Heart of Ice

Chapter Sixty-one

Garden Grove

Michael Barton’s meeting with his long-lost Sarah never took place. It had been planned. It had been dreamed about, at least by him, since the day they’d been separated. But two days before Michael and Olivia were going to catch a flight to Seattle, a call came from a woman whose voice Michael did not know.

“Mr. Barton?”

“Yes?”

“This is a hard call to make. One that I don’t want to make.” The woman was on the verge of tears. Her words were held tightly in her throat before each emerged, one at time in a staccato sequence. “You were my daughter Sarah’s biological brother.”

The word “were” caught him off guard. He knew something was wrong. He spun around his office, and stared at the window.

“Is Sarah all right?”

“She’s dead.”

It was such a cold and thoroughly devastating way of relaying such horrific news. No preamble. No “I regret to inform you” or something along those lines. Just a quick cold She’s dead.

Michael could feel the air escape his lungs. “What are you talking about?”

A beat of silence. An audible gulp of air. Then the words: “Sarah took her own life.”

Michael stood and steadied himself, his free hand against the glass of the kitchen window. He looked out. Danny and Carla were playing on the swing set. An orange tree’s waxy green leaves fluttered in the wind. “What do you mean? What happened?”

The woman on the other end of the line was doing her utmost best to convey the most difficult news. Her voice splintered as she spoke. “She hanged herself in her bedroom closet here at home. I thought you would want know.”

Want to know? She’s my little sister!

If the woman were telling him in person, he’d lunge at her just then. He’d grab her by the bony neck and snap it like a peppermint stick.

“But why?” he asked. “Why did she do this?”

“We aren’t sure. The police found some things on her computer. She was distraught. She’d been rejected by some sorority at Cascade last year.”

“Why would she care about that?”

“You probably don’t know this. But Sarah had a way of hurting herself. When she was eleven she set fire to her playhouse and was seriously burned on her face. She had many surgeries, but the doctors could never make her exactly as she was. She had severe scar tissue on the right side of her face.”

Michael, of course, had no idea. She’d sent photos, but they’d all been flawless.

“She never told me,” he said, his own words choked with emotion.

“She wanted you to be proud of her. She was so pleased, I want you to know, so very pleased that you’d come back into her life. She was going to change her major to information technology at Cascade because of you.”

He noticed his grip on the phone was so tight, he needed to tell his brain to lessen his grip. “She told me. She seemed so happy.”

“She was. Until those girls at Beta Zeta got through with her.”

“What happened? She was my only sister.”

She was also his only link to his past.

The woman stopped, catching her breath. Maybe drying her tears.

“The police found some e-mails from the rush committee at the sorority. They made some cruel remarks about our daughter. They said she wasn’t pretty enough. She wasn’t BZM.”

The code puzzled him. “I don’t understand. Come again.”

“Beta Zeta material.”

Michael was reeling just then. He wondered if he was screaming at the woman, or if their voices were low and quiet, appropriate for the office.

“This is so stupid. So senseless.”

“I know. But, Mr. Barton, these are the times we’re living in. There are no happy endings any more. Not even for a little girl left with her brother at Disneyland.”

From his reflection in the window, Michael Barton observed something he’d seldom seen on his own face. A slight shimmering stream ran from each eye.

What was that?

Michael’s affect was oddly flat when he told Olivia that Sarah had committed suicide. He sat at the breakfast table, swirling the orange pulp in the bottom of his glass. He was casual. Unconcerned.

“You and the kids are the only family I need,” he said.

She put her arms around his shoulders. He was stiff.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Olivia said. “I know how much you wanted to have her in your life.”

“That’s OK,” he said. “I’m pretty busy, you know. Don’t really have time to get everything done that I need to do anyway. I’m making a list.”

Olivia kissed him on the forehead. She didn’t know that the list he was making had the names of three young women. Three young women that he was going to make sure paid the price for the wheels they set in motion.

For taking his sister away forever.