Kitty's Saga Chapter Thirteen: Everything and Nothing Delivered

On the eve of her twenty-seventh birthday, Kitty found herself in bed beside Gavin Alton, wondering how two people could spend nearly every night together and still live almost entirely separate lives.

They had been a couple for two years, yet Gavin insisted on maintaining his own apartment. He stayed with Kitty often enough that his clothes accumulated in her closet and his toiletries occupied her bathroom, but he resisted anything that resembled actually joining their lives.

Kitty had never become attracted to him.

She had simply become accustomed to his face.

His wiry frame, pale complexion, and slightly too-long hair no longer bothered her. Familiarity had accomplished what desire never had.

When Kitty's alarm went off that morning, she slipped out of bed with unusual energy. She had been promoted the week before to alternate senior concierge.

It wasn't the four-star hotel she'd once placed on her meticulously imagined career timeline, but she had stopped regarding that as failure. She was respected where she worked. Her paychecks arrived reliably. Her responsibilities challenged her without overwhelming her. Most importantly, Kitty still enjoyed walking through the hotel doors every morning.

Work gave her something Gavin's career apparently did not.

Purpose.

When Gavin spoke about banking, he rarely spoke about the work itself. He spoke about salaries, titles, offices, schools, neighborhoods, and the relative importance of the people around him. He seemed to enjoy his profession primarily because it gave him a platform from which to measure everyone else.

Gavin liked the idea of himself as a man of standing.

Kitty suspected that was part of his attraction to her. Her profession revolved around polish, discretion, ceremony, and appearances—the very things Gavin mistook for substance.

Yet for all his fixation on achievement, Gavin possessed remarkably little ambition of his own. He had been born into comfort, attended the correct schools, entered the correct profession, and seemed perfectly content to coast along the path prepared for him.

Kitty couldn't understand it.

She had clawed for every inch of her life.

Gavin seemed content to stand wherever the world had placed him.

Still, this was supposed to be an important day for them.

After work, Kitty was finally going to meet Gavin's mother.

Opal.

Gavin had described her as polished and sophisticated, a woman to whom he had grown exceptionally close after his parents divorced during his childhood. He had no contact with his father. From the fragments Kitty had gathered over the years, she had concluded that the elder Mr. Alton was either a scoundrel or a fool.

Possibly both.

Dinner was arranged at Gavin's favorite restaurant—the same restaurant outside which he had first stopped Kitty on the sidewalk.

Kitty walked there after her shift, rehearsing greetings in her head.

Gavin waved when she entered.

His mother was already seated beside him.

They had ordered without her.

Kitty approached the table wearing her best professional smile.

Opal appeared to be in her early sixties. Her hair was a brassy shade of blonde, her fingernails were painted fluorescent pink, and neon lipstick extended conspicuously beyond the natural edges of her mouth.

Kitty blinked.

This was not quite the image she'd constructed from Gavin's descriptions.

Opal's dress plunged so low that Kitty spent much of dinner attempting not to look anywhere below her chin.

The evening deteriorated from there.

Whenever Kitty spoke, Gavin leaned toward his mother and whispered something in her ear.

Opal giggled.

The first time, Kitty ignored it.

The second time, she pretended not to notice.

By the fourth or fifth, she understood perfectly well what was happening.

They were laughing at her.

Kitty didn't know precisely what Gavin was saying, which somehow made it worse.

She smiled anyway.

Years in hospitality had taught her how to smile at people she wanted to strangle.

By dessert, her cheeks hurt.

When dinner finally ended, Kitty walked back to her apartment alone and admitted something to herself that she'd spent two years avoiding.

She probably had never liked Gavin very much.

Gavin, meanwhile, took Opal back to his apartment on the nicer side of the city.

That was Gavin's peculiar position in Kitty's life: constantly present without ever truly being there.

Whenever Kitty was succeeding, Gavin enjoyed standing beside her. Her accomplishments seemed to become his through proximity. He could mention her promotions, her work ethic, her refinement.

But whenever she struggled, he vanished emotionally.

Stress irritated him.

Sadness inconvenienced him.

When Kitty wanted comfort, Gavin behaved as though she had presented him with a tedious problem he shouldn't have been expected to solve.

He wanted the finished version of Kitty without enduring any of the work required to become her.

She wished he were different.

But Gavin was what she had.

And tonight she had intended to tell him something that might bind them together permanently.

Kitty was eight weeks pregnant.

She had known since the fifth week.

She had imagined announcing it over dinner. Gavin would be surprised. Opal would be delighted. Perhaps the news would transform an awkward meeting into something important.

Instead, Kitty had spent dinner being quietly mocked by the father of her child and his mother.

She went home without telling either of them.

Gavin stopped by later that night.

Rather than apologizing, he chided Kitty for not being "friendly enough" with Opal.

Kitty stared at him.

Some exhausted part of her wanted to throw him out.

Another part remembered the pregnancy.

She needed to control the damage.

"I'm pregnant."

Gavin stopped talking.

For once, Kitty had rendered him completely silent.

Then he cried.

Before Kitty could fully understand whether they were tears of happiness, fear, or shock, Gavin pulled out his phone and called his mother.

Within minutes, he was gone.

He left for Opal's apartment without congratulating Kitty.

Without embracing her.

Without even saying goodbye.

Kitty remained alone.

Again.

She sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the floor.

For the first time since discovering the pregnancy, she wished she'd told Gavin sooner. Had she understood his reaction earlier—had she understood what their relationship truly was—she might have considered ending the pregnancy while she still felt she had that choice.

Now, emotionally if not medically, Kitty felt that the decision had already been made.

She tried to console herself with practicalities.

Gavin would provide.

The thought immediately disgusted her.

Provide.

There was Stafford again.

Stafford, with his endless calculations about what could be extracted from other people. Stafford, measuring human relationships in money and usefulness.

Kitty hated that Gavin's financial worth had entered her calculations at all.

She didn't need him for money.

She had savings. Years without vacations, a car payment, or expensive indulgences had left her with enough to survive for a while after the baby came.

She would manage.

Kitty always managed.

The following day was her birthday.

Gavin attempted to make amends without actually apologizing.

He took Kitty to Navy Pier.

It was one of her favorite places in Chicago, and for a little while, the gesture worked.

Gavin bought her ice cream. He held her hand. He spoke tenderly about the baby and fussed over Kitty in a way that almost made her believe the night before had been an aberration.

She smiled as they walked.

Perhaps this could work.

Perhaps Gavin simply needed time.

Then they passed a group of teenagers standing along the walkway.

Gavin stared at them.

As they went by, he leaned toward Kitty.

"Guard your purse."

He attempted to whisper it, but spoke loudly enough for the teenagers to hear.

Kitty looked back.

Their expressions had changed.

They weren't threatening anyone. They weren't bothering anyone. They were simply rough-looking kids standing together.

Kitty knew those kids.

Not literally.

But she knew them.

She had been them.

She pulled her hand from Gavin's.

For several seconds, she considered walking directly to the train and leaving him there. She stopped herself only because she didn't want Gavin chasing after her and turning the entire thing into a spectacle.

Gavin's arrogance always became brightest when confronted with poverty.

He had spent his entire life upper-middle-class and seemed genuinely convinced that poverty was a condition people selected for themselves. Poor choices produced poor people. Good choices produced people like Gavin.

The simplicity of his worldview infuriated Kitty.

She was carrying his child.

Worse, Gavin seemed increasingly determined to control everything about that fact.

What Kitty ate.

Where Kitty went.

How Kitty exercised.

What doctor she saw.

How she would eventually give birth.

There were moments when Kitty secretly wished Gavin would announce that he wanted nothing to do with either of them.

Instead, he wanted everything to do with them.

Everything.

After her birthday, Gavin asked Kitty to move into his condominium so he could "take care of her" as the pregnancy progressed.

Kitty was still paying off student loans.

Rent-free sounded wonderful.

She agreed almost immediately.

It became a mistake almost as quickly.

First, Kitty discovered that Gavin had considerably more money than she'd realized.

This irritated her more than impressed her. They had been together for two years, yet there were still entire dimensions of his life he'd apparently considered unnecessary to share with her.

Then came the arguments about her job.

Gavin didn't want Kitty working at all.

He framed it as concern.

Pregnant women needed rest. Pregnant women shouldn't be stressed. Pregnant women shouldn't spend entire shifts standing in heels.

But Gavin offered her no financial independence in exchange.

He paid for the condo because it was already his. Everything else remained vague.

Then came the improvements.

New clothes appeared because Gavin disliked hers.

Appointments were scheduled because Gavin preferred a different hairstyle.

Laundry was sent out.

Maids cleaned the condo.

Meals arrived according to schedules Kitty hadn't created.

Every apparent kindness concealed a criticism.

Her clothes weren't good enough.

Her food wasn't good enough.

Her habits weren't good enough.

Her judgment wasn't good enough.

Piece by piece, Gavin was upgrading Kitty into someone he considered respectable.

Kitty began to feel less like his partner than his property.

At first, she'd hoped he would propose before her pregnancy became obvious.

That hope disappeared.

The more Kitty knew Gavin, the less she wanted to marry him.

He no longer spoke to her.

He spoke at her.

Whatever little romance had once existed between them evaporated. Increasingly, Kitty felt that Gavin no longer saw her as a woman at all.

She was carrying his child.

That had become her primary function.

By thirteen weeks, Kitty found herself inventing reasons to leave the condominium whenever Gavin was home.

One particularly miserable weekend, after hours of Gavin insisting that she quit her job, adopt an entirely organic diet, and commit to a "natural birth," Kitty stopped pretending they were anything more than roommates.

She began thinking seriously about leaving.

And for reasons she couldn't entirely explain, she thought of Marnie.

Kitty searched for her on Facebook.

Marnie was still in Ohio.

Kitty sent a message saying she would be in town and asked whether Marnie wanted to meet.

The response came the following day.

Marnie would be glad to see her.

Kitty packed.

She told Gavin almost nothing.

For a moment she considered taking a bus, but then remembered the older Mercedes Gavin had handed over when she moved in. He'd told her the train was full of "thugs."

Kitty decided his gaudy automobile could finally make itself useful.

She sent Gavin a message explaining that a friend was dealing with a "family emergency" and that she would return in time for the obstetric appointment later that week.

Kitty assumed Gavin had some way of tracking the Mercedes.

She didn't care.

She needed to breathe.

Driving into Cincinnati felt surreal.

Kitty had left Ohio years earlier carrying a few possessions in a backpack aboard a Greyhound bus.

Now she returned behind the wheel of a Mercedes, checking herself into one of her company's hotels for the week.

Under different circumstances, she might have felt triumphant.

Instead, she felt like a pregnant woman fleeing her controlling boyfriend in his spare luxury car.

Success, apparently, depended on perspective.

She decided not to tell Marnie about the pregnancy.

Not yet.

Kitty didn't want pity hanging over their reunion. At only a few months along, a loose shift dress could disguise most of the evidence. She kept her coat on for additional insurance.

They arranged to meet in the hotel lobby.

Kitty recognized Marnie immediately.

And was horrified.

Marnie looked decades older than Kitty remembered.

They moved to the hotel bar, where Marnie ordered a bottle of wine and began drinking with an urgency Kitty couldn't ignore.

Then came the greater surprise.

Marnie had married Stafford three years earlier.

Kitty absorbed the news silently.

She was hurt that Marnie hadn't invited her to the wedding, and apparently her face betrayed it.

"It wasn't because I didn't want you there," Marnie explained.

According to her, Stafford had wanted the wedding to be useful for his career. By then, he was working as an industrial buyer for a manufacturing conglomerate. The guest list had been constructed accordingly.

Even his wedding had been a transaction.

That sounded like Stafford.

Marnie asked whether Kitty was married.

"No."

Kitty unconsciously placed a hand over her stomach.

"I had a boyfriend. We had a pregnancy scare. He didn't want to get married, so we split."

It was the life Kitty wished she'd had.

The lie came easily.

Marnie ordered another bottle of wine.

Kitty watched her.

She wasn't much of a drinker herself, but even Kitty understood that finishing an entire bottle and immediately beginning another was not normal.

Kitty pretended to drink. Whenever Marnie went to the restroom, she discreetly emptied her own glass.

Her doctor had told her that an occasional glass of wine was unlikely to be catastrophic, but that wasn't what stopped Kitty.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she imagined Gavin materializing beside the table and berating her for daring to relax.

She hated that he had gotten inside her head so completely.

Eventually, Kitty worked up the courage to ask about children.

Marnie snorted.

"Oh God. Nope. Never."

Kitty smiled weakly.

Her hand drifted toward her stomach again.

For the first time, she envied Marnie.

The evening stretched on.

The hotel bar emptied around them.

Kitty offered to take Marnie home, but Marnie called Stafford instead.

Kitty immediately wanted to leave.

She wasn't ready to see him.

But she also couldn't abandon Marnie, who now had two bottles of wine and a shot of vodka working their way through her bloodstream.

Stafford arrived.

He barely acknowledged his wife.

Instead, he slid into the booth and began talking to Kitty while Marnie slowly lost her battle with consciousness beside them.

When Kitty suggested he take Marnie home, Stafford refused.

"She'll throw up in my car."

There he was.

Kitty's old hatred returned almost instantly.

Stafford looked much as she remembered him: broad shoulders, blond hair, the same hands that had once yanked her hair in a market when she was a teenager.

He was still her enemy.

But he was also something else now.

Her past.

And there was a strange familiarity in that.

"Does she always drink this much?" Kitty asked.

Stafford sighed.

"Every day. Usually more."

He glanced toward Marnie.

"She was probably drinking before she even came here."

Kitty looked at her old friend.

For the first time in her life, she felt sorry for Stafford.

It was an astonishing sensation.

As Marnie slept beside them, Stafford told Kitty what had happened.

Marnie had tried to become a singer. According to Stafford, every door had eventually closed. He described her as mediocre—Kitty bristled at the cruelty of the word—but said Marnie had refused to accept it.

He had encouraged her to teach.

Marnie considered teaching an admission of defeat.

She had wanted to tour with a band instead.

Stafford asked her to marry him.

He told Kitty that he'd known Marnie would stay if he did, and he'd been afraid that touring while drinking so heavily would destroy her.

His voice broke as he spoke.

Now Stafford went to work every morning.

Marnie stayed home.

And drank.

"Why don't you leave her?" Kitty asked.

The words felt treacherous the moment they left her mouth.

She had just advised the man she hated to leave the woman who had once been her closest friend.

Stafford rubbed his forehead.

"We've been here this long. I want her to be the one who ends it. If she doesn't..."

He shrugged.

"I guess I'll go along with it forever."

Kitty studied him.

She couldn't decide whether Stafford had changed or whether she had simply refused to see anything human in him when she was younger.

Perhaps both were possible.

Stafford eventually checked into a room at the hotel rather than risk putting Marnie in his beloved car.

Kitty returned to her own room.

She couldn't sleep.

At four in the morning, someone knocked.

Kitty opened the door.

Stafford stood there.

Neither spoke.

There were a thousand reasons to close the door.

Marnie was sleeping somewhere else in the hotel.

Gavin was waiting in Chicago.

Kitty was pregnant.

Stafford had humiliated her, insulted her, tormented her, and occupied some dark corner of her thoughts for years.

Kitty knew all of that.

She let him in anyway.

They embraced with an intimacy they had never shared before.

And for one reckless, impossible moment, Kitty felt something she had spent years trying unsuccessfully to feel with Gavin.

Desire.

She didn't care about the pregnancy.

She didn't care about Stafford's history.

She didn't care about Marnie.

For those few hours, Kitty wanted only the thing she had once imagined she wanted from Stafford and had long ago convinced herself she'd outgrown.

Then morning came.

Stafford dressed.

He returned to his room.

To his wife.

Kitty sat alone afterward, horrified by herself.

She knew Stafford well enough to believe he would never confess what they'd done.

The knowledge made her feel worse.

Kitty checked out early.

She couldn't face Marnie.

Whatever remained between Kitty and Gavin was over; she knew that much. But ending one broken relationship didn't excuse climbing into another woman's marriage.

And Marnie wasn't just another woman.

She was her friend.

On the long drive back to Chicago, Kitty used the Mercedes' hands-free system to call her.

"Something came up at work," Kitty lied. "I have to get back."

Marnie sounded indifferent.

Kitty wondered whether she was already drinking.

There was something Kitty needed to know.

"Are you happy with Stafford?"

A pause.

Kitty rushed to conceal the reason for asking.

"We didn't really talk much when he came to get you. I was just wondering."

"We're comfortable," Marnie said. "I'm perfectly happy with him."

Kitty gripped the steering wheel.

She couldn't tell her.

She couldn't say, Stafford is cheating on you.

Not when the woman he'd cheated with was Kitty herself.

"If you ever need somewhere to stay," Kitty said instead, "you can stay with me."

When the call ended, Kitty drove the rest of the way to Chicago with the highway stretching endlessly before her.

She had returned to Ohio believing she was fleeing Gavin.

Instead, she had found Marnie trapped inside a life of her own making, Stafford transformed into something Kitty could no longer easily categorize, and herself capable of a betrayal she would once have considered unforgivable.

By the time she reached Chicago, Kitty knew one thing.

She had to leave Gavin.

She began searching for apartments almost immediately.

Gavin was furious that she'd left the city without his permission.

The word permission settled the matter more firmly than any argument could have.

That night, Gavin fell asleep beside her with one hand possessively cradling her belly.

Kitty remained awake.

She searched her email for responses from realtors, scrolling carefully so the light from the screen wouldn't wake him.

Then she saw a message she hadn't expected.

Stafford.

Kitty opened it.

He wanted to know whether she had ever considered moving closer to him.

Kitty stared at the words.

Behind her, Gavin slept with his hand resting over the child inside her.

Somewhere hundreds of miles away, Marnie slept—or drank—beside the man Kitty had betrayed her with.

Kitty knew exactly what the sensible response was.

Delete the message.

Block Stafford.

Find an apartment.

Raise her child.

Build another life.

She had spent her entire adulthood learning how to make sensible choices.

Kitty looked over her shoulder.

Gavin was still asleep.

Then she turned back to the screen.

And hit Reply.