remains, and that I couldn't expect to go see her. She'd been dead a while before anyone found her. I didn't want to think about rot, or rats or ... And Gary said she'd probably be in a bag in a freezer. No. Her remains would be there. Not Mamma. Not really. But I still wanted to get her out of there, even if it was just her remains.

"That sound good, Jake. I don't want to sit around waiting."

The park wasn't far, and it wasn't raining, just cloudy. Seward Park is almost an island, and there's a trail all the way around it, down along the lakeshore. So we had good looks at the birds on the water, though there weren't that many. There were the ducks I remembered, which I realized were Mallards. I'd never known they had a name. There were black duck-things that we couldn't find in the bird book at first, because we were looking only in the duck section of the book. But Jake found them further back with the rails – American Coots. And there were little brown birds on the water that we figured were Pied-billed Grebes. I asked Jake what 'Pied-billed' meant, because I couldn't figure out how their bills could be like pies, but he said that 'pied' means, like, black-and-white.

There were other birds, some of which I remembered seeing before, but I never knew what they were. Steller's Jays, which I always had called Blue Jay, but that's not right. And Northern Flickers, which I found out are a kind of woodpecker. And we saw two kinds of chickadee, Black-capped and Chestnut-backed. All of these bird names seemed kind of funny to me. There were robins too, and European Starlings, and a little brown bird named a Bewick's Wren. There were other birds too, and I wished Gary was there. It's so much easier having him tell me what I'm seeing and hearing, rather than to have to look in the book.

By the time we finished our walk, after a couple of hours, I'd added nine species to my Life List! That was pretty cool. And Jake seemed just as happy to look at the birds as me, though he didn't get quite as excited, maybe.

"No, it's fun," he told me. "It's kind of like a treasure hunt, and a puzzle at the same time, trying to figure out what they are. Plus they're cool looking. I never knew there were so many kinds." I hadn't known either.

And then we got into the car, and Jake drove us to the M.E.s.

"But he killed her!" I blurted out, irate.

The clerk had just told me that my father should determine the disposition of the body, not me. "Spouse before children, I'm sorry, Miss."

"Saralinda, we don't know your father killed her," Jake reminded me,

"But they're investigating," I insisted.

"Well, actually, we don't know even that for certain..."

"But..." I couldn't believe this was happening. We'd come all this way, and it wasn't fair. I glared at the clerk, then glared at Jake. If only Gary were here, he'd ... Shit. That wasn't fair to Jake. Like, what would Gary do? What could Gary do?

I took a deep breath, then turned back to the clerk. "Sorry, " I said, giving the clerk a sad smile. "This is really hard for me. Look, my father never even reported her missing or anything, even though she's been gone for years. He's not going to pick up her body. I'm sure he'd never be willing to even come down here or anything. Isn't there some way that I could get Mamma?"

"Miss – there's only two options here. Either you get an affidavit from her husband granting you custodial authority, or you could try going to a judge and getting a court order. I'm sorry, Miss, but my hands are tied here."

"Um, is there a, like, standard form or something for the affi-david thing?"

And he reached under the counter and pulled one out! Just like that, I had a form. And all I had to do was get my father to sign it. Fuck!

Then Jake spoke up. "Excuse me, but what if he refuses to sign, but also refuses to collect the, uh, remains? Saralinda doesn't want her mother to just stay here forever."

"No sir. That's where a court order might be necessary."

This was sounding like it might take days, or weeks, or months...

Mamma!

"Where is she?" I suddenly asked the clerk.

He pointed to a wall with doors all over it. "The remains are in cold storage there, but they're not viewable, Miss."

"I know, I know. But they're in a bag or a case or something, right? Can I see that? I just want to be near her, one last time. It's been so long..." I felt Jake's hands on my shoulders give me a gentle squeeze.

"Of course, Miss." He said quietly. "Give me a few minutes, and I'll arrange things."

I was sitting on the bed in the hotel, staring out the window, which had a view of Elliot Bay. The ferries were going back and forth to Bainbridge and Bremerton. Container ships occasionally would cross their paths, moving to and from the port, where the huge cranes loomed over the ships.

The form lay next to me on the bed, blank. There was no way I was going to go see my father. None. He was bad enough, but what if the bitch answered the door??? No way. No fucking way. I stopped thinking about them, which only meant I thought about that cold, gray, vinyl bag. Mamma... I wanted Moira, then. I wanted to crawl into her lap and bawl my eyes out. She'd sing to me. She'd sing sad songs. She'd love me. I thought about calling Dr. Anna. It would probably be a good idea, but if I called her, I'd have to talk. I looked over my shoulder at Jake, but he was looking stuff up on his laptop. I swallowed hard to keep from crying. Crying more wouldn't help, and my throat was still sore from all of the crying I'd done at the M.E. place. I turned back and stared out the window again.

The ferries were going back and forth...

"Boodely boodely boodely Bee. Boodely boodely boodely Bee" It was Jake's cell, and it made me jump.

"Hello, Jake here," I heard him say. "Oh, hello – what's up?" "What? Oh, ... oh, ... oh my ... How? What happened? Oh my god. Both of them? Yeah, yeah."

I'd turned all the way around to face Jake, who looked stunned, like he'd been punched or something. Both of who??? Please, let it not be Simone and Tori! Or Gary and Moira!!

"Jake, who? What?" But he waved me silent.

"Were the officers hurt? Thank goodness for that. No, I can't believe it ... although from everything Saralinda's told me, I guess I can believe it. No, I think it's better if I tell her, but I don't know how she'll take it. Thanks, I'll pass that on. Yes, and thanks for letting us know. No, absolutely. The TV would have been a totally surreal way to find out, as if the story isn't surreal enough."

WHAT STORY, I wanted to scream. How I'll take WHAT???

"Okay, yes. We should be able to come by tomorrow. What time? Two? Okay, see you then. Bye."

Jake closed he phone and stared at it a moment before looking up at me.

"Saralinda, that was Detective Winchester. I don't know how to say this. Honey, your father's dead. And Marsha Bates too..." The bitch.