Fic: The House You Live In Chapter 24 Top Half
Wherefore and Why
“Your mother raised my mother. My mother was your ...”
Liz tried to figure out what relation that made Reddington to her mother and by extension her, but Reddington supplied his own answer. “Replacement.”
Even after all these years, the word came out tinged with such bitterness.
“Kate cost Annie a child so she got her a shiny new one and when that one stopped working, Kate got Annie a newer, even shinier one.”
There was a logic to it - a flawed child's logic. Liz asked him. “How old was Mr. Kaplan when she met Annie? When she had my mother?”
Aram had been confused by that. He had said that the age was a little off. Mr. Kaplan wasn't old enough to be the med student who broke up Reddington's parent's marriage.
Liz tried to do the math in her head but while she thought she knew her own age, she realized that she wasn't sure how old her mother had been when Liz was born.
Reddington answered by repeating something he's told her before. “Kate was a baby duck.”
“How old?” Liz asked again.
“This is going to come as a complete shock given what a model citizen you've always known her to be, but Kate lied her way into medical school. She skipped a few of the prerequisites.”
“What prerequisites?”
“When you meet someone in a certain context, it's only natural to make assumptions about them. For instance, if someone is in medical school you assume they have also been to college and before that high school. And if your husband brings home one of his medical students to attempt to seduce you assume if she's good for the goose, she must be good for the gander.”
Liz was beginning to suspect that like the question of how her mother found out that Annie wasn't her mother, Reddington was just going to talk around the subject of Mr. Kaplan's age without answering the question.
She was wrong.
“One slightly chilly evening the summer before she should have gone to high school, Kate's brother caught her in the loft of their barn fooling around with who, by the Letterman jacket he caught sight of as they were disappearing up the ladder, he thought was their neighbor’s son. Being annoying in that way that all little brothers are, he took away the ladder and ran to tell their parents to get her in trouble.”
Liz stated the obvious. “It wasn't their neighbor's son.”
“No, it wasn't.” Reddington agreed. “It was their neighbor's daughter in her brother's borrowed Letterman jacket that Kate had been kissing behind the hay bales in the barn loft.”
By just the look on Reddington's face, even before his cryptic words, Liz could already tell that she wasn't going to like where this was headed.
“Kate's brother didn't know. He didn't realize the kind of trouble he was starting. Sometimes, we do things and we have no concept of the consequences of those actions. Sometimes we do one thing and we start a domino effect the final results of which we never could have anticipated.”
Dread mounting, Liz asked. “What happened?”
Reddington looked down at his hands.
“Mr. Kaplan's parents were good Christian people. They did what good Christian people do when they find their daughter in the barn doing unchristian things with their neighbor’s daughter instead of with their neighbor’s son. They sent her off to be fixed.”
“Fixed?”
Reddington said it almost flippantly. “They wanted to pray away the gay. They sent her to one of those summer camps - Get to swim, hike, and canoe while learning how to make those wicker baskets and not like other girls.”
Liz was aghast. “They sent her for conversion therapy?”
“I've never understood that. Who thought that was a good idea? If you're against the idea of girls being with girls why would you bring together in a group girls that you know are all attracted to other girls? It just seems counter intuitive to me.”
Reddington gave a slight, dismissive shake of the head and moved on, but Liz couldn't.
Liz was a trained forensic psychologist. She knew what conversion therapy entailed. The movie A Clockwork Orange depicted an extreme version of it. If her mother was looking for an explanation for why Mr. Kaplan wasn't touchy-feely like Annie, Liz had her answer.
The almost flippant way that he said it and the way he breezed past it, she doubted Reddington fully understood.
“Kate didn't want to be fixed. She didn't need to be fixed. She liked what she liked so one day after a few weeks of being there, she had had enough. She left - well she tried to leave. Kate became their very own Cool Hand Luke escaping at least once a week only to be brought back … until she realized that she had to leave them a little misdirect if she was really going to get out of there.
“She stole money from the camp's office to pay for her travel incidentals and she untied one of the canoes to give the impression that she was headed down stream. She scuttled the boat so it wouldn't get caught up on some rocks or branches and be found right away and she headed out on foot in a different direction.”
Despite already being fairly certain of the answer, Liz couldn't stop herself from asking. “Did she go home?”
“Sometimes you feel you can't go home anymore.”
“Did she try?”
Reddington gave a slight shake of the head. “She wrote a letter to her parents after a week of camp pleading for them to come back for her. They told her no. She needed to stay. She couldn't come home until she was all better.”
“Surely when they heard how unhappy she was there - how she kept running away?”
“Earthly concerns.” Reddington answered dryly. “They were worried about her mortal soul.”
Liz wouldn't give up. “When she went missing - her parents must have been frantic not knowing where she was.”
“They didn't have to wonder for long. There was a search, but it didn't last long. Naturally, no body was every found, but the boat was found quite quickly once the police got involved and started dragging the river. They came to the determination that Kate drowned.”
Maybe it was the way Reddington had told the story, but Liz was struck with the thought - “Her poor brother. To have to live with the guilt of causing - however unintentionally - his sister's death.”
“It ate him up inside for the longest time. For years, he made sure to be there to testify at every one of the parole hearings.”
Liz looked at him confused. “What parole hearings?”
“For his sister's killers.”
Liz wasn't following. “I don't understand. What killers?”
“Kate's drowning wasn't determined to be an accidental one. When they found the canoe and realized it had been deliberately sunk, the police began asking questions.”
Reddington's lips curled slightly. “Kate … there was just something about Kate. She always had this way of drawing people in to her. Or maybe the other children just didn't want to be there anymore than Kate had. When she went missing the last time and the police came around asking questions some of the other children banded together. They came forward with the same story. That a few of the counselors had caught Kate trying to take the canoe and took turns holding her under the water to punish her. One of them had held her under for a little too long. When they realized what had happened, they tried to cover up what they had done by letting Kate's body go and sinking the canoe.”
Liz was stunned.
“The counselors were all arrested and the camp was closed.”
“Did Mr. Kaplan ever realize what went on she left?”
Reddington nodded his head. “She knew. She even went to one of the parole hearings herself - just to observe, not to make an impact statement, mind you. That's how her brother found her. It had been close to twenty years since that summer, but the moment he saw her, he recognized her.”
The summer before high school. Liz didn't want to imagine a 13 or 14 year old girl - even a 13 or 14 year old as resourceful as she was sure Mr. Kaplan would have been even then - living alone on the streets. “If she didn't go home, where did Mr. Kaplan go? How did she survive?”
“Mr. Kaplan was always more clever than the average bear. She took a bus to Boston and enrolled at a college.”
“College?” Liz repeated.
“It is or at least was actually harder to enroll in high school then than it was to enroll in college. To register for high school you had to manufacture a parent or guardian to enroll you. For college you just need to provide transcripts or in Mr. Kaplan's case give the name of a high school that had recently been in the news as burning down to explain the lack of transcripts.
“Another great advantage to college over high school is it includes room and board.” Reddington added.
Mr. Kaplan safely ensconced in some school with three meals a day and a warm, clean and safe place to sleep being provided - Liz liked that idea better than the horrors that she had been imagining of a young girl trying to live on the streets. Still, she wondered. “How did she pay for it?”
“How did she pay for anything back then? She stole it. She robbed a bank.”
Liz blinked.
Most girls had their last growth spurt by the time they were 14. Physically at least, she might have been able to pass. Academically, it explained the atrocious first year grades Aram had uncovered.
Reddington still hadn't exactly answered her question. “How old was she when she met Annie?”
Four years of college followed by some years of med school - Liz guessed Mr. Kaplan must have been at least twenty.
“Neither one of my parents had the good sense of one of the bartenders working the bar at The Old Colony Inn.”
“What?” Liz wasn't following.
“Glen's notell motel.” Reddington explained.
Hearing the hostility in his voice yet again as he talked about his mother, Liz stated the obvious. “You never forgave Annie.”
Reddington grimaced. He looked at her so forlornly as he admitted. “I wanted to. I tried to ...” He looked down and shook his head.
“So that's your connection to me? Your mother raised my mother?” Having asked the question, Liz stared at him scrutinizing his expression.
There was a pause before Reddington committed to an answer with a nod.
Liz felt so deflated.
She summarized. “We're related, but not related.”
Reddington said nothing.
Liz couldn't understand her crushing sense of disappointment.
She had more questions, so many more questions, but for now she couldn't take any more answers. She needed to leave.
“Mr. Kaplan said that Agnes is someplace safe and loved where no one can ever find her and hurt her again. No one can use her to get to you or me. I want it to stay that way. Don't look for them anymore. Promise me.”
Reddington refused. “I can't promise you that, Lizzie.”
“This isn't your decision. It's mine.”
“And Tom's. He's Agnes' father. Doesn't he get a say in this?”
“Tom has agreed.”
Reddington shook his head. “I don't believe that. Tom would never agree to that.”
“He called me while I was driving here.” Liz winced as she admitted. “I saw that it was him calling and I didn't pick up. I declined his call. He left me a voice mail. He said he saw Mr. Kaplan. She -”
Sounding offended, Reddington interrupted. “ -Tom has seen Mr. Kaplan? She went to Tom - not me?”
Liz didn't know how to respond.
Reddington quickly changed tracks going from offended to concerned. “Did he say how she was?”
Shaking her head, Liz told him what she did know. “Mr. Kaplan convinced him that putting Agnes up for adoption is for the best.”
Reddington shook his head. “Lizzie no!”
“This is the way it's going to be.” Liz told him. “You need to accept it. We all need to accept it. We need to grieve and move on.”
With that, Liz turned and walked by a still silent Dembe to leave.
OOO